And You Didn't Ask Why

You wake with your face sticky with sweat and you shiver in the chill of the morning. You roll yourself out of bed and you pull on a sweater and you pull the hood over your forehead. And you stumble down the hall to the kitchen to make yourself breakfast. And your feet on the cold kitchen tile make you shiver in the chill of the morning. The blue light of the morning crawls through the window which faces an alley off a street you've never been to. Right behind your own home there are places you've never been to. And the building on the other side casts shadows all day long. There are squirrels eating through the plastic garbage bags on your balcony and there is a cat in the kitchen with his face pressed to the window and you eat instant oatmeal in the middle of the kitchen watching it all. And you shiver. And you shiver. And you shiver. And you know no profound things.

Spring Came Bearing Sunlight, Those Few Persuasive Rays

Did you know that there were only 3 full weeks in april? Unless you count the first week and the last week and then there would be 4 full weeks and a few extra days. Spring is my favourite time of the year.

do you spell it favourite or favorite?
colour or color?
honour or honor?

When the semester is over I'm going to party. Hard. Hopefully I'll be employed by then, then on weekends when people ask me to go out I'll say "No, sorry I can't, I'm working tomorrow morning." and they'll say "Who cares? Come anyway, it'll be fun." and I won't be able to resist and I'll show up for work exhausted but I'll make money for the next weekend so it evens itself out in the end.

Last weekend I went on a hike up Mt. St. Hilaire as part of my gym intensive. For the most part I enjoyed myself. Upcoming Sunday: Mt. Orford. It's a lot more fun when you have good company, like I did. Lately I've been surrounding myself with really great people. If you're reading this and you've been around me recently I probably love you a lot right now. It's not where you are, it's who you're with. Right?

And lots of great things are happening around the world, too: Obama's 100 days in office have so far been a success, everyone in Iowa is allowed to get married, Penelope Cruz is Spanish, Gesche Peters exists, I'm taking more pictures, the swine flu's going around... everything is great!

"I tell you these stories because these things happen to everyone it's not about being starched or polished or cute or polite. It's about having ears that stick out, about breaking yet another glass. It's about seeing something for the first time and making a million mistakes and not ever getting completely discouraged." - Maira Kalman

P.S. April showers bring May flowers

Life Is So Quick And Sometimes It Goes Away Too Quickly

It's my favorite time of year, spring. Something about the world changes in March, I'm sure of it. I didn't write in my journal during February and March last year. That's a good thing. It means I wasn't dying.

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Now's a good time to write a song about the people I love. Or have loved. I think so much about love that I don't even know what it is anymore.

This scar is a fleck on your porceline skin, you tried to reach deep but you couldn't get in..

Live through this, and you won't look back.

But we always live through it. What else can we do? What else can we do but raise our tired bodies off the ground and keep living. What else do we do except pick ourselves up and keep moving. Affirmative action. We must always move forward.

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"I love that a list like this always must extend itself, and must exclude, slash. Loving: such a ruthless thing." - Stephen Dunn "Loves"

Movies to buy:

• Milk

CD's to purchase:

• Coldplay - Viva La Vida
• Stars

Things to Do:

• experience
• take more pictures
• write
• celebrate

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

If I haven't lived to the fullest it's because I didn't know how.

[if I haven't loved you it's because I didn't know how.]

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I've got
two bags of popcorn and a pack of licorice in my locker. I overindulge when you're away, but my life seems less full. [more empty]. That's the nicest compliment you'll ever get from me and you're not going to read it.

I never used to care if anyone loved me, but now I do. Because I've discovered that I love other people.

I'd like to write a book where the good guy loses. 'Cause sometimes that happens in real life,
you know.

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[Attention: Service is slow on the green line from Angrignon to Lionel-Groulx.]
Attenion: this is the story of my life. A lot of people are angry. I'm kind of waiting for someone to push me into the metro doors as they rush past, so desperate to get to work on time. I wouldn't even mind waiting for the next one, but I too, have some place to go. I haven't panicked or worried. I'm apathetic in fact. This is a sign, I think.

Attention: We are all trying to get somewhere. I already know where I'm going, I already have my routine planned out. Our goal is this: to get from here to there and not break down in between.

Here, to there. There and back again. On s'en fou des autres. Just don't get in my way.

Are you late because of the metro? She asks. Sure, he says. Sure.

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She laughs like it's the funniest thing she's ever heard and I want to punch her in the face, 'cause I hate her, I just hate that dumb bitch.

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Books that have stayed with me:

• the perks of being a wallflower
• the neverending story
• losing forever

and

• the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy

because it taught me how to fly and that a towel is all I might ever need.

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Sometimes I worry my computer will crash and everything I have will be lost but I still never back up my hard drive. I have a lot of irrational fears, this isn't one of them though. It's irrational because it's never happened to me, but it has happened to a lot of other people therefore making it rational. I read an article about a guy who lost all 500 pictures of his baby son because he forgot to back up his hard drive. I have a lot of pictures and documents I'd be really upset about if I lost them. Kind of like if my house burned down. Sometimes I worry about that. It seems irrational but it happens to people. Just not me, yet. Hopefully never. I think the first thing I would grab if my house was on fire is my laptop. I would probably trip and fall down the stairs though. Such is life. I'm not really nervous about this because I doubt it's going to happen. But I think about it, and I wonder if my house is on fire or if we've been robbed or if I dropped my Obama pin leaving school the other day and I did and I'm sad. I'm sad when something innocent is lost but I don't envy the innocent.

