igpy kin has a blog

Still haven't done your Christmas shopping? Try doing it on a charity's website.

2011-12-20T09:32:00.000-08:00

Last year I started paring down my Christmas shopping in favour of making charitable donations instead. Every time I look around my house, my first thoughts can usually be sorted into three categories: 1) How long has that been rotting? 2) I need to file that., and 3) I have too much crap. Given the abundance of crap already in my house — admittedly crap I once had high hopes for, such as the soap-making kit and the gargoyle — the idea of getting more crap every year kind of fills me with waves of anxiety and nausea. Every time my mum has asked me what I wanted for Christmas I have tried, again and again, to convince her that the answer really is "nothing." There are things I could use, but nothing I really need.

(Well. Maybe I need another pair of jeans without gigantic holes in the knees. And a pair of tights not plagued by runs. But you'll never see me admit it out loud.)

I'm usually pretty good at buying people gifts, and I like doing it. Lavishing the people you love with gifts is a nice feeling. But generally when I've bought people stuff, it's been not so much things they need as things I'm relatively sure they didn't have before, books and chocolates and accessories. And I like doing that, but it seems a little silly to be spending 15$ on a book when other people don't have, you know, 15$ to get some food. It's very easy to believe that Christmas will be over and so will your life if you don't buy a lot of Stuff (that's the point of advertising), but honestly, it won't. This year I've bought a few gifts for my mother and my cat, a couple for my closest friends, and bought joints presents with mum for close family. I've still bought more useless crap than I needed to — indeed, at least two books and one box of chocolate have been purchased in this year's campaign — but it's a lot less than I used to get people.

Which is good! The world needs a lot of things, but it doesn't need any more useless crap.

Giving to charities is kind of a fraught business, since finding out where the funds of nonprofits go isn't always easy, and since I should technically be writing an article right now I'm not about to go research charities for you. But there are resources online listing charities with good track records of distributing their funds ethically, and there are a lot of organizations you can give to. Whatever your interests, there's a charity for them, and the charity probably needs your money more than your friend needs another fedora, or pair of sneakers, or book. Even if you don't have the money to give to charity, or if you have no interest in moving away from seasonal conspicuous consumption, I would urge you to try and volunteer at least a few hours this month. It doesn't take that much time, but nonprofits need volunteers, and afterwards you'll feel good and have something that looks good on a resume! (Doing good is never strictly altruistic.) Plus, who knows? Maybe you'll end up working with the nonprofit throughout the year instead of just paying attention this month! Stranger things have happened.

As an apology for my being so absent from this blog, have some Neil Gaiman being awesome.

2011-12-14T10:07:00.000-08:00

Where do you get your ideas?

This is a magnificent essay by an unbelievably good storyteller and writer. I’m currently writing a paper for my anthropology seminar which explains why, yes, there are some ethical dilemmas involved if a fiction writer decides to become an anthropologist (or the other way around), which means I get to read a lot of essays on writing and call it homework, which is fantastic. Now go read this essay and feel better about life.

In the beginning, I used to tell people the not very funny answers, the flip ones: ‘From the Idea-of-the-Month Club,’ I’d say, or ‘From a little ideas shop in Bognor Regis,’ ‘From a dusty old book full of ideas in my basement,’ or even ‘From Pete Atkins.’ (The last is slightly esoteric, and may need a little explanation. Pete Atkins is a screenwriter and novelist friend of mine, and we decided a while ago that when asked, I would say that I got them from him, and he’d say he got them from me. It seemed to make sense at the time.)

Then I got tired of the not very funny answers, and these days I tell people the truth:

‘I make them up,’ I tell them. ‘Out of my head.’

People don’t like this answer. I don’t know why not. They look unhappy, as if I’m trying to slip a fast one past them. As if there’s a huge secret, and, for reasons of my own, I’m not telling them how it’s done.

And of course I’m not. Firstly, I don’t know myself where the ideas really come from, what makes them come, or whether one day they’ll stop. Secondly, I doubt anyone who asks really wants a three hour lecture on the creative process. And thirdly, the ideas aren’t that important. Really they aren’t.

I am, by the bye, well aware of how atrocious I've been about updating this. My excuse is I've been hard at work at school, writing an Honours thesis, a book, and sundry other assignments for various courses. I'll try to be better about updating it this semester, possibly to whinge about writing, or maybe just to post absurd amounts of great quotes about writing like the above, to fool myself into thinking writing is a perfectly sane activity and that it doesn't make me want to rip my gums from my teeth at all.

On tarsands and Russian brides.

2011-08-08T13:53:00.000-07:00

The Guardian has an article up right now on a number of blatantly fake Twitter accounts that popped up as the decision is being made whether or not to pipe oil from the Alberta tar sands (one of the most fabulous blights on Canada's -- and the world's -- environment at present) down to Texas. Absolutely worth a read, but the excerpts from the fake accounts reminded me of an e-mail exchange from a while ago:

krasivayakatya@yahoo.com to me
show details 11/30/10

Hi, my new friend! I am a young, beautiful, smart girl, I love children, and I want to family reasons.
If you see my other photos and wish I'd know better
send me an e-m ail: krasivayakatya@yahoo.com
I hope to hear from you as soon as possible!
Igpy Kin to krasivayakatya
show details 11/30/10

Я не знаю как сказать "lololol no" на русском языке. ЛОЛОЛОЛОЛ НЕТ.

luckykaterina11@yahoo.com to me
show details 12/2/10

Hi, my new friend! I am a young, beautiful, smart girl, I love children, and I want to family reasons.
If you see my other photos and wish I'd know better
send me an e-m ail: katiystar @ gmail.com
I hope to hear from you as soon as possible!

If Katya and Katerina were my real new best Russian friends, just sayin', they'd speak fuckin' Russian. They'd be able to tell me how to say "lol no" in Russian. Remember, kids: if you're going to exploit internet anonymity for your own evil ends, do your homework first.

Deadwood.

2011-07-27T10:51:00.000-07:00

Recently, an online acquaintance of mine made a long and tiring whingefest of a post on her blog about how her life was extraordinarily difficult because her mother (off of whom she lives) was trying to throw office jobs into her lap! This young lady, a recent graduate from a prestigious and not-inexpensive American college (also all funded by the Bank of Mom&co.), was terribly cross with her mother for not understanding that she was above Heart-and-Soul-Killing office jobs -- that her true destiny was to work at a bookshop when not dedicating herself to her writerly craft, not to push papers like some common plebian slob!

I pointed out some of the flaws in her logic -- notably, that if you want to have the right to independently make decisions about what jobs you seek, you should probably work on not sucking at your mother's teat through the age of 21 and lounging about at home moping about the difficulty of your life and how mean everyone is to you, and, I don't know, at least try to get a fucking job -- and she has accordingly, with all the grace I could have expected, deleted the evidence.

Let this stand forever as my salute to those of you who will refuse any and all criticism of your fixation on your first world problems. Further, let me convey my condolences to all spoiled, self-absorbed young Americans who are having office jobs thrown at their feet by virtue of nepotism and are just so mad about it; your peers, vying for any job that will let them pay the rent/eat this month/support their child/get something resembling basic healthcare, I am sure, pity your plight with all their hearts.

Syllabi alone do not good teachers make.

2011-07-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

One of my best friends is currently having a small crisis over an imminent teaching position in the fall. This is, in many ways, mostly entertaining for me, as I know she'll do wonderfully, and her finally having a class to teach means I can shamelessly search for items keyworded "tweed" on Etsy. (Tragically, my conscience will stop me from sneaking into her class and heckling her while disguised as a freshman.)

While bombarding her with reassurance and links to What Makes a Good Prof (eg. 1, 2), I got to thinking about what's made profs memorable (for better or worse) for me in the past. I'm not sure if this applies to everyone, but I tend to remember moments that had precious little to do with the curriculum best.

There's the time in second year where my English Lit from 1800 handed me back an essay with only the foreboding comment "See me after class," had me read her the opening paragraph, and then explain it in other words. She looked very surprised when I demonstrated a clear understanding of what I'd written down. This was the first (and only) time I've been suspected of plagiarism. (When she confirmed I was an English major, she laughed and calmed down.)

There's the time I found out my high school English prof was marrying a guy she'd met online (and I remember she really liked The Lord of the Rings).

There's the time in art class with the improbably named Mrs Love where, when we were all asked to do self-portraits using basic instructions for a symmetrical face, I demanded in all of my 15 year old angst, "What do we do if our faces aren't symmetrical?" She answered that I'd be surprised to find just how many people do have symmetrical faces... though my nose might be a bit too low, and my lips too high.

And so on.

