Whatever I Was Then I Can't Ever Be Again

i carved a heart out of wood in my woodshop class in grade 8. the machines scared me. i was scared of getting my fingers cut off. i thought it would be a good idea to carve your initials in the wood, thought it would be romantic even if i was the only one who would ever see it. and there i was, pretending i could hold forever in my hands, pretending there was something i knew to be true beyond all doubt.

one day i found my wooden heart with your initials on it, sitting on my desk. i took a pencil and scratched out your name. it was a long time ago.

in retrospect, and only in retrospect does the world seem less obvious.

polaroid

You're So Tragedy and You Were Hard On Me

tegan and sara - want to be bad live in melbourne 2006

this is the best live version i've ever heard of this song. i wish i could marry sara. in the sun. against the stones of buildings built before we were born.

if you don't click on that link then you suck.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hats Off To My Distant Hope

Okkervil River - Blue Tulip
with every single inch of me i'm going to make you mean it
with every single cell of me i'm going to make you mean the words you sigh


------

"hockey is a stupid game sometimes."
and my, and my heart has slowly dried up

tell me that you know another way to get it done

wtf, edouard-montpetit
go suck a fish
go eat a donkey
go die

something doesn't feel right
i want to crawl into a hole and stop eating
don't try and make me feel better
cause this time it really matters

it's been a pleasure

you lay awake in the night just staring at the ceiling above
pulling pieces of it out is such a waste of time
keep on fighting to remember that nothing is lost in the end
when you burn, burn, burn your life down

When the World Turns Its Back On You

The best and worst advice I have ever received has, surprisingly, come from the same person.

Worst: "Walk in the direction of the wind."

Best: "Take a nap."

Seriously though. Take a nap. When things turn to shit, take a nap, and when you wake up your toilet will be unclogged.

other good advice from only the best movie ever: "Hakuna Matata."

When the world turns its back on you, you turn your back on the world. [actually I don't know if this is such a good idea.] [I don't know how to turn my back to the world.]

And you? What kind of good/bad/out-of-nowhere-makes-no-sense-wtf advice have you received?

Polaroid

Rummaging for Answers in the Pages

this is a story.

i thought that i was the loneliest person on the planet
then i started listening to other people and realized they're all lonely too and i thought it was strange that everyone is the loneliest person on earth so why can't we be more kind
i'm going to be more kind to strangers from now on
plus thank you please don't break my heart but

everything breaks my heart and makes me cry
i know there needs to be more love in the world but sometimes i just hate other people

so please just be honest with me tonight and tell me how you really feel
do you love somebody
are you hungry
do you wish you were 7
or 21
i stopped making promises when i realized how unrealistic they are
it's kind of just like a lie you tell to get people on your side so please just be honest with me tonight and tell me how you really feel
at the start of every page i get the chance to write straight
everyday is another chance to write in a straight line
or you could fuck it up

on wednesday i took the bus and as soon as we got on the highway it started rocking back and forth like a boat. i was scared. people were looking around, confused. i looked at them. there was an old lady with cats on her socks and an elderly man who looked like he smoked cigars and a really really really cute girl who looked like she was in an arts program at concordia and a middle aged woman and a fat guy who sat on my right reading about village formations in the northern southwest and a girl on my left studying spanish. i thought all these people looked nice and i didn't feel so scared anymore. i wouldn't mind dying in a bus full of these people. but we didn't die, and i was late for school.


[edit: i totally saw the girl at dawson and got freaked out 'cause i wrote about her in my blog.]

Motherfu-Nature

As I was stepping out of my house I saw Tom and I said, "Tom I hate you, go away," but Tom ignored me and came inside so I had to follow him.

"Why are you even here? I don't want your stupid babies," I said.
"You don't have to have my babies, I'm just here to do some cleaning," he said.
"Fine, but hurry up and get out," I said.
"Fine."

But I still felt like I couldn't leave.

