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.