Chaos / Accidental Physical

I never thought I'd ever know -- you know --

life --

I never thought I'd have it all figured out.

I never thought happiness was a thing that would come to me.

I never thought I'd ever know -- you know --

just knowing, like, absolutely,

any one thing.

I never thought I'd ever be quite sure.

I mean, this is just to say, I still think this way.


It rained the day I went to Alcatraz. Not real rain, more like mist. Everything was wet and foggy. Well, that's San Francisco for you. Sometimes. I took pictures in black and white.


There was a time when my feelings were directly connected to my fingers and it would all come pouring out. There was a time when I wrote without my own critical eye. And it was good. Remember. Now it's a journey through a checklist of metaphors, narration, imagery, concrete imagery, quantity, point of view, conceit, no abstractions, and sense, does it make sense. And the words don't quite make their way out.


Summer is a time for getting drunk. But I want to get drunk in October. And I want it to be cheap and easy. I want to shiver. I want to be looking for a good time do you know when I last looked for a good time. I don't know when. I want to get drunk in October and I want the sky to be black and I want the beer to be disgusting because it's two for $6 Boreale and I want to dance in a dirty hipster bar with young dirty hipsters wearing neon tights and neon sunglasses to dirty hipster DJ playing LMFAO before LMFAO was cool I want to dance like I don't give a fuck that I'm dancing with my backpack on like I don't give a fuck that I'm dancing like I don't give a fuck like I don't give a fuck like I don't give a fuck 'cause I don't give a fuck.


And the words and the words and the words. They're never ending. And they don't quite make sense. There's no need to try and piece them together.


Always sitting there trying to name the feelings. Separate them, label them, explain them. And always the questions when I'm not ready. I don't know yet. And I might not ever know. Maybe leave me alone forever. Maybe leave me alone indefinitely. I can't articulate. I'm not ready.

And I am so spent. And I am so exhausted. And I can't see anymore. Beyond myself. I can't say just what I mean. I don't mean anything. I can't articulate.

And now I shrug my shoulders. And now I am alone. Why articulate?



All we want, baby, is everything.


This body grew like a tree from the earth. This body wants food. This body wants water. This body wants touch. This body wants space to stretch its legs. This body is sorry about some things but not about others. This body is sorry for pushing Tino in first grade gym class but not sorry about being angry. This body is physical. This body and other bodies. This body and the accidental physical. This body is full of insides and outsides. This body is full of spaces for the metaphorical abstract. This body is science. This body is art. This body bleeds every 27 days. This body has a literal heart. This body remembers some things but not others. This body remembers the taste of another body that had just consumed beer and marijuana. This body does not know what it has forgotten. This body and the accidental physical. This body cannot make sense of what is not part of it. This body can count. This body is not sure if it's put its feelings in the right place. This body cannot actually see inside itself. This body does not know what's going on inside itself. This body can see outside. This body can't see in the dark. This body is protein. This body is carbohydrates. This body is vitamins. This body created itself. What is this body but a tree grown from the earth, and every spring there is rebirth.







What happened to the days.

What happened to the things I had to say and then forgot.

Today is the day I listened to "Good Woman" by Cat Power for the 121st time.

don't ask if it even matters because both possible answers are equally horrifying and i know that you don't know what to do so either kill yourself or get through it and live better somehow

after all, is this life? up and down and your stomach bare naked on the floor. if only i could be a better human being, then i'd be a better human being. and if i were somebody else, then i'd be somebody else. you know, like, whatever. whatever whatever whatever. every second that i sit here, and, well, who cares? if it makes sense or not?

every time you hit your head against the wall, say sorry to the wall. do this in a repeating motion, sitting on a chair, in the same spot, until the egg cracks and the yolk runs.

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.

cheap honesty I.

MY DEAR FRIENDS, YOU ARE FUCKED. I LOVE YOU FAR TOO MUCH.

++

dec 6 2012

it would be really irresponsible for me to work 6am-3pm tomorrow right. and i should not be swayed by whoever picks up the phone

you cannot, emily. you HAVE to write your paper. seriously

do you know what it is. it is because if i don't go to work i don't leave the house. i need to go to therapy for my work related issues.

yeah....

i said no but i feel sad about saying no. i think i will take a shower.

maybe you should sign up for a hobby related class.

++

thinking of you listening to neko case

omg love neko case. what song are you listening to.

polar nettles

++

do you know any straight girls who wear men's underwear

random. i don't think so.

do you know any gay girls with long nails

yes...

