if i were on the titanic i would lose my brains

k. made me watch 'the titanic' last night til 1am --

what the shit is that movie even about

and why do i know half of the lines by heart?

of course afterwards i had to wikipedia 'the titanic'

and read the whole damn thing --

of particular interest are the rich and famous who died.

then k. and i had a debate about whether or not

it's better to drown or burn in a fire.

i said 'burning in a fire sounds more painful

but drowning causes panic and chaos

and if i were on the titanic i would lose my brains'.

she said 'i'd rather die of hypothermia'.

i said 'it's funny that 10 years after this movie,

james cameron staged his comeback with 'avatar',

another poorly-written huge piece of crap,

and then he lost 'best picture' to his ex-wife kathryn bigelow

who also became the first female to win 'best director' at the oscars'.

we both agreed we were never going on a cruise ship.

Winter of Self-Destruction 1.0

Earth, I am in crisis, and you don't give a shit.
This is the winter of my self-destruction.
On the metaphorical road of life,
I have wandered off into a field
and am standing there like a lonesome cow.

Loneliness, you're enormous.
I'm drunk and you're taking advantage of me.
There isn't anyone here. I am taking advantage
of myself. Oh no.
My past and future selves are fighting again.

I am in crisis. I am as lost as Kim's bike,
locked to a pole somewhere in the city or
the dusty brain corner of forgotten things.
Earth, if you can remember where I am,
now is a good time to take me home.

Loneliness, you're enormous.
This is the winter of my self-destruction.
I am lying down now.
I am staring at the sky now,
wondering when it is going to snow.

sometimes when i have anxiety

domenica,

sometimes when i have anxiety i check your blog to see if you've written anything new. sometimes i don't even read it, sometimes i just skim, like, it's a comfort to just know that you're out there, thinking of things. i think of this now, at 1 in the morning, skimming.

i'm worried that i'm doing it all wrong. 'it' being life.

i know there's no wrong way, but i'm scared anyway. like what if it's just like before. 'it' being this year. there are histories about me that you don't know, intricacies, and stories so delicate i become angry at them. i can't stop thinking about her. from before i met you. all the things i did so wrong i'm scared i'll do again. it has nothing to do with you at all, but it just seems like you're here right now, so i'm mentioning it. briefly, this feeling.

it seems like you're here right now, close, where i can trace your own delicately outlined histories when i get scared, slide inside your skin,

so i let you slide into mine:

it's just that fear doesn't only come at night anymore. it's there in the morning, too. domenica, my eyes are burning from the screen. i'm scared to go to sleep. i'm scared of the light i'll see when i wake up.

Life Lessons I Learned This Weekend

1. Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans

I feel like you can try and be really prepared for things but life is just going to happen anyway, and it doesn't care what you planned for. I think you kind of just have to lie in the middle of the road and hope that cars don't hit you. Or maybe that is really stupid.

2. I am in a false world

These are not my pants. Where the fuck am I? This is not living. I think possibly this "living" thing is just "dying really fast".

3. Everything in my life is completely and totally dramatized

4.We are not the people
Who are the people? I don't know, but we are not them.

5. Dreams are not real

Is it Sunday already? I had a good dream last night.

truth about women

it’s the middle of winter. i think winter is perfect for breathing close to someone when you’re outside and hiding your hands somewhere. i wonder why it is always winter when these things start.

it’s the middle of winter and i don’t have boots on. i have shoes on and they are wet. my knees are wet because i fell to the ground to look at the sky. i thought it might answer some questions but i guess since the sky can’t talk it just snowed on me. it snowed on everyone else too.

i tried to make the place i live a home. i try to drink something warm every day. i’m afraid in the middle of the night my bones might freeze if i don’t continually stir the fires in my finger tips. i wonder how long it would take for someone to find my frozen bones and all it would take is another body in my bed and i might just melt a little. well, the truth was that i was waiting for somebody. i was waiting for her to come to the place i try to call a home because i thought maybe, well, i thought she said she would. but that was a long time ago.