Today I was thinking that I don't have enough stories to tell and that means I should go outside more often or be more sociable or live more on the edge. Then I thought that I don't know how to do that so I should become a recluse and invent stories. But I don't really want to do that. Stories only come in retrospect so maybe by the summer I'll have a story to tell, something to write about. I mean, I've got stories, everyone's got stories. But are my stories worth telling?

Actually, I always knew that this would happen. That coming out of my depression would mean I wouldn't be able to write well anymore, wouldn't be able to find inspiration, would not have that sense of creativity, or artistry. That it would all be bland, really bland, boring, forced. I just never thought I'd come out of my depression.

And I never thought happiness would be so fucking boring. [I must not be happy then.]

"And the lows are so extreme that the good seems fucking cheap"

I just want to feel. I never thought I'd say this, but I want to fucking feel something, like the way I did before. I want to feel the way I did, to the extreme, with passion. I want everything to hurt so much that I have to scratch at my skin to try and get to my heart so I can rip it out because it's swelling and it might slide into my stomach at any second. Dear God if you exist never let me settle for anything less than passion. I just want my anger back, burning sadness is better than apathy. Dear God I want to be full of emotion. I want it to hurt.

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I think people misinterpret my body language sometimes. Really, they are just totes off the mark.

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"Oh, the importance of ground
when leaving the ground."
- Stephen Dunn "Loves"

running, returning

So what else do you do besides feel?
Contemplate the unusual and analyse human behavior.

Do you ever get tired of that?
Yes.

What do you do then?
Enter in a scholarly conversation with myself.

Define 'scholarly'.
I was JK.

Do you think talking to yourself makes you crazy?
No.

Do you think there's a point to this?
Maybe. There must be if I keep doing it.

What do you miss most about the past?
My old house.

Why?
It reminds me of flowers, and summer.

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And sometimes when you're on, you're really fucking on.
- Rilo Kiley "A Better Son/Daughter"

Life's Unanswerable Questions: Day 38

What day is it? Day 38! I'm losing track! This is getting stupid! I feel like there was something I had to tell you guys but I really can't remember right now. Anyways I'm about to go on a rant about nothing, enjoy.

It's up for grabs. You know that feeling when you're in between something? Like late May when school is done but summer hasn't officially started. I've got that feeling now, like I'm waiting for something, waiting for the next wave of life to come at me. I don't really know what to do with myself, all my events seemed poised for the "distant" future. What's happening tomorrow? I really have no clue. It's up for grabs. Does anyone want to make my day? Can I make my own day exciting? The weeks are passing pretty quickly. I was surprised to find how close we are to midterms. It's a nervous excitement, a sort of wonder that it's almost March, it's almost spring, I might see green grass soon. I might be able to wear a sweater outside soon. I might be able to wear my converse and not have frozen, wet feet. It's up for grabs, really. The day can be anybody's moment. I could be anything.

I don't really get spring cleaning. I mean, as of right now it feels like a really bad time to be throwing things out. I know it's not spring yet, but I'm thinking it's gotta come pretty soon. If there's any time to be cleaning shit up, it's the end of August. That's when I would have a garage sale. Of course, I hoard everything and am materialistic and idealistic and romantic and can't part with anything because I'm afraid I might need it at some point in my life 20 years down the road so I'll be carting everything I own with me forever as I accumulate it over the years. I probably should do some cleaning, some weeding (this is not a reference to drugs), I know it would make my step-mom really happy.

Okay I actually remember what I was going to talk about. It was the general collapsing of emotions. Sometimes the smallest hurts trigger the biggest pains. What am I talking about? My friend had a knee injury and has finally recovered, only today somebody accidentally hit it. She cried, but I recognized that kind of crying. It probably hurt a lot, but it wasn't fucked up again. It hurt a lot but also, the world hurt a lot. I know that kind of crying, I've done it so many times.

"The last song on the record is dedicated to people who are alone. I mean, like alone and you stub your toe and you fall on the ground and you sob hysterically into the ground and you're like, 'What is wrong with my life?'" - Sara (Tegan and Sara)

Right??? It's not really cause you stubbed your toe that you're crying. It's because it's one too many things that hurt. Now, I've been feeling really good lately (by lately I mean last 4 months). If I stub my toe I will probably swear a lot and move on. But I've been there before, when I used to just lie on the ground and wonder 'What the fuck is going on' and it's like what Riese (this girl called automatic win) said, I never really expected an answer. I still don't. But I guess I'm asking myself those kinds of questions less and less. I mean I still wonder, I'm still afraid, but I guess I've learned to distance myself from those fears. I'm actually not sure if this is a good thing. I guess it's good because I'm happy, but I haven't felt anything so passionately in a while. I miss that a little bit. I miss feeling very passionate, very intense. I miss feeling on the edge of something big. Now I feel stuck, I feel like I'm waiting, like I'm staring down a flat plain, a straight road right in front of me. I'm waiting for something to hit me, to wake me up or knock me out. Maybe I'm waiting for reality or what used to be, the way things were when everything seemed too big. I wrote a lot more in my journal then.




So far this post has been about nothing. But I hope you learned something about anything. Maybe you learned that I am vague about everything. Did you discover something about yourself? Are you nodding your head in agreement as you read along? Feel free to comment about how nonsensical this all is, or how, despite the nonsense, sometimes it makes perfect sense. Sometimes the abstract feels real.

Or DON'T COMMENT. I DON'T CARE!

No, really. Sometimes the only consolation in life is that someone views it the same way as you. If you share something with me, then good, keep it and remember that you're not alone. I won't know that we share a common bond of understanding, but that's okay. Seriously.