The moment when "Infinite Jest" finally began to make sense to me

"No one single instant of it was unendurable. Here was a second right here: he endured it. What was undealable-with was the thought of all the instances all lined up and stretching ahead, glittering. [...] He could just hunker down in the space between each heartbeat and make each heartbeat a wall and live in there. Not let his head look over. What's unendurable is what his own head could make of it all. What his head could report to him, looking over and ahead and reporting. But he could choose not to listen; he could treat his head like G. Day or R. Lenz: clueless noise. He hadn't quite gotten this before now, how it wasn't just the matter of riding out the cravings for a Substance: everything unendurable was in the head, was the head not Abiding in the Present but hopping the wall and doing a recon and then returning with unendurable news you then somehow believed."

- David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

four full years ago

i am sitting here, january 8 2013. here i sit. in my chair. on the internet.

four whole years ago i wrote this little poem and thus began a long relationship between my thoughts and the internet.

this blog has been through some weird times. i think, in these four years, i essentially grew up, and i documented a lot of that right here. and i'm still growing.

when i first started this blog i had just turned 18, i was living at home, and i was starting cegep. now, i just turned 22, living in my third apartment in as many years, and i'm going to graduate university in a few months. i fell in love and i fell out of love, over and over again. the friends i had when i was 18, the good ones, the real ones, i still have them. and i have new, good friends. they are all amazing. you are all amazing.

this blog peaked in about 2010 when i updated a lot and told people i was updating a lot. and i met some pretty cool people in that way. when i thought i would say goodbye to being on the internet for a little while, you were all so wonderful and sweet so i didn't. and i think i realized that i can't, anyway. if i wanted to stop writing i couldn't. which is why, now, i think, it matters less to me who reads. i love it, of course, if you're reading, but i don't think i'm writing anymore so that people read. i'm just writing.

here we all are. somewhere, in the world. and here i go, starting year five of writing in this little space. i'm not getting sentimental. i mean, whatever.

mont-royal/montreal

A Story With Two Morals

I went to bed last night around 11:30 and woke up at 1am with some serious stomach pain. I thought that if I rubbed my stomach it would go away, but it didn't. It stayed. It stayed for hours. It hurt to move. I sweated and moaned and rubbed my stomach and I'm pretty sure my roommate would have thought I was masturbating if he had been awake, but I wasn't masturbating, just dying. I think I died over one hundred times last night.

I tried desperately to think of what was causing the pain. It can't have been the cereal I ate. I ate it all the time and never had such a terrible stomach ache. It must've been the carrots I had at dinner. They were kind of old. They had smelled okay and looked okay and tasted okay, but thinking about it now they were probably rotten and eating me from the inside.

As the pain continued to exist, I began to panic a little bit. I considered calling 911 but I didn't want to wake my roommates. I've been watching Grey's Anatomy a lot and I imagined Dr. Arizona Robbins feeling my stomach and saying "abdomen is hard, order a CT" even though she's a pediatric surgeon and I'm not a child anymore.

She can operate on me anytime. Then maybe after we can do this -

Erm.

Anyways, I was basically delirious last night. Even though I've been working on a few different blog posts about how much I like my room in my apartment ("my space"), I really wished I was at my parent's house. If I had been at my parent's house I would have knocked on their door and made them take care of me. Living by yourself means you have to be responsible and take care of yourself, I understood that, but last night I really understood it. I didn't want to throw up, not because throwing up is gross (it totally is), but because I didn't want to clean it up. If I had been with my parents, they would have cleaned it up. THE JOYS OF PARENTING.

I have no idea what was wrong with me. I thought briefly about googling "how to fix serious stomach pain" but I couldn't do anything but lie in my bed uselessly. I thought about eating some chalk (in the 9th grade I learned that eating some chalk is essentially equivalent to taking some pebto bismol). I'm not sure how much that would have helped. I fell asleep for real around 4:30am after spending most of the past 3 hours clutching my stomach in the fetal position, convinced I was dying of twisted insides.