it’s hard when you’re in love with everyone in the world. i want to say “you’re the most beautiful person i’ve ever seen” i want to say that to everyone i meet, ‘cause it’s the honest truth, every time i look at them, god, i think, good god, you’re beautiful, and you, you’re beautiful too, you’re all so goddamn pretty i can hardly stand it. i love them all. i love you all and you don’t even know it. you’re beautiful and you know it so you don’t hear me when i say it.

you’re beautiful and you love each other and you don’t love me and i love you, all of you, and i say, i love you, and you, well, you. there you are.

time is strange because it’s never quite the same everywhere. somewhere it is summer. somewhere on the opposite side of me.

you wore a white shirt and you said something in my ear and it made me love you. i said that i didn’t love you before but now i do. i like that shirt you wear. i like those black framed glasses. you have your hand on my arm and inside my head i’m like “yes!yes!yes!”

no, wait.

that was a dream.

i’m wearing these shitty converse with holes in them and my feet are freezing already. i’m walking home at night, in fact, it may already be tomorrow, and there is slush in my shoes and inside of my socks. i wear my collar high or else the wind might come inside too, and then my bones would shiver, and they can’t take a shiver right now, they’re just waiting for a shake. but no one grabs my shoulders and looks me in the eye and says “shake shake shake”. shake shake shake.

i thought i’d be home by now but i’m not home. and you know what, i’m mad because i can hardly take it, you know, i can hardly stand it, i feel like kicking concrete. i’m mad at all the things; the wind, my dreams, the height of my ceilings, her glasses, cold tea.

i happened to be there one night. i never go there but then i was there instead of being somewhere else. that’s how things happen. it starts like i was doing my ordinary thing but then something changed. so something changed. so i was there. you were there, surrounded by friends or just other people. i carried you home and laid you on my bed. i said “i’m here,”

and you said,

“i want to go home”.

and home it is. keys and stuff. asleep in the next room. i stay up because i think she might call me. i remember that time is different if you’re not in the same spot as me, and she’s not. but i stay up because maybe, just maybe.

i had things tentatively planned. i thought she could maybe help me pick some winter boots. i thought we could stumble home from the bars and it wouldn’t seem so long and far. i thought maybe we’ll eat dinner somewhere, or maybe i’ll cook her dinner, or maybe both, or maybe more. she could walk to the bus stop with me. that’d be a nice change from standing with the lonelies who have gathered at the same spot for the same reason but can’t connect ‘cause they were born with lonely in their blood.

she didn’t call.

i’m so fucking in love with all of you. i’m so fucking in love and it hurts. it’s a million heartbreaks and i can’t go back. i can’t ever go back. once i was on the outside and it was a dull pain, the inside was a real heart but i’m not there anymore. and i can’t go back to anywhere. i’m so fucking lonely i might shrivel up into blank paper.

i barely sleep at night. i wander through dreams of people that i know but not well enough. in my dreams they are my friends but in real life we don’t know each other well enough to call it that. i wake up confused about the time. i think it’s morning when it’s 4 am and i start to get dressed only to check the clock and i can’t fall back asleep again.

when she finally called i hated every word i said to her. i was a sad puppy child full of contradictions. i cried quietly so she wouldn’t hear but all i wanted was for her to hear so i could get some attention. but i didn’t know what i wanted. but i knew what i wanted. but i wanted to cling to her body, looking for some kind of primeval comfort that i’m too shy to ask for when i’m sober. i couldn’t ask because i knew she couldn’t give. i didn’t know if she would call again. but i wanted it, yes, yes i did, so honestly that my own honesty hurt me.

after she called my eyes broke and i ate a half-cooked half-dinner. no, it wasn’t even half-cooked.

it’s not about you this time, i guess. it’s about me. it’s because i tried really hard. i mean, i really tried, i tried so hard that you didn’t even notice because everything i did was perfect. i was so fucking perfect. and i still lost.

