une belle année ou quoi

oh no?

or was it?

what happened?

who cares?


just a little older

is all

a little younger

a little sadder

a little happier



i did some terrible

or

impressive

things



more time

inside me

or

less?



ah

who cares

kiss me

The Year in Review: Sometimes I Disappeared, But I Want To Come Back

It's that made up time of year when I decide to look back at everything that has made me who I am up until this very point of writing. These times come for me usually in that gray area when one thing ends and another begins; right now it's school ending and summer beginning. In a week I'll be on a plane to China. I think that maybe this is important because it's the exact same thing I did last year.

I'm sitting in my parents' kitchen right now, drinking tea and eating stale raisins. The weather is cloudy and I think it rained this morning. I just got back from A-Camp on Sunday night and I don't really know what to do with myself. It's a lot quieter here.

The thing is, this year, I don't need to ask myself "how did you get here?" because I already know that inertia got me here. Does that make sense? What I mean is that I didn't do anything at all to get me anywhere. In September I thought to myself that I was a whole new person with realness, tangibility, and form and I stepped outside of my brain and decided I was going to crash into life.

But it turned out that life was just work. And I threw myself into that with all the force I could muster because it made me feel like a real person. It made me feel needed and important and like I was really doing something, even if it wasn't actually important at all. I could say to people "I'm working" and it could be a thing that people understood. You know? It felt normal. Like, God, I'm just so normal, going to normal work all the normal time. And I felt all the normal feelings, which is to say, I really didn't feel anything at all.

What really happened is that everything else in my life fell away. I wanted time to "focus on myself" but it turns out that that meant ensuring that I got the proper amount of sleep every night. Everything was just fine in that fine way, where I didn't cry I just sort of despaired when things were sad and then did whatever it was that I had to do. I believe they call this "going through the motions" and Buffy Summers sang about it on her hit TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

I feel proud of myself because I made + saved enough money to pay for my entire trip to China all by myself. All the money that I'm using is entirely mine that I worked for, and financial independence is something that I've always wanted so this feels like a big step for me. It's okay to feel good about that, right? Money makes me so uncomfortable and I wish that everybody had a lot of it or that nobody had any at all. But I guess this isn't really about money.

It's about how I closed up and disappeared and became a non-entity. I worked a lot but it was only about money in the sense that I needed just enough to pay rent and keep some in my bank account. I worked a lot so I could hold on to something that seemed to make sense to everyone else ("work") and I didn't let myself think about the other things that I wanted. It felt good to have a team at work, to be known and to feel solid. That was sufficient.

But before this year, my life wasn't about sufficiency. It was an overflow of feelings all the time and I cried a lot and that was a good thing. I wrote words and people read them and the words came from a real place in my heart. I stopped writing this year. My blog is almost empty and so is my journal because I just didn't have anything to say. There were no feelings that were pounding on my heart's door, demanding to be let out.

It's kind of the worst thing, to stop wanting. I don't believe for a second that I've ever stopped wanting, but I took desire and covered it up. Every time it knocked it was a faraway sound that I could shut out so easily, pretend it belonged somewhere else. I muted my desire to be anything, to be even a person. Was I a person who wrote? I had no beliefs, no identity, no passion. I didn't want to participate in anything, go anywhere, meet anyone. There was nothing for me to write.

I don't know if it was fear. I don't know what it was. I think it was just a mistake I made about myself, which I am okay with admitting. I think if I could go back I would love everyone a little harder, because I wasn't a very good friend, and I'm sorry about that.

Going to A-Camp reminded me of the person that I was when I first started working for Autostraddle. And everyone remembered me as that person, which made me want to be that person again. I miss her, that girl who was scared but brave, in love with everything and everyone. It reminded me of a time when I really lived, or something, whatever living is. I mean, it was living with other people, being comfortable in my own skin, and letting things hurt. Life doesn't have to hurt if you don't let it, but then I don't think you'll feel any feelings at all. I mean, you have to let them all in.

by Robin Roemer
this is a weird picture of me and I don't even mind

This is what A-Camp did, what Autostraddle does: it gives you confidence to be who you are. If there's anything I learned from Autostraddle for the past 3 years it's that you have to let yourself feel. Your feelings are beautiful and you're beautiful and god it sounds so corny, but that's what it is, you are beautiful and you need to let yourself feel things because I'm going to start feeling things again and it's all going to be okay if we have feelings together.