The moral of the story is: even though being independent, and responsible, and taking care of yourself like a motherfucking adult is a good thing, sometimes it's nice to let other people take control. Sometimes all you want is someone to spoon you and squeeze out all the pain. There are people out there who want to do that for you, so you have to let them. Even though in this case there wasn't really anyone to help me. Also the other moral of the story is: don't eat rotten carrots.

It's October

Holy fucking shit it's October. Did you think we would ever make it to October? Me neither. Let's talk about it.

So, September was a shitty month. It was shittier than February, which was shitty, and also confusing because because it's the shortest month of the year. Clearly, this plan sucks and should be scraped, it was written from the vantage point of being happy, sometimes I feel like happy people never really "get it", but also sad people are like "wah I'm so misunderstood", so like, whatever. Basically people are confusing, life is a roller coaster, etc. I was happy once, and I'll be happy again. Right now is just a sad time where I want to break things and am moody and angsty a lot. You'll be happy again too, I promise.

But also I didn't really do any of the things I recommended to myself, so maybe the plan does work. BUT ALSO if you're happy it's easy to miss that some of those things are not possible, like did I really think I wasn't going to listen to Bright Eyes? So, I should just shut up. Anyways.

You guys have all been really nice to me and someone even made me a mixtape full of spanish/mexican/latin american songs (I can't tell the difference) and it's kind of AWESOME, which made me want to make a mixtape for October, which I will do and then release it on the interwebs for you to download if you so desire.

Speaking of music, today is Monday, let's listen to a song. Together. As a family.

This is my favourite song from The New Pornographer's 2007 album Challengers and for some reason I've been listening to the album a lot recently.

These adventures in solitude never done.

We thought we lost you. Welcome back.

I've also had a lot of Stephen Dunn lines running through my head:

from "Corners": the places we retreat to, the places we can't bear to be found.

from "Loves": making a temporary sense of the senseless, choreful day.

here is where loveliness can live with failure, and nothing's complete.

i love how we go on.

Fuck September. Here's to October.

Turning Loneliness Into Happiness: Another Memo To Myself

Learn how to make something:

food, a shoe box, a good day.

Remember, finally, there are few pleasures

that aren't as local as your fingertips.

Never go to Europe for a cathedral.

In large groups, create a corner

in the middle of the room.

- Stephen Dunn "How to be Happy: Another Memo to Myself"

First, watch this video.

Have you watched it yet? This is probably much better advice than I'm about to give you. It might also be kind of the same, but mine is probably for people who are not already perfect.

What's happening is this: Laura is going to Spain really soon. I am moving out of my parent's house. I am starting a new school in a program with people that I don't know. All my habits are about to change and that's kind of scary because there will be no more shared Alias watching, no more old comforts. Now I will have to find new comforts.

What I mean is this: I'm anticipating a period of loneliness in my life. It could spiral out of control and my life could become a mess as I struggle to deal with all the feelings (ALL THE FEELINGS!) happening all at once, or I could learn "how to be alone".

I expect that you, reader, are also going to experience at least one period of loneliness in the next 5 months, because you are (probably) a human and we are all lonely sometimes. Even Jennifer Beals is lonely sometimes. This is how I imagine my particular loneliness: it starts in my stomach, small, and then works its way up to squeezing my heart so hard that I think my heart must stop beating soon, only it doesn't. It's the opposite of the feeling of hugging your dad when you were 6 and he was superman because he could lift up your bike.

I have a plan to stave off my own loneliness for the winter. I have no idea if it will work. This plan has been formatted to fit me (tv screen). Maybe you can learn something from it, maybe you can help me stay afloat, maybe you will think I'm crazy. I expect that the next 5 months will take a superior mental effort to get through, or at least the first 1-3, and then maybe the next ones will sort of roll along. I don't plan on going through the motions. I plan on fully living my life with expected periods of stress and loneliness and feelings of wanting to go "home" even though "home" is a concept not a place. The point is to contain those periods so I don't spiral out of control into a fit of depression.

