Ouch

Have you ever given your covers a mighty tug to pull them up to your face- only to find that you didn't need to tug so frick'n hard and you hit yourself in the face?

I just did that.

Ouch.

Goodnight

Drifting

Outside my window it's dark as slate. It's been that way since about 6:45 pm. I'm not happy about it, but I'm not going to complain. Oh no. Not yet. I'm saving that rant. It's going to feel so much better to go on my tirade when it's dark as slate by 5:00 pm. I know those days are coming. Probably next week.

Sweet November, Winter's usher. You open the door for him and you lead that frigid old man to center stage where he conducts his icy orchestra all the way to April.

This is the time of year when I daydream of hibernation. I drift away into an alternate reality where all I do is drift. Drift off to sleep, drift from dream to dream. And when I wake, I happily find that time has sped on without me. I've been moved forward to the 'good season', skipping over all the drudging and the crap.

If I were really smart I'd stop this train of thought right in its tracks.

I often forget, but on a very real level I realize that this dream of hibernation is not a dream at all. It's reality and I live it every day - drifting through the week to wake for the weekend, drifting through the month to wake to the payday.

There I am: yearning for the hours, weeks, months, seasons to pass and then weeping when I find that it's all turned into a blur of years. Where did the time go? It went where I asked it to go. Away.

This trend of time slipping away worries me more and more as I get older. Not just because the trend persists, but also because it seems to accelerate. I feel like I went to sleep somewhere around 21 and just recently woke up at 27. My Grandma (or as I call her in Polish, my Bobcia), tells me that time only flies faster when you have kids. She's 82 and wondering where her life went.

I'd say that her frightening comment poses a pretty good argument against reproducing - but beyond that, it also gives me evidence to believe that I'm not alone in this time machine. Other people are in it too - no matter if they were born in 1927 or 1986, they still go the same way - drifting from year to year, decade to decade, stopping at random intervals to have a piece of birthday cake or cash a paycheque before hitting the 'Excelerate' button again.

Is this a sign of degredation of the sanctity of life? Is it a product of the 'modern society'? Is it Capitalism and it's dark partner Consumerism? - are we so driven towards the next best thing (product, gimick, toy) that we live only for the moments when we obtain something?

Or is it just life? Part of being human? Are we built this way? Is it natural?

Maybe it's both. If it's a product of society - well, it was in our human nature to build said society was it not?

Either way, it bothers me. You couldn't convince me that sleeping through life is beneficial. Even if it's something we do naturally - there's no reason why we can't evolve past it.

I'm sure I'll have more to say on this. For now, ironically, I'm going to bed :)

1 girl+ 2 wigs = Halloween fun

It's that time of year again! C'est L'Hallowe'en!

Leaves are changing & falling, pumpkins are being carved, the temperature is dropping as fast as daylight is retreating, and kids everywhere are plotting their costumes.

This is a time of year that I love in theory, but in practice... well, I'm really not very good a celebrating the season. I leave the pumpkins in the store, curse the approaching cold, and the only thought of disguising myself pertains only to how I will disguise myself in my house... in order to avoid answering the door for trick or treaters.

Hey don't judge me! Candy is expensive and kids stink!

Alas, even I , the Great Autumn Grinch (or GAG), cannot avoid it all. Halloween parties come up.. friends can't be let down..and so out I must go.

Presently, I'm in a mild in a state of "costume shortage induced panic" - as, even though it is only October 24th - there is a Halloween party happening tonight, in about 4 hours. I've known about it for weeks, and yet find myself under prepared (shocking).

I don't want this to happen to you.

If you're anything like me (i.e., a lazy, cheap, last minute costume creator) then you're short on ideas, cash and inspiration. You're not concerned yet. Not even close. But you will be come October 31st... so, because I care for you all so dearly, I have spent the last 30 minutes concocting approximately 6 master disguises that YOU TOO will be able to effortlessly pull off - thus, avoiding Halloween stress & turning yourself in to the life of any party.

All you need is a wig. Just read, scroll, look & learn.