i felt the fabric of your shirt, your white shirt. it touched my fingertips. i put my face to your chest and it touched my face. your arms were a blanket. i liked the way small parts of my skin stuck to your skin and the way you smelled and the way you breathed like it was a normal thing to do. you know i was still learning how. inside my heart i breathed a steady “yes, yes, yes”.

it was a dream. sometimes waking up from a dream is harder than other times. i can’t help myself for wanting it, for wanting you, for wanting her, for wanting everyone. time is hard, but time is not the same everywhere. somewhere else there is good time and the truth is that we will get there, all of us, every single one of us. because we’re so beautiful, we’re the most beautiful people ever made, and that’s the honest truth, i think, good god, we’re beautiful, and i love you, i really do, every single person, and all the doubles too.

inside my heart i breathe,

“yes, yes, yes.”

i step in puddles and i don't care.

i step in puddles and i don't care

how wet my feet get.

i fell asleep at 9pm

while i was still at work.

no one notices the water in my shoes.

one time i whispered, "i want to go home,"

while already lying in bed.

"but you are home," was the response.

i knew, but she didn't

know how sincere i was.

i want to cry so badly that i laugh.

i want to sleep so badly that i lie awake all night.

i strain my ears and try to hear

but the suburbs are quiet all the time.

and when i open my eyes in the morning,

i see walls and not a window of blue sky.

the trapeze act was wonderful but never meant to last (blindsided)

iv.

overstepping my boundaries for the first time. this is what happens when you write yourself into a corner and cover yourself with words that mash together into one incoherent mass of letters.

the morning was a love letter. the night is a taking back of sorts, a retraction and a removal of the early fog. perfection is so hard to retain. it's a standing at the top of a mountain; one step in every direction is down, and sometimes the fall is just free. is the point of it all to stand still? we will never get anywhere.

now every letter counts. every word counts more than the next, till the taste of your name is heavy on my tongue. so my speech is slurred, so i'm t-t-tired, so i can't spit it out. i lift books during the day like weights. i hope there's something in this universe waiting for me in the sky, 'cause i'm headed there, i'm headed there and i'd like to float around. i'd like to write your name between the clouds. this [blank] is such a mess.

v.

why'd you leave?

i miss you and i never had you. i get you mixed up with everyone i know. i see you everywhere, like you never left, but you just don't recognize me. would i want you if i had you?

i made a wish, threw my heavy heart to the bottom of the pool.

it always comes back to you. i saw a baby once, sitting on her mother's lap. she looked at me with blue eyes and smiled. her mother kissed her, the cheek. the baby was completely unaware. i wanted to cry for everything i had lost.

there's no way to get it back. the words i've said, those individual little letters that hardly mean anything at all, they've gotten away from me.

"those who've gotten away from me:

read this, and call.

those whom i've hurt:

i wanted everything, or not enough.

it was all my fault."

words don't call back and accept apologies. they lie there, on real pages or on virtual ones, existing. i caused them all.

the baby didn't know who she was. did she feel the kiss on her cheek? did she put her tiny finger to the spot, afterwards, to feel some remnants of love or the moisture of soft lips? in the worst way possible i wanted to steal her memory, but there is none of that.

vi.

mother, i'm terribly, terribly afraid of everything [she] loves. why is life so fragile?

Now it all seems too familiar, like pages turned on calendars

I had a post where I talked a lot of crazy about the past but that was it, all I did was talk crazy. I also went through my old journals and emails, it was just a ridiculously bad idea. Basically I don't know what's going on! Let's talk more crazy about 2006.

2006 was a stupid year. I turned 16 but I was probably really 5. I'm also turning 5 again this year. When I say 2006 I mean grade 10 which was really 2007. In 2007 I developed insomnia mainly because I exchanged sleep for staring at my ceiling. Also I made some late night phone calls where I breathed into the speaker and said things like "I can't sleep". I listened to a lot of Bright Eyes.