I think maybe the whole point of this blog was my weird way of trying to tell you who I am, even though I don't know who that is. I'm figuring it out piece by piece, and the Autostraddle team has been a big part of that. Sometimes I disappeared, but I want to come back. I don't really know what that means, sorry.

I don't know. I guess this is just my life and these are the things that have happened to me and the things that I have done. I'm not going to say that I'm not going to hide anymore because I will probably still hide sometimes. But I know a little better now what I want and who I want to be and I think I can be that person.

by Robin Roemer

I know you can't see these people's faces, but I want you to know they are among the most beautiful faces you will ever see.

I am humbled, once again, by the magic of Autostraddle. I want you to know that I knew these things about myself before, I knew that I had disappeared this year and become a blank slate of nothingness. But I guess A-Camp filled me up again, reminded me of there's a rosy complexion to my cheeks.

gonna take you for a ride on a big jet plane/pre-departure panic

tomorrow i go to china.

in true fashion, i've packed everything at the last minute.

but it's okay because i've been mentally packing for the last week.

on the campus that i'm staying at, breakfast costs $0.50. apparently.

i feel sad because laura wooley left my house today, but i'm excited for breakfast. i mean, i hope someone will eat breakfast with me.

also it's entirely possible that i will not have access to most of the sites i use because of the great firewall of china. obvs i can't go 2 months without contacting north america, so i'll get laura to post some stuff that i send her via email. i make laura do so many things for me, i should buy her a present of 6 pairs of underwear.

in all this rush of goodbyes and "don't forget this", i feel like i'm going away forever. sometimes i forget that i'm coming back. like i'll be home in two months. and i'm thinking there are stores in beijing that will sell me all the things i forget at home, probably for a cheaper price. it'll be okay, you know?

everything is different at night. i need to go brush my teeth.

Why Canadians Need To Vote In The Federal Election May 2

As you may or may not know, Canada is going to have a federal election on May 2, 2011. That's in like 2 days, guys. This election is very neatly straddling the line between "stupid" and "super important". Mostly it's stupid because we keep having elections and nothing has changed, and super important because, well, maybe it will.

There are all sorts of reasons not to vote, especially for young people. Politics can seem like this alternate reality in Ottawa where men in suits are really boring and money disappears and what exactly does it have to do with me? Maybe we don't realize the extent to which it does have to do with us because it feels like politicians aren't talking to us, aren't making policies for us, and just plain aren't taking us seriously.

Figuring out who to vote for and how the voting system works can be confusing, especially since most of that isn't taught in school. The Globe and Mail has a pretty decent rundown on the major parties and their policies, where you can compare their platforms. If you're not sure which party you align with the most, CBC has a vote compass to help you figure it out. If you're doing it and you don't understand or know which policies the questions are talking about, then that's a really good reason to look them up to see where you stand on these issues. Just because you're young doesn't mean you can't understand politics. Here are the ridings in Quebec. Find your riding, see who's elected now, see which way its leaning, and what's going on.

++

Elections Canada breaks down how our voting system works. Here's a quick explanation:

Canada's parliament is made up of two bodies: the Senate (appointed) and the House of Commons (elected). The government is made up of the House of Commons, ie, the people we elect. Canada is divided into electoral districts, known as ridings. One person from each party can run for election in a riding, as well as independents. We, the people, vote for one candidate in our riding. If that person gets the most votes in that riding, then they win a seat in the House of Commons and represent that riding as an MP (member of parliament).

Our Prime Minister is the leader of the the party with the most seats, or MPs, in the House of Commons.

So, for example, in my riding of Pierrefonds-Dollard, Bernard Patry of the Liberal Party is currently my MP. If everyone else in Canada elected a member of the Liberal Party to the House of Commons, then Michael Ignatieff, as leader of the Liberal Party would be our Prime Minister.

