dear natasha,

i read your poem 'monarch butterflies use the earth's magnetic field' and i just want you to know

it's a great poem and all but what do you mean the magnetic field is preparing to flip

what exactly does that mean

is this like a real thing or a thing you made up

because i don't have a back-up system

how will i get home

it is 4am and i am really worried about this

i could look it up on the internet but i'd rather have you explain it to me

please write back soon

your friend

emily


ps natasha

it's 4am and i'm reading your poetry on the internet

sometimes the world is wonderful

thoughts

so peel peel peel back the layers to find the same thing. it took four years to grow backward, to say look i did the circuit and now i'm back, look

look, i climbed the mountain and it was just as lonely on the other side.

why is everything so weird

i wrote this thing in october 2010 about the landmarks that were approaching in my life. it was called 'why is everything so weird'. instead i posted this. reading this right now makes me feel weird.

Late November, early December

Around this time I started working at American Eagle, which was supposed to be a Christmas job, and yet I'm still here even though I live far away from where I work. I also don't know how I feel about this. In the past 2 months American Eagle has been the only thing keeping me sane because it's the only thing in my life that's remained familiar. I genuinely like everyone I work with and I'm writing it here even though I don't think any of them read this, which is totally fine. I don't know if I'm good at my job.

If I didn't work at American Eagle I probably would never have talked to any of the people I work with, and I don't think they would have talked to me. And that's okay, because we're different, kind of, and I would never have applied if I hadn't already been friends with someone who worked there. I'm glad I get to work with people I wouldn't have otherwise met.

I've been thinking about my job lately, and people keep asking me why I don't get transferred since I live in the city now, and I can't really explain why except that it's become kind of comforting. I've even (sort of) come to enjoy being the janitor on Sunday mornings. I don't know. They should pay me more to clean the light fixtures, I probably have 5 pounds of dust in my lungs or something.

++

Everything is so weird. I guess this is called "growing". Why do things have to mean something? None of these dates are really important, except maybe my birthday which is important to society and possibly my grandmother. I don't know what life will be like this time next year, I don't want to know, don't tell me. I wouldn't believe you anyway.

i think i remember having a dream around this time about someone in a white cotton shirt. i think my life is the same but different.

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.

Life Lessons I Learned This Weekend

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

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

2. I am in a false world

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

3. Everything in my life is completely and totally dramatized

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

5. Dreams are not real

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

Identity Crisis #3: Am I White?

This is a better written off shoot of one of my other identity crises. Despite being Chinese/having an "Eastern" background sometimes I still feel like I'm an Orientalist/appropriating other cultures.

++

When I look in the mirror I don't see a Chinese person. I don't see a Jewish person or a lesbian. I don't see a boy or a girl. I don't know what I see. I think I see someone who is just scared of being anything.

I was born in Canada to immigrant parents but to immigrant parents who themselves had been raised in Canada. My dad's family moved to Toronto when he was around 10 and my mother's family moved to Montreal when she was around 5. They were educated in Canada and have not lived outside of Canada in over 20 years or maybe ever (since they moved here)?

I was raised in the suburbs in a fairly white neighbourhood in a middle-class family. There was enough money for me to play sports and have toys and have food everyday and also pay medical bills because my mother was ill (though I didn't think of these things when I was a kid). I went to high school and there were, like, 3 black kids. I think there was one other Chinese kid in my grade. The "biggest" minority were the Jewish kids, about 5 or 6 in the sports program my dad had enough money to pay for. Everyone else was white. This is not to say "I'M SO OPPRESSED" this is actually to say I grew up in an extremely white setting -- so much so that I accidentally let slip "other white people" in reference to myself to Laura in February and she asked me if I considered myself white. And I've thought a lot about it since then.