"i'm sorry about the phone call and needing you. some decisions you don't make. i guess it's just like breathing and not wanting to. there are some things you can't fake."
-bright eyes "feb 15th"

++

I disappeared for two months in 2006. I mean, I didn't write in my journal. Last entry of 2005: december 2. Then, a poem. Then, someone's name written a million times on one page. Both undated. Then, march 29, 2006. A letter. I didn't write anything in July. On August 14 I wrote an entire entry about fried eggs. On August 17 I made a list of things that annoy me. It took up two pages. Excerpts:

1. people sitting on my pillow
10. little kids
15. peeing
16. bad hair days
21. turtlenecks
23. mushy carrots

++

I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I'm forgetting who I used to be. Or maybe, could it be, am I saying this?:

"i am trying to say what I want to say without having to say I love you"
-stars "what i'm trying to say"

November was when I realized I loved [redacted] already, and my heart soared.

Then it unraveled so fast and I was lost on buses in my own town and there was snow and it was cold and [redacted] was cold and I was dead inside. I followed [redacted] everywhere, really, I waited outside libraries and at home on the computer, I never slept 'cause of [redacted].

I spent a lot of time on the bus in grade 10.

"i take the city bus home
it's the same route every day
i check the schedule in case it changed
but it never does."
-my journal, november 20 2006

I spent a lot of time walking in 2007. I think 2007 was when I walked everywhere without actually going anywhere.

I spent a lot of time wasting time, doing nothing. People thought I was weird, I was just trying to hide from them.

++

August 27 2006; a story about yellow galoshes. September 2; a list of different ways to say hello. September 7; a to-do list. Things that I have accomplished on that list since then:

4) write a song
9) be able to do the rainbow (soccer move)

and this is up for debate

6) make one significant change in the world

++

"i'm sorry about the phone call, and waking you. i know that it is late. but thank you for talking, because i needed to. some things just can't wait."
-bright eyes "feb 15"

I Just Want Back in New York City

wine,
red, white, and blue
no wait, i'm canadian
i have a lot of friends
in london, ontario

tables, glass - but
what does it mean?
if this is a machine
it sure looks like a dream
you're just too fucking
post modern
she said
you're so fucking
post
modern
you're practically dead
bury me in keds
they're practical or so
my mom said
you're so fucking post modern!!
let me eat your head
when you die, i'm going
to wish i too
was dead
ps leisha hailey sees red
pps your mom
is in my bed
ppps j.k

-poem by katrina, riese, and i. but mostly riese.

--

I took the cab to Penn Station without really knowing where I was going. In fact this whole weekend I never knew where I was going, I just knew that I was going somewhere. It's not where you are, it's who you're with and I spent the weekend with some of the best people I possibly could. Leaving Manhattan made me want to cry.

So I did. A little bit.
And I'm still crying. But I'm still smiling too. I'm...
lacking the words. I guess if you know what it's like to be not happy and then feeling pure .. happiness .. maybe you know. Maybe you understand how much I don't want to let this go.

++

Remember that time we woke with our hearts constricted in the best way possible. Remember that time I shouted so much my voice started sounding like I had a head cold. I shouted because the rooms were loud, everything is very loud in New York. Sometimes I just want to hide from the noise inside me but not this time. This time I participated.

++

New York is big and small. My heart is big and I am small. There is enough room in my heart for everyone and everyone and other people and I will keep you [you] there because I need you [you] with me all the time.

Maybe I shouldn't admit that. Maybe I shouldn't say it. Maybe I shouldn't say anything unless everyone is drunk.

++

We're eating dinner at a restaurant in Little Italy. The lights are low and she's at the other table and my back's against the wall and no one is really sitting. There are no cars in the street I don't know why maybe it's blocked. There are a million restaurants. There are a million people. We stood by a chinese street vendor and kissed and kissed and kissed....

++

Chinese fire drill. Run, run, run [when I get a little scared].
I just want...
to never let this go.