"Tom, you're not very dependable. You're never on time; you're always too early or late and it throws me off schedule. And when you're here I feel like I can't be away for long periods of time so I end up sitting in sweatpants and eating all day and it makes me cranky," I said, "and on top of that, you damage the furniture whenever you're here. Tom, you're fired!"
"You can't fire me, I quit!" Tom said.

He paused.
"Just kidding, you can't fire me. We have a contract with Mother Nature. I'm here for another thirty years."

"You're an asshole, Tom," I said.

"Actually I'm more like a vagina."


WHUH-PAH!

Music Monday on Tuesday: Sigur Ros

Sigur Ros is for broken people, and if not broken people then people who have looked at the world and have been frustrated with what they've seen. Or it's possible that I'm just broken and so everything else sounds like it's breaking too.

But this band is kind of special. They're not ordinary. Sigur Ros is like the moment after the climax but before the end; not when the guy leaves the girl forever but after, when the girl is left in a mess on the floor; not when the mother dies, but when the son goes home to her empty bedroom. Sigur Ros is not for breaking people, it is for people who are already broken. Sigur Ros is not that man standing on the roof about to jump - Sigur Ros is the man falling through the sky, absolutely powerless. It's rainy music, movie music. Music that needs visuals.

I should probably mention that Sigur Ros are from Iceland so you won't understand anything they're saying - not that they say anything anyways, apparently sometimes they write in "Hopelandic"; sounds that fit the melody. I want to write 'basically' but I've been trained not to.

I have a question for you, readers, whoever you are: if you could confess anything to anyone, what would it be? Tell me or don't tell me, or tell the person you need to tell. That's all.

Polaroid.

- Von
- the nothing song
- Svefn-g-englar

All I Do Is Push You Far Away From Me

I hated myself. I really did. My heart carried around a self-loathing that was constantly on the verge of overflowing and I was shoving it in people's faces. I hated myself, everyone around me should hate themselves too.

I pushed everyone away and sat in my room of loneliness.

I hated myself for being lonely, hated that I was the reason I was alone. We accept the love with think we deserve and I didn't think I deserved any. But I wanted it. I wanted it so badly.

I was plagued by the fear of never being able to do anything right. I hated myself for that; for being afraid and for not doing anything right.

I remember it started really young. I remember learning to retreat from reality; when things were going badly I would quietly slip into the folds of my mind and hide and outside I would be a ghost. I wrote stories in my head, stories all the time, and I acted them out, I created characters with feelings that were tied to whatever was happening in my real life as a way of relief. But the stories were never an autobiography. Why write an autobiography when I could invent something so much better, some place more fulfilling, some place where I was happy?

Therein lies the problem, and the solution. The problem was my self-destructive childhood, my need to escape from my own life all the time. My stories became real to me. I made myself a character and I dictated what other characters did, and said, and felt, and it felt good to have some kind of world where I could control things. I made up background stories for them like they were real people who had real lives before I invented them. And I played it out like a movie and when it was over I wrote another one.

In the end, the fiction held more truth than my real life. It showed me the person I wanted to be, the life I wanted to have. My made up stories told me the truth about myself, allowed me to see my deepest thoughts, feelings, desires. Telling stories to myself became a solution. It gave me something to hope for; a way out.

The anger still hasn't dissipated. But it seems easier to shrug it off when I'm walking towards something like I've got a purpose. I like to kid myself that I'm going somewhere, that there really is a destination, a finishing line far off in the distance.

It seems lame to quote myself but what can I say. Sometimes I'm many different people.

"I’m hoping that there’s a bed for me at home, someone warm to curl up next to, stairs to walk down in the morning and a lot of sunlight outside, a bus that comes on time, and then places, I hope there are places I can go. I hope I have some place to go, some place to return to, a space in time in the crowded world that is just for me."

Polaroid.

"Life just is this way, broken, and I am crazy to hope for something else." - Miranda July "No One Belongs Here More Than You"