Exhibit A: Me in my natural state













Brown hair, mucky blue eyes, natural smile devoid of flair - Plain Jane. Nothing flashy about this face. And I know that your face is just as boring. Don't despair - I'm telling you - just change your hair and the rest will follow.

Exhibit B: Go blonde and watch the possibilities unfold:

You could be:

Scarlet Johannson:













Kate Winslet












Christina Aguilera












That Muppet Chic with the Sucked on a Lemon Face












Exhibit C: Ok just get any wig, who cares

I realize that it's most likely that you've procrastinated long enough that all the costume stores are closed. Now, the only stores that are still open (e.g., drug stores, grocery stores etc) are your only option, and they have limited wig selection at best - mostly because they've been picked over by other lazy people like you, who were looking for last minute ideas and could only come up with the idea of getting a lame ass wig.

In any case, I've got a few options for you if you can get a wig in red or orange:

Britney Spears (Ok, hers is pink, but she's so crazy you can put on any wig or shave your head and get away with the "I'm Britney" excuse)












LeeLoo from the 5th Element Movie (the really weird one that was released a million years ago and starred eternally super hot Bruce Willis)












And that concludes my blog on how to disguise yourself completely, using just 1 wig. I hope that this arrived in time to save your Halloween.

I'd write more but I'm heading out to my party!

Ciao!

Northern Descent

I'm procrastinating. Riiighhtt.. NOW.

While I could be running around the house shoving useful things into a duffel bag I've instead logged into blogger so that I can look busy while not actually doing anything.

6 a.m. tomorrow will find me in the car, with my face still bearing pillow marks and my hands wrapped around a travel mug. Thanksgiving. Holy crap. It's been over a year since I've seen some members of my family, for some others, it's been years longer. It's not from lack of love. There's just something about the northern territory that they call home that sets my whole body at unease. I can't go there without first going over the edge of panic.

I'm northward bound, but it feels like a descent.

Ontario north.. Some call it wilderness. Something grandiose to behold. Oh come'on. Bull. To me it just looks ill-kept. The tall grasses that grow wild do so behind farmers fences. Evidence that someone just got too lazy to turn the soil and throw down some seed. Broken farms line the highway like a 4 hundred kilometer long path of shame. People gave up. It only gets worse the more northernly you travel. Maybe I'm being cruel.. maybe it's not completely the people's fault..maybe the land straight out refused to obey and be fruitful. It's trying to tell the people they don't belong there. If that's the case, I agree with the soil.

The pine laden horizon only breaks for squat houses, more suited to be called 'dwellings' than homes. Every single one looks like someone slapped an extension on a trailer. Hard faded vinyl siding and tough red brick. They're duty built - meant to survive extreme cold, not to look pretty. Darkness encases the north in shades of gray for about 326 days of the year anyways. Everything just fades together. No one is looking at architecture

Everyone's got their eyes on the ground. Everybody plowing dirt. Driving their ATVs through it for fun, ripping trees out of it for paper, blowing holes through it for gold, probing it for worms to lace upon hooks for another pickerel fishing adventure. The snow flies and the people plow through it all the same, sprinkle the top of it with dirt to regain some traction. Everybody get down on the ground.

I haven't even left and I already can't wait to travel back down south so that I can come back up.

Oral Fixation

Sometimes I can't believe the words that come out of my mouth.

They slip out, even thought I try so hard to control them. I've been especially careful due to all of the writing courses I've been taking - I've never thought so thoroughly about the language I use. It's become so bad that now I feel as thought it's an abnormal occurrence to speak off the cuff. It surprises me whenever something just flows right out of my mouth without a thought. Is that me talking?

One of the times that I slip easily into thoughtless chatter is when I'm talking to my cat. YES. I talk to the cat. She's so damned cute I can't help myself. And I don't care about what I say to her because, well, she can't understand me anyways. Plus, with the way she screams at me so relentlessly (she's Siamese.. pft, asians :), I figure that the least I can do is share a few gripes with her.

Not long ago, I found myself just transfixed by her cute little face. Overcome, I grabbed her cheeks and exclaimed "Ugh! You're so cute I could just EAT you!"

Then, I shut my mouth so fast that I made one of "those faces": i.e., one that forms when you recoil your chin so far back in disbelief that it makes a double chin (and you don't normally have a double chin... like me.. I don't.. I swear!). Eyebrows scrunched and upper lip popped up Elvis style, I thought "What did I just say? Eat the cat?...Wow that's gross.. Where do people come up with this?"

Since when is eating something cute acceptable? How uncivilized. I had never really thought about it before, but we (yes, YOU too) say things like this all the time. Who has never heard someone gush "Oh I could just eat you with a spoon?" And who has never likened a particularly attractive someone to something you'd find delicious, scrumptious, worth sinking your teeth into?

Is this some sort of massive oral fixation? Where does this desire come from? This violence?

A google search could not yield an answer, so I must go on with this mystery plaguing me.

But that's no big deal, as, regardless of the history of these rough terms, I'm (strangely) an enthusiastic fan of them. I think they're perfectly descriptive, primal, natural, and of course, not to be taken in a literal sense... at all. We're all talk (for the most part, though I know some people slip up).

Even though our jibber-jabber is a non-threat, it's very interesting. At least to me.

I also find it very interesting how phrases like this don't often get a passing thought. Who cares why you want to eat the cat? Just say it already and get over it.

It's so easy to ignore our own use of language, especially when we're caught in the throes of passion.

And this brings me to another point, as there are no words more illustrative of passion than our blessed curses. I don't think about the curse words I use - I just want a word that shows the seriousness of what I'm feeling and I want to use it as soon as possible. Am I angry? No, I'm fucking pissed. Do I think that the soup tasted bad? No, it tasted like shit. And if the shitty soup was particularly bad then I'd say it tasted like fucking shit and I'd ask myself what kind of asshole would make such awful soup. (PLEASE forgive me, I'm not that vulgar in real life.. I'm just making a point and I'm really fucking sorry :)

I probably wouldn't have given my curses a second thought for the rest of my life. But that lackadaisical dream got shattered one cool fall day - I received an unprompted mini-language lesson from a deliciously odd gentleman in my neighbourhood Starbucks. It changed the way I'll think of curses forever. I learned that the words that I refer to as curses had only gained their sharp cutting edges by virtue of the way they rubbed so roughly against the grindstone of oppression. English sexual oppression = English swear words. And here's another: French religious oppression = French swear words (for those of you who don't know, the French curses are words that refer to holy objects.. in a most unholy, objectionable manner). I can only assume that other languages must use the same method to determine how they curse each other out - by shouting in the face of Taboo.

I've been thinking about taking some foreign language courses for a while... but now I'm starting to think that I should spend a bit more time getting to know my own crazy Mother Tongue. The more I start to think about it - the more I get excited about that twisted biatch :)

The New Puberty

It sucks to discover something unfavourable about yourself.

It'd be nice to just go through life completely oblivious to your own flaws - to just exist. Just be.

It's funny, because I can remember being a kid and being completely free from any sense of self-consciousness, or, at least, I had no sense of shame for my shortcomings. That was a very young me. I'm not sure exactly how long the lack of awareness lasted, but I'm sure that once puberty hit, that sense of freedom went to hell in a hand basket along with everything else. Even the most mundane and insignificant things took on a hyper sensitive level of importance: my clothes, my body, my lingo, my knowledge of pop culture. What a terrible turn of events.

Having left those turbulent teenage years behind me, almost 7 long years ago (already?!), I really thought that I was over this sense of self deprecation. I find myself having cool, collected, conversations with my peers about 'how good it is to have grown up', how good it is to have "left those days of teenage stress behind". But for all my talk, and despite my uppity sense of maturity, I guess I didn't realize that after teenage insecurities leave, the adult ones come marching in. Damn.

Now that I'm happily surrounded by adults who recognize that geek is the real chic, that individuality expressed through dress is not only accepted, it's celebrated, and that attractiveness can be attained even outside the confines of traditional beauty, I have a new mountain to climb. I can feel that steep slope rising every time I'm around someone new. Introductions, handshakes, and then,

"So what do you do?"