++

I was conscious of time, knew that it was limited. Everything is in some way limited by time. Or not, depends on how you look at it. This could last forever somehow if I let it but I don't know how. Really though, I don't know what forever is and I don't know how to get there. I'm very conscious of time, I know that it is limited.

The seconds ticked.
It was long because we never slept.
What do you think they're doing right now, sleeping or drinking, I asked.
Drinking, she replied.

and so we were.

++

Run, run, run. Repeat
repeat the words I know we both said.

There are a million restaurants. There are a million people. We stood by a chinese street vendor and kissed and kissed and kissed....

++

This is how it works: you're young until you're not.

My heart feels so much right now. I remember walking in -- no, that's inaccurate, diving is right -- diving in because this couldn't be something I was scared of. I wouldn't allow myself to dip my feet in while everyone else got wet.

Look at everybody. Four on the couch, one on the floor. One on a chair. I was the fifth on the steps. One moving around everywhere. I don't know if this is right but look at everybody. Everybody is so pretty. My eyes, wide, wide, wide, soaking everything in. Dear brain, promise me you'll never forget this.

I never want to let this go.

++

I'm sitting on her shoes, and the other her is sitting in the dark corner by my side. I kinda get it. Even though it's hers, it's for her, she's gotta come outside. Sometimes we just need the comfortable people or the ones you don't need to say anything to. Some things don't need explaining. This I remember. This I know. Repeat the words I know we both didn't say.

Run, run, run.

++

Oh god, oh god, oh god. I miss you something fierce. Oh god it hurts. Oh it's so terrible, it's so perfect, it's so real. It's a thunderstorm in my heart and oh god it hurts.

This is how it works: you peer inside yourself.
You take the things you like and
try to love the things you took
and then you take that love you made
and stick it into someone else's heart
pumping someone else's blood
and walking arm in arm
you hope it don't get harmed
but even if it does
you'll just do it all again.

my number one feeling is missing autostraddle all lowercase

run run run run run around the party truck waving flags hopping sweating smiling run run circle collapse dance yes! yes! yes!

i am never letting you go.

lovelovelovelove oh god oh god oh god what is happening

And I'm still crying. But I'm still smiling too. I'm...
lacking the words. I guess if you know what it's like to be not happy and then feeling pure .. happiness .. maybe you know. Maybe you understand how much I don't want to let this go.

Day 9: The Inner Workings of my Brain (I can do so much better)

I had three posts written for today. Two were prepared, both do not fit my current mood and therefore will not be posted. The third was written and erased in 8 minutes. I fucking hate people and their fucking expectations. The world is not anything, people are just people, I am tired I cannot be two people at once, why would anyone expect something from me. I don't expect anything from you.

I went to the library today and sat there, words crept into my head and all I had was my notebook for school. I wrote the shit in my brain down in my notebook next to the Principles of Math and Logic. It's ironic, I am not logical. I haven't felt this way in a long time, since the beginning of November. I knew it would come back, it always comes back. So what happens now. I'll never be able to sleep at night, I'll stumble my way through the day, shadowy faces in my peripheral vision, I'm not really looking for anything.. I've figured out what I want. I truly have. It is strange, how those things happen, the realization. Yeah, like, maybe I've got something figured out now. I see myself in the future, I see it, I see it, there it is, I can walk towards it, I can crawl towards it, I have a direction. I'm going somewhere. I can't tell you what I want. It's mine, all mine, I would never write it in my journal though I've been thinking about it since i was six. All the time. You know, that's why people say you always miss the things in front of you. It was sort of relevatory, all of a sudden I knew that this thing that I had dreamed about, imagined, dwelled upon for all my childhood, suddenly I knew that it was possible. That it is SO possible. It's easy. It's hard.