Joseph Addison said the grand essentials to happiness are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. I feel like this is some of the best advice ever and if I find all these things, however small, my plan will succeed. Then in January I can collapse or find a new plan. Like how cell phones work.

This is what I have so far via Joseph Addison:

Something to do: I'm moving and starting school and looking for a new job. It's taking up all my time.

Something to love: we'll get back to that (maybe).

Something to hope for: I'm going to interpret this as "something to look forward to" or "something you hope to achieve in the future". My aunt from Berkeley is coming September 19th. I'm superexcited and I feel like when she comes all my problems will be solved. Basically by September 19th I want to be "settled in" to my "new life".

In a slight tangent, I feel like this is a little bit like The Sims. Remember that game? Either way, it's not a hard concept to grasp. Each Sim has desires and needs and you have to fill them.

Sims need to eat, sit, shower, pee, sleep, have fun, have friends, and enjoy their living space. Make sure all those things are green and your Sim is happy ("happy").

Here is my plan for being the happiest person I can be this fall/early winter in between finding things to hope for.

1. Denial/Thinking Positive/Letting Go

A small part of me wants to see if I can trick myself into actually being in denial that Laura is in Spain for 5 months. The idea is that if I deny it long enough, by the time I'm ready to accept the fact, she might be back on this continent already and I'll be like "oh, that was fast. I hadn't realized you'd left."

Realistically, that is not going to happen. Thus I have to use a combination of denial and "acceptance" to overcome this particular obstacle.

What is the difference between denial and thinking positively? Probably to a psychologist there is a big difference, but to me, they kind of seem the same sometimes. See, thinking positive is just the opposite of feeling those dark feelings. For example, I could be thinking of all the things I'm going to miss when Laura goes away. There are a lot of things, and the idea makes me cry for serious. My plan is to live in complete and total denial of those feelings and force myself to think of little things I am excited to do (see: #6 something to hope for). Maybe it's a dumb idea to pretend that I don't feel lonely when I am, but you know what? I don't want to be lonely. I will tell myself that I'm happy until I'm actually happy. I will use all the psychological force in the world to make myself happy. It's not a life plan but until things change that's what I have to do.

2. Listen to Irrelevant Music

Music touches a sensitive chord with a lot of people. When I'm lonely all I want to do is be alone and listen to sad music. Obviously this is part of the downward spiral.

WHAT I RECOMMEND:

+ Every disney song I can possibly think of (I have been listening to "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid on repeat for the past 3 days)

+ Lady Gaga (not that she's irrelevant, just that I don't want to cry every time I listen to her)

+ Phoenix

+ some Tegan and Sara

+ most stuff that comes on shuffle

WHAT I AVOID:

+ Bon Iver ("Good Winter"?? Justin Vernon was shut up alone in a cabin in the middle of winter for 3 months writing these songs. These songs were MADE for lonely winters/cold weather/feeling like dying)

+ Iron & Wine

+ most Bright Eyes songs

+ some Death Cab for Cutie

+ "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan

3. Compartmentalize Your Crying

I'm pretty sure I'm going to cry at least once, most likely 10 or more times, in the next few months. Crying is kinda tricky though, 'cause there's good crying and bad crying. Good crying feels good. It's like a weight off your shoulders. Bad crying feels like choking and despair and a downward spiral. Bad crying is crying for no reason.

My advice to myself: It's okay to cry over spilled milk, I think. Let's be real -- "spilling milk" sucks, especially when it's all the milk you had and the grocery store is closed. Can you cry and clean up at the same time? 'Cause then you're okay. I mean, maybe not, 'cause you have no milk. But you must recognize that life goes on.