This is the opposite of "I'm oppressed". When I fill out job applications and they ask me if I'm part of a minority group and list a bunch of options, I feel like I'm exploiting something when I mark off "Chinese" (I don't, however, feel bad about marking off "woman"). Being Chinese has, luckily, never limited my options, at least not that I know of. I don't think I've ever not gotten a job for being Chinese, though once I didn't get a job because I don't speak Cantonese.

I've lived my life in white neighbourhoods, gone to school with white kids, played sports with white kids, had as much money as the average white person, have been taught mostly the same values as non-religious white kids. If you went into my house without knowing who it belonged to, you would probably never guess "Chinese". You might guess "Jewish" if you search really hard and find our menorah, but then you would probably be confused by my step-mom's Christmas decorations. The Chinese food we usually eat is take-out. Just like other white people and Jews on New Year's eve (JKKK).

I have had the opportunities that white, middle-class people my age have had. If asked who I identify most with, between a Chinese person from China and a white person from North America, I would choose a white person from North America. But in some situations among non-asians I can't help but feel extremely Chinese. I've gotten weird questions like "Do you have statues of Buddha in your home?", or people will say something about China and might add in a "no offense" in there (what even?) or ask me if I know the answer (I don't). Someone once told my friend that she thought I was "pretty for an Asian". It used to bother me that people assumed I knew things about China because in my mind I was so clearly not Chinese that I just couldn't understand why people would think I would know. I understand better now (but that doesn't make it right). When the subject of China comes up I suddenly feel extremely conscious of looking like a Chinese person.

But I feel like an impostor in a half-Chinese person's body. I know very little about China. Before I took a class on China last semester pretty much all I knew about Chinese culture was that General Tao chicken is not an authentic Chinese dish. I didn't even know which city my family was from or which dialect of Chinese they spoke.

When I look in the mirror I don't see a Chinese person. I definitely don't look Jewish. I don't even consider myself a real Jew, in fact, my half-assed attempts to celebrate major holidays are probably an insult to real religious people. I consider myself more "queer" than "gay" or "bisexual" because I'm still trying to figure myself out, but queer people can look like anyone.

I don't see a white person either though. I know I'm not white, I just have white privileges, for the most part, right now. What does that make me? (Answer: confused).

Nobody Cared About The Giant Goldfish In My Bathtub

Last night I had a dream that a giant goldfish came out of the drain while I was in the shower in a giant 4-story home where I lived on the 2nd floor with a couple with a baby, but nobody cared about the giant goldfish because somebody related to me had just given birth to a baby and everybody (and by everybody I mean my cousin and this girl I used to work with?) was all obsessed with the baby. I was in my towel like, "you guys, a GOLDFISH. In the BATH." And they were like "BABIES BABIES BABIES BABIES".

image via autostraddle's prop 8 recap, a thing totally unrelated to my dream

What does this mean in my life. Please advise.

Identity Crisis #2: Hair

The last time I got a haircut was in the middle of August on top of a roof by professional hair cutter & stylist Laura Wooley Mammoth and I was half naked. Look, here is a picture from that same day.

my hair stylist and I are closepersonalfriends.

I usually get my hair cut every ~3 months as my hair grows fast and it is also short which means that I have to cut it in order to avoid the shaggy dog look. But this year I moved out of my parents' house and September, October, November, and parts of December happened and by that I mean my life disintegrated to the point where I was a frumpy mess of clothes lying in bed wondering if I actually existed. In between this and trying to spend as little money as possible, I seriously considered letting my hair grow out. I have not had long hair since I was 17. Mostly every time I think about growing my hair out, I think about the shaggy dog phase and then decide that I don't want to do it. In November I asked for a haircut for my birthday, which I didn't get. I don't remember what I was thinking at the time. I think I just couldn't be bothered to get a haircut/didn't want to spend money on it/wanted my professional hair stylist to do it until I decided that I wanted to grow my hair long enough for a full ponytail and then cut it off.

Okay, most of that is bullshit.

