this fantastic mess.
dirty little whirlwind, i'm pinned to the heart of your swirl.
my toilet seat’s somehow ended up broken in the last couple of months.
i’ve had so many people in my room that i’ll never know who the real culprit is.
all i know is that every time i sit on that toilet seat, i feel like i’m going to die, and i love it.
you gotta appreciate the little adrenaline rushes life happens to hand you.
above: me and laura being super excited for prom night.
we went to the first year formal on friday night. she was donned in a beautiful, floor-length white gown while i wore the usual dress shirt, skinny tie, dress shirt and dress shoes. i couldn’t find my suspenders and they were sorely missed.
we headed over to chuck’s place for pre-prom festivities (drinking and photos and the such) and then we headed to ARENA.
the event itself was alright. the place was only about half full, but the plan was to drink our lives away anyway, so it didn’t really matter. chuck passed out on a bench, laura and i danced and jan got jipped out of twelve bucks.
they tried to close the open bar half an hour early, but after they realized how much of an uprising that would cause, they relented.
bartenders can be such bitches sometimes.
i spent saturday night at a bar called sparrow. it turned out to be this super hip place for young adults (mid 20’s-ish). its sign doesn’t even say sparrow – it’s just a picture of a sparrow head carved into a slab of wood.
all of the friends i came with left after about five minutes because there were too many of them and they didn’t really match the clientele. apparently they were noticeably younger than the rest of the crowd and it seemed to be an unwanted anomaly.
however, i’d already walked that far (it’s all the way in the mile end) so i decided to stay, order a mojito (recommended to me by some man outside the bar) and make friends with strangers. i ended up sitting at this table with a bunch of people, handing out relationship advice and having a good time.
at one point, some man came up to me and told me i was beautiful and i wondered why i wasn’t surrounded by more people like him.
oh well.
i suffered from sleep paralysis on sunday morning. when i realized i couldn’t move, i started to hallucinate and everything got crazily eerie. i saw weird mist and dark tendrils coming out of my bathroom and i heard knocking on my door and the wailing of small children.
it was all quite frightening until i realized i could lucid dream in such a state.
i decided to fly out my window and over the sea, but the dream became unstable and i woke up.
after this bout with terror and euphoria, laura and i went to the eaton centre to pick up wusky’s present.
he recently received the title of sports editor for one of our school newspapers so we got him a customized mug that shows these two photos on either side:
he loved it.
the weather’s getting absurdly cold again and i think i’m getting sick. my nose is all stuffed and i feel insanely tired.
i’ve decided to hole myself up in my room, drink a lot of orange juice and watch some awful television in an effort to make myself better.
i really don’t want to be ill again.
above: from left to right; elaha, me, yodit.
these two have been at my arms for years and years – since they were in fourth grade and i was in fifth.
they have known me through so many stages of my life.
they are family.
when i heard that they were coming to visit this weekend, i felt a few weights lift from my heart.
these girls keep me grounded – they bring with them all the comforts of home and remind me of my roots.
i remember who i am with them.
and with them, i am free to be totally and completely myself.
i don’t have to hold myself back, or tone myself down, or make myself more – with them, i don’t feel as though i’m making any sort of impression.
they do not judge me the way i think others do.
they know me.
they know all of my quirks and merits and flaws.
they know of my incredible vanity and of my darkest insecurities.
and i know that they love me, and will continue to love me through everything.
we drank a lot this weekend.
we laughed and we danced and we explored.
and we fought and we worried and we sometimes got annoyed.
and after all of it, i know they’re still there.
my favourite moments of the trip, before any of the drinking or partying or going out, were moments of just lying on my bed, playing music at full blast, and just having them there beside me.
yodit might’ve been playing her strange doodle game, and elaha might’ve been surfing the web, but they were there and it wouldn’t be long until one of us started dancing and we were all writhing on the bed – arms waving, laughing at how ridiculous each of us looked, caught in a moment of child-like insouciance with not a single worry in the world.
they’re gone now, but i’ll keep the gift they brought me close to my heart so that my blood may pump and be enriched in it and run through my veins to spread the light.
they reminded me of how happy i can be.
they are two constants that let me know that after everything is said and done, it’ll all be alright.
all of my petty problems disappeared with their arrival because they came from a world where none of them really mattered.
my strange loneliness became irrelevant – it dematerialized – because they were there to love me –
because i know that i am important to them while they are important to me.
i don’t think anyone will ever really be able to understand the bond we share.
we may be going our separate ways – living out completely separate lives in worlds that are so far apart – but somehow we manage to stay together.
and even after months of not seeing each other, we can talk as if we’d never been apart.
there is a sense of comfort and relief in knowing that two of my pillars will always be standing.
and things are really looking up.
the weather’s getting so nice, my soulsister’s returned to me and two of my closest friends have managed to patch me up again.
right now, i’m really, really happy.
i feel wonderfully light and strangely invincible.
thank the good Lord –
i’d forgotten what this felt like for a while.
i should’ve laid down next to you.
i should’ve nudged your sleeping figure until you awoke and told me things to make me sane again, or at least slip into insanity with me.
i should’ve trusted you to want to do that, and i should’ve trusted the promise of our bond.
you are my soulsister.
i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry.
that one was my bad.
there is a boy spontaneously throwing up in my bed.
he’s not even my guest but it’s my bed that suffers.
the very bed i sleep in every night.
i just got back from doing laundry – cleaning my sheets and pillow cases after they were covered in sick.
now he’s puked all over the duvet and my pajama pants, but i guess i’ll clean those when i wake up.