Also, think about crying with someone rational or else you might take a sudden dive and start crying because your best friend in the 3rd grade called you chubby. It's easy to start crying about something small but then end up because of everything in the whole entire world. It's important to avoid this because it doesn't work with #1 and will probably make you want to listen to the music on your AVOID list.

4. Find Something To Do

This is like that Sims thing. Make sure you eat and pee and sleep. Make sure you have fun! Make sure you see your friends. Do all the things you would make your Sim do, except do them faster. Try to not be bored as often as possible. Distract yourself because then it'll be easier to be in denial about your loneliness. I like to make to-do lists. Currently my list is full of things like "buy a new razor" which I've had there for over a month. I accomplish more pressing things faster. Try something new! Since I'll be living on my own for the first time ever, I have to make all my own meals so I'll be trying a lot of new recipes and experimenting in cooking. If that's too boring for you, join the fencing club. Do your homework.

Avoid being alone. Even if you want to, but especially if you want to. Sometimes when I'm lonely I lie on my bed and stare at my ceiling and if I lie there long enough I begin to trick myself into thinking I don't exist. This is kind of a scary thought. The way to fix this is make contact with the outside world. I don't think it means you have to go out with 20 people for 5 hours. Hang out with one friend for half an hour. Invite them to your house and keep your pyjamas on. If even that's too much, go to the store and ask the employees some questions about whatever it is they're selling. Wear your pyjamas if it makes you feel better. As long as you make a connection with someone. It doesn't have to be a lasting one. Just make sure you still exist. Okay?

5. Something To Like

I'm not entirely sure what Joseph Addison means by "something to love". Does he mean find a person to love? 'Cause that's something that could take, literally, a lifetime. Does he mean a hobby? 'Cause that's kind of like "something to do".

I'm going to assume he means find something that you like more than other things. Sometimes I have to do things that I don't want to do and that would be filed under "something to do" and not "something to love".

Finding something to love sounds to me like finding a serious passion that you might want to pursue as a career or something and I don't think I'm ready to declare that yet, so I'm sticking with something to like. I like to read and take pictures and play the guitar so I'm going to try and do those things in my spare time.

I think the point is to not get caught up with work/school/stress. Do something for you.

6. Something To Hope For

Living in the present is good because we should appreciate the things we have, except sometimes there are shitty days. On those days, we should remember that there's always tomorrow.

Like I said before, I'm really excited for my aunt to visit on Sept. 19th. And after that, I'm not so sure, but I assume there will be something to look forward to. Probably the Phoenix concert in October. November is for some reason considered the month of depression, but it's also the month of my birthday, so there must be something good happening there. And then, you know, we'll see. The most important thing to know is that even if you're lonely now, you will not always be lonely. I won't promise a lot of things, but I will promise you that. There's always something to live for.

"Sometimes you're flush, and sometimes you're bust, and when you're up, it's never as good as it seems, and when you're down, you think you'll never be up again. But life goes on."

- Blow

++

"Why do the stars shine?"

"The stars shine so we can locate each other when we're far away. So I can see, 'I see the big dipper,' and you can say, 'yes, I see it too.'"

The Supreme Art of Letting Go

The slow change of summer to fall, and we sit in denial. It's not quite happening yet, but you begin to think to yourself that you need a new pair of boots, and your mind briefly passes over that sweater you will wear when the weather changes -- it hasn't changed yet. But you know it will. It's happening right in front of your eyes.

For a while you refuse to shed the light t-shirts and shorts, until, undeniably it is fall and then possibly winter, and your shoes are wet from snow that melts when it touches the ground. But you still don't wear those boots, and your jacket is a sweater inside of which you shiver once or twice. One day you wake up and go outside and your breath catches in your throat and you know it's time to get the heavy-duty stuff; the hats and gloves, longjohns, big sweaters, and the hibernation attitude that allows you to trudge through dirty snow on your way home, where you will wear all these things. The days are short, but you knew this was coming. You saw it happening, it happens every year. But you are just not ready.