...

.....

slash laughing alone in my room

did you finish your sound project?

i am finishing it now. so close. hence the hysteria. i keep getting interrupted by oscar who whines every time i close the door. then he stares at me when i open it

my roommate's cat used to do that. it made me hate him.

++

is darren being understanding?

yes he is amazing. he said he won't deduct marks as long as i hand it in while he's still marking the other papers.

wtf he is jesus. my idol.....

i know right

at least it's more generous than my 5 hour extension. ....which i didn't make.

++

dec 7 2012


i'm like moses: my body turns coffee into water.

some time later....

my shoulder feels dislocated

hola moses, mi examen final es hoy. then i am SO DONE. when are you finished?

tuesday

saweet. i smell a party.

well i was supposed to be mostly done this tuesday, but then i handed in everything late because of a mental breakdown and i'm still writing an essay because i'm a retard.

this is why we're friends, FYI.

i know i was thinking of you and how you're probably suffering just like me. we need to get out soon.

just found out my exam is 12 pages. 12 pages of spanish madness. officially getting off my phone.....now. see you when your social life finds you.

++

i got your other texts this morning because i was in bed..........i go to bed really early.

i know, because you wake up really early. i have 730 words written.

++

why are you calling me?! slash i bet it's a pocket dial.

one: i love how shocked (appalled?) you are that i might call and, two: it was a pocket...or book dial - i dropped my book on my phone b/c it sounded like one of the babies was dying in her sleep

you told me you never call people. for 2 seconds i felt really special. i hope the baby is ok.

indeed you are special, regardless. the baby turned out just to be snoring in the most old man way ever.

++

i am in a van, cramped up against the back because the self-entitled man in front of me put his seat far back. i feel like throwing up on the back of his head.

you should put your knees on his chair

ha, that is my plan.

damn those self entitled men. and the patriarchy.

you have no idea how much i hate men. sometimes i forget but it is always there, just simmering below the surface......probably only 5 percent kidding.

one day i will make you talk about your lesbian escapades....

one day.

soon.

++

dear darren, essay writing is going slowly because i am taking pictures of myself spooning my cat.

dear dr. cahill, your paper is still not in but i did spend an hour reading about how katy perry isn't a feminist and crafting an erudite facebook reply.

++

it's gotten to the point where i'm literally just collaging things other people have said about gail scott together and the only things i have written are "she argues that..."

hmmm....i suspect that is not going to work well....for darren....

i hope he appreciates my research. i did say that julie doucet and gail scott are both from montreal.

i just literally laughed out loud and i am in a van full of strangers.

how is that going by the way. are you almost there?

we are more than half way to toronto and i made the self-entitled asshole move his chair. he was rude (INDIGNANT) about it, if you can imagine (he has what is known as a "bucket seat" and so he is not even sharing/sitting beside someone!). 

well he is an idiot. those are the best seats.

yeah. basically that was the look i gave him and then i kneed his seat for extra effect.

you're the best.

i knooooowww..my bum is so NUMB. ....my text was in response to the seats being the best - i don't think my numb bum makes me the best. just so you don't think that.

++

I HAVE 3 HOURS TO WRITE 500 WORDS

YOU CAN DO THAT!

AHHH

half of that can be your conclusion!

the essay honestly makes no sense. it's kind of funny. at least i choose to see it that way

++

is it legal to rent an apartment in another country if you don't have a working visa (and you're not working)

no. but lots of people do it.

why is it not legal?

um i don't know. i think because you aren't doing anything there? maybe i am wrong but i don't know.... i guess if within a limited time...maybe?

hm. will do more research at a later date.

++

1,743 words i am so close i am so close i'm going to cry

yesssss. i knew you could do it!

i'm excited but slightly worried because this literally two essays about different things ... except that they are both from montreal!!! that sentence didn't even make sense.

This Is The Story of a Girl

This is the story of Emily Choo who went to buy a bottle of wine at the grocery store on a Sunday evening and never returned. She disappeared into a vortex combination of insanity and patheticism. She didn't even care that patheticism is not a word. It all started when she saw the family sized pack of oreos on sale for $2.99. "Sweet deal!" she said and grabbed a box. Then she continued to the wine section, where she was disappointed by the lack of $6.99 bottles of white wine. Thinking she might have to pick red, her eye was suddenly caught by $7.39 boxed wine. Feeling as pleased as one can feel when buying a giant pack of oreos and boxed wine, she proceeded to the checkout counter where she promptly burst into flames and disappeared into said vortex of shame and madness and patheticism.