The system is a little bit messed up, in that we don't get to directly vote for who we want to be PM. If you happen to be in a riding that is extremely Conservative, then your Liberal vote doesn't actually go to the Liberals. Not to mention that the left is split into 4 different parties. This is how Stephen Harper was able to win a minority government in the last election despite the fact that about 60% of Canada voted for Not-Harper.

There are 5 major parties running in this election: the Conservatives, the Liberals, the Bloc Quebecois, the New Democratic Party, and the Green Party.

++

The Conservatives

Leader: Stephen Harper

These are some of my feelings, re: Stephen Harper:

+ Shitharperdid.ca

+ He wants to spend $29 billion on fighter jets

+ He wants to build more prisons despite the fact that crime rate is going down

+ He has filled the government lobby with pictures of himself

+ etc, sorry can't provide an unbiased review of Harper & the Conservatives

The Liberals

Leader: Michael Ignatieff

Some things I care about re: Ignatieff & the Liberals:

+ learning passport: $1000 a year tax free bursaries for post-secondary students (for 4 years)

+ cares about our environment - especially cleaner oil sand development

+ possibly introducing online voting?

+ youth hiring incentive

+ apparently care about women

+ is not Stephen Harper

Bloc Quebecois

Leader: Gilles Duceppe

To be quite honest, I find this party kind annoying. They take a fairly liberal stance on most things except that they want the separation of Quebec and Canada, which is basically reason enough for me to not vote for them. Aside from that, they will never have enough votes to become the government of Canada, though I understand the need for "Quebec to be represented".

The NDP

Leader: Jack Layton

Jack Layton did a good job in the debates for this election and is gaining a lot of popularity in Quebec. Here is part of the NDP's platform:

+ hire lots of nurses and doctors

+ $800m transfer to provinces and territories to lower tuition fees.

+ reinstating federal minimum wage (actually not entirely sure what this would do)

+ climate change accountability act

+ ELECTORAL REFORM!!! but also they want to abolish the senate. not sure how I feel about that yet.

+ Be not-Stephen Harper

The Green Party

Leader: Elizabeth May

My parents said that Elizabeth May should be the leader of the Liberal party and that sounds like something I can agree with. The Green Party is a lot bigger in BC than it is in Quebec. Also I find it weird that the Bloc is invited to debates but the Greens aren't.

+ The Green Party is much more committed to the environment than any of the other parties, it is the foundation of their platform.

+ establish a $10 minimum wage

+ "$400-millon annual increase in funding of post-secondary education needs-based scholarships and bursaries"

+ reform the electoral system

+ are also apparently the only party to have a budget (it's at the end)?

+ not Stephen Harper

++

This is basically information I have gathered from each party's website in about 10 minutes. But don't trust everything I say! Reading and getting at least a small grasp on where each party stands doesn't take a long time, and you want to vote for what's important to you, not what's important to me. So one more time, here's the vote compass and here's the Globe's comparison of party policies.

This is what I have to say to people who are not voting: Why do you live here? Why not live in a place where you don't have to vote, like, say, China? I'm sure you enjoy your rights and freedoms here in Canada. Well, so do I. Just because the system might not make perfect sense, however, is not a reason to not vote. If you really think it's that stupid, then spoil your ballot. But don't sit at home not caring, because this is your life. Don't throw yourself around like you don't matter, because you matter, okay? And you know what? This is my life too. This is my country, too. So when you don't vote, you're taking a little piece of it away from me.

st laurent to mont-royal

When we climbed up to the top of the mountain it was like 4am and I was pretty drunk. It was cold it was sometime in November I think. No, it must've been October because Ryan didn't hate me yet. It was just me and him and Karen and I think Ryan liked her at that time. I liked Casey but she kept getting me down. That night I had seen her outside the bar sitting on some other guy's lap and ignoring me, well screw that.Why do girls do that. Let's go to the mountain Ryan said. You'll feel better. So we went up the mountain and I was feeling pretty down and Ryan and Karen were racing each other. Karen was so fast it was like they were so free and I felt heavy 'cause I couldn't run as fast as them. But when we got to the top the air was so fresh and I didn't care about anything anymore. Except maybe I was feeling down that Ryan and Karen were making eyes at each other. We stuck ourselves in a telephone booth to keep warm and wait for the sunrise. We must've listened to Bon Iver because whenever I hear "re:stacks" I think of running up the mountain and the view and the cold air. But later that song would come to mean something else to me and that was alright. The sunrise wasn't even that good I think it was on the other side of the mountain. But after that night I didn't care about Casey anymore. We went down the mountain and I was feeling pretty good about it and I fell asleep on the bus.