Here's what I noticed when I first cut my hair back in grade 11: people started calling me 'sir'. I have never been called 'sir' until I cut my hair. I have to make a bit of a stretch to see where people get confused with my gender, but I can see it. I get it, kind of. One might say that I have an androgynous face. I don't know. Some people are surprised when I tell them people call me 'sir', some people are not.

I also noticed that when I got a fauxhawk I got called 'sir' a lot more, especially at work. This led me to wear v-necks and boots with heels more often.

You see, this is the truth: part of me is afraid I am growing my hair out because I want to "pass". I'm afraid I'm doing it for the wrong reasons. Semi-consciously I've tried to pass at work because let's face it, it's fucking awkward when customers realize you're not actually a 'sir'. I've spent most of my life wanting to fit in with the "normal" kids, but I could never wear the dresses or heels or 234 different kinds of make up. But I could have the long hair. Right? A teeny tiny part of me wants to be normal.

But really, I want to be a person who is not afraid to be herself. Sometimes I am. I want people to recognize that there is more than one way of looking like a girl. I don't want to pass.

On the other hand, I want people to see that lesbians can have long hair.

On the other foot, I don't want my hair to be my identity. Does anyone really care about my hair that much. So while I sit here pondering the meaning of my existence my hair is growing longer. It's in a ponytail and it's really cute, if I may say so myself.

The other truth is that I will probably cut it all off and run rampant like a good angry queer feminist with a radical homosexual agenda and sweet combat boots. JK about the combat boots.

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

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

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

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

This is the Gall-Peters projection.

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

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

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

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

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

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

that secret that we know, that we don't know how to tell

can i tell you a secret.

'teenage dream' by katy perry plays at work and more than once it has almost made me cry. now i am listening to it on repeat but i don't know why.

last year -- december 2009 -- i was wandering up and down a street i knew too well. i was always looking for this one person without trying to make it look like i was looking for her; i was smoking cigarettes outside leaning on trees; i was stumbling down mountains and listening to bon iver and crying and desperate all the time. my money was gone and i was drunk as hell.

sometimes my secret is this: the ground is wet with snow but it is not snowing. the air is damp like it was just raining and the glow of lights reflect on the pavement. car lights. street lamps. i want to chain smoke. i am surrounded by people and all at once i am happy and sad and alone and hopeful. the night is just beginning and there are still places we haven't been.

sometimes my secret is this: i do not know the difference between being in love and wanting a mother. i am sorry. i do not know the difference.

one year ago -- december 2009 -- i was standing in the fitting room at my job. a song was making me cry. in my mind the street i seemed to always be standing on was upside down; my feet were on the sky. that's the way i walked around.

sometimes i have no secrets and it makes me feel bare but no one asks. a secret is hidden; if there is nothing to hide but no one is looking then what is there. am i secret if i don't exist. whose secret am i. what is the point of a secret if not to reveal it one day.

lately my secret has been that grey's anatomy makes me cry. i just let myself sink into this hand crafted world where people live and die with the stroke of a pen. and when parents hear that their children are dead and they break down in each other's arms, i break down too. i let myself cry over this tv show because it's easier than crying over real life.

tell me a secret if you so desire.

++

I am in love
with the way I see the world.
But I am all alone there.
- Matthew Rohrer "Hone Quarry"

i don't feel this way, but it's a beautiful line.

Identity Crisis

I've never seen myself as particularly "Western" before, but that's because I live in The West. I identify as a Canadian partially as a reaction to the things surrounding me that are Not Canadian, like the United States. I notice my "Chineseness" because of all the Non-Chinese people around me. And I identify as gay, or queer, because of the "divide" between queers and straights. If there was no such thing as heterosexuality I wouldn't need to identify as queer at all. I would just be. Even though I'm Chinese, I'm also mostly Canadian, or Western, or North American. I wouldn't fit in in China at all!