"I love the logic of oxymorons, and how paradox helps us not to feel insane."
- Stephen Dunn "Loves"

I'll be what I am. I'm sorry I hate political correctness, I hate formality with strangers, politeness when the person serving you is a bitch, faking gratitude, I hate presenting a side of me that I'm not. We all have to make our way in life, I know that. Don't get hung up waiting for other people. Don't expect anything from me I'm not who you expect me to be, I'm not that person, I'm not, I'm not I'm not.

I have put this off for far too long.

"I listened in, yes I'm guilty of this, you should know this.
I broke down and wrote you back before you had a chance to.
Forget forgotten I am moving past this, giving notice.
I have to go, yes I know the feeling, know you're leaving."
- Tegan and Sara "The Con"

How to Succeed in Two Easy Steps

School is fast approaching. It is, it is. I'm sort of excited because once school starts it means it's that much closer to being finished which means that I can once again spend the summer attempting to get employed or else live in solitude and get fat. I'm also not excited about school for the main reason that I won't sleep for the next three months, I'm not joking, the insomnia has already started. School stresses me out. My hair is weird today, it's doing this curly thing at the back I don't like.

Anyways, I'm totes ready to get out of CEGEP and go to university. I'm planning ahead, I want to succeed. I realized that if I applied to university for the fall semester I wouldn't get in with my marks, which is a kind of unpleasant, unwelcome thought, and has thus spurned me with a desire to get! good! grades! this semester. I mean, I always want to get good grades, but more than usual this time, really. This is like a new years resolution which will probably go out the window the second I have to wake up at 6 am to catch a bus full of sweaty suits and sit through classes trying to pay attention and eat at the same time and if it's Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday then I'll be at practice thus exerting more energy that by the time I get home it's hard to lift a fork to shovel food in my mouth let alone open a textbook and use my brain which has probs turned into mashed potatos. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am going to fail life. JK that's not what this blog is about. This post is supposed to be about how I'm going to succeed this semester. I will! get! good! grades! because my life depends on it and if that's not a hot rod up the ass then I don't know what is, besides maybe an actual burning stick of iron.

First of all, I'm writing this is so that I know I at least thought about succeeding and considered my future. Originally I had planned on writing five ways I would succeed this semester, except I can only think of two things which just goes to show how prepared I am. Though I figure doing shit like this is how I'm going to begin to not fail at life, you know? Unless I get distracted trying to write blog posts when I should be doing homework, then this will just be a big fail, like um, this blubber seal thing.

1. Positive Attitude

Uh.. lame. But seriously, how can I get through a semester and get! good! grades! without a positive attitude? I know if I don't want to work, then I won't. Therefore, I must always want to work, and I will always want to work if I'm motivated and I get the feeling that I CAN DO IT. You know what I should do? I should watch this before doing homework, besides helping me procrastinate, it inspires me to take over the world. yeswecanyeswecanyeswecanyeswecan!!!

2. Not Procrastinate

This is obviously the hardest thing ever, it's going to be my downfall, my reason for not getting enough sleep and for failing and then failing some more.

How to "not procrastinate"? I have no clue. Tips, anyone? Hints? I have never not procrastinated. Maybe I should like, do my homework at school during breaks instead of sleeping. This is hard, especially since my brain has problems functioning at all hours of the day except from 11:55 am to 12:00 pm* which is a really small window, and checking my schedule, I only have a break at that time on Monday's which effectively rules out doing things properly since it takes me five minutes to get to the library anyway.

The only third thing I can think of to help me succeed is to actually do my work, but I figure that's pretty obvious and redundant. Clearly I don't know anything about being organized, I just wing it half the time and go with the flow. Maybe success is one of those "make it up as you go along" things, like this blog.

So yeah, that's how to fail -- I mean -- succeed. For the low, low price of $20 I will share my three other secrets to success, guaranteed to work so I won't need to give you your money back. Batteries not included.


*Just kidding, I don't actually know when my brain functions properly, probably never.

"All of the things that go to make heaven and earth are here.
All of the things that go to make heaven and this.
Success was survival and kid, it still is."
- The New Pornographers "All of the Things That go to Make Heaven and Earth"