Inside the vortex Emily had a hard look at her life. She went to Concordia, not McGill; she studied Creative Writing, not "Business"; and she was drinking wine from a box (did it even matter that she couldn't find a glass at this point?). "I can name all the countries in the world!" She said, hanging on to this one useless skill as a shining point of her life. "I can name all the countries in the world and all the state capitals and the capitals of countries in Europe and South America," said her friend Rachel. "Fuck," said Emily, and overdosed on oreos. "Is it because I listened to dubstep?" she asked. "Because I swear to you, I don't even really know what dubstep is."

Then, seemingly from all around, a voice spoke:

"hi i'm oscar i'm your cat you went to the grocery store in your pyjamas that's just sad, and i have literally been asleep all day."

"Oscar! Kitty! I feed you! Help me!" Emily cried out. "Where are you?"

"hi i am on your bed getting hair all over your pillow. first of all, turn off that shitty music and put a bra on. second of all, get yourself a wine glass, girl. thirdly, write your goddamn midterm and don't forget to take out the garbage tonight ok."

And like a phoenix born out of its own ashes, Emily was thrown out of the vortex into her apartment where she could confirm that Oscar indeed was getting hair all over her pillow.

"hi no fucks to give," he said.

conversation, 2:39pm, wednesday

emily, did you write your paper?

of course not.

what have you been doing for the past 3 hours?

nothing. i made an internet purchase.

you have not moved from that chair for 3 hours.

i found the cat in the bathroom. lying next to the heater.

write your paper.

i can't.

why not.

i am defunct.

you are not.

yes i am.

no.

yes.

this is stupid.

yes.

write your paper.

in a second.

how many cups of coffee have you had?

2.

now you are feeling insane.

yes.

too much coffee.

no.

drink more?

soon.

can't move?

no. defunct.

not defunct.

just dying. the cat has a cold i think.

maybe you should clean the apartment.

i can't.

why not?

i have to write a paper.

write your paper.

write my paper.

write it.

write write write.

write it!!!!!

typing now. type type type.

it's a cat! i'm a cat

cat cat cat

we're a cats

there's a cat in the house

it was a beautiful shitty place

names changed for privacy.

i used to live in a shitty apartment in the plateau, surrounded by nicer looking triplexes. the landlord was a busy jewish man with a black suv who banged vigorously on our door for rent every month. i found my roommates on craigslist. i think originally it was supposed to be a one-bedroom apartment but was then turned into a three-bedroom to fit more people. greg's room used to be a closet i think. my room was bigger than his but also small. it could fit a single bed in one direction only. i painted my room green and it was kind of ugly and i left it there when i moved out. nobody ever used the living room. we didn't even have a table until greg bought a tiny tv tray which tilted slightly on the uneven floor. kevin's friend who used to live there before i did still had a pile of stuff in the living room. he never picked it up in all the 8 months that i lived there. it included a tv, a basketball, a book about mao zedong, and a bright blue bra which appeared out of nowhere one day.

one time, i listened to post-war by m. ward a lot and it was beautiful and things hurt but a good kind of hurt, you know? i remember lying in my blue sheets in my green room trying to figure out what 'home' meant.

and absence ate the year

october 21 2010

now, now, it's broken now. all of it, all of us. i am up late again, waiting for a bus. the sky is a worn midnight wash, i mean, that's a real colour. i felt i knew it all along, and now i feel it, painful, hungry again, lonely on the way home from work.

i would like an invitation, would like to stop dreaming about a white shirt i've never seen you wear. would i even go? no, no, no. can't stop dreaming. would like to say, i like your smile. just saying.

no, wait, wait, yes. it's still pretty. would like to ask permission to kiss you outside but i'm too shy. ok, go, i am sure, this is a bad idea. lean. leeeeean.

the man asleep doesn't know when he's missed his stop. is he dreaming of you like i do, no, is he haunted by a ghost, hungry for something real. no. i am tired and i know, i shouldn't kiss you on the mouth, shouldn't accidentally touch your blouse. but, i know. i am hungry for something real. i am cold on the way home from work because it's windy and that's how the world works.