I often worry that I will forget to thank people if I ever have to make a thank you speech. I have toyed for years with various manifestations of acknowledgements pages, confident that, if I ever have need of one, I will have drafts sitting ready. But twenty three years' worth of helpful hands is surprisingly hard to keep clear. I can remember the faces of all of my favourite teachers from as far back as kindergarten, but I'm already forgetting names.

As such, consider this part-love letter to educators, part-encouragement to Tweed, and part-record-keeping for posterity: here are some of my favourite teachers from elementary school.

Thank you to my French teacher, from kindergarten. I don't remember your name. I do remember that you gave me two small barettes at the end of the year, with red fabric and (I think) fake white pearls, and little bits of white lace hanging from them. I don't remember what I thought of French when I was 5, but I do know going to French Immersion (because of you!) meant I had a far better grasp of language, and of cultural difference, than I would have had otherwise.
Thank you to Madame Somers, whose name I may well be saying wrong. I remember I was a brat in grade 2. I think that was about when I started deciding I didn't like homework. My most vivid memory of your class is doing Tai Chi. At the time, I think my reaction was along the lines of "this is really weird", and wanting to laugh. In retrospect: you were bringing relaxation techniques and multicultural experiences into the classroom for seven-year-olds! How rad are you?! Also, you volunteered with the SPCA. And I think you were really nice to me. Thanks.
Thank you to Elspeth's third(?) grade teacher. Who was maybe mine as well. It's hard to keep the years straight. My most vivid memory of you is when we got to play with your stage knife, pretending to stab ourselves at your desk. This is probably not what an educator wants to hear, but every time I see or think of stage knives now, I think of that one. I saw you a few years ago at the bank. I hope you're doing well.
Thank you to Madame Grief, whose name I am quite positive I have just misspelled, and who, I think, had to put up with a lot of my shit. I don't remember specifics, but I do remember you were kind to me.
No thanks to the person who didn't give me the Jeopardy point when I misspelled melanoma. I was nine and I knew the word melanoma, man. You should have given me that point for existing.
Also, no thanks to my grade six teachers, who stood by while I was brutally harassed by my peers. Hey, remember that time I was studying Wicca as an alternate religion and already suffering all manner of hell from my peers, and their parents? Remember how a short while after I'd been studying Wicca, we started reading Harry Potter? Do you remember when my classmates scoffed at the religion I was practicing because I couldn't turn their lunchbags into toads? It would have been real cool for you to pipe up, guys. You could have averted a lot of damage. But thanks for letting my friends (who were, by that time, already avoiding me) run that experiment where we listened to classical music and saw if we wrote tests better after the fact. That was really cool.

By the way I'm turning into an anti-monarchist.

2011-07-04T08:05:00.000-07:00

This article makes a number of valuable and succinct remarks on the state of the monarchy in Canada today. Comparing Canadians up in arms over the Senate (not elected by the people but appointed by an elected leader) to Canadians complacently accepting Mr. Windsor as their future head of state, and noting that the bloody pointlessness of an institution is not a good reason to keep it around rang particularly true, for me.

It's difficult for me to get a grasp on the media and popular frenzy for William & Kate in any sort of comparative perspective. Growing up in Canada has meant I've been loosely kept abreast of royal happenings all my life. I remember when I was a kid, my mum was mad about Diana. I remember her talking about her when I was in kindergarten -- I was 9 when she died, and I don't remember mum's reaction, or the event, but I assume she was heartbroken since she still talks about Di as if she were half-divine.

But she was married seven years before I was born. I can't compare the frenzy.

As an isolated event, though, I don't understand why we're dedicating so much money, time, energy, and adulation to two people who have effectively done very little beyond being born into the right families. Yes, they've both been through university. Yes, William is military. Yes, Kate has great fashion sense. But these people are puppets. They are following protocol and not saying much in public and shaking hands and their only merit is birth. William was born to be a prince. Kate married him, and therefore gets to ride his birthright.

And I don't understand how, as a society that talks about those dreadful dark ages a few centuries ago where absolute monarchies abounded and we honoured people for no reason beyond birth -- often with disastrous results -- so many of the people around me think this is utterly right and natural.

I have nothing in particular against either of them as human beings -- it would be difficult to, when we see so little of them with their guards down -- but they stand for a number of world problems which I am personally against and which, so far as I can tell, are in direct contradiction to a number of Canadian values. Nepotism, classism, racism (I say this as someone who thoroughly believes that any budding interracial romance William might have had would have been crushed), inequity, self-indulgence, gross disparity of wealth... Take a look at these infographics of the cost of the wedding compared to more average weddings.

Is a couple who had an $80,000 cake at their wedding, who are lauded for no reason beyond birthright and not having utterly fucked up yet, who are given the privilege to fly around the world for no purpose other than to smile, wave, and shake hands -- are these the sorts of people we should be dedicating time, media coverage, and taxpayer money to when almost half the world's population live on less than $2.50 a day?

Here are some news items more worth your note than privileged puppets being flown across Canada on display:

Are we the ugly Canadians? You betcha (Rick Smith, The Hill Times)
"No longer can Canada be relied on to do the right thing or to be an honest broker on a range of things, but rather our government is trying to act like a world power that it is not, playing the bully and obstructing progress in the process."
Strauss-Kahn to face Tristane Banon rape allegation (BBC News)
"Concerns about the reliability of his accuser in the New York have left that case reportedly close to collapse, and led to speculation in France that he might return to politics there.
However, on Monday Socialist Party spokesman Benoit Hamon said the idea Mr Strauss-Kahn could now run for the presidency was "the weakest" of all possible scenarios.

Ms Banon's mother, Anne Mansouret, herself a politician from Mr Strauss-Kahn's centre-left Socialist Party, said she had persuaded her daughter not to file a complaint at the time of the alleged incident in 2002.

But Ms Mansouret has said she is "revolted" by the gleeful reaction of many men in France to news the case in New York might fail.

Mr Koubbi told L'Express that he and his client had decided to press charges in mid-June, and that the timing of the decision was not linked to Mr Strauss-Kahn's US trial.

"Even if [the New York] case against Mr Strauss-Kahn turns out to be unfounded, ours is not," Mr Koubbi said. "It is extremely solid and backed-up.""
Thailand's military accepts election result (Todd Pitman, The Globe & Mail)
"Thailand's military eased concerns of renewed turmoil Monday by accepting the sweeping electoral win of toppled ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra's party, while his sister vowed to reconcile the deeply divided nation as its first female prime minister."
Cost of monarchy down by £1.8m (The Independent)
"The Queen's official expenditure decreased by 5.3% from £33.9 million in 2009/10 to £32.1 million in 2010/11 according to the royal public finances annual report.
The Queen's Civil List spending fell from £14.2 million to £13.7 million, while there was a cut in spending on property services from £15.4 million to £11.9 million.

Royal travel costs rose from £3.9 million in 2009/10 to £6 million in 2010/11 but Buckingham Palace said the sale of the Queen's helicopter in 2009/10 resulted in lease repayments of £1.5 million to royal travel.

Excluding this income, expenditure on royal travel would have been £5.4 million in that year, according to the accounts."
(It must be so difficult to only spend £32.1 million -- that's $49,436,065.54 CAD -- in a year. How do they get by?)
Libyan rebels say Col Gaddafi can retire in Libya if he steps down (Adrien Blomfield, Telegraph)
"Libya's rebels have dropped their demand for Col Muammar Gaddafi to leave the country, amid fresh signs that opposition forces are still looking for a negotiated settlement to the four-month civil war."
On Policing Femininity, and the Right to be Wrong (Melissa McEwan, Shakesville)
"One of the real problems with feminist policing of expressions of traditional femininity (among many problems, which also include looking suspiciously like a thingy that polices from the other direction), is that it effectively ignores the reality that many feminist women (almost like real humans! wheeeeee!) tend to go through stages where they have different personal relationships with the accouterments of traditional femininity as they move through life accumulating experience and knowledge, and their feminist philosophy changes, deepens, broadens."
Omaha Teacher Retained Position After Multiple Student Allegations of Sexual Assault (Cara, The Curvature)
"Eighth-grade teacher Shad Knutson has been charged with three counts of sexual assault against three different female students over three years. He is no longer working for Nathan Hale Middle School, where all of the alleged assaults were committed, but he did remain employed with them for three years after the first allegation was made."
Boobs. Boobs. Boobs. Ratings. Hurrah! (Trevor Scott Howell, FFWD)
"AMP Radio is conducting a “Breast Summer Ever” contest. The winner, male or female, will be awarded up to $10,000 for breast augmentation surgery.