++

Slow change is like this. You wake up next to somebody and know that soon your bed will be empty, because summer is leaving and you are hungry. You can see the day when there will be no more hot whispers in your ear, no more christmas lights in August because it is no longer August, no more warm fireplace, no more warm body next to you, no more fingers on green shirts, no more kisses or touches or toothy grins kissing touching toothy grins.

Denial is easy and you hold on to it for as long as possible, but little by little you put the sweaters in the front of your closet, preparation for the coming cold. You don't wear them yet though. Summer is leaving, you know this, but you are just not ready for it to go. Knowledge does not make it easier, in fact, very little makes it easier.

++

You feel, and you let yourself feel it. You let the fall sharpness bite you, just for a second, before you wrap yourself up, and you hold it inside yourself, and then you inhale and exhale and you let it go. You breathe the cold air out and then you breathe in and out some more, because that's what you have to do, breathe the cold air out of your lungs until there is no more, and then you walk. You walk and talk and breathe and move your fingers like a human being with human tendencies. You make sure to wear your thickest coat to soften the blows until it doesn't feel like punching anymore. And that is all you need to do, for now at least. And you will emerge. You will emerge.

and I found stories from June 2009 that I'll never publish

Yesterday was a bit of an unusual day. You may have noticed there was no music monday (perhaps you didn't). That was because I turned off my computer and didn't turn it on again until around 2am Tuesday morning.

See, yesterday after I ate breakfast at noon, an unexpected thought fluttered through my head: what if I don't use the internet or my computer for the rest of the day? So that's what I did. The idea to do it came before the reasons occurred to me. There are 1 and 1/2 reasons.

1: Every once in a while I have a strange desire to pack up and disconnect myself from the rest of the world. You know, like Chris McCandless. I feel like too many things control me, and many of them stem from my computer or the internet. I want to stop caring about twitter and email and what happens next on whatever TV show I'm watching. So I turned off my computer.

1.5: I'm tired of being disappointed when I wake up. I don't know where the disappointment comes from because I have low expectations (or do I?) for almost everything, but there it is in the morning. So, again, instead of checking autostraddle every 10 minutes or playing bubbleshooter and not being able to stop, instead of sitting hunchbacked over my desk musing over how huge the internet world is and how I can access so much of it from inside my room, I closed my computer and went out into the real world.

Just kidding. I didn't go outside. But I did really turn off my internet.

Fourteen hours without a computer is not really that long. Every time I go to New York or Philadelphia I have no internet for about that amount of time. Granted, I do have movies if I want, but mostly I count on sleeping for over half my trip.

Before I had a laptop I was still using the giant desktop in my basement, which one day, decided it would just turn off whenever it felt like it. As you can imagine, this was highly inconvenient. One second I'd be chatting on MSN writing a paper, and the next thing you know I'd be staring at a blank screen. It turns out the fan was broken, so the computer would heat up and not cool down and then it would turn itself off so as not to explode. That took a while to fix. My dad said I could use his laptop from 1995 but I would've rather smashed my head in with a brick, so I did my homework instead.

In any case, I figured I could handle a day without my computer, and it would be a good character builder or something.

The first thing I did was clean my desk. It took me a while. I found lots of old school shit, scrap papers, important documents, and old birthday cards that still had money in them. That was the most exciting part. I made $140 for cleaning my desk! The universe is trying to tell me something maybe.

I didn't have my itunes to listen to so I had to listen to CDs the way they were meant to be listened to. I listened to Around the Well by Iron & Wine, Asleep at Heaven's Gate by Rogue Wave, So Jealous by Tegan and Sara, and You Can Play These Songs With Chords by Death Cab for Cutie.

Then I started an art project that I can't tell you about because it's a secret. But it took me a long time. Luckily I had all this space on my desk to actually make "art".

I finished reading 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'. It was good! I haven't completely processed my feelings about it yet though. I think it might actually be one that I won't read again unless it's to quote something.