That's sort of how I feel about living in the West. Prior to this semester I had never taken any courses that taught me anything about places further east than Europe. Africa was just this one chunk of land that was full of starving black people and South Africa had some white people. "South Africa" could basically have referred to the lower half of Africa.

But now I'm learning things about The East and it makes me feel really self-conscious of my North American Status. I've never felt that before because I don't feel like I'm an embodiment of "capitalism", but I guess I probably am. It's really hard to talk about things that are not Euro-centric without bringing in my own presuppositions and attitudes and I feel like I'm interfering in something that isn't mine. I feel like Stuff White People Like: Being an Expert on YOUR culture. Like, look at me, some North American with enough money to go to university and listen to another North American talk about Asia.

I think I feel weird about this because I've never been a "majority" before. I can't look at myself the same way anymore. I can't ask the same questions anymore. I don't wish that I was Eastern. I wish that being labeled as "something" wasn't so important. I wish that I didn't have to feel "American" and that democracy is the best and everyone should have democracy. I feel weird about having "power" but also I don't feel like I have power. I don't know. This probably stopped making sense a long time ago. I'm having an identity crisis, I'll get back to you on my feelings later.

we've been selected in this beautiful lottery

[bright eyes - blue angels air show]

a thing happened.

a person happened.

she was born, she grew fingers and legs and stuff. often i would wonder how something would get to where it did, like how did those little hairs on her cheek get to be in those exact spots. why were her fingers that exact length. why is it like this.

why is it like this and not like this.

we fucked up i guess.

did we?

i am pulled apart. my arms are stretched enough to encompass the whole world. but they don't. is that a thing that matters?

a feeling happened. there is a feeling... of ... love ..., of never doubting that you are loved. it's a luxury, for sure. it's a feeling that we have. it's a thing that was born. and it grew. and we are forever responsible for what we have tamed. we are responsible forever for what we have created. we made love with the tips of our fingers.

there are things we have to do. between now and then. there are things that need to happen.

i am reminded of things i've forgotten. the way doors can open and people just walk in. it's not unexpected, no it's just how you planned it. i'm beginning to think that it might never happen. but now it is happening.

a door it is opening.

there are things that i know to be true. like how love is a form of truth and we pull it apart like hungry wolves. we had it. and how is anything ever going to be as good as what we had.

i mean -- you said you needed time and you had time. i said i needed love and i had love. but we tore it apart like hungry wolves. we don't know our teeth are actually knives. now we know.

but what can we do? i feel like edward scissorhands.

"so this is my life. and i want you to know that i am both happy and sad and i'm still trying to figure out how that could be." - the perks of being a wallflower

(e.pic)

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)

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.

i was walking with a ghost

i walked up the mountain because i wanted you to see it. i thought maybe if i were there, you would be there too. i thought maybe i would find you at the top, as if you'd been waiting for me this whole time.

in the middle of the night we can walk in the middle of the road. we can run and jump and skip and it's just us alive. we can be the tallest city mark.

the trees are littered with gold and red and orange. the sunrise is kind of perfect. i know you'd be impressed, i know impressing you would make my heart swell. when i'm with you, i am a balloon on fire. it is the most wonderful feeling. and i think the edge of the world is on fire, which makes your sweater warm enough for the both of us. i'm in love with the way you see the world.

i am so, so, so.

i keep my hands in my pockets, as if i could shrug off the rain. i want to listen to re: stacks because it seems fitting, but i'm not quite sure i could bear it. i meant to leave my heavy heart at the top of the city, to burn with the sun, but it's right there in my pocket and it carries me down the road. you stayed at the top of the mountain to burn with the tops of the trees, and i? i am so. i am so, so, so.

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!?

The Butter Melts Out of Habit, You Know, the Toast Isn't Even Warm

Habits are really strange. You might not even realize you have certain habits because they're so insignificant, like the direction in which you brush your teeth every night. And you can get away from those habits, something in your life can change, but it's so easy to revert back to the patterns you followed before. Sometimes habits are comforting; they're consistent, they're familiar, they're right where you left them. But then you realize that they're there and it's strange and you can't stop yourself.