“People are excited that AMP Radio is giving people the chance to win a perfectly legal procedure that they may not have the money to afford,” says Manzurak."
Uganda: Drugs Expire in Hospitals (Yasiin Mugerwa, allAfrica.com)
"Drugs in public hospitals including ARVs, worth billions of shillings, have expired and will be destroyed by government, a report from the Office of the Auditor General, has revealed."
("ARVs" stands for antiretrovirals, ie. HIV/AIDS management drugs. Access to ARVs is highly problematic around the world, especially for higher-risk individuals such as the poor, or intravenous drug users. Their being higher-risk is an effect of structural violence, and their inability to access the drugs that could dramatically prolong their lives -- or the education and resources that could stop them from contracting HIV in the first place -- are also a result of structural violence.)

I'm sorry!

2011-06-29T09:59:00.000-07:00

Nb. If you're really fucking lazy and don't want to read, just watch this, then Google News "asbestos Canada".

Right now the Green Party of Canada is running a campaign to get people to apologize for the "Harper Government"'s stance on asbestos. This is a pretty reasonable thing to do, since asbestos is a known carcinogen. Colloquially, we would refer to asbestos as "something really bad that kills people."

For an example of Canadian attitudes toward asbestos in their daily lives, have a look at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Association's FAQ on asbestos. Relevant paragraphs include:

How has the use of asbestos changed?
When it became evident that regular exposure to asbestos on the job involved health risks, the public became more concerned about exposure to asbestos in offices and schools, and, eventually, about all asbestos products.
This concern has led to a dramatic decline in asbestos use since the early 1980s. The use of asbestos insulation in buildings and heating systems has virtually disappeared. Residential use, for roofing, flooring and appliances, continues to decrease. . . .
. . . frequent or prolonged exposure to asbestos fibres may still bring health risks. This can happen with the release of fibres into the air when asbestos-containing products break down, either through deterioration as they age or when they are cut. People can put themselves at risk — often without realizing it — if they do not take proper precautions when repairs or renovations disturb asbestoscontaining materials. This can occur in a number of situations...

Health Canada also has a nice page about the hazards of asbestos.

Now, evidently, here in Canada we've gotten regulation of asbestos down pretty well. Unfortunately, the issue with the Harper Government's attitude isn't so much how we handle asbestos at home ― it's the fact that they're totally okay with sending a known carcinogen to developing nations that has a few people antsy. The World Health Organization has a lovely page noting that about 125 million people worldwide are exposed to asbestos in their workplace ― that's about 3.6 times the population of Canada ― and over 107,000 die every year from asbestos-related diseases.

Thanks, Stephen.

The Ottawa Citizen has a great article on Stevie's fuckery here:

Consider what happened last week, in Geneva, at a meeting to discuss whether asbestos should be listed under the provisions of a United Nations convention covering hazardous materials.
The discussion was informed by the work of a UN scientific panel. Yes, the panel concluded, asbestos is hazardous. Yes, it fits the criteria of the convention. Yes, it should be listed.
The panel's conclusions weren't controversial in the slightest, since the science on asbestos is much clearer than it is with many other hazardous substances. Asbestos causes cancer. It kills. There's no doubt about that, which is why the taxpayers of Canada are now paying vast sums to have asbestos removed from Parliament.
And listing asbestos as a hazardous substance is a very modest step. It doesn't trigger a ban. It doesn't even restrict its production and trade. It simply requires that importers be informed of the risks and follow safety protocols in handling it. In other words, it requires informed consent. Nothing more.

But I digress. I could go on about this all day ― and you should absolutely click all the above links ― but the Green Party is running a particularly lovely campaign encouraging everyone to email imsorry@greenparty.ca apologizing for Canada's repeated and frankly unforgivable endorsement of asbestos exports. If you're not up to writing your own email of apology, you can just like the page on Facebook and be done with it.

Here's mine:

Dear United Nations, and the world at large,

I'm sorry my country is run by self-absorbed misanthropists with no moral compass. I could use different words, but I'm doing my best to keep this classy, since it's apparently being forwarded to the General Secretary of the United Nations.

I remember when I was about 13 and my cousins made me watch the South Park movie, and I was really irked by that song, "Blame Canada". I mean, we're the nice guys, right?

But, er, apparently now when innocent people die in developing nations from, say, cancer, you actually can blame Canada and be pretty justified in that, and I'm really sorry that's become the case.

I would say we used to be good people, but let's face it: we've just been way better at evading bad press than the US. It's kind of like if we were serial killers who never got any flak from the police, because we happened to live in the apartment above some really loud party people — let's assume they're bikers with anger management problems, since we don't want to give the US too much credit — and the cops were always too busy flailing at our neighbours to notice all of the horrible things we did.

I'm sorry that my fellow citizens' political apathy has allowed the survival of a voting system that translates a 60% vote against Stephen Harper into a majority government run by him.

I'm sorry that our apathy also meant a significant chunk of eligible voting citizens didn't vote.

I'm sorry my country is run by a deluded megalomaniac with all the soul of an iPod and all the moral compassion and empathy of Uncle Scrooge and the Grinch left together in a cell in Azkaban for 100 years.

I'm sorry that our government thinks getting money is more important than not killing people.

I'm sorry they also think making the oil industry look good is more important than admitting our oil industry destroys ecosystems and lives.

I'm sorry that we hide behind the US as if holding up all their worst moments makes up for the fact that we are an apathetic, environmentally destructive country that has lost all touch with its peacekeeping identity, that is willing to allow countless human beings around the world suffer terribly so long as our bottom line's covered, that would sooner see the world in environmental devastation than even think about seriously revising our attitude toward sustainability.

I'm sorry that we have become a destructive force in the world, and that so few people hold us accountable for it.

I'm sorry that this e-mail will, in all likelihood, not affect my government's policies and plans in the least.

I'm sorry that I'm writing this as a representative of a nation I cannot be proud of.

I am sorry, most of all, to the people we have murdered, and to the victims yet to come.

I'm sorry.

Thirty Days Project: June 5 prompt.

2011-06-29T07:54:00.000-07:00

Then write a scene that starts with the word "follow."
Fragment. Resigning myself to fragments cause I need to get some more prompts up here for the sake of my sanity. I hereby reject all responsibility for everything posted for the Thirty Days Project from here on out.

Mostly because I have less than 48 hours left and I've posted four things.

Follow the line of sight from the base of the trunk from cold soil still damp with rain away from worms returning to homebase. Worm shit. I wonder about worm shit often. I understand that the shitting of worms is beneficial to the planet, to agriculture. For this reason -- and memory images of bruised bodies partly melded to pavement, the rest of worm writhing to escape the purple-red splotch of its death -- when it rains heavy and I see worms being swept down the gutter toward sewer grates, I try to save them. I'm not sure if they need saving. I remember being told as a child the worms come out in rain to escape the water in the soil. It seems backwards, though, because you only see worms when it rains. (I don't garden, or fish.) It feels like a natural association. It feels wrong to think what would let you see the worms would be what killed them -- like zoos. Or runways. Derbies. Family portraits.

I hope worms can survive even if they hit the sewer, get swept into reservoirs. I don't always catch them. I don't always try.

I mean to follow the line of sight from the base of the trunk from cold soil still damp and up, and I talk about worms. Which is me all over. You'd think if I cared so much about worms I'd look up whether they can swim, what worm shit actually does.

Thirty Days Project: June 1 prompt

2011-06-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

Write a story that involves a hipster and his Holga. Use 1st person POV.

Do you remember when you were a kid – not a really young kid, but a kid – and you were just around the age where every time you had to go to a party adults had organized and play board games – especially with family – it just drove you fucking mental? All you wanted to be was anywhere else and you just sulked your way through Monopoly and only got interested if you were a) the winner, or b) the biggest loser?

I miss board games. I miss pin the tail on the donkey. I miss pictionary.

I don’t even think it’s a matter of disinterest – watching my friends try to outcompete one another for who has the most commendably obscure opinions on the most unlistenable band of the week, I feel like I’m not the only person in the room who wouldn’t mind at least a piñata. Something to hit with minimal chance of a chair going through a window, or a hospital trip, or the police showing up. It’s a lot of stress trying to convince hipsters your disregard for their hipsterism doesn’t make you uncool. Which I guess is similar to when anti-abortionists (I like the ist, rather than pro-lifer; ist is negative, pro is positive, why bother with the rest?) say they’re just trying to help the people they’re trying to control. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want the hipsters to like me. Then I might have to put up with them on a regular basis.

But I’d be so pissed if they didn’t like me.

