Head-liner

There is something strange about this statement:

"Oil rises as Middle East fighting rages: Crude prices rose above $40 a barrel Monday as Israel and Palestinian militants exchanged rocket fire and the death toll mounted in the oil-rich region."

The Promised Land

So I was talking to a friend last night at this pre-new years reunion party thing. She goes to Berkeley in San Fran. San Fran, land of the Andreas fault line, Golden Gate Bridge, many gay people and Full House. Land of the no less than 20 degree weather, surfing and bleached blondes. Land of the - well, you get it.

The last time I spoke to her, she was thinking of switching into Linguistics but totally bailed on it when she realized that Linguistics had more to do with syntax and sound than with the socio-economic and anthropological backgrounds of the language, which is what she was looking to gain. So she decided to take Economics as her major, which sounds drab and commonplace , but of course it's not because she's at Berkeley.

So she's taking a course called Crisis Development, being taught by an actual memeber of faculty who's a UN ambassador. And the format of the class is as follows. This brilliant ambassador bloke will state an international crisis; for example, the president of a major country gets shot. Every person in the clas sthen gets assigned a role in the internation community. Thus, someone could be a CNN reporter, the vice president to the late President, a leader of neighbouring or trade relations country, head of the UN, etc. Then they have debates, convene at summits and UN headquarters and discuss a strategy to calm the masses, to implement on the country, and the social, economic and political consequences of their decisions.

I don't know about you, but I think that sounds absolutely amazing. See, this. This is what I pictured university would be like; full of amazing classes and dynamic faculties, with life-changing experience. I'm envious of her, I'll admit, because she gets to meet people like Simon Hurst and the Guy Who Invented the Laser .

I know that in the grand scheme of things, no one need pity me and that this complaining is rather ungrateful of me, yes? I have the chance to even attend university and for that I'm humbled and grateful, and the experience must and can only be what I make out of it what I will. In other words, I must take my learning in my own hands.

But there is more to university than that. It is a lifestyle; it seems to be a mindset. This physical place somehow molded into a train of thought in my mind and the minds of others. You cannot run away from it: the studying is tied in with the people. The lifestyle is varied; that is, you can make of it what you want. If you want to party, you party. If you want to study, you study and if you want to do a little bit of both then you rely heavily on coffee and sparks notes.

I was talking to Ter and we were just bitching about the stupid people on her residence floor. It reminded me of how I myself hated not only where I lived but the people whom I lived with. And compared to Western, Waterloo was fairly tame. Yet I was still aggravated. I think I would've been the psychotic shoots-everyone kid if I had to be at Western. It's so strange, she told me, because everyone had basically been lying to her all her life. I understood. How was she to blame for being coaxed into loving this place, this notion of university? This living breathing revolutionary thought it had become through no fault of her own. People like us, we saw it as a light at the end of our very very dark tunnel, almost like a salvage and not quite as the prize but not a stepping stone either. More like a place of quenching the thirst, the restlessness. They told her she would meet like-minded people but maybe the fine print was, like-minded people provided you attend university in with your brain off and not inspect too closely.

I feel bad marginalizing because not everyone's brain is off, by any means. But a majority of the people I've had the neutral experience (or thorough displeasure) of meeting have been either completely unremarkable or so remarkably ridiculous so as to blip on my radar for their intense stupidity. It is rather unnerving, I sometimes (I lie: often) think that these people will someday be running countries and making grand decisions for the so-called betterment of society. I only can feel thorough distaste and then I feel guilty for feeling that because, really, it is this society that has caused them to be such mind-numbing idiots.

Then someone such as myself thinks, well, these kids are idiots, the mainstreamers, the engineers, the healthsci or environment kids but maybe there's a small collective underground group that keep to themselves, scholars who'd rather not be marred by the reps of The Others. It's all very hush-hush and the dark, artsy, underground thought appeals to me. And I even find them. But of course, like everything in university, this too requires closer inspection and is a play on the original words. I see, really, that their underground is more the basement of someone's house and their dark artsyness gives way to misinformed, ill-opinionated pretentiousness. I'm rather shocked at their naievety and am somewhat offended at how ignorant they are. In the end I grieve that I ever leant them that much credit and think, well I'd rathr be with the numbskulls anyway: they might not have an opinion but then that means you don't have to put up with the close-minded pretentious crap either.

The Amish have this ritual for 19 and 20 year olds. It's like a coming out or something. Before they transition for adolesence to adulthood, the ducklings are released into the wild so they can have as much promiscuous sex and alcohol as they want, experiment with drugs and the like and basically havea kickass life for one year before they return back to the homestead. Upon their return, most renounce those years as Satanic and move on to their quiet furniture building existence (joke XD) but some - few mind you - decide to head back to what we big city folk call "real life". This is almost like that....except without the hope of these people ever withdrawing.

So what exactly am I trying to say? A good many things here. I'm trying to say...I feel a little cheated, no matter how childish that sounds. I feel different; I am not like these other people who worry about whether a boy likes them or whether he'll call them or who wore what or what club event is going on. I feel very tired and bothersome when friends try to tell me about what she said or he said and why that matters at all. I really cannot seem to connect on the same points as others around me and perhaps that is my own fault for being too uppity in my arse. Perhaps not. It just...shocks me a little and I feel like a...blind, lost soul, grappling for the next crevice of rock to hold on to, to take the next step. I'm sad not because this is a lonely existence but because the Soul of this World seems to be entrapped in something else entirely.

When my friend from San Fran tells me about all these wonderful things she has the opportunity to experience I'm in awe but I'm jealous too. She attends an American University and so she has a broader base, a wider spectrum with which to confer from. I'm bordering on attending three universities by now and I have to say that the experience is pretty much the same, with varying degrees of insanity. There is no depth, there is no importance; there is only frustration and anger at the atmosphere. There is a sense of loss and sense of detachment. I just felt like...this was supposed to be it. It was supposed to be the centre of my world, an overprivileged slice of real life. People looked forward to high school, I looked forward to second year university.

And besides Queens and Western, universities are pretty effing ugly.

One of These Things First

My days have been filled with an overwhelming desire to sink into a burgeoning abyss and stay there for a few years. Lethargic and depressed, I find myself at odds with my environment, which is otherwise happy and lively. I have sunk into bed and not been able to pick myself up for quite a while now. Mostly, I'm scared that if I don't stop the hermitage I might fall headlong, with no energy to climb back up again. It's a horrid little cycle. It sometimes comes to a halt and its progress is stopped when I go out or meet friends. But the battle is aceeding to meet these people. I put it off and withdraw when I should venture out. I really haven't a clue what is wrong with me.

I spent all of yesterday sloshing wearily around the house, completely numb but brain abuzz. Finally, as I was putting away a few DVDs I found Garden State and realize I hadn't watched it since last year. I don't think I have ever cried during Garden State; it was always too poignant and perfect for me. It's one of my epic movies...those that will always stay close to my heart, no matter what. It is one that, every time I watch, I find and realize and synthesize something new. And, sure enough, I completely broke down from the moment the answering machine turns on in Large's house and he's in a sterile white room, till the time Sam kisses the lights out of him at the airport. I don't think I've ever cried that long for a movie but I just couldn't stop.

It has all been downhill for the better part of two years and now, on the brink of the next year, I feel like it's finally time for change, if only I could somehow drudge up my lost will, my lost motivation and moxy to do so. To change and change my circumstances.

Then, this morning, amidst the disturbed dreams and dark rain, I awoke for a glass of water and ended up having a two hour long conversation with the person I'd least imagined myself having this sort of conversation with - my mother. Everything. - or mostly everything - wound it's way out. I'm very wary of talking to her because she tends to oversimplify things and doesn't want to realize or take the time to understand the depth of which I speak about (though I know she has the capacity to) and so I end up being frustrated to add to the depression.

I went to sleep after the long talk, though, and when I woke up again...it wasn't so much that a weight had been lifted off my shoulders as it was that the pain had spread more evenly. At first, it was a sharp pierce in my heart. Post conversation, however, it had spread more evenly, rather like sleeping on a bed of nails rather than just one nail. It spread to a buzz rather than a jab.

At this point I am no less listless or lost than before. Nothing is solved. But...I have never spoken my mind like that, least of all to my mother. I think, for once, she actually understood. Even if she pulls out the carpet from undearneath my legs again as I'm scared that she may turn around and do eventually, I'll have known that, even if for two hours, she actually knew what I was talking about.

Despite the haze of depression and the lack of solution, I have decided to do a little more purging, in lieu of this morning. Popping music on my iPod, I found some old conversations between me and one of the major things plaguing me right now. I don't mind the redundancy - I'm using this to perhaps purge myself of the feelings before I move to take any action on them. I'm going to try something different: an on-the-spot-entry. A reaction recording, if you will.

I don't think I'll get through very many of the conversations before I completely break down or just can't take it anymore. Goodness knows I'm a masochist but the pain is too fresh. I imagine this like a gauge, full with...emotions about this. The more I think, the more I internalize and keep it within. But the more connections I form with an outside source....the more the gauge empties and I cleanse my mind of the cobwebs.

In any case, to spur the emotional intensity of the situation, I'm sitting with a clear head, warm tea in one hand and Such Great Heights on loop. Here I go. I'll see you on the other side.

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- I'm smiling at the sweetness
- I'm trying to find the bitterness or understand inflection with the luxury that hindsight gives me.
- Oh man...there is Western talk. This is so strange...it's almost as if I'm there...I'm watching all this unfold with a sinking feeling in my stomach because I know how it's all going to end. Dramatic irony sure is a bitch sometimes.
- ...it is all so perfect. and i'm not even halfway yet.
- these are key words: "I am whitewashed/Ireject my culture/I don't want to be next to brown brown people" So it's not my fucking imagination. I hate sell-outs. gawd...it's happening already.
- this is epic. epic in its depth, i tell you.
- futhermuck...this is painful...so fucking painful...
- we watched dil chahta hai together. i completely forgot about that.

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Well, I only got through one archive. It was the lovliest thing I have been through in a long time. Its sheer length meant that I couldn't go through any of the other ones but i suspect that the rest of them are marginally less wonderful. It was all downhill from there; I reckon I shall tackle those on another day...when I'm feeling more up to feeling sad.