I have a habit of brushing my teeth in a certain way every time. I rinse my mouth out in a pattern with a yellow cup -- first with hot water, then cold, then hot, then cold water to rinse out the sink. It keeps the water temperature even. I rotate in the same positions every night trying to fall asleep. My fingers have learned habits so I type my password immediately after my email address even when it's not necessary. I read the comics in the same order every morning while eating breakfast. I sit in the same seat in the same metro car at Cote-Vertu every time, every single time. Walk down the stairs, turn right, it's the second door in the car after the TV, the seat across from the metro map. When I ride with other people I make them sit there too.

Sometimes habits are disarming. When you realize what you're doing it's sudden, it's awakening. Sometimes your feet just walk and before you know it you're at the bus stop and you don't know how you got there. Then you furrow your brow and try to think about it, but it seems inconsequential, takes too much energy --

And we learn other people's habits too. We come to expect the way someone answers the phone, we feel comforted by the smells of shirts because someone washes them that way, we are balanced by another's routines, "making a temporary sense of the senseless, choreful day". When it changes we are alarmed, suspicious. We want things to go back to normal. Your life is unnerved when you build your habits around someone else's habits and then their habits change.

Returning to old habits feels weird -- why do I always sit in the same spot? Is it really necessary? But then I sit there anyway, just because. Just because it's easy, and I remember it. Perhaps my habit remembers me. It says hello, it welcomes me back, and though it may be uncomfortable at first because I don't want it! I don't want it anymore!, I eventually settle back into my routine and then I forget that I had ever tried to do something different.

It's hard to change a habit. There's just nothing else to do, it seems. It's lonely, a little, realizing you haven't changed at all. It hurts, thinking that you can't. You convince yourself you don't need to change anyway, after all, your morning routine is harmless. It's not killing anyone. So then everything is the same, all the time. All the goddamn time. The places you go, the bars you haunt, the streets you walk, the words you say, they're all the same, the places you go, the bars you haunt, the streets you walk, the words you say, they're all the fucking same.

So you resign yourself to a life of grayish suits, tired shoes, and a battered briefcase.

I'm Not Really Sad, I'm Just Trying to Become a Better Person

but then i thought, "what if i never grow up?" i mean legitimately grow up. what if i'm stuck in this awkward year where my parents still do my laundry but i buy my own toothpaste and i take the bus to school and i can't drive and i don't know how to do banking or

there's a fear of growing up, but what if i just don't? what if i'm that person who can't do things for themselves? what if i can't have real relationships with people or if i live with my parents forever and they wash the dishes every night, what if i never learn to be a person, what if all my friends grow up and blow away...

and what happens if i can't get a job? what happens when i forget how to learn? will i have my own set of cutlery will my bed always feel so big and empty who will pay for my retainer to be fixed? who will say "i'm sorry", who will apologize, who will take the blame who will feel bad feel pity who will look down at me and say i'm sorry i failed and will i say i'm sorry i failed i never ever ever grew up i just never never learned i just stuttered and stuttered all my life.

what happens if i never figure out how to cook a chicken? what happens if i forget how to use the toaster? what happens if my hands fall off!? what happens if i forget how to write, do people suddenly become illiterate what happens if that's me, that's me, that's me. what happens if no one reads my book what happens if i don't write a book because my hands fell off and my eyes fell out and i have no goddamn legs. i'm just a box, i'm just a box, i'm a square and is someone sorry now, will someone take the blame, will someone claim responsibility for the empty cardboard box out there on recycling day?