Take for instance lomo photography. Lomography. Lomostreetcredfoyomoney. Lomographic photography is the visual hipster equivalent of carrying around modernist writing – Where would I go, if I could go, who would I be, if I could be, what would I say, if I had a voice, who says this, saying it's me? Answer simply, someone answer simply. – and railing against realism. Realism is the semi-accurate depiction of the lived world in literature (in this instance). Modernism is the snubbing of realism on the basis of that semi-which-some-would-say-is-one-semi-too-much because of course, you know, we are just these sparks and shockwaves, nerve endings and electricity firing randomly across the brain. Did you know music doesn't exist outside us? Until your brain processes it, your lame motherfucking Sonic Youth album is just movements in the air, man. So of course, you can carry around your Beckett –which is way cooler than carrying Joyce, of course, since everyone likes Joyce and he's totally overrated, miserable fuck –just like you carry around your lomo, cause the point is you have no interest in taking pictures that show things as they are.

Because they're not. Not really. They're not like that. You need your fish lens and your grainy and your bleeding bleached out running dye colours because that's the way it feels, man. Because those are the real pictures. Those are the real words. There ain't nothin real about reality, son.

I have theories, regarding this, that that's also why insecure white middle class art school dropouts like unlistenable music so much. It's like the fucking Waste Land, man. You don't like it? Of course you don't. You don't get it. You never did.

This all being to say, of course, that there's an underfed douchebag in dirty jeans across from me, while to my right my ex's uppity new girlfriend holds court with a slim cigar in between two plump, perfectly manicured fingers, and he is cradling his mothercunting Holga like it is the only thing worth touching in the world, like right there in gears and film and brandname, kept safe in the shell, are his balls, cold and spattered with discoloration and blur, precious and untouchable and how they really are.

Thirty Days Project: June 4 prompt

2011-06-08T21:58:00.000-07:00

Write a story like Lydia Davis.

I have no idea who Lydia Davis is, and I'm so behind (whoo, this is 3 out of 8 I'm supposed to have done so far!) that instead of following the prompt, I give you all this bit of Something I Wore When I Should Have Been Writing About Hipsters & Holgas.

Great, gushing relief. Ensure, first of all, that you don’t have a tampon on hand. Or, if you must, ensure it’s an accident. Other women have marked the dates down–ominously red–faithfully, for years. Not you. Ensure that if you ever learn the magic trick of remembering to put marker to calendar, you avoid doing so until scanning the mirror for menopausal chin hairs has become a reality.

It will be an accident–great gushing relief–because–perhaps gushing is the wrong word–you will have walked to the bathroom, taken your key, ensured you knew how to get back into the damnable office where you will spend the rest of your day(s) sitting staring at bright lights, and the red on the paper as you try to swipe yourself dry will take you by surprise.

Look at it for a moment.

Make a ‘hm’, perhaps.

The toilet paper must be discarded in the appropriate bowl, and you must calculate whether or not your dryclean only skirt will have suffered too dreadfully from the first dew of your monthly bleeding–think of it like that, as the first dew of your monthly bleeding, in italics, serif font, and you can forget drycleaning dilemmas in favour of grousing about 1950s girls’ guides–wash your hands.

Wash your hands.

(Great, gushing relief.) Take a moment to breathe out, because you’ve been off the pill this month–wasn’t your fault, you had the boxes ready, ahead of time, but then by the time you needed them they'd had migrated somewhere into the mass of clothing books and papers that hides the edges in your room–you still don’t know where they are, you had been off the pill and now there is great, gushing relief flushed safely into an abyss, because it didn’t matter that you were off the pill and you had wanted to feel something like you’d felt with people past before not long when you were in the playground just a few moments’ bareback but you know what they say, even the pre–

Great, gushing relief.

Return to the office. Attempt to look as inconspicuous as someone who has just come in from a three minute absence to dart into a cubicle, make purse-rummaging noises, and head back out can. Return to the washroom. Remember that one of your coworkers – whose name you either cannot or did not bother to recall – rued the absence of hooks in the stalls in this damned bathroom (or maybe it was these damn stalls, at the time). Accordingly, deposit your purse on the floor. Lock the stall. Note the hook that does, at least, appear to be on this stall in this bath damnedroom.

Move on.

Wipe yourself (again). Push the paper–which is only blood, and therefore only appropriate–into the momentary gap left by the swinging door of the small white ladies’ disposal bin. Remove the tampon from its wrapping. Upon inserting the tampon, dispose of the plastic applicator in the toilet bowl.

Turn, then realize you have disposed of the plastic applicator in the toilet bowl.

Pause.

Regard the toilet bowl. It’s not so bad – they clean here regularly, and you were probably the last to piss in it. You flushed. Reach in. Raise the applicator from its watery grave. Drop it atop wrapping and paper alike. Drip, if you can. Return to the sink–touch, in passing, as many of the other, non-cotton items in your purse as possible before washing–wash. Congratulate yourself. You have done it again. Great, gushing relief. Take that, ovaries.

Thirty Days Project: June 3 prompt

2011-06-08T21:41:00.000-07:00

Go to your nearest book. Turn to page 51. Find the first line of the last paragraph on the page. Use that line to start your scene.

I knew, when I decided to overuse this prompt, that my stories would be overrun by my Honours readings and bloody Chelsie. And so, this first time, we use Faulkner. Hello, Tasha. Sorry, Professor.

Pa stands over the bed, dangle-armed, humped, motionless. I know that despite the pile of bright bills, disconnected massagers, and wind instruments spread before us, Louie—shifting and craning beside me—is itching to ask what her real name is. "Call me Pa," she says (it took me nearly three months to realize she even had the cant of her grin identical every time; so too the length of time she shakes their hands, and the little laugh when the name is repeated, syllable rolled over tongue and tasted careful—you could see, in the grin, how she pleased she was, how many times she'd had someone stumble up drunk to her and tell her, listen, Pa, that's messed up, that's not the type of name for a pretty girl like you—they use this logic often, like when Louie busts out the spirit gum, and we go to parties, and some He not eying Me tells her, Hey, why you wearing that? I bet you'd look a lot more beautiful without that mustache. I'll bet, Mister).

Most people stick with the monosyllable, but Jackie took to calling her Palpatine. That's how Louie knows about her. Palpatine. I'll bet anything Louie didn't know Palpatine's skin would be so brown and so smooth, that her cheekbones would catch the desklamp's gold and send it settling over the bridge of her narrow nose so nice. Pa humphs.

"We're going to have to get back in there," she says.

Thirty Days Project: June 2 prompt

2011-06-08T21:25:00.000-07:00

Write five good first sentences. Don't worry about the rest of the story for now - just write the opening lines. 5 of them.

All their base are something something the other one.

When we buried his gerbil, the sky was a dirty grey, like somebody'd put a tissue beneath a tea bag and let the tannins sink in.

I've never hated you for leaving—that is, I've never hated you for being gone, or rather I never had the chance to hate you, because you were gone; there was no memory for me to mourn, no face to swim up before my eyes—it's not that you left, or that you didn't love me enough, or her; I probably don't even hate you for that time you dragged her by the hair across the stucco of the duplex wall, just out of streetlamp light, when she tried to stop you—though she might, every time I watch her rub Vitamin E oil into her face.

The library at my school allows unlimited renewals; I am waiting to discover whether this privilege will extend past my convocation.

The handkerchief, of course, would not have been enough to prevent pregnancy—I wouldn't let it get shoved up inside me, anyway—but I was on birth control, and the fabric was soft on his skin, and it would (we thought) stop the rash from catching.

: apparently this is either my 100th or 101st post.

2011-05-31T08:13:00.000-07:00

...so, I decided as of officially about yesterday that I would be participating in the Thirty Days Project. My incredibly awkward introduction is here. The basic idea of the Thirty Days Project is that participants aim to produce a creative work every day over the course of June. As university has rendered me a creature entirely capable of productivity unless I'm facing big red deadlines, this seemed like the perfect project for me.

Over the next month, you'll be seeing (ideally) one very short work of fiction every day. These will be largely un- or underedited, and will probably cause me a great deal of shame and trouble. I'm pretty excited about that prospect.