It was a good purging because, though the process is not complete, it has made me more ready to face tomorrow. I don't know what I'm going to do or say or how it is all going to go down. What I have read and observed so far...it is a real insight on what once was. It's so strange....but possibly the biggest lesson I can take from this is the following: This person once was. This person is physically and mentally no more. They are two completely different people and the easiest thing for now is to consider them as such. This way, I have no expectations...because how can I have the same expectations from two completely and utterly polar opposite people. They are so different, in fact, that I could not even place them on the same level for comparison. That person is absolutely no more. And now there is this. And it is what it is. I'll remember the movies, the plans and look on them fondly and...stop the comparison, kill the regret (or one aspect of it) because it is incomparable.

I think I was under the vague impression that it was all just horrible; that it was all pain, pain and pain. But, no, I was wrong. There was lovely happiness too, the kind I wish that I could now share. These notions that occur to me now, occured to me back then too. So I didn't lose time...I just wasn't smart about retaining it. But it was there...and that gives me utmost solace.

For now.

PhOnOgRaPhY

I'm so bloody...lethargic. It's been a looooong time since I've been this depressed. Like...since fall of '07. Nothing can alleviate me and nothing can shut my brain down. I wouldn't even mind if it was just recurring feelings of immense sadness if only i could shut my fucking brain up.



I cannot believe these words are about to come out of my...mouth? head? It is SO not me and i wrinkle my nose at people who choose to do this. But gawd, I just want to get very. very. pissed right now. Like, excessively drunk.



There is this strange gaping hole in the middle of my heart, almost a vaccum of non-existence. Sometime down the lane I will re-read this stupid entry and simultaneously laugh and gag at the sheer stupidity and whinyness/jadedness of it. But for now I just...i can't shut my brain off. And I have the creeping feeling that there is some ulterior emotion lurking deep within; one that i can't seem to express or figure out and just...shed it. If I were drunk not only would the world be blissfully spinning and nonsensical, it would be perfectly fine for it to be this way and my mind wouldn't question, just be lulled into a lovely, false sense of security.



I want to be standing in the middle of an extremely noisy room, everyone dancing and being excessively sweaty and scandalous and have myself be completely lost, just trying to regain my footing. Lights everywhere, on and off, world upside down. Trying to shake my head out of the stupor and then get another Stella. Gawd, I need this just to end and I really can't think of a better way than to regret the morning after. At least then, the regret would seem justifiable. I want to absolutely drown under a steady pour of mind-numbing alcohol and just be the worse for wear for it.



Hermitizing can only take you so far. Everytime I lift my head up and consider it, I feel incessantly weighted and go back down again. I think many people had the right idea but my integrity keeps fucking getting in the way! And i love my integrity, it is very dear to me! But damn and BLAST I wish I could just shut it out. So many go to university and become complete sellouts: they stop thinking, they stop being who they were except for a socializing, studying, boozing clubbing one-dimensional version of what they used to be. I feel so ashamed saying this because it's not really true, in the bigger picture, in the grander scheme of things but: I wish I could do that. I wish I could completely shut down and just be concerned with the stupid, dull, sordid affairs of others or the miniscule crap like who's shagging who and wtf my tennis partner totally stood me up.

It would be alright.

Lessons for the day

I've got 15 minutes to make a post for christmas day. Here's what i learned.



-some things never change.

- money cannot buy you happiness but it can stack up the resentment.

- The movie seven pounds should be entirely skipped or slept through except for the last 15 minutes in which everything comes together and you realize that your last two hours was for naught but also important if you like twisting senseless backstory, leaping in arcs when the story could have worked evern better in a linear, non artsy fartsy stupid muted metaphorical pretenious way. Clearly, my feelings on this movie are mixed as is the lesson itself.


- NEVER. EVER. EAT. AGAIN. A. BUFFET. OF. 250. DISHES.
- pulling a princess di/blair waldorf hurts.
- will smith can maintain one expression throughout an entire movie.

- screewriters should not be allowed to have a script directed unless it has been approved by five other screenwriters and Ron Howard. This rule does not include M. Night Shyamalan because he is clearly creating comedies. You have a hiddent talent, M. Night.

- brown people stare alot and it makes me want to fucking slap them.
- i will always feel like an outsider in this culture.
- PSP's have built-in update software
- Twilight Princess takes alot out of you because of the stupid fucking WiiMote.
- i am very shitty at confrontation, all of a sudden.
- some music can make you think and transport you no matter how hard you try to block out its effects.
- turtles on their backs must feel very in limbo and helpless.
- virgin mobile has awesome packages but shitty network coverage.
- richard branson must be assassinated, right after paris hilton.

- i need my moxy back. NOW. if found, call at once.

Come Undone

This is how the scene plays out.

She stepped off the bus with such a jump in her step, she might have been cuing the music. Her palms felt slippery on the handles as she descended. The churning pump of hydraulics got lost in the traffic and by the time she regained her bearings, the bus was gone.

This was one of the few places in Toronto that looked like suburbia had been kidnapped and forced to assimilate into a midtown setting. The strange thing was that suburbia seemed to be developing Stockholm Syndrome. It adjusted in sympathy. It looked...almost right, nestled where it was. A ravine overlooking the Don Valley Parkway. Woods and hills beside York Mills.

She turned right, into a neatly trimmed street, signalling the start of a planned neighbourhood. The front yards was sprawling and immaculate. Even walls of snow flanking the driveways couldn't hide the neatly trimmed winter shrubbery. She shivered and screwed her eyes against the wind. The sun mocked her plight, refusing to warm her, despite the black material of her oversized coat. Well screw you too, she thought, reading the numbers on the houses.

34. 34...34? Damn...20.

She walked along, silence mercifully pervading her head. There was no annoying tune nor perplexed thought process or random commentary running. Her stomach rumbled smugly. Oh, yes. She had forgotten about that. That strange sense of foreboding that was pooling relentlessly in the pit of her stomach since she got off the bus.

Ahh. 30...32..34!

So there she stood. In front of a two storey double lot, with no idea how she got those specs and a stomach full of liquid. She rang the doorbell.

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Reunions were messy affairs, usually. One met people they liked, missed, loved, disliked, were apathetic toward or whom they had completely forgotten. The gathering was small, as she liked her christmas parties to be. The grander the party, the greater room to fall, she thought. She was, of course, referring to the amount of booze peoplw tended to consume at larger parties and then proceeded to make a fool of themselves.

But she might as well have been talking about herself. She took a sip of Merlot and then - well, she not so much fell as completely plummeted from grace.

There he was.

It was like someone had turned up the volume in her mind; suddenly voices snapped and jabbered throughout her head. She couldn't make head nor tail of them but some sort of instinctual, emergency response told her that she should bolt. Now.

True to literary fashion, however, she stood frozen to the spot. She could neither turn this way nor that. It was a small mercy that she still retained control of occular muscles; she dropped her eyes into her glass. The bubbles were fast melting in the rich, red liquid. She counted them. If she had casually flickered her eyes upward, she would've seen that he was completely engaged in conversation.

As it was, the roots that left her feet planted to the parquet floors decided they had had their wicked way enough. She quickly moved to another part of the house: the basement. The pre-emptive tactic was perhaps uneccessary and a calmer person might have ventured so far as to say she was being utterly dramatic. But she was taking no chances.

A voice behind her made her jump.

"Refill?"

She turned around and poorly hid a sigh of relief at the sight. It was the host - er, hostess - Mish. Mish poured a new glass for her. She smiled in thanks and took a sip. "So...Kenneth is here."

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"No, its fine" she protested.

"Don't be silly, it's so late. You can't be taking public transit so late!" Mish snapped.

"It's okay. You're on the way," he replied quietly. He busied himself with his jacket. She stood there dumbfounded, desparately clutching the handle of her gift. She realized what a giant idiot she must look like, with her mouth opening and closing.

"I'm not on the way," she said, finally. "In fact, I'm out of the way. I'm one exit above." Were they actually speaking to each other? She felt slightly giddy. She felt like clutching something more steadying than the gift bag. Like maybe his arms in that leather jacket- No, no, stop. No thoughts like that.

Her protest, however, fell on deaf ears: Mish was grabbing coats for other people. And he was busy looking for his keys in his jacket pockets.

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The negative spaces between two figures can speak volumes. The air between the passenger seat and the driver's seat seemed close and still. Within this hollow, there was a storm brewing. And they could both sense it.

There was so much to be said and yet everything wanting to burst out into the open after a year of being opressed and covered, seemed better left unsaid. The illusion that blanketed these negative spaces, poorly covered the moments past, was not coming undone. So why tug at those threads?

Her head was turned away, looking out of the window longingly. His eyes focused upon the road. His features knitted in concentration as he merged for a right turn. A choral ode retold of what had past and what was to come, born in the space between them. It sang about the sheer intensity of the moments, and the quiet days, the arguments, the misunderstandings. And it thrummed out an aching tune of loss.

The tall buildings gave way to open air and soon the highway swallowed them up. He accelerated and she instinctively tightened her grip on the armrest.

"Music?" he asked, finally. He still cast her no look and neither did she grace him with one of her own. On her part, she didn't think she could cranially stand to see what rested in his face. Or what didn't rest, more like.

"Always," she said automatically, barely above a whisper. Then, she realized the question. "Erm, yeah, sure." Her hand upon her chin, she stared out the window in silence. He looked over at her. Her small frame edged as far away from him as possible and, in many ways, she seemed the same, small, lost girl.

He flicked on the radio. Her intial response was not lost on him, but he said nothing. Mostly, he didn't know what to say. Neither of them knew where to start. They each had mentally lodged their complaints against each other in spare moments of the evening.

Along with her complaints, besides the hurting, there was much longing. She knew that this was not the case with him: he had only complaints. No longing. That was long gone. She deserved it, she thought without remorse. Still...it stung. There had been so many moments in which she had wanted some way out: some way to rectify it all or quietly apologize or...or...something! But nothing seemed alright; everything seemed too dramatic or laughable. She had been driven mad trying to figure out what to do.

And now here was the opportunity.

He decided that there really was no point in tugging at those strings. He would try to be affable. "So, how's your year been?" he asked.

She looked at him, then out onto the road ahead. It was just like the DVP to be jammed at 1 in the night. How was she? She contemplated a response that didn't involve how he pervaded her senses when she least expected. She couldn't come up with anything. Wine killed her creativity.

"Oh, you know. Fine. Yours?"

"Great. It's been a good first semester. Hard...but good".

"Good. Good..."

She bit down on her tongue and her eyes started to water. She wouldn't say it. She couldn't! She shouldn't. She wanted to wear him down, smoke him out of the fox hole. Guilt trip him. Granted, the last time she had done that, they had completely stopped speaking.

"Yeah...I basically just hang out at the library now."

"Lucky you," she commented.

"I play squash."

"Oh, I know."

"Right..."

Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it!

"Tell me something I don't know," she said.

"Um...well, I'm applying for med school this year. Early admission."

"Anything else?" She looked over this time, trying to see the cogs turning in his brain, see him getting shifty. Instead, he was quite unshifty. She looked away.

Catching the movement, he looked at her instead. Should he go there? Should he unravel those threads?

"How about you tell me?" he replied. "Why didn't you want to talk to me?"

She turned sharply. Her expression betrayed none of the turmoil she felt inside. "Why didn't you tell me about your girlfriend?" she ventured instead.

He braked abruptly and harshly. She steadied herself with the armrest and he swore under his breath. He turned to look at her sqaurely in the face. He refused to be riled.

"Why did you tell Lindsay you didn't want to talk to me?"

"Why did I have to hear about this from some random girl in the summer?"

He growled in frustration. The small sound did not go unnoticed by her. "Why," he tried again, "Did you not want to come tonight?"

"Why did everyone else but me know?"

"So suddenly...you hate me," he finished.

"I thought we were friends!"

"Answer me," he said. He was thoroughly annoyed at her audacity.

"You first," she countered. Little red spots danced in front of her eyes.

He took a deep breath. "I thought you'd find out eventually."

She glared at him. Was he serious? "Of course I found out! It's how I found out that is the problem."

"Oh?" he asked, frost nipping his words. It took alot to get him angry and have it be displayed. For now, he couldn't recall a more aggravating moment in his life. "And how was that?"

She swallowed. "From someone else," she said slowly. Her anger slowed down. It was getting ahead of her. Better keep that in check. She opened the floodgates of sadness and it washed over her as the memory flooded back.

"I asked about you. I hadn't heard from you since the concert. Two months. You didn't call. You didn't even return my call. I had to ask some random girl I work with about you. And somehow she not only knew how you were but that you were seeing someone since February."

The silence that followed this was deafening. A combination of what she said and how she said it stopped him cold in his verbal tracks.

"I thought we were friends. But suddenly, Mish knew. This girl knew - this random person who had no prior or deep knowledge about you. Didn't you think I would be happy for you? Didn't you - what did you think? Did you think at all? You don't owe me anything...we weren't freshly broken up or anything. But...I would've thought on the basis of being friends...you would've told me."

As they finally passed Sheppard, the DVP merged into the 404. He kept a steady eye on the speedometer, then put the car into cruise.

What could he say? What did he honestly think? He hadn't considered it so in depth but he should've considered that she would. He mentally kicked himself.

"I...I didn't think," he finally said.

She looked at him mournfully. He finally caught her eye. Guilt shook its chains, menacingly. "Exactly."

He sighed in frustration. "Fine, I didn't tell you! I'm sorry. I should've told you. I don't know why I didn't tell you, eventually. I guess I didn't think it would be such a big deal."

"It wasn't. It's not. But when you didn't tell me...it became a deal."

"Whatever. Look, I didn't do it intentionally. I just - you know me. I don't announce these things. People just...know or they don't."

"Yes. I am people. Clearly."

"That's not what I meant and you know it," he said, defensively.

"Who can say for sure?" she intoned, maddeningly. "I don't really know you at all anymore."

"Okay, make up your mind. What exactly do you have an issue with?" he asked, anrgily.

"Shall I make a list?" she replied, scathingly.

His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. "A list would be nice, yes! Maybe then I could keep track of your erratic-ness!"

"You don't even know what that means!" she yelled.

"It means you're crazy!"

"I knew it! I knew all that buddhism, sagely bullshit you keep up is not true! You're human! You get angry! So let it all fucking out!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?!"

"I'd rather be erratic than a sell out, Mr. I'm-too-good-for-everyone-else."

"When did I ever say that?!"

"Actions speak louder than words," she said, infuriatingly smug.

That was it! He merged into the right lanes and finally pulled to a stop at the side of the highway. He put the emergency blinkers on and shut off the car. He turned to her, one hand on the steering wheel.

"What is wrong with you? Why do we always argue?"

"Because you're always wrong," she replied curtly.

"So why the hell are you here?!" he yelled, furious at the situation.

"I didn't have much of a choice, did I?" she whipped back.

He gazed at her furiously, while she returned the death glare. Neither one turned away.

His breathing finally slowed and he looked away. "So you didn't want to talk to me because I didn't tell you?" he asked, incredulous.

"I never said I didn't want to talk to you," she replied, her voice only slightly shaking.

"You did! Lindsay said you didn't want to talk about me or something," he accused.

She scoffed. "The conversation was as follows: Lindsay asked me about you. I said, can we please not talk about him. She asked why, I said, I just don't feel like going there. Maybe some other time."

"So you didn't feel like going where? You said it as if there have been events in the past or things I've done plauging you other than this!"

She gave him a long, piercing look. "You haven't done anything. And perhaps that's the biggest thing." Her voice turned soft and shaky. "You've changed." She looked down in sadness. "You're not you anymore. You're this...other person. This...grander, better person. You've fashioned this strange shell for yourself. And I don't know who you are on the outside." She looked up at him, in earnest, almost as though she was desperate for him to understand her. "You think you've found yourself, right? But who have you lost in the bargain?"

He faltered. He felt his anger melt away at the look in her eyes. It always surprised him that such a biting creature could be so earnest in her stance. "That person was weak. I'm stronger now. He didn't understand anything."

She shook her head and looked down. Tears silently filled her eyes. How to tell him how much she hated him like this?

He cocked his head to one side. Was she crying?

"That person was human. He hurt. He could fall. He was sincere and he was just....he was perfect." Her voice shook and she looked up at him. A shimmer in her eyes translated her deep-vested feelings into drops. "You took that person away from me."

"I...I didn't tell you because maybe I just needed a break from thinking about you. About you. Always you. It's always about you."

"It's not about me this time. It's about you. Where have you gone?"

"I'm right here!" Then, more quietly, "I'm right here. I'm always here for you."

She shook her head. "No. Someone else is here. This person is callous and strange and shallow. I don't know how to explain it! I just...I miss you."

He was silent as he contemplated those words. "I'm with someone else now."

"What? No! That's not what I'm saying!" she yelled in frustration. "Never mind."

"Why didn't you want to talk to me? Or about me?" he tried instead.

She leaned her head back on the head of the seat in exhaustion. Her tears were slowly drying. "Because," she said, in a tired voice, "I was sick of not knowing. You're horrible at keeping in touch. Everyone kept asking me about you, how you were doing et cetera and I just kept getting more and more annoyed at the fact that not only did I not know and why the hell was everyone asking me as if I'm an authority on the subject of you but you didn't even bother to update me."

"I'm sorry." His voice was soft, reflective. "I should have told you. I should have kept in touch."
There was a pause. "If you were hurting so much about this...why didn't you tell me? Earlier?"

She sighed. "Subtelty is not your thing."

"I'm a guy," he said.

She stared at the roof of the car, only vaguely aware that her toes were starting to go numb. "No," she said to herself. Then she turned to him.

"No. You are a guy. You were the one."

In Comprehension

I don't understand people who get married early in life. Youth marriages. I mean, I want to keep an open mind and not be judgemental and I'm trying very hard not to be but I cannot help that quizzical brow and the wrinkling of the nose, so automated in its reaction to the words "getting married - young".

I don't know why I'm so averse to it, but its understandable, I suppose, what with all the socialization, western thought and technique and sacrifice of family for the sake of progress. We seem to be bombarded by those. The accomplishments and milestones, the set courses in life that you must run. Times have changed and so have goals. Along with those, man's ambition has evolved in pockets of the world. Globalized, urban pockets, that is. Anything else is backcountry, right?

That sort of dismissive mindset really disgusts me. That progression is the only thing that is right, that the corporate culture is the only one with sense. Humans are individual and with their own sensibilities so the lifestyles they live are only a reflection of that. Youth marriages are hard enough without the rest of the Western world casting a pathetic look in your direction.

I might not be a look-caster but I am most certainly a nose-wrinkler. I feel a sort of distaste or a gap in comprehension when I hear about people within this western society, this immediate metropolitan atmosphere, who sign their lives at 18. It is as though there is a fence, then a chasm and then another fence and I can't seem to make the jump of recognition from one fence to the other.

Of course, the first thing I try to do when synthesizing a foreign practice is place myself, free of inhibitions, into it. That's where I believe understanding and tolerance comes from. Acceptance. And to a certain, extent, I completely understand. Objectively speaking, I am able to make that leap of comprehension. But when I apply my character and my understanding of this western youth's character to the concept of early marriage, something doesn't click. Something is amiss and I can't take the leap of faith, though comprehension is there.

Yes, most youth on this continent are serial monogamists or one-night-standers or experimental. In antiquity, the cap on life was 27. Then, it was 35. Now, it's 75. The more time we take to "get settled", the greater our obsession to prolong our lives. And it is this same society who falls prey to these preset notions of when one should have a job/car/mortgage/whitefence/children that creates these standards. So as life prolongs, so to do our list of things we wish to accomplish or must needs do before we can be married or settled or tied or however else one may wish to see it.

Marriage takes up responsibility and most kids (I use this term to encompass teens and the early twentysomethings) run far, far, far away from something even remotely resembling or reeking of responsibility. They cannot lift their heads enough to take responsibility of their own world. How might they ever hope to raise a family unit? Some people are judt dumb and walk into marriage blindly, like its a cakewalk. They don't realize what sort of committment it requires, and how much sacrifice it calls on. Then they file for divorce and when they're 30, they use it as an anecdote at weddings and when they've popped back one too many. Others do realize it and are willing and ready and eager. They are sincere and fully understanding of what marriage entails.

That is what scares the bejeezus out of me. That, knowing what it takes and what it entails, the amount of sacrifice and such, they still walk into it and try and make it work. Quite a few early marriages are residues of unwanted pregnancies. From those, only about half survive and end in bitter, closeted resentment or boring, routine lives anyway. The rest are mutual and steeped in love but aren't able to face the storms without being weathered down in sanity.

The thing is...I don't look down upon early marriage. I just feel...there is so much of the world to see and experience. And yes, seeing it with the one person you love...why would anyone deprive themselves of that? They shouldn't and they wouldn't. But that rosy picture is only there for a moment. My own distrust of early marriages, I confess, might have something to do with my distrust in marriage at all. But I'm not allowing that to cloud my thinking. I'm saying, maturity is something one cultivates in hindsight. And marriage is not a game...it's a real collaboration of two people, as different as one another, and is binding. Early marriages often lack maturity, especilaly when surrounded by the metropolis. Because then you must tie in ego and colour the picture red with ambition and lust and gloss. Working together is hard enough...but working through all that - does one in this western culture really have the maturity to deal with something like marriage?

No. Yes, I will give my sound opinion on this: the answer is no. The evidence? The amount of divorce. Okay, so you cannot distinguish which of these divorces are the result of early marriagae or not. But that is not my point. I'm saying, that the rate of divorce is so high is very telling because, if those married at a later point in life cannot hope to make it through without calling it quits, what is the guarantee that the younger ones will? Yes, there is no guarantee. And yes, age does not necessarily equal maturity. But the thing is, out here, it is so easy to file for divorce. There is little to no cultural stigma attached to getting a divorce or being the child of a divorced parent and a part of a blended family. This is not true for all cultures or all parts of the world. The very fact that the rate of divorce is so high speaks only of the fact that people are just not willing to try and give their marriage a chance. Divorce is like their rainy day colouring book. People use it not as a last resort but as a first, one-way ticket out of a sticky situation. It's like a Get Out of Jail Free Pass.

So early marriages freak me out because, personally, I am selfish. I couldn't imagine giving up my life before I had to. Personally, I am never going to get married, but I do envy those people that have a leaning towards the white-picket fence life. I love that there are people around me who do want to have a husband or wife and share a love that is founded. I am skeptical of such a love - but for myself. I believe that this love is there for other people - I am just not born with that luck nor feeling.

But anyhow, my freedom is very precious to me. I cannot even be in a relationship that doesn't get me antsy past one month. I'm notorious like that; everyone knows a runaway bride like me. Fine. The situation of early marriage could never appeal nor ever synthesize with a character like mine because everything I've fought for in my life goes against the very statement of marriage. Plus, I've never witnessed a marriage ever actually work, thus my skepticism.

But when I apply the theory of early marriage to myself, ignoring my character, I find that it makes sense. As long as you know what you are in for, it makes perfect sense that you not waste time and start living with the one you love, for you will do it sooner or later. And why later than sooner? It still, however, scares me to no end.

It's not the sex, it's not the finances, it's not the thought of kids, or routine or eternal happiness & mediocrity. Well, it's not just that. It's the fact that the cap on life has changed. Even in culutres around the world, even in traditionalist, or rural areas, humans lives have changed. The time we have on earth has shifted. Someday, it might shift again. Maybe I am the byproduct of the ambition so secretly bred in this metropolitan atmosphere. But I just feel that in this long life, with this shift and change in time, there is so so so very much to see and do. There is so much to touch and feel. You could make your own personal imprint in the world. Or you could make your own personal imprint on the world.

All I can think of when I think of early marriage and this concept of a grander life and the fact that I view marriage as an end of an era is this:

Thetis: I knew they would come for you...long before you were born. I knew they would come. They want you to fight in Troy.

Achilles: Mother. Tonight I decide.

Thetis: If you stay in Larisa, you will find peace. You will find a wonderful woman. You'll have sons and daughters, and they will have children. And they will love you. When you are gone, they will remember you. But when you're children are dead and their children after them, your name will be lost. If you go to Troy, glory will be yours. They will write stories about your victories for thousands of years. The world will remember your name. But if you go to Troy, you will never come home. For your glory walks hand in hand with your doom.

That Day at That Place with Those People

I spent the day with my high school friends. I dont think of them so much as "high school" friends as I do just "friends". I guess its because I didnt make any "university friends" and the one that I did is too cool to be factioned or grouped in any which manner. I have friends, just friends, only friends, no prefix or suffix. They are very close to me. I'm happy beyond words that these people are back.



Visiting UHS was lovely and painful at the same time. I don't know what it is about that place. I'm so in love with it. I'm so in love with it and yet I hurt to see how much it has changed and how much faded glory it is trying to retain. Arts York is getting diluted. Going back there was a big reminder of that. I had forgotten, not facing it, not confronting it, because with all the pain this was too much to take.



But it's gone. Or going. Or getting there. Some of the teachers are still the same. J, for example, is still J. I find myself wishing that I was less of me and more of someone else with him though. I feel like a radio frequency...sometimes we hit in sync and there's perfect synergy and other times...I just miss the boat. It is tiring sounding like a broken record. I have about 4 or 5 emails sitting in my inbox that I haven't sent but written to him anyway that I've meant to sent but never quite could hit that send button. One of them even has the lines, "In the offchance that I hit the button and finally send this and you finally get this..." Sad. Indeed.



Slade. Slade is still Slade and my god, watching him and J go back and forth is pure entertainment, the likes of which even good money couldn't buy. Or bad money, in that case.



But god, this time was the first time I've ever felt pain going back. There has always been a sense of pride, of nostalgia, of misty, foggy-eyed comfort. But never this pain. The hallways, those hallways that we walked. I expected to see something at every turn. I expected to see them kissing, to see them holding hands. That yearbook office, I remembered the tie and the guitar and Parachutes and how hard he tried to impress her and how she completely turned a blind eye. The library, the library, full of its books, the study rooms, the bio, the exams, the shitty laptop, the linux system, the way he fixed her laptop. The way he said he felt like Sid in DHC when he was painting that painting for the woman he loved.

I found out that one of my teachers died the sunday before the monday that I visited UHS. She retired a year earlier (which I also didn't know) and on all my visits to UHS, I hadn't once thought about going back to see her. And then, when I hit the humanities office, they tell me, go away, J is in history. I say, I'm not here to see J, where is Ms. Brigham. And it all comes out. She died from cancer the very day I remembered her. I was absolutely heartbroken.

Alot of things in that place are leaving, dying. The Arts York program, for example, is being completely effing butchered because some crapass other schools are bitching about the unfair advantage we have. Well fuck you, because other countries have international schools and other forms and rungs of entrance exams. We have arts york. We pool talent and the program is invaluable. Its not a question of whether the druggie school, Alex Mack deserves this or not. It is that UHS doesn't deserve this; they don't deserve to have their resources spread thin and their talent diluted. They don't deserve to have their program watered down and taken away from them. These kids deserve this experience of a school that was a legend in itself, an incubator for greatness from all walks of life. Another heartache.

Slade will be gone by the end of the year and so will Salina because she is finally graduating, bless her lovely soul. I am really excited for her. Gawsh, she is going to be uber-amazing. More so than that, actually. Well, she already is but now she will rock the spheres of everyone pretentious idiot at OCAD or Sheridan or wherever she chooses to go. So Slade is gone and Salina is gone and Wozniak used me as a speech for Waterloo to his data class, so he's as good as dead for me. J's left but his amusing tidings and testy stints with admin leaves me sure that it's not for long. I hope it is though...that place needs some lost lustre retention and, imho, J is the only one that retains the flavour of old, spunky, outside of the box, new thinkers, art nouveau, experience extraordinaire UHS.

So...

...this was interesting.

Clickity.

In other news, I'm very depressed right now. So I'm going to buy a shitload of stuff to help and fill that strange gaping hole in my heart. I'm going to buy the Baraka box set because I am a nerd and the audrey hepburn box set because i'm ms. couch-potato-destined-to-be-cat-lady. And then maybe i'll finally buy a new phone or a bus ticket to new york, not sure which yet. and some books. And then some chocolate. And maybe i'll clean my room. Or not. Or I will build a time machine and go back to april of 2007 or august of 2007, yes, august of 2007. And change everything around.

Siesta

Perhaps the most perfect thing about my time here is that in one moment I can absolutely love life and totally curse my existence for different and overlapping reasons.

That, in one moment, I am utterly thankful for all the stupid small things and completely unhappy with the state of things at large.

That everything - music, colours, life, love - is, beyond a shade of doubt, tumultuous and yet alive in every notion and aspect.

That I am who I am and though I totally hate who I am, I wouldn't change anything. That I can look forward to silly feel-good movies, and dream and talk and retain a shine and twinkle. Possibly, I am describing some sort of bipolar attitude here but hey! What is the point of all of this - all of THIS - if one cannot feel every single expression and emotion that may come their way?

I'm completely lost and I dont know what the fuck I'm doing with my life. I know I'm meant for great things but that definition is relative. All I know for sure right now is that everything is imperfect and perfect and beautiful but destroyed.

And you wouldn't want it any other way, no, because then neither could you appreciate the beauty without pain nor pain without beauty.

May the beautiful destruction never end. And if it must, may every last drop of love and emotion and thought be expressed before everything finally shuts down for the turn of the era.

Fashionopathy

So I don't know whether to rave about this or to rant. It could really go either way here; I could make this bloody or I could gush.

I suppose if I were to say that I absolutely love this outfit by Lanvin, it would be because of its simplicity. It is brilliant in its simple lines. The colour is just subtle and plain enough to let your natural skin tone shine through and its elegant, flowing lines remain unassuming because they are not stitched or pulled into place, but they simply flow on the wearer's body. The main line draws your eye from Katie's right shoulder, straight down to the narrow hem, giving it a very fifties look with a toga twist. The Christian Louboutin's are this outfit's real saviour adding not only height but making the outfit decidedly soft and feminine. The lines in the dress are accentuated by her own curves which is why she is able to work the outfit so well. Katie's pert hair doesn't hurt either.

If, however, I confess that I hate this outfit, I would be completely remiss if I didn't point out that it is merely a sack that looks (thanks to its bland colour) to be made out of twine that has been knotted and hemmed to be able to somehow enter society sans the hobo tag. It's a little short of the outfit for the Paper Bag Princess and even Robert Munsch might not want his heroine wearing this. Points for the Christian Louboutins and the perfectly toned upper body, however, that only slightly made up for this sack - er, dress. But honestly, if you wanted to show those two things off, you might as well have just come naked with the Louboutins on, the effect would have been less devastating to the eye, I think. Perhaps next time we'll see Sienna Miller in a towel and Manolo Blahnik. Oh no, wait, that already happened.

It's interesting because while spotting her strolling in Central Park during her stage time on Broadway, Katie clearly decided to cash in on the fashion boho warp scene that everyone seems to be trying out. People say, "I always wear what's comfortable for me" or, "I believe in individual voice through fashion", and the ever popular, "I don't follow trends, I make them. I wear what I feel like." That, my lovelies, is a load of old tosh. Or at least...it is with most tweens. For some reason, there are a select few group of people who seem out to prove to the world their individuality by pairing random shit with random crap. For instance, high-heeled hooker boots, plaid shirt and a long thin gold necklace ending in a bling pendant with shitty out of bed hair. I mean, honestly? I don't need to see that; that's not fashion, that is the leftovers of your closet on laundry day. Feel comfortable in it? Great! Good for you! Want to stroll in the streets with it? Power to you! Just don't label it fashion. For godsakes! Katie Holmes decided to do the same thing: she took gigantic painter/plumber jeans and rolled up the hems, pairing them with moccasins, a beaten vintage leather brown bag and a giant thinly knit sweater and mahousive goggles - er, I mean, glasses. I thought she looked fine, whatever, it's comfortable right? But when people started trying to gauge the next fashion trends from what she was wearing, I got pissed. I'm not going to judge her weekend wear, because it's NOT fashion. I'm not trying to define something like fashion because to me it is an art form. It could go both ways, which is really what I'm trying to say with the Lanvin dress above. You could love it or hate it or both. But honestly? A trend is Fedoras. A trend is not sweatpants and stilletos.

Being brown for the first time EVAH!

I love Shahrukh. I've loved him since I was five and i watched Baazigar. But really....all I can say to this is LOL.

is this OSO and Nishabd and DTPH all in one? and why is there so much reference to Raj Kapoor? Honestly, all the RK in the world couldn't save Saawwariya. And why all the dancing in garages? and why is there a song called Dance Pe Chance? And why is shahrukh shorter than her? And why does Yash Raj INSIST on using Lata Mangeshkar's voice as their mascot? WHy isn't she dead yet? Maybe this is why Dostana sank without a trace. You know...besides the shitty plot and dialogue. Oh no, wait. That was Karan Johar's fault.

just...lol at srk image. so fob. in both ways. why is he so fob, anyway? Could a movie with this much dancing really have a plot that doesn't involve shahrukh's painfully fake moustache? Why are they trying to age him and make him young all in one movie??

This should be good...XD

Re-Evolution; Re-Vo-Lution

Somehow we got Barack Obama, first African American president in the history of America, elected to office in the same month that we had the word entry for "meh", an apathetic expression, entered in the dictionary.

Does anyone else see the irony of this?
Now I will say something: LOL (and this is ironic, idiots; let's enter this in the dictionary too!)

Is it just me or is there something very strange about these two, clearly opposite, events? Even just in the wording of them.

Barack Obama, America's first African American leader, elected to office by a nation struggling, rumored in hushed circles to be a civilization finally reaching its peak and falling, whose people are suddenly aware and tired of Republican follies, whose youth are taking a stand for once, actively participating, dancing in the streets, celebrating victory, carefully weighing their options between candidates.

"Meh", an expression to indicate apathy and uncaring, a general 'I cant be bothered' attitude, born of MSN language, which is really just an application for people to "chat". It's not about informality or slang. Colloquial language changes all the time and if it were not for the cataloguing of these changes, we might still be speaking Victorian English (some of us still do, scarily enough). It's only right to be tracking the change in language.

But, suddenly, apathy is indicated by a sound. We are apathetic, reluctant, to even assign an actual word to the feeling of indifference so rife in our society. We can't be bothered. It's not even onomatopeiac. It's just three letters strung together, from the sound of someone shrugging their shoulders in indifference. That's what we just catalogued.

The sound of indifference. The shrugging of shoulders today's youth seems to be doing.

Clearly, these two events are indicative of something bigger. The irony of meh and Obama hits me hard. There is something going on, going down, that is missing in this generation. I don't know what it is and I don't know where it begins, where it ends and whom to assign fault, blame, cause and effect to.

All I know is, its there. Watch me not shrug my shoulders and actually take the time to figure it out.

Society is going absolutely mental.

Why? Because.

A very very close friend, so close to my heart that they might be my heart itself or I am their soul. Understood, as the understanding that comes with these sorts of relationships. Asked myself, why? Answered, because. Sent this my way so that I had all my incoherent words once again articulated. Or else, I saw that shining thread that bound all these thoughts and a resounding recognition that I could not ignore etched deep in these words. Believed once more, for a moment, in the Soul of the World.

Why Study the Arts & Humanities?

Because, that's why.

Because a man downtown with a voice like the sea against the rocks told me I should.

Because my mother told me not to. Because she said mathematics, female engineering - engineering female. Because she spends so many nights in paperwork, dreaming herself into fairytales.

Because of the bruises etched into a Grade 4 spelling partner's cheek each week by his father.

Because television sets are alive and sucking patience out of brains like electric leeches. And it could take hours to perfect this sentence.

Because the average Canuck consums 140 percent the caloric intake required in a day.

Because KKK.

Because Chagall's 'Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers', did not quite make it into the Saturday morning comics.

Becase Adolf Hitler and Staling are the only two I've learned about.

Because it's been scientifically proven that listening to Mozart sonatas improves bad hearing.

Because the Burmese government is carbonated in every can of Pepsi Cola.

Because East Timor is on channel 3 and my brother is watching The Simpsons.

Because painters did not build atomic bombs. Because poems dissect them.

Because advertisement agencies are calling themselves creative.

Becayse a beautiful woman is a dress and a breast size and no longer compared to a summer's day.

Because no one's homophobic but alot of people stared when a girl kissed a girl at the bus stop.

Because sometimes even starving artists like to eat dinner.

Because time spent with family is marked between 6 and 7 o'clock in the daily agenda.

Because Picasso would tell you that skyscrapers do not quite equal the beauty of all the daffodils they have swallowed.

Because two boys in a coffee shop carried out a complete conversation and say nothing.

Because I don't know whether I'll be clubbed for saying Black People if I should be saying African Americans.

Because the government runs on monotone thought.

Because a successfully cloned sheep.

Because.

Because sometimes you see yourself more clearly in the characters you are writing than when you look in the mirror.

Because ulcers are nibbling away on stomachs everywhere.

Because graffiti is getting a little bit repetitive.

Because I'd rather be short than vertically challenged.

And if that's not quite enough...

Then because I can write these things to you and go to math class tomorrow and pretend that they weren't written for myself.

No Air.

There's so much I want to say to you but I really don't know how to say it. I've never been good at these things, these expression of feelings bit. I just needed time, time to figure things out. To find the right words.


I know. I know I went and fucked up something big. Something that could have been perhaps the greatest turn of this century, of our century. I could have been your great love. You could have been my great love. We could have blinded the world and taken it by storm. You anchor, I uplift. I don't know what I was thinking; I wont I wasn't because not only is that a tone of regret but also untrue. I did what I thought was best at that point in time because I didnt want anyone to be hurt, least of all you. You, the gem of a person I always knew you were. And told you so.


You made me want to be a million times better but the lovely face of morality made me hurt harder than I could imagine. It pricked. The biggest disillusionment was a presumption that was deadly, a penchant for the dramatic. The fall, sharp and fast, bottomless, relentless, the kind only pride can produce.


Sometimes, these days, my love for you is so strong, so deep that I'm almost completely blinded as to any rationale I might have produced and can only felt sincere and biting regret. Regret that things turned out the way they did. Yes. But most of all, that I was the way I was with you.


Not without reason, I know. But...it must have hurt.


Never mind all that for a moment. Put it aside, quieten those grouses for just a spell. Poetry is elevated language, a higher expression transcending all common sentimentalities and like alchemy, it has the power to completely manipulate and change.


That is my love for you. That is the depth of my feeling for you. It is an expansive love that covers all notions, that transcends all needs, that motivates, that uplifts. It is more profound than inky depths of the greatest minds. It knows no reason, no face and no point beyond you. If I feel regret it is only at the hurt. I confess, it is also slightly because I cannot have you. But...I'm so beyond all that. I wish I could apologize to you...it would put me at rest and allow me to focus on the love I feel for you. It would allow me to think of you without the blanket of poison spread over clear memories of you. It would clean the cobwebs of resentment that have been interwoven and spiral out of control, quiet now on this cold morning.


You make everything so much more beautiful. The memory of you. You used to make me laugh, you taught me true care, taught me goodnes and selflessness. You taught me to be weak. You taught me that it's okay to shed false notions of grandeur. You made the simplicity so scintillating, so alive that even the mundane was melodramatic enough for me.


You loved me for me. I now love you for you. Sometimes - most of the time - I think of you. Small things remind me of you and I smile silently, knowingly. Passersby think I'm affected. But they've never met us. I've never met us, either. And so I'm acquainting myself now and my gosh, was it ever beautiful. It was so beautiful I didn't believe anything so lovely, so tender, so sincere and heartfelt could ever be this real. I miss you so much it hurts. I wont attempt to describe the pain - it is not so deep that words themselves cannot express it, no. In fact, if I were more skilled, I would be able to adequately convey to you what not having you here is like.


But, as we both knew, there's more power in things left unsaid. The potential is greater. The explosiveness, the combustion. If I get it all out, if I should ever be able to tell you how sorry I am to have hurt you, this pain in my heart, pervading my senses, making me cry in anguish, clawing at the walls, might melt away.


I loved your extreme nerdiness. It made me feel nerdy. It was just so right. I loved that you just understood virtually everything about everything I said to you. And if you didnt, this thoughtful, pensive look would come up on your face like you were trying to synthesize some new fact or trying to accept it. It was such a gentle look.

I loved how you always came into the library and wished me good morning from behind, your arms around me. I felt the depth of love in those moments and their murky depths scared me so much. It was not the intenstity with which you hugged me but the intent. That intent was so pure...so clear. I want so much to have that again that I'm squeezing my eyes shut and praying. All I see is you...everywhere I go, everywhere I turn. I dont want anyone else's eyes on me unless they are yours.

...I can't even write out my grief. I deleted a whole paragraph because there are just no words to express the level of hurt. You've really hurt me, with this change. Ter recently asked...am I okay with the way things are enough to be able to talk to you? And I honestly don't think I can. I can't even seem to find words to express just how much this all hurts, especially in the dead of night.

I keep dreaming of you. You, in different avatars. When I wake up, I'm very annoyed because it leaves me with such an incomplete and hole-like feeling in the waking world; almost like this odd vaccum in my vocal chords. Even if it weren't there though, what would I yell that would open your ears to me? Nothing. The moment is gone, the time is past and perhaps this disintegration is all that's left now.

It makes me cry, every time we talk. When you mock me or I see subtle ways in which you have changed. I miss the boy, the friend I knew so well. Weren't we friends? Why do you make everything so difficult that even talking to you is a chore? Why is it that we can agravate the bejeezes out of each other...but not communicate on what is really going on? And, what IS going on?

What saddens me the most....is - well, everything really. The way I was blind. The way you were naive. The way all this shit went down and hot it turned out. But worse than that....the path that we're surely going to take. The way that I'm always right about these kinds of things. I predicted the future with the other (you know) and it turned out EXACTLY like that. And now...I can see it too. We, you and me, for each other will soon mean nothing and fade into nothing. A part of me, the part that hurts beyond human language (but not above sounds), hopes that is exactly what happens. So that I will never have to look at you again and want you ever again and realize what I lost ever again.

Suddenly I See

It may not seem like a big thing to most people, actually, to anybody at all. One might think that the frenzy I create over the acquisition of something as a milestone in my small life is pretentious, ridiculous, dramatic and just bordering on sheer lunacy (case in point: Wacom Tablet). Trying to make something into what its not.

But I alone know what these small acquisitions mean and represent and though the time space continuum shifts are small (if changed at all) by these, the amount of history, inflection and heartache traversed to be able to reach this point is something only I can understand and few others can appreciate. Actually, only two.

I finally did it. July 23rd, 2008. I finally got off my lazy ass, defied all laws and rules (of this damn establishment) and went and became the independent version of the self cast in my mind. I got contacts.

That's right. What to some may seem so infitesimal a move so as to be laughable is actually to me a shift in the direction (whether right or wrong, who knows, that classifcation is partial and arbitrary). Sounding louder than the superficial or practical reasons for getting them are the consequences of getting them. I defied and turned a deaf ear to adversities (read, my ridiculous brown parents - yes that was necessary), harnessed the power of my financial selfworth (which is newfound and quite wonderful as aggravating as the job may be) and I got out of this state of self deprecation and hopeless frustrating loss.

I quit daydreaming, speculating, hoping, wishing, fearing, guilting, casting, and blindly feeling around for fucking once and actually took that paintbrush and not only painted that view of myself but filled it up. In colour.

I have waited for this turn for about 5 years now. I've waited for the image in my mind which is both physical and this freer spiritual concept of myself to match the short, kiddy, inadequate, slightly dumpy looking thing that I actually am. I feel more grand. No, I always feel grand in my head but now I feel grand about feeling grand. It is, without a doubt, most lovely.

Progression and progressive. World be damned. That was always my attitude. Then why do I fear? Why does it take me so long to act upon? Is it that I'm a paper tiger? Is it that I lack the energy or the sense of excitement and life that I'm always talking about achieving? Or do I just suffer from the same ailment as so many others: content to dream and hope but scared that fulfiling that image may lead me to idleness once that image has been filled up; scare, in short of the end being less impressive than the journey? I'm impulsive but only when it comes to emotions and taking action on those; what about reaching the better state of things, shouldn't I be more heady with those? Oh, and I plan to (hah, irony), once I have the luxury of jumping without looking. For now I'll cast a quick gleeful glance at my list and cross yet another wonderful thing off it.

Next stop: haircut with bright blond highlights (end of summer in time for uni) and some weight loss. Who the fuck needs New Year's resolutions? Full steam ahead!

Cheers.

Inside and Out

I really want to post my latest piece of art done with my shiny new tablet but it was only partially done with the help of said tablet thus I will wait till I'm done my actual first-tablet-work-of-art to post both.

I was recently commenting on a friend's journal when the thought and talk of spontaneously combusting caused me to think of pinata (even though pinatas dont spontaneously combust). I wondered what that would feel like - not to be beaten to a pulp until candy pours out of you. No, rather, if I were a pinata, what candy would come out of me?

Call me arrogant, but it wouldn't be dollar store candy like those Spinder-Man Pez & Popeye Candy Sticks. I suppose it would be a mix of alot of different varieties of candy and chocolate, some bitter, some not so.

I guess gummy bears would definitely be a part of it cuz they're hard to bite off but mushy when warmed. Lindt chocolate because it's ever a mystery how the middle stays so soft while the outside shell hardens; because its sensual and melts on your tongue. Ferrero Rocher - because I love it. Kit Kat because it is a tasteless, cookie wafer covered in chocolate, which makes it worthwhile. Reeses Pieces because I used to hate Reese's cups until I tried the pieces and realized that good things can come in all shapes and forms and that one form shouldn't condemn another.

Liquer-filled dark chocolate for all the reasons you can know and just one more you dont. Packets of sour Skittles would flow out of me, too, for those more than often grumpy-puss days. No caramel, please, I despise it. Actually, I harbour a short temper and a penchant to hate hard and fast - like caramel. Okay, so maybe some caramel chocolate too. I would have a few Kisses but only the striped ones because they're multi-faceted and change everytime you turn them. I would also have Hubba-Bubba Bubblegum flavoured because I'm sometimes old fashioned and classic and the kid inside me never died, in fact the adult inside of me never came out truth be told (read immature).
Chocolate chip cookie dough straight from the packet for those lazy days. Gourmet Candy, Godiva's Dark Chocolate and Hershey's Cookies n' Cream. Cuz...I'm brown? Hah.

What candy would come out of you if you were a pinata? I wonder that. All these people I know...not candy and chocolate that they love...but rather candy and chocolate that is representative of them. The analysis of that, however, could take a longer post. Better save it for another time, my freshly enameled nails are now dry.

Cheers.

Smells like New Technology

In stock, waiting to be posted or published are as snippets and pieces of writing that are masquerading as "fresh", "questioning" or explorative works penned. But everything has a time and a place and at this time, I want to say just this. Just two things.




This too shall pass. In its passing, I shall be naught but humbled and grateful of anything it teaches me and en generale.

and

Things aren't as big, grand, complicated or dramatic as your mind makes it.


The End.

P.S. I feel I must catalog this. After four years of wishing and wanting I finally had the balls and guts to get a tablet. Side effects may be increased anti-social behaviours but I'm feeling this feeling that's hard to describe. Disbelief may best capture it but not disbelief at holding the lovely sleek thing in my hands nor at having finally bought it or having the means to. No, that I expected would one day happen. That I invested in and paid attention to an acute part of my love for art, so acute you could name the hunger to create and inspire as longing.

Actually I'm surprised at now having one most important thing crossed of The Grand Maestro List. Slowly, I'm working upon what I sought, touching those areas. The action of completing it and crossing it out is what takes me by surprise. Pleasantly so. For maybe everything else isn't as impossible either. I'm not being bolstered by a mere piece of technology, no, it is not as juvenile or as simple as that. But rather, these years, all these years of longing and wishing and dreaing and hoping and working may, it seems, finally come to fruition on a grander scale if something this small that I poured so much longing and wishing into finally came to be.

Life & Times

He needs no introduction, no smarmy paragraph, no twist of words, no dollop of shine.

He is Dan Eldon.

Who is Dan Eldon?

One may never know. Despite leaving behind a legacy of journals that catalgoued in 3x5's the world through the eyes of a human, despite expelling ideas in letters and exclamations of adventure, humanity and observation, all physical presence and active action have perished young, as the thinker himself.

But you know you are looking at true magic when faced with immortality; when the thinker dies but the thought lives on forever.

There are many wonderous things and marvellous people in this world who come into being and leave their mark, leave us wondering and hungry for more. There is a quality in these things and these people that transcends our understanding, something that we classify as unique or different, for lack of a better word. But the truth is, these are mere adjectives, poorly defined and designed to give life to a feeling produced that's small and quiet but incomprehensible in its wonder.

Succumb to what makes up a small percentage of the infinite world of the Internet, Wikipedia and read for yourself what it is that Dan Eldon accomplished. Many describe him as a blazing comet, a rush of adventure, a trailblazer with a human heart. I will describe it in one way.

Question: What does it mean to be human?
Answer: Dan Eldon.

Does this mean that he is the only human worth being considered? No. Not by any means. Hundreds of nameless, faceless heroes are changing the world in small (and large) ways everyday. But I mean to say that he was (and is, for he may be no more but actions are continual and ring true forever, turning over in a cause & effect chain that changes the future; think The Chaos Theory.) humanistic in his faults and his actions. A spotlight on Dan Eldon, then, if you please.

I, myself, confess to being endlessly fascinated by things of this nature: by people and events that have this immortal, human, moralistic streak, a heady, raw and earthy aura, an idealistic-to-a-fault edge, a small observation giving birth to a larger philosophy. Perhaps that is what drew me and what I try now, almost in vain, to describe. To catalogue. Fail though I may, at least I am cataloguing. And that is exactly what Dan Eldon did. But on a broader scale, with effective methods and more grandiose consequences.

Now think about it. Once you're done that, ask yourself and consider this: why is it that millions of people clamber and crowd for an autograph of their favorite star or celebrity or guru or what have you, inked in notebook lines and palm lines alike? Why it is merely the taste of immortality. Of course, that is what it is. Is it not? Everytime they flip the pages of that book open or open the plam of their hand, they can see and recall the exact moment in which that certain idolized person spared a minute to cast their signature. A signature is unique, identifiable and branded. An immortal brand.

These wonderous people of renown, forces in their field to be reckoned, long gone, have somehow and in some erascible way made their mark and signature upon humanity. Case in point: Vemeer and the Art of Painting, who's very work was hoarded by the love-to-hate, hate-to-love Adolf Hitler himself. Yes, I will gladly get to the point. Dan Eldon lived in Kenya with his mother, father and sister, as you already know, Google whore that you are.

He traveled and visited 46 countries, could speak 7 languages both self-taught and through school, and raised 5K for the open-heart surgery of a young Kenyan girl who later died due to hospital neglect. Though he was initially sent to a british school, he convinced his parents to allow him to attend the International School of Kenya, socializing and forming friendships with the local children of Nairobi.

Living in Africa as he did, Eldon met with with terrible beauty: the cross and clash of two paradoxes. The beautiful, rugged landscape of Africa and the poverty and suffering it housed on its soil. Armed with observation, wit, humanity and what is described to be New York telephone directory sized books, Eldon began cataloguing his surroundings at the age of 15.

Eldon kept taking time off from school to work and experience his surroundings. He accepted a job working for a magazine in New York and even got to work as a third assistant to the director on a movie called Lost in Africa. In January of 1989, he and friend drove a Land Rover across the African plain, spanning five countries. What's amazing is that he returned to school, all the while planning his next trips, purchased another land rover for a trip to morroco, planned to buy and sell bracelets in America. He spent time in Morroco and then shipped over 5K worth of goods to America, which he then proceeded to sell on the beaches of Southern California.

Through his photographs, his comments, his thoughts and feelings, he has created an imprint on the world - his imprint - in a very quiet but fitful way. He planned and felt and calculated and executed, only to die at 23. And yet he did all that he could, things that we, I, could only dream of having the courage to do in five lives.

Forget his double spreads, forget the fame or the so called greatness of his actions. I am blown over by the humanity in them. I am stunned by the immortality gained not by internationally acclaimed photographs but by the words he says through those photographs. The actions he has taken, sensibilities he must have possessed.

Especially now. I look around now and all I see are the apathy-filled idiots of North America. These kids, the half grown child-adults who think that they have a right to everything from education to entertainment. It hurts my heart when I think of the strange shadow, mere illusions of our selves that we seem to have become. And then I hurt to think that souls like Dan's leave so quickly, but make footsteps so grand. A global theme, goodness is always downtrodden, always conquered by evil, always squished at a young age.

But it is golden, because that goodness is immortal. And in the face of death, you will always see life flashing past you.

Here's to life. Here's to Dan Eldon, a pillar of that true-veined life. And a time that will someday return and sustain.

Tired of Waiting: When will it be my turn?

"SILENT DANCE PARTY

Tonight at Midnight in Yonge-Dundas Square!

Bring your favorite MP3 player. Arrive in Yonge-Dundas Square at midnight sharp for the countdown and press play! Over 200 individually controlled LED lights hung over Yonge-Dundas Square will interact with the music, transforming the space into a silent dance party like never before. Right-click here to download the set"

Shit man. Shit. The essence of my life.

And of course, I can't go.

Age of Reason

It is a strange thing, an odd feeling.

As I walked the cobblestone of the crossing on the campus today, I realized something that I had always known and spotted all along but had not necessarily given voice to. My life...and those of many others, has been spent almost entirely in residual guilt.

So much guilt, in fact, that I cannot fathom ever being the girl in that KT Tunstall song. It has nothing to do with low self-esteem or a habit of self deprecation that wasn't caught early. It merely is the state of things.

It was bloody windy and my hair whipped around me, as though underwater, suspended up, down and all around. I felt as though I was underwater, my actions muted and my voice dulled. But my heart...my heart it both soared and roared: with guilt.

Depending on how self-righteous a person is, or how young they are when that sense of "duty" cultivates, guilt can root and blossom, forming the basis for the most ugliest to the most loveliest of decisions. At this point, I cannot figure out if guilt is a constraint or not. In the light of recent happenings known only as "life", I'm wont to say that it is indeed a constraint for it is certainly not a catalyst. However, my reasoning would thus be flawed; for one cannot conclude that if something is not substance A then by mere default, it is must be substance B because the negation of substance A cancels out the opportunity for substance C. In short, I am undecided.

A thousand naysayers would say that guilt is a festering disease that needs to be terminated. But that is easier said than done when really our entire social culture depends upon, runs, and feeds on it. If you think about it, guilt is often a major or secondary theme in many works of art both film and language wise. Almost a perversion, lessons of guilt are laid upon us in parallel with lessons on distinguishing between right and wrong, archaic black and classic white. What is guilt, I wonder then, if not black nor white, considering we don't question or classify it? Is it the grey? Then how can you terminate the grey when there are no set definitions or borders, no upper or lower bounds?

Most importantly, I think, how can you terminate something that is so very ingrained in almost every action that we take, the ying to our yang. Though the notion is arguable (as shades of grey are wont to do), think about it. Everyday, we make choices, whether small or large, that are some form of definitive. These choices set off a series of other choices, consequences, actions and reactions in a sort of series-circuit effect (if only they were parallel...). What causes us to make one choice over the other? The consequences or results, the pros to the cons and which one weighs heavier. Yes, one can objectively lay out the pros and the cons (so termed for their "good" and "bad" connotations) and it would seem obvious to any outsider that the choice more beneficial, that is deemed to be more "good" should be the one you choose.

But one person's good may be another person's tepid, mediocre, fantastic or horrible. So then, logically, you define your own sense of "good" and "bad" when making these decisions according to your own sense of self, calling on your own past experiences that were ingrained into you since childhood. Children learn fast. And bad habits die hard.

Then what is explicitly spelling out and defining consequences is not objective definitions of good and bad but rather subjective views that are molded and created by a combination of circumstance and guilt from those circumstances.

As human beings, we are lucky enough to feel a wide range of emotion. Linguistic doles out various names and labels for this often confused but not so varied spectrum of emotional range we traverse almost everyday. There's your basic anger and happiness as well as sadness, rage, delight, joy, amusement, and such. But mo matter how you classify them and what you call them all emotions can be thus categorized into one of two fields: that which feels right and good and that which doesn't. To a simplistic mind it should seem only natural that that which feels right and good should be the path to take and the decision to make. This is part of the reason children, with their simplistic world views, often strike a pang of recognition in adults and have that uncanny way of telling the truth: because they call it as it is without any worldly complexy charade or facade that we are forced to put up as we mature into society. It's simplistic. But, of course, we must make things more complicated than they must be.

If it's so simple and elementary why the Prozac Nation? Why is it that most people pick and choose the path and decision that makes them unhappy, that feels so bad? Fate? A Freudian sort of self hatred? Is it opposite day? None of the above?

If you picked none of the above, kudos to you, you must be a 7 year old with that creepy childlike 7 year old tell-it-like-it-is bit going on. It is circumstance. And it is the guilt that is induced into a person from trying to leave, change or alter those circumstances or even trying to make a decision whose result might negatively affect those involved in those circumstances.

It's all personal. Doesn't mean it should get shoved under the carpet. The wife that works as a full time doormat makes choices that she must make for the "greater good". What great is there to the good if her feel-bad decisions render her nothing but grief and are steeped in guilt? Resentment crops up overtime as time and again she sacrifices with no recognition. And resentment is the real festering disease that needs to be vanquished.

What about the child who keeps his word, who puts away his dream for the sake of his parents respect, opinion and love? They reason that they must think about everything their parents have done and will do for them, how much of their lives they have given for the sole happiness of one being. That's not logic, that's guilt talking.

What about that single mother who loves her daughter but craves some sort of companionship? But this may decision may affect the stability of her child's life, so she must tread carefully if at all. The pull of the umbilical cord is stronger and creates some sort of guilt; whether you want to call it parental responsibility or not, by mere definition that I've laid out above, this is some form of guilt.

I'm not saying that it's good nor am I saying it's not bad. I'm just saying, it's there. And to be aware is the first step. To try and combat it, is the next. You ask, if I'm not giving it a negative connotation, why try and combat it in the first place? Simple. If, after a hot shower, your glasses steam up upon entering a cold room, you're not going to be able to see. In this case you're going to want to automatically do one of two things with the same goal in mind: either you'll want to take off your glasses and wipe them on your towel or keep them off altogether. With the sole purpose of trying to see better, clearer.

Metaphor fly over your head? Okay. Basically guilt, while neither good nor bad as I see it, can and may lead to good or bad decisions that aren't necessarily steeped in reality. And you always want to make sure your view or perspective is the clearest, the least "foggiest" or murky. Because that's when you miss things and don't take important details into considerations. Small but powerful details that could spell the downfall of the choice made. Case in point: Achilles' Heel. Your decisions should be informed, the choices you make, whether they result in a feel-good or feel-bad outcome should never be formed out of guilt for anything because this clogs your judgement almost as much as something positive like love.

Yes, for the most part and to most people, guilt sucks. It hurts. It pains. And it never goes away. It always stays like some dark crevice perpetually etched into the corner of your mind and always leaves a nagging feeling like someone constantly tapping on your window or that jerk of missing a step. Less methodically speaking, in my world at least, I want to avoid guilt because it makes me make bad decisions. And because martyrdom is something most of us try and achieve at some point in life (c'mon, who doesn't like to be hero-worshipped for their pains?), most of this guilt weighing activity when making choices goes largely unarticulated. No one knows what you've done till you've done it but they'll also never know why unless you tell them. But who wants to say why you've done what you've done? Exactly. And that's where the resentment comes in. For me the guilt creates resentment, something whose effects, combined with my short-fused temper make for....explosive results.

But I'm really keen to make some sort of demarcation. Again, guilt, in my definition is neither good nor bad because everyone's version of "good" and "bad" are completely subjective and thsu can never be equated on the same plane due to individual circumstances. This much I know for sure. There's a point, in fact, where guilt and responsibility blur. Parents make decisions, putting the needs of their children first, eve though it may not feel good because that is what is expected of them. They may not like it...and while this is partially spurred by guilt (as in, "well I had better make this choice because I'll feel guilty if I make the other and my child is hurt because of me."), it comes under the parents responsibility to provide for their child first. But see, responsibility is positive. It is the right thing to do. It is clear, defined and has an upper and lower bound. It makes nothing foggier, just restates what must to be done.

Guilt is what ought to be done, to exagerrated proportions such that one reasons that if they don't they'll face consequences in which their loved ones will be hurt or poised for hurt. To that I can only say: yes, it's hard. But it takes courage. The same kind of courage you read in Pooh and Narnia and Harry Potter books, yes, but with a lot less Christian-based controversy. It takes courage to stare guilt in the face and refuse to make a decision marred or clogged by it. I think of guilt as a sort of cling-wrap. It protects and protects well but put it under the heat of a microwave and its little tiny molecules start to break down and seep into the food.