what if i never learn how to tell a good plum from a bad plum or where the potato section is, what if i can't pay my library fines what if i can't find the library? what if i disappoint my grandmother? who is going to write about me? does anyone listen in class? what if i'm the person who forgets how to ride a bike? and i have to learn twice? my legs are gone! i just wanna wear suave shoes again. cardboard legs and cardboard shoes recycle me. i don't wanna cycle, recycle revenge. if i ever go away, who will buy me tea?

what if i have feelings and no one else has so many feelings and i drown other people, what if i drown people with me. like what if who i am is too big. what if i am a giant ocean wave, enveloping bodies and beaches and sand -- what if when i write i actually sound like obasan, the worst novel ever.

and what if i screw it up, what if my feelings consume me. what if i screw it up by being afraid of screwing up.

one day the lights will go out in my room and they will not turn on again. one day the boxes will be filled, they will be moved and loaded onto a van, the house will empty, the walls will be bare. one day we just will not be there.

[all pictures from before i die i want to]

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I have thought about it and I have decided that my greatest fear is not dying, not not living, not "moving forward", but ignorance. More than being ignorant or naive, I don't want to be stupid. I don't want to think I know things but get them wrong. Socrates wouldn't like that. I never want to drown in my own confusion. I hope that I always strive to be better, be smarter. I hope I never settle for anything less than I deserve. I hope I stop thinking that I don't deserve happiness. I hope I never forget what learning actually is. I hope I never forget the person that I am right now, and the things I believe in. I hope that people never listen to me and think to themselves that I am stupid or that I don't know what I'm talking about. I hope I always present myself as an intelligent, well-read, creative woman. I hope that my intelligence never goes away -- I don't care what I look like, how tall or short I am, where I live -- I hope that I never stop reading and thinking and solving because that is the core of who I am.

Read my book, 'cause it's gonna be written.

When I Was Young Part 2: The Future & I

First: check it out! My top 10 favourite albums are on autostraddle!

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When I was younger I didn't dream of getting married and living in domestic bliss. I wanted to live alone near the beach in a small town with one gas station and a bead shop owned by a gypsy. I wanted to wear black and red flannel and hiking boots and I wanted it to be autumn all the time. I didn't want a phone 'cause I didn't want to talk to people.

Then came the point where I realized that living in a small town meant that people might know who I was and they might want to talk to me, ask me questions. I realized what I wanted, above all else, was anonymity. I began to picture myself in a big city like Manhattan, walking the streets never seeing the same person twice. I imagined the kind of freedom I might have, living by myself in a small apartment close to a main street. I could walk down the stairs in my building and instantly disappear into a crowd of people.

The two projected visions of my future seem so different -- one is in the country, the other, in the city. The thing is, though my vision has changed, I've always wanted the same thing. Is there a name for it (privacy? independence? freedom? to be left alone?)? It sounds lonely, but that's what the future looked like to me.

I never wanted money. Maybe that's because I've always had money -- never piles and piles of money, but enough to get by. Enough to buy a coffee twice a week, enough to buy excess clothes. Enough to play sports and travel. For whatever reason, when I thought of myself in my 20s, I always saw myself as poor. It's strange because I like money. I like to save my money and then make impulse buys on things I don't need. And I like things. I like my macbook and my iPhone and my overpriced moleskin and buying new books.

I always thought I would be a writer. I wanted to write a book as good as Harry Potter and I wanted to be a poet. I didn't understand poetry. I wanted to stay up late and drink coffee and typetypetype a novel on a desk covered in crumpled up paper.

Other people never figured into my plans. One thing I always knew about my future was that it didn't matter what other people thought about it. I was sure, and still am, that it's my future -- not my parents', not my friends', not my teachers'. As harsh as it may seem, they were never necessary to my success. Success is happiness. I'm probably wrong about my parents and friends.

I guess of all the choices I might make or could have made, what I want is kind of strange. I was always a little less mainstream than that, though. I was always good at writing, at least I was better than other people in my classes. I liked to read when reading was unpopular. I liked to write in my spare time. When I was sad I wrote poetry and at first it always rhymed and then it was just a mish mash of words, clichés, and tears. At one point I realized that hardly anybody reads poetry and hardly anybody understands poetry and you can write this assignment in any way you want except not in a poem.