As a uniting theme for the month's work, I've decided to base my stories off the Twitter prompts of Sarah Selecky. I haven't actually read her fiction, but she gives great prompt. Um. And I will probably give reading her a go, now that I've decided to commit a month to doing what she says. I compiled a list of the prompts posted between November 30, 2010 and May 30, 2011, and beside repeating one prompt every three days, used Random.org to choose my other 20 prompts. this is my schedule:

june 1 Write a story that involves a hipster and his Holga. Use 1st person POV.
june 2 Write five good first sentences. Don't worry about the rest of the story for now - just write the opening lines. 5 of them.
june 3 Go to your nearest book. Turn to page 51. Find the first line of the last paragraph on the page. Use that line to start your scene.
june 4 Write a story like Lydia Davis.
june 5 Then write a scene that starts with the word "follow."
june 6 Go to your nearest book. Turn to page 51. Find the first line of the last paragraph on the page. Use that line to start your scene.
june 7 Write a story that is shaped like an accordion file.
june 8 Write a story that involves horizontal stripes and vitamins.
june 9 Go to your nearest book. Turn to page 51. Find the first line of the last paragraph on the page. Use that line to start your scene.
june 10 Write a story that involves insomnia.
june 11 Write a short story about diving.
june 12 Go to your nearest book. Turn to page 51. Find the first line of the last paragraph on the page. Use that line to start your scene.
june 13 Write a story that involves a pink post-it note.
june 14 Start a story with the line, "Make your own," she said.
june 15 Go to your nearest book. Turn to page 51. Find the first line of the last paragraph on the page. Use that line to start your scene.
june 16 If you can steal away 10 minutes today: write a list titled "Things that are too much."
june 17 Write a scene that evokes something buttery. do not write about anything that is actually made with butter.
june 18 Go to your nearest book. Turn to page 51. Find the first line of the last paragraph on the page. Use that line to start your scene.
june 19 Write a scene that involves a square plate.
june 20 Write a story that uses the words: bird, aerosol, Persia.
june 21 Go to your nearest book. Turn to page 51. Find the first line of the last paragraph on the page. Use that line to start your scene.
june 22 Write a story that involves a symphony.
june 23 Write a radio play. Start with the sound of a key in a door.
june 24 Go to your nearest book. Turn to page 51. Find the first line of the last paragraph on the page. Use that line to start your scene.
june 25 Write a story about what s/he finds at the bottom of hir teacup.
june 26 Write a story that involves a countdown. Start the story at 10 and end the story at 0.
june 27 Go to your nearest book. Turn to page 51. Find the first line of the last paragraph on the page. Use that line to start your scene.
june 28 Write a story that contains only non-sequiturs.
june 29 Have your character do something you don't understand yet. Write it, and resist having an opinion about it for as long as possible.
june 30 Go to your nearest book. Turn to page 51. Find the first line of the last paragraph on the page. Use that line to start your scene.

I'm hoping that the use of Random.org rather than my own preferences will help force me out of my comfort zone, and bring up some new topics. (Also, hopefully this will get me properly used to writing about things I don't want to write about.)

I will also, over the course of June, be working through the reading list for my Honours project (incl. Samuel Beckett, The Complete Short Prose 1929-1989 (06/05); Betty Lambert, Jennie's Story (06/11); James Joyce, Dubliners (07/03)), having a life, throwing a party, doing reading-not-Honours-reading, and presumably deigning to put through a load of laundry and/or eat some food now and then. It should be an interesting month.

Fiction will be posted to this blog, and you can keep track of my overall progress here.

: happy new year!

2011-05-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

No I'm not here waiting on anyone, especially not Jessika

But I feel love inside my heart

And it's me you want not that boy from France or Quebec or something else

And it's me, I'm here, I wouldn't be this way if I got what I wanted
No, I definitely didn't get what I wanted

But I feel love inside my heart

Hi, my name's Igpy, and my desire to kiss you does not stem from a repressed childhood trauma.

2011-05-27T07:48:00.000-07:00

In general, Patrick Strudwick's article over at the Guardian upsets me. In general, I find the fact that there are still people who are perfectly willing to regard homosexuality and associated behaviours as a mental disorder that needs "curing" upsetting. In general, tales of unimaginably damaging, hurtful, ignorant, and hostile reactions to sexualities-not-hetero (they are many), upset me.

However, there is one part of Mr Strudwick's article that grated in particular.

A few weeks later I was in her grand Hertfordshire home with a Dictaphone taped to my stomach. She set about trying to find the childhood "wounds" that she believes led to my homosexuality. But she found none. "There was no sexual abuse?" she pressed.
"No."
"I think there is something there . . . you've allowed things to be done to you." She then prayed: "Father, we give you permission to bring to the surface some of the things that have happened over the years." I asked who could have committed this abuse – a member of my family? "Yes, very likely," she replied.

... up until early 2010, it had not occurred to me that there were people who would happily believe that my sexuality stemmed from sexual abuse. I found this out in a particularly unsettling way — the girl I was dating at the time, upon learning one of my female friends had forced herself on me, became very agitated, and told me that her mother had told her bisexual women were bisexual because they had been molested by other women.

Leaving the probability of every bisexual woman having been molested by another woman aside...

I told my mother I liked girls when I was 9 — and my friend hadn't forced herself on me until I was 14 — so I was somewhat skeptical of this evaluation, and told her so.

However, at the time it seemed like my assertion of cause and effect needing to follow some sort of linear timeline had not convinced her. My girlfriend thought the reason I liked her was because one of my friends had tried sticking her hands down my pants when I'd said no. Marvelous.

So, before I go any further, let me clarify: I'm not gay. I'm bisexual. I prefer women on a physical level, and I think I generally have healthier relationships with them, but I fall in love with two genders so far. (I apologize for the fact that the rest of this post will be focused on a gender binary —I recognize it's harmful, limiting, and inadequate to describe the realities of gender, but as I've only had relationships with men who identified as men and women who identified as women, it's going to make things unnecessarily complicated if I keep stipulating "but I'm sure if I met another gender and it was the right person we could make it work!" Sorry.)

I am a bisexual ciswoman.

I told my mum I liked girls when I was 9.

I was, after being molested by my friend at 14, temporarily "scared straight", but by 15 had settled comfortably back into bisexuality.

I have never been particularly ashamed of my sexual orientation — I like the way girls are put together. I think our bodies are fantastic. No offence to guys — your bodies are fascinating and lovely and a great deal of fun — but girls make my heart swell and stutter in all the right ways.

It only occurred to me as I got older that being bisexual was dangerous. I grew up in an accepting household, so it took me a while to realize that in the wider world, people would hate me for the seemingly innocent fact that I like girls just as well as boys. Not only do bisexuals face homophobia, but we ran into, time and time again, the assertion that all bisexuals are sluts, or that bisexual girls only do it for the attention.

I only realized as I got older that as a bisexual woman I would face discrimination from homosexuals just as much as heterosexuals. It seems counterintuitive. You would think — you would hope — that anyone who had to face such incredible hate would have learned to be compassionate and open-minded.

So, let me clarify for those who think I'm trying to "pass" or that I'm immature and won't "make up my mind": I've been out to most of the people I know since I was in my mid-teens. I tell people I'm bisexual. I talk about my girlfriends and boyfriends on a pretty regular basis. If I come under suspicion less because I'm a bisexual who likes pretty dresses and red lipstick, fine. I guess that's what happens. But I'm not going to dress a certain way because I'm attracted to a certain gender. My sexuality is a part of me, but so's the fact that I really like pretty dresses.

I made up my mind that I liked multiple sexes by the age of 14. The only time that certainty has wavered has been after traumatic experiences, which I think's pretty reasonable. I don't feel the need to declare myself a lesbian because I prefer women — I also enjoy sexual acts with men (a lot.), and I've fallen in love with a couple. I have no interest in limiting my future happiness by clinging to a reductive identity. I love people. And maybe one day I'll end up with a guyperson or a girlperson or maybe I'll just not end up with anyone. It's all good. Que sera, sera.

You don't want to fuck me because you think I'm a slut who's going to cheat on you? I don't want to fuck you because you're a paranoid bigot.

The end.

So, as full clarification: no, the urge to shag someone with the same naughty bits as you does not stem from some deep sexual trauma in the murky depths of childhood. I'm bisexual because I love people of multiple genders, and because I happen to be deeply fond of the physical makeup of men and women alike. My turn-ons include freckles, tattoos, great clothes, thick bangs, big eyes, curly hair, and full lips, regardless of the primary or secondary sex organs those features accompany.

I'm proud to say I'm bisexual because I was raised by a loving mother who told me from a young age to be proud of who I was, to be honest, to love openly and without regret, and to accept people regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality, religion &c. I am bisexual because my heart still stutters when I think of my ex-girlfriend's hips, or my ex-boyfriend's smile. I am bisexual because that's just how the dice fucking rolled.

If anyone would like to discuss this in further detail when I'm not grinding my teeth at the fact that I even need to say this, just ask.

Handy Tips on How Not to Make Igpy Want to Smack You

2011-05-24T11:19:00.001-07:00

The first article in this series consists of two grammatical tips. Use these tips well, friends, and I will never consider defacing you with a red sharpie if I see you passed out at a party.