I talked to 3 people I hadn't talked to in a really long time. Tania came over and we played video games in our sweatpants and that was nice.

Sometimes I really wanted to play bubbleshooter but mostly I didn't miss my computer. I didn't have any emails to read and I sifted through tweets but none of them were at me so all in all I don't think my presence on the internet was noticed or missed. That's okay! It made me feel good actually. Like there's no reason for me to sit in front of gmail all day.

On that note, I'm going to go use the HMV gift card I found while cleaning my desk and then I'm going to do something that doesn't involve staring at a 13" screen.

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.

i miss you. i miss you in a magnetic way.

monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, sunday. repeat. repeat. repeat.

bang bang bang.

i woke up yesterday on the couch. i cried. i drank half my tea. i biked with no purpose, no direction. just kidding i didn't bike anywhere.

i miss you. i miss you in a magnetic way. as i am typing this, as you are reading this, i miss you. like this. in this way.

++

i have to write a blog post. ok so these are possible blog posts i could make

a) pictures i took in august/winter/last week

b) a poem about food/crying in the kitchen/pictures

c) i could talk about how much i like laura and want her to come back to montreal rightnow

d) i could talk about how much i like laura and want her to come back to montreal rightnow without actually talking about laura or montreal

e) i could continue to make pointless lists

perhaps i will write a blog post about silly bands. yes i will do that. here we go.

++

have you heard of silly bandz? silly bandz are rubber band thingies that come in different shapes. they are bracelets. some of them glow in the dark. you buy a pack of themed silly bandz. for example, i have a pack of "vehicle" silly bandz. my pack includes firetrucks, police cars, airplanes, tanks, and helicopters. mine glow in the dark.

apparently kidz are going wild for silly bandz. i know i am. laura bought me my vehicle pack. she looked for them for 2 and a half weeks because they were sold out everywhere. then we traded. now i have a cowboy boot and a cactus (she had a western pack). i gave katie a tank and something else i can't remember. i don't want to speak for her but i'm going to go out on a limb and say that she loves them very much and can't stop talking about them.

i keep reading articles that say silly bandz are for children but that is just stupid. people of all ages and all 23904982343 genders can enjoy them. i can't find my vehicle pack on the silly bandz website. maybe that means they're rare or fake. i don't think you can buy silly bandz in canada yet but clearly i am about to start a trend with this blog post. maybe silly bandz ships to canada. maybe laura will buy me a pack (hint: zoo or fantasy) and mail them. i need someone in montreal to trade with me.

i hope i have educated you about something important today.

A "Critical Review" & "Analysis" of the Month of March

I had great expectations for March. February sucked as much as anything could possibly suck, and March to me equaled spring, hope, light, flowers, happiness, sunshine, rainbows, unicorns, freedom, etc. It was kind of disappointing mostly because of my impossible expectations, but I've decided that overall, March was okay. Just okay. Like it could have been worse.

Essentially very little happened in March that was significant besides a fun trip to Philadelphia/NYC. I read two books or maybe 3 or 4, I don't even know. I had 3 shifts at work. I found something new in an old friend and I don't know what to do with it. I pretended I didn't have any school work to do. I bought new jeans. I had several serious moments of anxiety/panic that I would never be able to sustain long-term relationships with other people and thought it would be best to run away to a cabin by the sea, but those are feelings that are not unique to March. Also, though, I realized that I have a brain and can therefore handle the scary things it takes to be a grown up. I'm convinced I have post-menstrual syndrome, something I made up that has the same symptoms of pre-menstrual syndrome only it's after you get your period. Apparently this is just called "being moody", a theory which I reject. I got accepted into a university where, if I attend, I will graduate with a degree in something useless, but something useless that I am moderately good at. So there's that.