++

stephen dunn: "from the start all i wanted to explain was how things go wrong, how the heart's an empty place until it is filled"

i can never say how we got here. how i became me and you became you. how we believed that no one would leave before we were ready, until they did. how i learned that absence can grow or diminish, and nothing is for sure. how absence is easily replaced by another body that makes the same motions, and then it's fine i guess. how absence is actually just nothing over again against the side of your brain, saying there is nothing now where there once was something.

i remember sitting on that bus thinking about jeans, and absence ate the year, and i brushed against your shoulder.

today my body trembled a little bit when i thought of you. that's a whole other beat. it's a whole other hole.

cactus

this chicken used to be frozen until i fried it in a pan. chicken for lunch. inside a tortilla wrap with lettuce.

i used to be a human but now i am just a thing the cat uses to get somewhere else.

it used to be sunny but now it is rainy.

it used to be rainy but now it is sunny.

what the fuck?

this page used to be blank until i wrote these words.

my mind is blank.

I've Decided That I Am Going To Be Famous

So after many years of thinking I didn't want to be famous, I have now decided that I do. I mean I have now decided that I am going to be famous. This abrupt shift in thinking came after realizing that Alex Pettyfer was born the same year I was, and also Lily's article where she realizes that she can no longer be a teen star because she is not a teen anymore. It's weird because I don't even really like Alex Pettyfer or teen stars.

But since I've decided to be famous, I've run into a bit of a problem, namely that I have no marketable talent such as: acting, singing, dancing, playing an instrument, improvising, painting things, modelling etc. Therefore I've concluded that I will become famous by being the next J.K Rowling, except younger. See, I need to be a young famous person so that I can influence the young generations with my words and bestselling book(s) and change the world. Also because I don't want to wait 20 years to be famous.

Also I will make good poetry popular again and move to the west coast where the other famous people are.

Tina Fey will read my book and write a movie about me, which reminds me that I need to read Tina Fey's book. I will be famous by the time Tina Fey is 50 years old.

If the book thing doesn't work out then I'll let people take naked pictures of me until I have enough money to buy my way to fame, or at least an apartment in Los Angeles (that's basically being famous, right?).

If at the last minute I decide not to share my naked body with everybody on the internet, and the book thing really doesn't work out, then I guess I'll just have to get a day job or something. Ugh.

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.

A Few Things

Hi. Okay, I don't really have any ideas for a blog post so I'm just going to tell you things so that you keep reading and don't forget about me.

I went to see Hollerado Friday night in Montreal and it was one of the best shows I've ever been to. I don't know how to explain it other than to say that it ended with the audience on stage with the band, jumping around to Neil Young's 'Rocking in the Free World'. I mean there's few things that will get me to jump around like a crazy person like that, I didn't even want to do it when I played hockey and that was basically the same thing as working out. I know I'm small but moshing is fun.

As a bit of a sidenote, I've noticed that some of the best concerts are the ones that cost ~$8. Tegan and Sara are my favourite band, but now that they're "big" and their concerts cost ~$35, they lose some of the intimacy that smaller shows definitely get. There are stricter boundaries as well, for example, the audience would never be able to jump on stage at a T&S show.

Katie is going to Australia in January and when she goes I'm losing my concert-going buddy. So I'm going to have to put up an ad for that. But I feel very sensitive about this, like I think I might just go to concerts alone instead because I will just be very sad that Katie is gone and no one can fill her shoes. Because she has big feet. Ha ha. Okay. The editor in my brain is telling me to erase that but I'm not going to because then you would never read it.

So, a few other things. November was pretty decent, I think I only cried once. It went by really fast and now the semester's almost over and honestly, I feel pretty sad about that. That's probably another post for when my exams are done. But in general, I feel good about November. It seems that just when I started getting settled in and used to things it's all ending, but what can you do. I got a harmonica for my birthday and I've been teaching myself some real hardcore songs like "You Are My Sunshine" and "Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer". I'm a little bit in denial that I'm 20. I also might be in denial that the past 3 months actually happened. I don't know. Sometimes I'm in denial that I'm actually a real person and that's when I know I should see my therapist.

I guess this is a bit of an update or something. I want to write about the Mary Gaitskill reading I went to a month ago but clearly that keeps getting pushed back. So maybe in a few months you'll hear about that. Is there anything you want me to tell you about, do you want me to write a story or something. Remember when Riese told you to ask her questions and then she would answer them? I would do that but I don't think anyone would ask any questions because Riese has 32908443 more readers than I do. One day I want to write a blog post about how much I love Riese. Also, Riese, if you're reading this, I want the rights to your biography. Thanks.

Ok here's the end of a poem by Stephen Dunn:

Poem For People Who Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry

Imagine yourself a caterpillar.