That was all before Karen moved to Thailand and I met Lainey who's a good girl. I don't get drunk anymore but sometimes I miss those days when it hurt to breathe. I guess no one's hurt me like that since then so I never needed to go back. Everyone changes I learned so we just grew up like everyone else. And growing up doesn't mean not fitting in telephone boxes anymore it means not wanting to or not even being there to do it. Shouting "fuck you Casey!" into the night doesn't mean anything anymore. When we were young we used to hear our voices ring around the city, now we just hear it in our heads. We don't let people get us down like Casey got me down anymore. But sometimes I miss climbing the mountain thinking that's what love is.

Greenland is Projected As A Giant Land Mass But In Reality It Is Not

Laurrrrita Wooley Mammoth showed this to me when she was in Montreal.

This is a map of the world. Did you know there are more than one different projections of maps? I did not, which was probably naive of me. Forgive me for thinking that map making might be objective/accurate.

The photo above is a mercator map. You might recognize this type of map as seen in all your classrooms, my bedroom which probably never been in, textbooks, etc. It has its uses. It's good for navigating the seas. It shows the shapes of countries accurately. But it also distorts the size of countries the farther away from the equator they are. For example, in this map, Greenland is almost as big as Africa, when in reality Africa is 14 times larger than Greenland. The problem with the mercator projection is that it tends to make the West seem a lot larger than it is. Does this sound like some sort of familiar colonialist rhetoric?

This is the Gall-Peters projection.

If you notice in this map, Greenland is tiny, and Africa is HUGE. China is HUGE. Brazil is HUGEish. And Europe, and Canada, and the United States got a little smaller.

This is apparently what the actual size of countries are. I don't know. (I'm finding it a lot harder to trust map-makers now). It's likely that I'll never know unless I find a way to go into space and position my rocket in a way so I can compare the size of different countries. The problem is that you can't show both shape and size accurately. You have to pick one.

Now this is a site you want to read. I'm serious. It's well worth your time.

Okay so the picture I wanted to show you doesn't work because my background is black. But here it is.

Greenland is 0.8 million square miles. China is 3.7 million square miles.

Go. Go read this right now. Have your world view changed.

"The Year In Review": A Few Things I Remember

1. [f a l l i n g in and out and in and o u t of love]

With everything, and everyone, constantly. I just can't do the highs and lows. Well, sometimes I don't understand me and sometimes I don't understand you. I don't know you or me. I don't understand the happiness or lightness of love; I don't understand the sadness and excessive weight of love. I've given you all and now I'm nothing.

2. ["Christmas is S O D U M B."]

I am Scrooge/The Grinch. Whatever. Christmas is stupid. I'm only partially sorry if that offends you. What is Christmas about anyway? Is it the birth of Jesus? I honestly don't even know. I don't even really care. All I want for Christmas, really, is some new socks. Because the majority of my socks have holes in them. I am happy that I am escaping this Christmas obsessed world and going to a tiny bubble in the middle of nowhere with people who also don't care about Christmas.

(Alright, so Christmas hasn't happened yet, but today on the metro I saw a man with a Christmas tree and I thought "oh yeah, I guess it's about that time to throw out Christmas trees" and then I realized that December 25th hasn't actually happened yet. That's how much I care about Christmas.)

3. [g r a dua t ing]

I did it.

4. [s u m m e r in America]

It was hot. There were fireworks and a parade and everyone I love in Riese's living room. I feel sad and nostalgic because it will probably never happen again, I mean, not like that. You and I are not the same people anymore. But we are still beautiful.

5. [moving i n and o u t and in and out of h o m e]

Frequently I ask myself "why do I live here" and fail to produce a decent answer. Then one night I slept in my old bedroom and felt annoyed at all the space. My room was too big. It doesn't matter. Nothing is ever clean in my apartment. But my small room feels at least a little more like home. It's warm and the bed is comfortable. It's safe.

I still feel like I don't know where I live, or where home is. I guess that's normal.

6. [the year in r e v i e w]

I remember parts of the year. I remember February, vividly. I remember March and feeling high and happy and perfect. Things made sense in March. I think I went on a camping trip in April. I remember my legs sticking to the seat of the bus in May. June and July are stuck together in a gooey mess of sweat and kisses and tears. August is one long train ride to nowhere. September - November is 10,000 feelings I'd like to erase. I am drained and pulled apart.

I am tired and I'd like to stop counting. I'd like to stop counting backwards and forwards. Sometimes all I know is that I'm a mirror of other people's feelings and opinions, a composition of people who came before me. Sometimes I'm amazed at the love I feel, and the strangeness of how I can love people I don't know, so much so that I turn the people I claim to love into strangers. Sometimes I'm surprised at how angry I am, when I don't know where that anger comes from. But mostly I'm surprised/unsurprised at the way the world heals itself, and how when everything feels upside down, the world will turn you over again.

"I love the number of people

you can love at the same time,

one deep, erotic love,

radiating even to strangers,

cynics, making a temporary sense

of the senseless, choreful day."

- Stephen Dunn "Loves"

Is this year over yet.

WHY IS EVERYTHING SO WEIRD .COM

OH MY GOD

WHY ARE YOU WEARING THOSE PANTS

landmarks:

+ october 23, 2009 - dying/saved. i have changed/not changed.

+ birthday approaching - don't want to talk about it. currently compiling a list of things i want/need/intend to solicit people for.

+ one year at ae - help, i have feelings. want this sweater asap. i have so many feelings about my job.

currently:

+ wish everyone would read laneia's blog.

+ there are many things that i would like to say to you, but i don't know how.

+ definitely going to need more ice cream.

three wishes:

+ someone to come grocery shopping with me

+ stop imagining people into people i wish they were, instead of the people they are.

+ no one can leave before i'm ready

(but they already have)

There is Nothing As Lucky, As Easy, Or Free (blindsided)

vii.

I never really dreamed of heaven much, till we put him her in the ground.

viii.

At first it's easy to pretend it isn't there; that loneliness, that empty space somewhere in your life. First you pretend you're crying because you were the only kid in grade 3 who forgot to bring scissors and glue to school on arts and crafts day. You sit in an empty classroom with a teacher who had big, black curly hair. She loved The Beatles, just like your aunt, and she asks you if you need to see the counsellor, and in a moment of weakness you say yes. Then you get over it, and when it's time for your meeting you feel upset at being interrupted while you were cutting paper with your friends, colouring things, making fake houses. But you go anyway, and pretend you don't know what it's about. And you lie, because you want to go back to safety. You want to go back to denial.

It was easy to ignore life, actual physical life, breath, the act of breathing and moving and smelling, touching, thinking, feeling. It was only when I realized she was dead that I realized I was alive. Suddenly life -- the concept of being alive -- was different.

ix.

I never thought about it for years. It, I never thought about It. You know, that event. I didn't make the connection between the scissors and the glue, and the event I had truly forgotten at home.

My dad said it was okay to cry but I didn't because my cousins were nearby, and I didn't want to cry in front of them. I wanted to pretend like I didn't care, because maybe I didn't. Maybe it was easier that way. I wanted to go home and be alone in my room. I became used to that feeling.

Maybe we all did.

x.

There's nothing left but fuzzy memories and an excuse I keep and use when it's convenient. Instead of pretending that it didn't happen, I make it all that has ever happened to me. So when something hurts, when you hurt me, I pretend it's not you, it's not you, it was this thing that happened to me a hundred years ago. When I feel like you're leaving I pretend that it hurts because I was left so long ago and not because I simply just want you to stay.

xi.

At first I missed the body; then I missed the mind; then I missed the concept. I'm stuck on the idea that my childhood could have been different, that the rest of my life might have been different. Now there's one less thing to return home to. I can feel my memories of being a kid disintegrating; I mean really, sometimes I wonder if the first 13 years of my life were real, if I ever lived in a different house than I do now, was there always someone other than Tina around? Did I belong to a family of two at one point? I don't think so, no, it just wasn't real at all.

No, no, and life is just so fragile, and maybe we spend all our years trying to reach the point we reached when we came out of the womb, so delicate and malleable, but we can't go back, no, no we can't go back, we just go forward and hope we'll reach "second childhood and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything". Maybe we should take the broken pieces and turn it into something new, and we build our own events, because whether we have a purpose or not is irrelevant; we are just going, I mean, we are moving, and life will move you whether you are ready to move or not, so I mean, just don't sit there among the brokenness, take the pieces of your life and make a house or something, make a bicycle, make a friend, I don't know what, just fucking do it, go on, do it, go go go.

xii.

Move, like today never happened, today never happened before.

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?

When I Was Young Part 1: How The Spice Girls and Tegan & Sara Shaped My Life

Everybody has had one. Everybody has had an idol, a hero of some sort, someone they obsessed over and knew everything about. There's always some celebrity or artist or writer that inspired you when you were a kid, shaped your childhood. Before high school, it was The Spice Girls. Now, it's Tegan and Sara.

++

My aunt first introduced me to The Spice Girls in 1997 or so. My aunt tries to be hip and on top of those things kids like -- she was the one who bought be Harry Potter in 1999. She also claimed last year to discover this really great new band which she then revealed to be The Arcade Fire who've existed for a long time already. So there's that.

But The Spice Girls were probably the first thing I ever truly loved. I had all their CDs, the movie, the books, the t-shirts. I knew all the words even though I didn't know what "ziga-zig-ah" or "two become one" meant. 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys were super popular at that time too, but I could never get on board. I think I cried when Geri left the group. I even have The Spice Girls last album as a group of four (quatro? what?) called "Forever" except I think it's a shortened version or something.

When I listen to The Spice Girls now I get all nostalgic and want to cry. First of all, their songs are still awesome. Secondly, they have a really good message for girls: GIRL POWER. This is essential in helping Carly realize her lesbian tendencies. Thirdly, the movie was awesome when I was 8 or 9 and it's still awesome 10 years later.

++

I can't remember the year I first heard Tegan and Sara. It must've been 2005. I had read somewhere "I hope I never figure out who broke your heart, and if I do...." and liked it. So I googled it and discovered "Living Room" and then "You Wouldn't Like Me" and "I Know I Know I Know" and "My Number". Then I recall specifically the winter of 2006 when myspace was popular being on somebody's myspace page and hearing "Walking With a Ghost". That's when it really started. I listened to "Underwater" and "Where Does the Good Go" and a bunch of songs from If It Was You. Then The Con came out and I joined saraandtegan.ca and went to their concert in October 2007 and had (have) a folder full of pictures of them. I learned to tell them apart, watched all the videos and had all their CDs, wished I could meet them, wished I could marry Sara against the stones of buildings built before we were born.

Tegan and Sara did a lot for me that I can't explain. I mean, they showed me a side of myself I didn't know existed. They wrote songs about feelings I couldn't explain myself.

How do you explain a song? "Back In Your Head" was one of those songs that said everything I felt about myself so honestly that I never wanted to say anything except recite the lyrics. My belief is that the album version is not the way "Back In Your Head" is meant to be heard, but the demo version captures the true essence.

"City Girl" makes me cry.

One of the most surreal experiences I've ever had was driving with Katrina in Nyack listening to Tegan and Sara. We could talk about little things, like the way Sara's backup vocals sound on the Spinner version of "Nineteen" and big things, like The Con as a whole album.

If all I ever had left to say were Tegan and Sara lyrics, I would be okay. It would be everything I've ever wanted to say to people.

(wojo4hitz)

++

I'm happy I subconsciously picked women heroes.