Part of growing up in North America is that we're told from the beginning that we can be anything we want. I can be a writer if I want to and you can be a firefighter or a pilot or a chef. I keep hearing that we're the next leaders of our country, but the truth is we're not. Only one person gets to be Prime Minister/President. Someone has to clean the Prime Minister's toilet and sweep the streets and serve you at McDonald's. They never tell you you might be a janitor. Do people dream of being janitors? Do people dream of being STM workers? Do people wake up every day and think "Boy am I happy I pick up people's garbage every Monday! This is what I've always wanted to do!"?

The thing is, you're probably not going to be Prime Minister or a famous actress. You might not even get a job.

Sarah: he’s right, the undergrad degree is the new HS diploma
also hard to get a job with
Laneia: um did a h.s. diploma EVER guarantee a good job???
Sarah: no, it guaranteed a job if you were willing to join the military
Laneia: right
Sarah: i think the high school diploma lost it’s appeal in the 40s

[autostraddle]

Maybe the point here is that having shitty dreams means your dreams are likely to come true. I mean, I'm probably not going to live in NYC, but it'll be a big city, and I'll probably be a poor starving writer, writing poetry nobody reads.

But I think the real point is that, for me anyway, I've always been this way. I've always known what I want and I've always sought to achieve it. Subconsciously I've paved my way towards the future I always imagined myself in. I've shed the negative people from my life, gotten rid of the things that make me feel like shit. I think all I've ever wanted was the chance to be myself. I want to stop being lied to. I want to be around people I like, and who like me. I want to be around nobody at all. I want to be happy. I want to step out of my heart and go walking beneath the enormous sky.

And I will.

This Post is Only About #smallearth

Firstly, let me go get some ice cream.

Secondly, as stated in the title, this post is about #smallearth. The definition for #smallearth can be found here, but I will copy and paste it here because you're probably too lazy to click on that link [fyi you should anyway because the next post has pictures of tacky postcards from the philippines and who doesn't want to see that, right].

#smallearth (n) – 1. conceptually, a small-scale model of planet Earth. Although the exact dimensions of #smallearth have never been determined, it is commonly accepted that the planet is small enough that such nonsense as 12-hour time differences simply cannot exist, resulting in a cohesive society of #smallearthlings.

2. a community that is so small, that it is entirely feasible for all or most of its members to somehow come in contact with each other, regardless of actual physical location; a significantly less lame way of saying “small world, eh?,” a community where an unspoken set of rules/tendencies exist.

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#smallearth was created in the middle of the night (for me) while Katrina was on the other side of the world eating lunch, because that's the only way it could have been invented. That's how #smallearth works. #smallearth is the feeling you get when something far away affects you at home ("home". you know. where the heart is). #smallearth is when far away things feel close.

#smallearth is a concept so I don't really think it has physical dimensions. It's as small or as big as you let it and I think it exists because Katrina and I brought it into existence [sidenote: I also think we bring our actual earth into existence by thinking about it and if everyone on the planet stopped (truly) believing in earth it would cease to exist]. That being said, it's smaller than planet earth. Or it's bigger but the people have really long legs so you can cross oceans in two steps, whatever you choose.

#smallearth is a feeling so there can be any number of people on #smallearth at one time and although it would be logical that the ratio of douchebags to awesome people on actual earth would carry over, I hereby declare that there are no douchebags on #smallearth. As one half of the creators of #smallearth I have the power to do this.

#smallearth makes me feel less lonely. 'Cause sometimes I think our planet is just really huge and it bums me out. Then I think that compared to the universe, our planet is a speck of dust and then I feel really tiny and useless and sad.

Like this:

#smallearth makes me feel like this: