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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------


- 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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.