I have mixed feelings about April. On the plus side, according to this ovulation calculator, starting tomorrow I'm very fertile till April 6th. Also on the plus side, I'm expecting the weather to be EXCELLENT. And by "expecting" I mean "demanding". This weekend is supposed to be around 20-25 degrees so that's a good start. Unfortunately I'll probs be inside tackling the massive amount of work I've left myself with.

In conclusion, I'm happy to be done with March if only because it means we're one month closer to summer. Is it May 14 yet? (that's when my summer officially starts)

Also, word on the street is that something exciting is happening at autostraddle tomorrow, so you probs want to make sure you check that out.

America, This is the Impression I Get From Looking in the Television Set

Yesterday Maine voted to ban same-sex marriage. I'm tired and my heart hurts. Someone asked why we still hope when we lose so many battles. The answer is because these are our lives. No one is going to accept being a second-class citizen. No one is going to lie down and die. Hope is the only thing we have. Why do I care? I live in Canada, votes in Maine don't legally affect me. But Maine is part of the world, and so am I. And I... well, I care about other people. I want to go to Alex and Riese's wedding one day. It would be so simple.

Alex: "I can't believe we have to 'win' equality."

++

But you'll fight and you'll make it through

you'll fake it if you have to

and you'll show up for work with a smile.

And you'll be better,

and you'll be smarter,

and more grown up and a better daughter

or son and a real good friend.

You'll be awake, you'll be alert

you'll be positive though it hurts

and you'll laugh and embrace all your friends.

And you'll be a real good listener,

listen real,

you'll be honest, you'll be brave

you'll be handsome, you'll be beautiful.

You'll be happy.

- Rilo Kiley "A Better Son/Daughter"

++

I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy,

By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their

counterpart of on the same terms.

- Walt Whitman "Song of Myself"

Imagine all the people, living life in peace.

i burn down buildings while you sit on shelves inside of them

hope is very naive. i am also naive because i want to change the world and i think that it can happen. i don't mean i want to change everything in the world - that would be really really hard. if i make a difference in one persons life then that's an accomplishment right there.

why do we still hope? do people ever hope that things will change right now? or is it just towards tomorrow that we're looking? i kinda hope things will get better right now. i mean, why else do we get up in the morning. despite all the disappointments the world hands us, one after another, we still get up and continue moving forward because hope defies all logic. just like love. oh yeah, and just so you know, "Love is a great thing. But marriage isn’t just any kind of love; it’s the special love of husband and wife for each other and their children."

ok and if you want to know how tired our society is, count the number of sleeping people on the bus. i bet you will see at least two. sometimes i sleep standing up, leaning against the pole.

and suddenly i'm asking myself these questions again, you know, suddenly i'm thinking about life again and the big picture and mememe in the world. tiny, little me. big, huge world. suddenly i'm feeling things again. remember that tv show charmed? remember their theme song? i am human and i need to be loved, just like everybody else. yeah. so take that love haters and fear mongers.

so don't give up hoping. but take that hope and turn it into ACTION! but positive action, you know, something that'll make the world better, not promote ignorance and discrimination. and get up in the morning and come to school cause i want to see your pretty (ugly) face.

We Are Dawson: Dream Big (Day 30)

I'm pretty sure the people this is written for are not going to read this, but then again I'm not really sure who I'm writing this for.

Montreal, I'm starting to like you. East Coast, you're showing me a better side. Maybe it was Washington, it must've been Washington, it must've been the spring weather, the buildings and streets which were so concrete and so cold but so refreshing. Maybe it's the Montreal night life, maybe it's someone I met, maybe it's Dawson, maybe it's mememe, or the weather, or the start of something new. Montreal, I'm starting to appreciate you [unintentional rhyme].

I think I love and hate that I didn't play the final game of the tournament. I think the people that need to read this are not going to read it, then again I'm not sure who those people are. I think I managed to hold it all together, I know I cheered a lot, I know I was positive, I know that it tore me up inside. When Rougeau sat next to me and said that This was it, we need a big shift from you, Choo, come on, I nodded and didn't say anything cause I knew there was no next shift for me. And she went on and she came back and I was still sitting there, the same place I sat all game.