Seriously, possessive v. plural isn't that hard.
Here's how it breaks down: most of the time, an apostrophe (') indicates possession. The only exception to this rule you're going to need, as a rule, is "its". "Its" is the possessive form, whereas "it's" is a contraction meaning "it is".

This is all very basic, and if you need a further breakdown of how to express the possessive and/or the plural, there is a handy explanation and quiz here, c/o the U of C.

What I find especially troubling — and what I run into far more often than incorrect itses — is the matter of using apostrophes in numbers. Eg. "The best of the 80's and 90's" or "I'm in my 20's." I am about to demonstrate why using apostrophes in these instances is stupid:

"The best of the eighty's and ninety's."
"I'm in my twenty's."

Unless your intent is to express that the eighty, the ninety, and your twenty all have some really fab possessions, these sentences are somewhat nonsensical. They are also, basically, what you're saying when you write "The best of the 80's and 90's" or "I'm in my 20's."

What you mean to say (usually) is: "The best of the eighties and nineties" or "I'm in my twenties." As such, what you should be writing (usually) is:

"The best of the 80s and 90s."
"I'm in my 20s."

If you do this, you will not only be making less of an ass of yourself, but you will be saving countless readers from further confusion down the road as to when they should be using the plural and when they should be using the possessive. Please utilize this knowledge in your daily life. Please ensure you use this knowledge when you are advertising your business, product, or event. You may think there are no people who will think less of what you're selling just because you make a common grammatical error.

You're wrong.

Sometimes, when we're very cross, we will deface your signage to make it grammatically correct.

Don't cross us.
Yeah is spelled "Yeah."
As the title makes clear, I really shouldn't have to mention this. But, if you're writing dialogue (or anything else), I'd like you to know that using "Yea", "Ya," or "Yah" to convey "Yeah" does not make you a clever writer. It makes you a pain in my ass and it confuses your message. "Ya" is the only one of these I find even remotely tolerable, and even that's suspect, because "ya" is often used as an informal pronunciation of "you".

It's true that "yea" is also an affirmative word, but here's where substituting "yea" for "yeah" makes you look like an imbecile: "yea" is generally pronounced "yay". "Yeah" is pronunced "ya". So, you see, when you have your characters say "yea" — while their meaning remains the same as if they'd used "yeah" — it suddenly sounds like they've all taken a vow to express their affirmations or denials in the tone of a formal vote.

Generally, that is not the case.

So please. Stick the fucking "h" in.

For more (and rather more civil) information on "yeah" vs "yea", please refer to this post.

: we've got the onions, and we've got the fish.

2011-01-09T10:37:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris, which was fabulous, and which you should almost certainly read if you happen to identify as a reader. [Amazon] The book is composed of essays which border, at times, on the sort of casually smug pedantism that makes me wary around anyone familiar with, broadly, Classics -- but always falls back into a bashful, self-deprecating parody of the author's own literary knowledge and fetishism that I, at any rate, couldn't hold it against her for too long at a time. The book stunk of my ex-girlfriend, though I, as someone with a second-rate nose, don't really remember what she smelled like -- that is, the smell was never my focus -- and I would like to recommend it to her, though I don't see any good way to do so (we're not technically speaking).

One of the essays, "The His'er Problem," deals with the difficulties inherent in being a feminist (or anyone with any sort of interest in gender equality above and beyond a farcical binary) who appreciates a good turn of phrase. Beginning with Fadiman's bemusement at attempting to pronounce Ms. aloud in 1973, when the word was relatively new, it plows on through the problems inherent in the English literary canon (overwhelmingly privileged, white, and male) presently being devoured by intelligent readers who, shortly, do not fit into the character of this three-point checklist. Fadiman characterizes herself as torn between feminist and reactionary impulses:

My reactionary self, however, prevails when I hear someone attempt to purge the bias from "to each his own" by substituting "to each their own." The disagreement between pronoun and antecedent is more than I can bear. [Here, A, I especially thought of you.] . . . I call the "to each his own quandary the His'er problem, after a solution originally proposed by Chicago school superintendent Ella Young in 1912: "To each his'er own." I'm soarry. I just can't. My reactionary self has aesthetic as well as grammatical standards, and his'er is hideous.
Pp. 74-75

And so on.

The essay struck a chord with me especially because, over the last two academic years, I've been relying on gender neutral pronouns whenever possible. For most of last year, it was "hir" and "s/he", though following the revelation of the existing of "zie" (thank you, Kassie), and reflections on the nature of s/he, like his'er, presenting potential femininity as more of an appendix to manhood than the main article, I've by and large switched to it this year. Whenever I utilize gender neutral pronouns, be it a written exam, an informal response card, or a typed and proofread essay, I always attach a footnote explaining what, in fact, the word is. The fear that I will be deducted marks for using a word that attempts to evade bias, exclusion, or insult should be absurd, but it isn't. I have rarely (if ever, but I use rarely to avoid being inaccurately bleak due to fault of memory) encountered gender neutral pronouns in any assigned material in four and a half years of postsecondary. I have taken multiple courses in gender, but nowhere in the Anthropology of Gender or Key Writings in Western Feminism: Wollstonecraft to Davis -- not even in Histories of Western Sexualities, a course ostensibly dedicated to highlighting neglected manifestations of human sexuality*, itself often closely entwined to gender identification -- have I come across a s/he, a zie, or a hir. I have, on occasion, come across healthy alternation between "he" and "she" -- sometimes "his or her" -- and too often come across texts in which every theoretical individual was female in a misguided attempt at rectifying past slights, but gender neutral pronouns have been conspicuously absent from my formal education.

Let me dedicate this post, then, to explaining why they are necessary. Not preferred, not advised, but necessary.

I have three friends who have told me they do not identify as the gender with which they are born, some in more abstract ways than others. One asked me once if I would mind if zie got a sex change (the answer: no). Two others use complex labels and explanations that, bless and I apologize, I'm not going to try to fully elaborate here, by and large because I'm concerned I will get something wrong, or use dated information. None of them, to the best of my knowledge, currently intend to undertake ftm**, though two have discussed the possibility with me. Beyond these more obvious cases, almost everyone I know has deviated from "appropriate" gender behaviour. Why? Because no person can successfully fit into the ideal of their gender. Not only is this feat made impossible by regional and temporal differences in what is considered ideal for a male or a female (the other options, of course, being so far from ideal as not to be considered at all) -- identity is fluid. Even if, the world over, we set in stone what a man was to be, what a woman was to be, no one person could possibly fulfill the criteria strictly for the whole of his or her life.

I'm often bewildered by how much trouble gender gives the people around me. This is in part due to the fact, large-breasted, easily giggled, a great fan of sparkles with housewife tendencies and a fondness for pretty dresses, I haven't had that much trouble being a girl. There have been roadbumps -- my preference for women, my dislike of monogamy, my lack of intent to bear children, my scorn of discretion -- but I have identified these as problems I struggle with as a human being, and not necessarily as problematic re: my gender identity, even if my gender affects how they come to bear on me. But I see negotiations of gender constantly. Last summer two men (one who I knew was gay, the other of whom I found out later was gay) at a party spent a significant amount of time walking around in my heels, especially attempting to build a fire. (The juxtaposition of the partial crossdressing with the stereotypically masculine task was, I'll admit, a special treat.) One of them confessed he'd always wanted to do this! and, despite the fact that after being shoved on by two men who almost certainly were not actually meant to wear size 9 women's shoes my heels were destroyed, I considered it a sacrifice well made. I've also been particularly bewildered by the negotiations my female friends have made with the gendered expectations of their sexuality: in particular, a girl who told me last fall she had been "bad" over the weekend because she'd gone to some base or another with a new beau left me bewildered. I told her it was only "bad" if she hadn't enjoyed it, or felt bad about it -- she said that she didn't.

-- attempting to cover the spectrum of gender identity, performativity, and negotiation within a blog post is, of course, inadvisable, just as it would be inadvisable within a multi-volume book. The point I am attempting to make is that nearly everyone I know has participated in the negotiation of what their gender means, and no one I know fits perfectly into "male" or "female" traits. (This includes the most gangsta of my juvenile ex-boyfriends, who let me and the neighbourhood girls put makeup on him, and proposed children at the age of 16****.) I understand that I have brought up in an exceedingly tolerant environment -- gender identity wasn't really covered when I was growing up, but sexuality was, and I suspect that having best friends who negotiated gender identity from about the time I was 14 did me a lot of good -- and that, as a result, having a friend use the words "gender fluid" or bring up a sex change fazes me much less than it would most people. If you care about equality at all, though -- particularly if you identify as a feminist -- it is your responsibility to fight the exclusion of those who do not fit neatly into a gender binary. It is your responsibility as a human being to do your part to see that people who are struggling with their gender identity can gain some sense of the possibility of acceptance from your actions, at least. Strict hypothetical use of "he" is unacceptable. So is strict hypothetical use of "she". Mixing the two is, at least, better than any one gender hegemony, but it is still not enough.