For all my preaching and sorting, I want to say, I am nowhere as near to battling guilt as I would like. But I'm getting better. Call it stubborness or what you will but for the girl who could stand up to the world but not those who mattered, it's some shred of courage to wake the spine. I want to somehow try and fight this guilt. Not because I'm feeling guilty for feeling guilty...but because my guilt was never protecting whom it was supposed to the most.

Me.

[ Because he thought so poorly of her, she didn't feel the need to oppose his false misconceptions. ]



[ These hollow words are all that keep her up. ]



[ She strives to be amazing. ]

Silent Letter

You don't know the first thing about me. It sounds like a stupid regular cry of a spoilt white suburban teenager but for me, its a truth. It's a cold hard truth that isn't meant to be shouted and then followed by a slamming door and pumping up my hard rock punk tunes. For me, its a resounding statement that haunts me and follows me everywhere I go. Like a thin shadow upon the ground that is there, day or night, light or no light. But you could never understand this. Because, once again, you've misjudged me, misgauged me.

I go through every day trying to do my best, trying to so hard to stay awake and just battle that monster that rears its ugly head the moment my eyes pop open. I try to be as sincere and dilligent as possible and always try to be agreeable or, if I can't be that, be quiet and indifferent to you.

But if you knew me, you'd be able to see this in every action that I take. Of course, you don't know the first thing about me so, for some reason unbeknowest to me that leaves me absolutely perplexed, you just assume the worst of me. And then you stupidly wonder why I don't tell the truth: because of your immature, horrible, vengeful, vindictive, childlike attitude concerning things of this nature.

For instance, if you knew me, you'd know that I love to see love around me but cannot commit to anything relationship-wise for the life of me. You'd understand that I have a palette for the finer things in life, can understand movies of great and subtle context. You'd realize that I appreciate these wisps, these moments of life and that I'm an observer who understands people, body language and life far greater than you realize. That I can understand and predict outcomes of peoples emotional scopes, and have deeper mental understanding of their behaviours on a more...spiritual, "fate-driven", intangible, philosophy of life context. You'd know that I'm sensitive and my sensitivity causes me to be far too emotional and very empathetic; I can feel people's sorrow, their joy and pain in levels that you could never even imagine because even words elude those depths. You'd be able to comprehend that I'm just different, that I live in my own shell, that I process my thoughts and understandings in a way different from those around me. "Those people", being people typical of my age. I'm atypical but this is neither good nor bad. It just is; thank you machiavelli.

If you understood even one tiny detail about me, you'd be able to see that everytime I cannot make you happy or fail at something you want, I have anxiety attacks, cannot think straight and the latter eats up at me for several days. I cannot get up, cannot function or think clearly. The word is depression, I am depressive and it takes me all my effort to keep my head above the water. For you. Because, as you've already proven years ago, that sort of understanding is beyond your emotional intelligence and capability, to handle, you who want everything simple and easy and bottom-lined. You'd also know that when I prayed for my marks to come out the only thing I kept saying was, please don't let them be hurt because of me.

I don't understand. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. Okay, I can't articulate my feelings as coherently as I'd like but that is your own fault: everytime I tried when I was younger, you either rudely cut me off or scoffed at my flowered words as though they were something fruity and bookish, too high-level to be sincere and almost surreal in their reality. Too pompous, too idealistic and filmy. But those were the words of my heart and I couldn't get you to understand then. And now that I try and mould them for your sakes, I still cannot get my point across.

Which then leads me to this, the inevitable. By doing what you want, I am miserable as it is but you too cannot appreciate that I'm doing it for you. Instead, you berate me and grate on my nerves. Instead of encouraging me and putting a hand to my head to shield me from the elements you think reverse psychology will work. Here's a newsflash: talking in a ridiculing manner about my already low self esteem and trying to point everything WRONG with me and doing it in a disbelieving, vindictive manner is not going to help me. It's just going to lower my already pretty shitty self worth which I have been trying for 3 years now to rebuild.

So what is my final decision, my conclusion in these chain of events? I quickly realize that doing what I don't want to do, for your sakes leaves me unhappy as it is, that goes without saying, but also doesn't serve it's initial purpose: it doesn't make you any nicer or more encouraging or more loving. You are not proud or pleased. The outcome is neither good or bad; it is nothing. And that is even worse than the alternative. That nothing gets any better. Ever.

I can now only afford to scoff at your explanation of "she's only doing this to take the easy way out" because I've tried to convey in words the sincerity of my actions. Just because I never shared with you my hopes and dreams and wants with you before doesn't mean that they haven't been there all along, hiding from you. Just because I now bring them up with such fierce conviction means only that I've finally found the courage and spine to be able to look at my life and say, No, you are under my control and I will be happy no matter what.

Anyhow, the conclusion: the final result is this. I decide, to hell with that; it doesn't seem to be making any difference to you but more importantly, it doesn't seem to gel with me either. Then why this sacrifice for no results? Why bear the burden if no one, not even those you love, will at least commend you for it? Why? For honour? For respect?

Fuck honour. I'm fucking sick of honour. For respect? I have clearly not gained one ounce of respect by doing the right thing that you wanted me to do. Why continue? So that both parties be miserable? Doesn't it only make sense that one party should sink it all in, go the full monty, deal with the extra, marginal unhappiness by the other party and be happy themselves? If I have to be happy and do what I want, I might as well do it, because it doesn't seem to make much difference to you. And hey, so your opinion of me dips lower. Who the fuck cares. Honestly, I'm already in so deep, what's a little more? At least, that way, one of us is happy. And the most important thing is, this chain of resentment, this firewall of temper and dissatisfaction and anger toward everything you have done in my past will finally be broken.

I regret so much, cry over so much that happened, blame you for so much. But that was when I was younger: I had no control over it. But now...now I'm older. I do have control now. I don't want to feel any resentment, I don't want to blame you for something I could have changed.

The truth is, I did it for all the wrong reasons. I expected happiness to come from expectation. I expected it. That was wrong. Goals are important, but expectations only curb and curtail ones full creative powers. For once in my life, I felt successful. I felt loved. I felt like a normal, prodigal child. I saw that I had the power to make you smile in pride, to make you realize that I too was worth something, that I had capabilities that you had never imagined and that, where words had failed to convey, my actions were leaving you speechless instead. And oh my, was that power heady. It was something that I had never wielded, never even seen in myself before. Sure, others had them and I envied them so very much. But to be able to feel that power, to be able to have it...I cannot even explain what it meant to me. And how dangerously illusatory it made the entire situation.

I know now: I should not have done it to make you happy. I only made myself unhappy in the process. And now you're even more disappointed. I should not have lied to myself and told myself that I'm capable of this and that and things of which I have absolutely zero interest in. I should have let you seen me for who I am, should have let you know that whatever I am, I am me and that you will just have to accept that. But firstly, I should have been able to accept that. I should not have compartmentalized; you see, one part was me, the me I saw and knew. And then there was the me whom you saw and thought you knew, took for granted and assumed. I should have let the me me bleed into the you me. First, I should have been okay with me. Only then could I have expected you to come to terms with it.

And besides...what is so bad about me, anyhow? Okay, so I have a drop-of-a-hat temper. I'm stubborn. I have a superiority complex. At times, I'm arrogant, brash, unrealiable, sort of clumsy, impatient, a tad unaccepting, a little judgemental. But that is just me. For example, it's taken me a long time but I have now come to terms with the fact that you are vindictive, mean-spirited, childish, immature, uncomprehending, egotistical, and arrogant, and ever-ready for a fight or provocation. And that nothing I do will ever change our relationship. But there's good in me, too.

I try, so hard, I'm sincere and disciplined and somewhat righteous (for the moralistic things that matter, anyhow). And there are so many good things about you, too. Why do you always assume the worst of me and question my integrity? I've told you this from day one, the one thing I've shared is this: I absolutely hate, hate, hate it when you question my integrity, my intentions. Nothing flares me up more. No genocide or hate killings or massacres or anything gets me more riled than when you question my motives, especially when I'm trying to stick to and do the right thing.

God, I have more to say but it's all a broken record. I'm so tired of this bullshit. And I'm so tired of waiting for life. Ever since I can remember, since I was eight or seven, there's always been a Greek chorus in my head: just a little further, and it will get better. Just a little further, and it will get further?

But no. How much further? I'm not being impatient, I'm being realistic. When I was 8, I wanted to be 12 so I could dress the way I wanted to. When I was 12, I wanted to be 16 so I could drive and get the fuck away from you. When I was 16, I wanted to be 18 so I could finally leave this fucking shit hole, the depression, the anger, the guilt and get back to reality and live on my own terms. And now that I'm 18...all I want to do is have a hole open up and swallow me. All I wanted at 18, was to be 25 and graduated so I could start living life. But wait. At 25, I'd start wishing that I was 27 and had all my loans paid off while working in stuffy, shitty cubicle in some high pompous firm with insincere, single-minded, depthless, money-mongering idiots who cared only about their stock benefits and the newest cars. And then at 27, I'd wish I was 29 so I could finally earn a degree doing what I wanted to and then wish I was 30 so those loans from my second "epiphany, quarter-midlife crisis" degree could be paid off, again. And when I was 30, I'd probably have an anuerism or go insane and hang myself or put a gun to my head. And the worst part is, I'd constantly be living, waiting for the next thing to come. And I'd blame you for it.

You say you can see 10 steps into the future and anticipate things. Then why can't you anticipate this? Why can't you see all this falling apart, all of me falling apart? That I'm so lost and so confused because you've instilled into me a fear of life and the unknown consequences that are automatically always bad? Why do you make me feel guilty for feeling happy? Why do you make me think that just because I'm happy one day, that I must be quiet and sober the next day or else I'm frivolous and wasting life? Why is showing that happiness and feeling that happiness wrong? Why do you think that just because I show and feel happy, I'm automatically careless and childish and don't think seriously enough about the future. Why must my happiness be rationed and measured so carefully and labeled when there's precious little of it in my life in the first place? Why do I let you get in my head? Why can't you see that everything I've done, I do, I've done it for you?

Because you don't know. You don't know the first thing about me.