CRAP.

For someone like me, who has a lot of pride (ya ok, to a fault), it's not easy to admit that I have been the person cleaning the high school washrooms, the dishwasher at camp, the person on the telephone at the call center that you've called when you really want to tell someone off. On the inside, I feel no shame over taking these jobs because I know that in taking them, I was doing the best I could with what I was given. And I do know that my job doesn't define who I am, but, I'm all too aware that other people are using my job title as a way of classifying me. It's only human.

So I fumble, I shrug, I dart my eyes from side to side and look down. I try to back myself up by explaining that I have plans for the future and that by being at my measly job I'm building good experience, blah... blah... BLAH. They're not listening anymore. Shit. I should have been more confident.

Why is it so hard to talk yourself up?

I should be able to. There are certain things that I love to do, things that I feel that I'm competent in: I write and I play music. Many people have told me that I do these things well, so in conversation, I'll toss them in to try to explain that, even though my career may not be flourishing at a professional level, I have a vibrant life outside of work that makes me 'interesting'.

I start to get into trouble though when this plan works. People become interested, their eyes light up, and suddenly they want to know more. My mind starts to spin "Oh no, oh my god what do I say next?".

I really don't know what to do with that interest. I should feel happy but instead I feel like I've led the listener astray - completely given him/her the wrong impression. I shy away and try to explain that I'm no big deal; I'm not as good as they think I am. I don't know what else to do. I've never been able to take the blow of a compliment lying down. If I did, I can't help but worry, would it look like grace or an ego? If I did just let the compliment fly, and talked more about my writing or my music, would the listener catch onto the fact that I'm not that great? Would they think ill of me for not putting up my disclaimer before going off on a tangent? Would I be a fraud?

I guess the only way to find out would be to just try it. I've definitely mastered the art of putting myself down. Maybe I should try something new. Guh.

One of the most important realizations that I've made since the unstable days of my youth, is that I WILL make a fool of myself, and that's "OK". Actually, it's more than ok, it's important. We're trial and error learners. I think the only thing worse than making a one-time fool of yourself by trying something new, is making a life-time fool of yourself by being too stubborn to try to grow.

Broken Down Diary

Poor Blogger account.

I've treated it as poorly as all of the 10-entry abandoned diaries of my youth.

Now, here I am, coming back like some reverse fair weather friend. Knocking at the door again - now that the cool weather has me inside my house and inside my head, feeling oh-so-reflective, yet knowing that I'll leave Blogger alone at the first sight of a solid sunny day.

Having just confessed my commitment issues with my blogger account, it may seem strange to say, but I don't understand people who just don't care to write. And in the same stroke, I don't understand those who have no urge to read either. Now, by reading, I mean books (not instruction manuals, or the nutritional information on the back of a cereal box). I mean 'book' books.

How could you see some beautiful cover art or a clever title and not feel the pull to fall under the cover? How do you not yearn for the smell of the freshly printed pages of a virgin book? There's no other smell like it. It's all at once fresh and aged. The closest that I can imagine is the smell of church. Even though that's a smell that I don't encounter often, as I prefer the blogspot confessional and the holy scripture that is published fiction.

But beyond the good looks and smells, every book has the power to bring you to a different place. And who wants to stay stuck in the same place? Same mindset all the time? Every now and then, isn't it necessary to step outside?

And for the person who's laying down the words, writing is cathartic. Even if what you put on the page is all lies... because, to be blunt, I don't even believe that real fiction actually exists. Much in the same way that altruism doesn't really exist: (we can try to give freely but there is always some benefit to ourselves). When we write, the only thing that we can take out of ourselves is what has been put in there. The emotions, experiences, lessons, everything we are and have learned, our own unique perspective, will spill out in our words, no matter how dressed up and disguised in metaphors they may be. What we write betrays us. But I don't think we would want it any other way. We want to be known.

But when I say 'known' I don't mean famous. I mean known as in 'understood'. I can't think of any other reasons why we would open ourselves up to this public broken down diary.

It certainly is my truth.