So, this is my exhortation to the wider world in 2011: try gender neutral pronouns on for size. I don't think they're any more radical than the use of "citizen" to include those who are not white males is radical, nor do I think they are any less necessary. Most of my friends like to talk about equality recreationally. They seem to like the idea of the thing. So, friends, get your asses in gear and break out more accurate language. We have work to do, motherfuckers.

* Despite the course's best intentions, it covered lesbianism only briefly, and did not mention at all either bisexuality or asexuality. The professor, of course, was an older white male.
** I am unsure as to whether "undertake ftm" is an accurate use of words. I am, at present, making do with the best I have. I apologize if, in my ignorance, I offend anyone or misuse words. Feel free to correct me.
*** See Patty Kelly's ethnography, Lydia's Open Door.
**** I was 13. I said no.

: where's north from here?

2010-12-30T10:48:00.001-08:00

Maybe if I post my to-do list on the internet I'll feel more obliged to fulfill it.

find birth control. if birth control unfindable, ask for new batch from pharmacy, suck it up and pay full price (a staggering 14 bucks)
go to Kensington/downtown; find coffee shop; finish & send out massively overdue 445 project complete with bullshit academic reason for lateness for fellow students' benefit; if I can't avoid people knowing I'm the last person to turn hir project in, I can at least make my fail legendary.
stop at Cat's Pajamas and get a bra that actually fucking fits.
stop at school; work out.
buy whatever books are available. (nb. write down what classes you are in next semester.)
inform Elspeth NYE will be at Broken City; force her to buy a ticket asap.
buy a ticket yourself, too. obviously.

Longer term goals include socialization with Claire, Carey, Mady, Doug, and numerous other people. Making a list of people to socialize with. Going to Edmonton for a day. Writing. Writing. Writing. You have a story due on the 11th. Finish your story, Igpy. Finish your story. More writing. Reading. Reading. Read while you have the chance. Salman Rushdie. Joseph Boyden. Michael Ondaatje. Books on war propaganda. Cleaning your damned room. Finding library CDs. Starting to plan your honours thesis. Convincing the English department your CanLit course from Mount Royal was a CanLit course. Asking the Anthro department to waive the science req for you. Investigating the possibility of writing two theses at once. Oh God. Oh God. Sit.

: congrats on completing WMST 201, guys.

2010-11-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

...so, I just finished listening to an hour of amateur college feminist radio, and I was depressed enough until I read this description: "Yeah, What She Said is Calgary’s only feminist/women’s radio program." Step up, Calgary. This show cannot be Calgary's only feminist radio program. My thoughts on this are too many, varied, scattered, angry, and conflicted to promise any sort of cohesive, coherent critique, but I've been bottling up my problems with a certain brand of feminism for a while, and my academic annoyance refuses to be kept silent any longer.

Let me preface this with a standard disclaimer: I am a feminist. I would say I am to "feminist" as Avahi ramanantsoavani is to "lemur" or, possibly, "primate", or, possibly, "mammal", but there we have it: I am, at least, some sort of feminist. I am a feminist insofar as women's rights matter a great deal to me (as do, more generally, human rights, and being rights, and rights period), and as I believe that, while it is understandable how gender inequality came about, efforts should be made to shank it. I further understand that feminism is a broad and beleagured term, unlikely umbrella to more viewpoints than you could (or should) shake a fist at. Feminist is an identifier somewhat on par with human. And, as a student and occasional advocate of anthropology and by current-association, cultural relativism, it is not in my best interests to attack those with a different viewpoint than my own.

I had initially tuned into CJSW to listen to some French music while cleaning my room, which was intended to be a prelude to working on the story I have due tomorrow (that remains, in large part, unwritten). The French gave way to South Louisiana Gumbo, and before I knew it, I was listening to two of Yeah, What She Said's three hosts essentially spending a good twenty minutes summarizing the plight of "H.S.", a Silsbee, TX teen who was raped in highschool and, in short, was cheated both by the justice and her school system. The hosts' conclusions essentially amounted to "rape bad" "system unfair" "money = power" "power = ability to evade legal consequences for actions", &c.

This is an excellent level of intellectual exertion for a discussion of recent news events over coffee. It is somewhat disconcerting to hear on a university radio program that claims to be a city's only feminist radio program. I don't think that pulling out every academic in your repertoire and applying as many complex theoretical labels as possible to the events you're discussing would be an effective approach to feminist radio. I don't think that's effective in academic papers, to be honest. But some higher level of engagement with the issues at hand is to be hoped for. I don't want to have Calgary's only feminist radio show come on and listen to what are presumably two intelligent young women spend ten minutes dwelling on what a douchebag one of H.S.'s assaulters is for saying he didn't have any hard feelings toward her. Your listeners can judge for themselves that he is a douchebag. It is a given. Where is your serious engagement with the issues at hand? Bring in other cases. Draw comparisons. Discuss the difficulties of defining rape vs. sexual assault in various American state justice systems instead of just mentioning one of your listeners called you up and told you about it. Saying the differences are interesting is not discussing them. Instead of reading bloody Pitchfork's obituary of Ari Up, why not write your own damn commentary? If you care about these issues enough to claim a radio show devoted to them, you should be able to take the initiative to do your own research, draw your own comparisons and conclusions, and discuss them at a level befitting Calgary's only feminist radio show.

... that said, my exasperation at having nearly every stereotype of noncommital postsecondary feminism confirmed on live radio was interrupted by a far more grating, personal peeve. One of the topics taken up by Y,WSS was the issue of provocative imagery in advertising (specifically: gang rape-esque ads for Dolce & Gabbana and Calvin Klein, and the recent GQ photoshoot of Glee cast members Dianna Agron, Cory Monteith, and Lea Michele).

I am absolutely anti-censorship. While there is certainly a limit to what should be readily available for public consumption, that limit is something that I think is to be defined from person to person. Some kids grow up allowed to watch the Simpsons. Some kids grow up allowed to watch HBO. Some kids aren't allowed television while growing up. What is or is not appropriate viewing for you or your dependents will always be, as far as I'm concerned, a personal issue. I understand why guidelines and ratings are in place; I understand that parents cannot always be watching what their children are (nor should they be); I understand the compulsion to look at something you find personally distasteful and say to the world, "That ain't right."

Here's the thing, though. Tying in censorship with feminism (and you are, ladies, when you say such-and-such a photoshoot is demeaning or such-and-such a trope in advertisements should not be allowed; you might be right, but you're censoring) is about on par with, as the cliches goes, fucking for virginity, fighting for peace. It's the same sort of backwards mentality I see in gay communities ostracising bisexuals; women's support groups ousting trans individuals. There is no solid theoretical ground you can stand on when you say that female celebrities doing racy photoshoots is anti-feminist. First of all: what's racy? Because if we're going by some cultural standards, showing their hair is the height of slut. By others, it's perfectly alright to be topless (nothing sexual about that). What's the difference between Lea Michele and Dianna Agron posing in revealing outfits and Jordan Matter's series of photographs depicting topless women (of all shapes, sizes, ages, &c.) in New York City? The messages we take from these images are based on intensely personal and culturally specific information. Women have fought for their rights to miniskirts, bikinis, the ability to bleach their hair blonde without being negatively labeled "bottle", just as they've fought for the right to vote, to property, to marry the person they love (or not!) regardless of gender. There is no denying that advertising and commercial culture has encouraged an image of women as commodities. There is no denying that women as bodies and sex objects are disproportionately valued. There is no denying that these images have a negative effect on many women. There is no denying that many women feel as though their physical appearance and sexuality are disproportionately important to their worth as human beings.

There is also no denying that there are many women who are in control of and confident in their bodies. There are many women who have come to terms with and embraced their sexualities. There are many women who are perfectly comfortable strutting around in bikini tops and miniskirts not because they want to be the love objects of other people, but because they think they look good, they feel good in those outfits, and they damn well feel like flaunting it. It is not your right to exacerbate the slut-shaming that these women endure. It is not your right to hammer into the minds of women of all ages that open sexuality is something of which they should be ashamed.

I have posed nude for photos. I will do so again. I have not done this out of any sense of obligation or need for acceptance by an objectifying patriarchal abstraction (or, to be less academic, any men or women in particular). I pose nude because I love human bodies. I think they're wonderful. I like seeing them. I like feeling them. I like being in one. I like the way my body feels and, often enough, how it looks. I think I look bloody fabulous naked, and since more often than not I'm not shagging anyone on a regular basis, I might as well commit my fabulous naked body to film. Someone, after all, should be given the opportunity to enjoy the fabulousness that is my nudity.