There's an awful shrug and, suddenly,

You're beautiful for as long as you live.

Open Letter to Myself

You got what you wanted. You stumbled home drunk and it was cold. Why is that a thing that you wanted. You were alone. You were walking with a ghost who's not coming back. You lay on the bed and your head spun and your ears rang and your heart burst but mostly you did not feel because you had drank too much. And it reminded you of other nights in another city where things were softer. And you said to yourself why did you do that. And you said to yourself, to make it hurt. Because you're a masochist. Because you're crazy. Because there's something wrong with you. Your mind is on fire.

Put it out, put it out. Don't ever put out the fire in your heart.

You got what you wanted. You wandered towards the moon. You wandered towards the cross on top of the mountain which never got any closer. You never got closer to anything. You never figured yourself out. Instead you trapped yourself inside a box and now you're stuck. And you wake up and you don't know where you are.

You're drunk all the time. You're not even a person sometimes. You're a shadow. You're the moon which never gets closer to anyone. You just run away all the goddamn time. Half of your christmas lights don't light up and you don't know how to fix that. And what about your inability to glue even the largest of broken pieces back together.

Why did you make the choices that you made. You got everything you wanted and you're still let down. Why do you live here. And what if you could have someone here right now beside you. Instead of writing this you could be talking to someone real instead of talking to yourself. Sometime there'll be someone here beside you and this room will be too small and you'll bump into each other way too often.

But your loneliness will go out like a candle in the close quarters.

[And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor --

And this, and so much more? -- ]

[Places to kiss:

+ On Rachel, in the middle of the street, between Clark and St. Urbain, facing the mountain.

+ Against the Sun Youth building.]

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)

I Think I'll Print It In The Personals That I'm Looking For A Match

Wanted: Robot Girlfriend

Position starting immediately - mid/late-December

Tasks:

+ eat dinner with me

+ go grocery shopping with me

+ do laundry with me

+ be available for hours of cuddling and spooning (therefore it would help if you are a critter)

+ come over when i call you on the telephone

+ appreciate random text messages

+ make me breakfast in the morning

+ go to bars with me at the last minute

+ bake with me

Bonus if you:

+ have a car

+ have money

+ like sweatpants

DO NOT APPLY IF YOU:

+ have feelings

+ like to wake up early

+ have a life

[also this:

Wanted single F,

under 33

must enjoy the sun

must enjoy the sea

sought by single M F

nothing too heavy

send photo to address

is it you and me?]

Also also I live here:

JUST SAYING. Maybe you want to come over or something.

now things feel like the way they did before i met you

various states i am living in: missing, waiting

i haven't had time to write much because i've been trying to figure out how to live again. i feel like i've gone backwards in time a bit. also i've forgotten how to write normal sentences.

i went to the laundromat for the first time. i met three different people there. one guy told me i could go next door to get change. another guy asked me if i got wifi and i told him no, but that was a good thing because i wanted to read my article with no distractions. i went home 5 minutes later without reading anything. then i came back and realized that i had forgotten to put a sock in the washer. i asked a woman if i could just open the door and put the sock in. she said it was probably locked, but to try it. i tried it. it was locked. i shrugged my shoulders and said i have a rogue sock. she shrugged her shoulders and laughed. she left.

i read two pages of my politics in china book. for every quarter, the dryer dries for 5 minutes. i brought my clothes home half dried and opened my window really wide.

Is Anna Wintour Practicing Mind Control On Us?

Do you ever read something on the internet and then you can't stop clicking links and searching until hours and hours have passed and you've read 100 wikipedia pages and your eyes burn? The other day I watched The Devil Wears Prada and became so fascinated with Vogue/Anna Wintour/Fashion/Meryl Streep's Character that I started searching for all these things and next thing you know I'm watching The September Issue and reading a biography of Anna Wintour at Chapters.

It's just so crazy! She's this all-powerful woman and impossible to determine her true character. I read her wikipedia page and here's a woman who's been nicknamed "Nuclear Wintour", dislikes fat people, is cold and aloof, and reportedly once sent a plate of roast beef to anti-fur protestors outside Vogue's building. Then, I watched The September Issue and was kind of surprised. The only impressions I took away from the documentary were a) Grace Coddington is awesome, b) Anna Wintour is kind of cute, and c) she doesn't seem that evil.

See, everybody knows that it's hard to get a real grasp on a person (especially someone like Anna Wintour who is very private) from speculation, press/random articles, and fictitious books maybe based on her. That's why I was so curious to see The September Issue. Ultimately I was kind of disappointed. I feel like I learned more about Grace Coddington's character than Anna's, besides seeing the potential that Anna is in fact a human being with a heart/soul, though probably they didn't show everything they could have shown about her, and probably she gave the answers she wants other people to hear. Don't trust things that can be edited. The September Issue did nothing to help me decide if Anna Wintour is a cold-hearted bitch or a strong/ambitious person who is also shy and has incurred the wrath of many beneath her. She's also aroused the curiosity of many, and done very little to satisfy it, much to my dismay.

Says The Globe and Mail: "If you want the dish on Vogue fashion editor Anna Wintour, you'll get more from the Wikipedia entry than in the whole of R.J Cutler's documentary, The September Issue." (except this whole article is full of errors but WHATEVER)

All I know for sure about Anna Wintour is that she is fucking influential. She's the reason why we have celebrities on the covers of magazines! She's the person who "ignited the fur industry"! Anna Wintour controls what is in style SHE CONTROLS WHAT YOU WEAR! Is Lady Gaga her protégé and are they brainwashing us and taking over the planet?

Is Anna Wintour this person...

...or this person?

In any case, I'm going to reread ("read") the only copy of Vogue I've ever bought (March 2010 with Tina Fey on the cover) more carefully now.

Does anyone care about this? What happens when Anna Wintour retires?? She's been the editor-in-chief of American Vogue for over 20 years! WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO THE WORLD!? IS IT WEIRD THAT I'M SO FASCINATED BY THIS WHEN I DON'T EVEN CARE ABOUT FASHION!? WHO IS ANNA WINTOUR!?

if this, then this

when i say shut your eyes, shut your eyes. okay. now shut your eyes. do you hear the piano through the open window? it is our neighbor playing erik satie. now when i say open your eyes, open your eyes. yes. good. open your eyes. do you see christmas lights and birds and stars above you? they are blowing in the wind. yes, even the stars. they move like static to the wind. i am wearing your sweater. it is wrapped around my body and it smells like you. i feel safe and sound and sadder than i have ever known. i cannot cry because it is inside of me like a giant swell of a wave, like a sigh, like a... like a... like sigur ros on a sad day.

i am afraid i am bad at this dance we are doing.

why does it hurt like this. i shut my own eyes, very tight. very tight so no light can come in. i shut them tight. if i can't see this maybe it is not happening. it hurts to be near you. everything hurts so very much.

i see christmas lights and stars. i think briefly of russia. white walls and red sheets, red carpets. this time is not that time. my hands and feet are numb and i want.

i crawl and i am slow. i am slow and i am shy. i am afraid i am bad at this dance we are doing. i'm afraid i will not let myself get better because i think i have sewn my mouth shut. i can't tell you where to turn. you will never get there until i tell you how to get there and i will never go anywhere now because when i go without you i just cry [everything makes me cry] so now i crawl and i am slow. maybe because you are listening i am embarrassed for you to hear.

and i keep expecting you to walk through that door.

there is no such thing as eye contact on skype

skype is this really great invention that let's you see and talk to someone else anywhere in the world provided you both have a computer and skype. skype is free. you can even get skype on your iphone. skype is kind of like a phone, but free. free calls! anywhere in the world!

i spend a lot of time on skype. so much, that i've developed a bitterness towards it. 'cause you can't touch anyone on skype. and when you close your computer at night, you're alone. and when you look at someone, they can't even tell. and when they look at you, you don't even know. you can't really see anything, just pixelated faces, mouths frozen or lagging.

yesterday i biked to the house i used to live in. i just biked by, quickly, because i saw mr. vaillancourt sweeping his drive and i didn't want him to notice me if i stopped. i wonder how old he is now. the entire street looked unchanged, but everything was. there was a mini statue of jesus in our old garden.

i rode past my elementary school, through the park and the trees i used to climb, past shannon's house, past shane's house, through the grass into the forest where the kids make mountains in the dirt to do bike tricks. the only difference between now and then is that the mountains are bigger now. i guess we are too.

if you had told me 7 years ago that i'd be here now, moved across the main street to a new house, making no eye contact on skype, i would have said what the hell is skype.

i'm moving again, too. or trying to. growing up is stranger than i thought it would be.

remember when everything was new, before this was a habit? i had butterflies in my stomach and shivers right to my fingertips. sometimes i can't believe this is real.

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.