i’m too tired to do it now.
i’ve had enough of all this bullshit for one night.
i don’t know what i’ve done to deserve this, but it must’ve been something bad.
it seems i’m always dealing with the consequences of other people’s actions.
and the way that jasper and this boy are configured on my megabed, there’s no room for me.
it’s nice to know i can feel so fully comfortable in my own damn room – my safe haven.
time to go sleep in another bed.
good night (morning).
it’s a brand new day (hurray).
above: it’s fight the power in residence this week and we decided to show our support by creating a face via manipulation of the lights in our rooms.
isn’t it funny how it’s smiling?
the whole building’s smiling when i’m at the worst i’ve been in a long time.
maybe it’s the weather – or illness, or that fact the i’ve been too drunk too often as of late. maybe i’ve stopped taking care of myself.
whatever it is, i ended up crying – sobbing – in my bed on a tuesday night, but this was a long time coming.
all the lights were off because i didn’t want to see anything.
i just kept thinking and thinking and thinking
about how i put myself in all these strange positions
and how i’m dealing with things i shouldn’t have to deal with.
life is hard enough as it is.
by nature, i’m supposed to be oppressed.
and now there are other things i find myself fighting against – surges of cruelty and faithlessness and hatred towards everything.
i am angry at the injustices of the world – at the inherent unfairness of life – but this is an old story and a common affliction.
only two people witnessed the weakest i’ve been here, and that’s only because they basically broke into my room.
i’ve dug a hole deep inside myself where i put all the dark things – where i shovel all of my worst thoughts and insecurities.
i’m afraid they’re starting to spill over.
but i took deep breaths and touched the cold of the wall to keep myself from slipping. i gathered every good thing i could, and by the time the morning came, they were all i was holding on to.
once again, i have to be stronger than this.
once again, this is nothing i can’t handle.
in the end, this is nothing at all.
and once again, i don’t want to talk about it.
i don’t know how to.
it’s like trying to explain a colour.
Your heartbeat makes me smile the way the thunder does – when we lay on your bed underneath the window
And the rain splatters against the glass with light tapping sounds
And all at once I imagine a storm and I feel so exposed and afraid and cold and wet
But I remember I am safe in your strong arms
With our legs tangled
And I feel warm and dry and safe again
As I press my ear against your chest
And listen to your thunder heart.
look above – look belowlowlow
deep down to where the kraken lies, and gently waves his arms toward the surface – a yearning in his eyes
deep deep down
down to where the kraken lies
a yearning in his eyes
a procession of boats travels up above him.
kraken closes his eyes and imagines the way the sunlight hits them
– without having to filter through the miles and miles of seawater.
sometimes it’s just darkness
and the weightlessness of the sea.
he spends these dark times waiting,
in tense anticipation
for even a single crack of sunlight
to find its way
deep deep down.
down to where the kraken lies
a yearning in his eyes.
above: snapshots of saturday night.
being in toronto was great and refreshing, as per usual, but by the time saturday came rolling on in, i was kind of itching to get back to montreal.
my vodka leaked on the bus ride over, but thankfully the bag only carried paints – no damage done. but still, what a waste of vodka. and all the while i’d been wondering why people were staring at me so weirdly – the smell probably lead them all to think i was a raging alcoholic.
i arrived in montreal at about nine o’clock, dropped off my bags and instinctively came up with ways to replace my lost alcohol.
i decided to pay wusky a visit and reclaim the bottle of absolute i’d left in his room during the break – alcohol and greetings – two birds, one stone.
and then i met up with laura and jasper, who welcomed me back with a supremely emphatic embrace.
we hit up a party that was going on in one of the rooms – the joys of life in residence – before heading over to chuck’s place to become further intoxicated.
jasper was rolling soon enough and the room filled with all kinds of smoke.
and when we were good and ready – and by that, i mean having difficulty walking – we made are way out and about to place des arts, and the heart of downtown montreal, where all of the hubub was apparently going on.
we saw art.
rooms full of body parts and nightmares, paintings and sculptors and all different kinds of people.
we roamed and we roamed and we roamed
and then we met up with laura’s friend joe.
after a while things began dying down and we headed home, but the melodic tune of “ain’t no mountain high enough” siren called us into a bar for one last hurrah.
we danced for all of about twenty minutes before finally heading home and to bed.
it was pretty wonderful for my first night back.
above: fayfay, charissa and me trying on kids-sized girls’ raincoats during closing at aber.
i’m back in toronto and i haven’t gotten a day of rest since i’ve been here.
unfortunately, i haven’t been doing any schoolwork at all. in typical me fashion, i neglected to remember that i actually go to school and have studying to do when i packed my bags, and so forgot all my textbooks in my room, where they will lay for the next few days collecting dust (and will probably never be opened again).
i’d forgotten how easy it is to fall back into the routine of my toronto life.
the past few days have been made up of going to work, coming home, reading a bit, going out, coming back and reading some more.
and watching a lot of movies with my family because for us, family day becomes family week.
the plan to go to niagara’s been shot down – we only now realized that i’m the only child who’s actually on break while the rest are still slaving away at school.
tomorrow i’m going around to all my banks to sort shit out and get new bank cards.
and then i’m going to get a new SIN card and a new health card.
i hate cards. i always lose them.
i’ve decided to return to montreal prematurely in order to make it in time for nuit blanche.
i’d love to spend hours roaming around the city at night, looking at all the pretty things people have made.
i’m going to bring back my mailbox key, more books and my green coca cola glass.
i’m excited.