I guess I should've seen it coming, right, not like I didn't work hard or played badly, no, this is what I signed up for, being a rookie and all. This is what I agreed to and I knew it, I'm surprised it came so late in the year and I wish it had been any other game and I wish so many things about this but it's over now. We won. I did my part, the best that I could, 'cause it's no use crying, and I won my own battle by overcoming that. I fought my own battle on our own side and I won in my own way.

And it's not a question of deserving or punishment, no, there are people who deserved it more than I did at other times than these. There are times when I should've been benched and I wasn't. Those things don't matter, it's a small step on a larger scale. I know that I am one of many, or one of a privileged group, and this was not a defeat on my part but a victory for all of us.

Only one person has said something to me about it, and I appreciate it more than anything. The tournament was a challenge, for us as a team and for each of us as individuals. It's nice that mine was acknowledge, if only by one person. It means something because others have failed in my position. So, thank you, you know who you are. And I don't think you'll read this, but at least this time I know who this is for.

Montreal, I'm happy to be back. It felt like a long time, five days. I know I'll want to leave again soon, but for now, for now.. you're alright, Montreal.

"Here is where loveliness can live with failure, and nothing's complete.
I love how we go on."
-Stephen Dunn "Loves"

Sometimes This Is All I Know

Day 24. To the one whom I cannot name; thank you. You don't know who you are, but maybe you will one day. To the one whom I cannot name; I had a perfect idea and this is it. Sometimes this is all I know.


I love you like a character in a book,
one who will never change because your soul
is pressed forever in the pages, but
will also grow as I grow, and I will learn new things from you
as I learn new things about myself.
This love is a constant discovery.
I love you because you jump with me.
I love you because you take me everywhere. We fly
everywhere together, you in my mind,
it's not a guest bedroom, it's a shared room.

I love you more than flowers, which remind me of my mother,
more than tulips and roses, more
than the memory of gardening in the front of the old house,
because you are here now,
you are real.

I love you more than love,
which I love a lot because it is the thing that has kept me safe
in the darkness of my room.
Love reminded me that I was human,
it kept me attached to the earth when everyone else
had let me go. It reminded me that I can feel,
that I'm alive.
I love you more than that living feeling,
more than the ropes that tied me to the ground,
because you are the ground, you are the earth.
You keep me grounded, you let me fly.
You take me out, you take me home.

I love you because you are the sky and
I love to light fireworks across your skin.
I love you because I don't know you
and I want to get to know you.
You attract me, you intrigue me, you make me curious,
you make me want to know what it's like behind your eyes.

I love you because you're not mine,
I love you because you're all I have.

I love you more than Saturday morning,
more than photographs because I never
need to remember anything when I'm with you.
Who needs memory,
I only remember the curves of your wrist,
I only remember nothing at all about you, but
I love you.
I love you more than memories.

I love you more than a character in a book
which I love a lot, I love books a lot,
I love you more than reading them.
I love you more than the ink on a page that will never change,
only stain.
I love you because there's more to you than
26 repeated letters in different combinations.
I love you more than books.
I love you more than reading
and writing
and reading my writing because truthfully
there is little honesty in these words.
I love you the way I say I do,
I simply do not know who you are.

I love you more than birds, which are free
and love is free and boundary-less.
I like you more than that.
Birds are tangible,
three-dimensional,
edible.
Love is quick to catch fire,
sparks,
embers burn long into the night.
I love you longer than night,
longer than the spread of eagle's wings,
the length of light from the sun on water.
Love is not so measurable as the sky,
which has limits,
but not the mind, which is so easily interrupted
but steady in its perseverance.




"Though I know I'll never lose affection
for people and things I've loved before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
in my life, I've loved you more.
In my life, I love you more."
The Beatles - "In My Life"