I am not a slut. I am not uncomfortable with my sexuality. I started taking nude photos in my teens, because I was curious about how my body looked. I continued because I love it. There is no sense of insecurity or exploitation in the photos I have both taken and allowed to be taken of me. Is my experience different (more positive) than those of many women who have been photographed in the nude? Certainly. But it is not entirely singular. Accepting our bodies and our sexualities is a struggle, no matter our sex, gender, culture, religion, country, political party, or age. We are bombarded with a plethora of messages about bodies and sex that more often than not contradict one another, and almost always suggest that we, on some level, are inadequate. It is enough that we have to combat messages from outside feminism that tell us we are "wrong". It is far worse to know that even within the feminist community, if we take a step in a direction someone doesn't like, we will be called "trashy", will be ostracised as examples of women (demeaning themselves? being demeaned?). I think that an informed, considered critique of the use of women's sexuality and objectification in advertisements and photoshoots would be productive use of radio time. I cannot say the same of two young women talking about how a GQ photoshoot is "wrong".

So. Ladies. You're feminists, yeah? You're bloody educated women. You are intelligent and informed and hold the power in your hands to introduce your listeners to whole levels of feminist thought they could never have dreamed of. Why not make use of that power and explore feminist issues in depth, thoughtfully, instead of spending an hour skimming the issue of rape in the United States, reading someone else (a male, I might add)'s obituary of Ari Up, and talking about how advertising demeans women and slut-shaming in the process? Ladies, I believe in you. You're bigger than this. You can do better. Please.

: good golly, miss maura.

2010-10-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

I'd like to take a moment to discuss something that's already been talked to death, in many cases by people far better-informed than I. "Maura Kelly on Mike and Molly." (What, what, what are you doing?) I encourage you to read (as much of) the article (as you can stand) yourself — the basic idea is that some (not so obese) woman at Marie Claire was inexplicably given permission by her superiors to post an uninformed, insubstantial article on a sitcom called Mike and Molly (with which I am unfamiliar). The article essentially adds up to Miss Maura talking about how fat people are gross and she doesn't want to look at them.

Let us begin with one of the over 1770 comments on the post, left by lovelucy21.

good grief!
12:06:24 PM
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Posted by: lovelucy21
So all of these insecure people think this writer is talking directly to them- get over yourself! So no one is allowed an opinion anymore......oh someone may take it the wrong way and get their feelings hurt!! Whatever, people are blowing this way out of proportion!!! The truth hurts doesn't it?

Aside from the notion that being personally offended by something someone has said that discriminates against a group to which you (may think you) or those you love (you may think) belong is somehow a faux pas — god, ladies, I was just making a rape joke; I wasn't saying it was funny when you got raped; don't you have any sense of humour? — Maura Kelly's article isn't insulting (just) because it's hurtful. It's insulting because much of it isn't true, and perpetuates a number of stereotypes that contribute to the problems Miss Kelly (sort of) addresses in her article.

"Now, don't go getting the wrong impression: I have a few friends who could be called plump. I'm not some size-ist jerk. And I also know how tough it can be for truly heavy people to psych themselves up for the long process of slimming down. (For instance, the overweight maintenance guy at my gym has talked to me a little bit about how it seems worthless for him to even try working out, because he's been heavy for as long as he can remember.)
But ... I think obesity is something that most people have a ton of control over. It's something they can change, if only they put their minds to it."

First of all, it's painfully obvious from this section alone that Miss Kelly has never been overweight. Just as one would be (absolutely right in being) skeptical of a white woman writing about how visible minorities really need to man up and stop whining about racism when it's clearly a problem of the past — just as one would be absolutely right in being skeptical of a man protesting the opening of a new abortion clinic, so the sight of some skinny bitch working for Marie Claire running her mouth off about how easy it really is to get your health back after struggling with obesity is the equivalent of a journalistic carwreck. Obesity is not something that most people have a ton of control over. It is a serious health problem, as Miss Kelly so aptly identified. Serious health problems are not easy to remedy. 15 years ago my mother was diagnosed with a mental illness and subsequently put on medication that led to her essentially gaining an extra person in weight. True enough, if she'd been able to keep to a healthy diet and exercised regularly, she would have been able to keep from gaining all that weight, but somehow, between coping with the revelation that she was severely mentally ill, having her brain chemistry fundamentally altered by heavy medication, trying to raise a daughter alone, coping with having had her psychotic break immediately upon finishing her bachelor's of Economics, trying to figure out where we would live, if she could ever work again, where we would get money from, &c., she just didn't seem to find the time to pick up Pilates (poor thing). Now, if she tries to exercise, she ends up out of breath after a block's walk. Her knees go out. Her back goes out. She's not even 50 yet. No, she does not have a ton of control over her health issues. (And if you'd like proof that the medications play a role? They recently switched her onto a different med that's not associated with weight gain. The pounds slid off. Unfortunately, she also resumed having constant, severe audio hallucinations, and as a result has had to go back onto her previous medication. Does that sound like a ton of control to you?)

"And while I think our country's obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy, I also think it's at least equally crazy, albeit in the other direction, to be implicitly promoting obesity! Yes, anorexia is sick, but at least some slim models are simply naturally skinny. No one who is as fat as Mike and Molly can be healthy. And obesity is costing our country far more in terms of all the related health problems we are paying for, by way of our insurance, than any other health problem, even cancer."

First of all, if we're going to say that a sitcom about obese individuals is implicit promotion of obesity, I think we should probably be dropping this issue and instead tackling the media's implicit promotion of murder, torture, war, rape, hate crimes, drug use, binge drinking, mindless consumption, unsafe sex, social ineptitude, rudeness, bigotry, a capella groups, stereotyping, paedophilia... Second of all, I'll grant you that obesity is a major problem. But I would argue that in many cases, unhealthy eating habits have, if not come out of our obsession with thinness, been exacerbated by it. Take, as example, someone who has been raised by a family that does not have an adequate understanding of healthy diet and exercise, and as a result has grown up obese. I think it's safe to say that a very large proportion of, at the very least, North American youth today fit into this category. There are socioeconomic issues at play — many families can't afford fresh, unprocessed food. A lot of children are raised on a barely adequate diet; Kraft Dinner and Chef Boyardee were major staples of my childhood diet. Have you ever had to go to a food bank? Do you know what food you get at them? Canned goods. Boxed foods. (Moreover, the canned goods and boxed foods no one wants.) Kraft Dinner and frozen vegetables is a hell of a lot cheaper than roasted asparagus and acorn squash with a cranberry glaze. Hamburger Helper's a lot easier and cheaper to make than butternut squash jambalaya. Beyond the cost of the foods themselves, there's the issue of time (many families have parents working multiple fulltime jobs just to make do) and the appliances available. Ovens cost money. Electricity costs money. Crockpots, pots, pans, skillets, graters, blenders, food processors, kettles, ramequins — the costs associated with good cooking can be staggering no matter what economic bracket you fall into, but if you're making the decision between food and rent, food and phone, food and shoes without holes in them, food and a secondhand jacket that at least still zips up? You're going to go for whatever you can buy that will stop your kid from having hunger pains. You're not going to look at the fucking label.

And it's very difficult to come back from that. If you're raised on overprocessed, lowest common denominator foods, it's difficult to get used to eating better. Not only is it a far higher-effort endeavour, but it tastes different. It is difficult, when raised on salty, fatty, sugary foods, to get used to foods that use these elements in moderation. It is difficult to get used to the taste of salad with balsamic vinaigrette when while growing up "vegetables" meant "creamed corn from the can" or "Green Giant broccoli with cheese sauce". It is difficult to get used to the taste of fruit that doesn't come steeped in syrup. If you were raised in a family that could afford healthy food and understood the value of it — if you were told that processed food is bad for you at an early age instead of having to realize it as an adult and try to cope accordingly — if your parents could afford to pay for you to be on a sports team — if they paid for you to go to a good university with adequate gym services and a meal plan — be grateful. Be grateful that you grew up healthy and that you will never have to go through the process of losing a significant quantity of weight. Be grateful that you will never look in the mirror and be surprised not to see the blubbery kid you felt like all day. Be grateful that you will never have to go through the humiliation of spending day after day at the gym, going on extreme diets, only to find yourself weeks later just as fat as you were when you started out because that's how your body works. Be grateful that you had enough food growing up to keep your metabolism at a good rate. Be grateful that you never got called fat at school. Be grateful that, for you, looking like those people in magazines is a tangible reality. Be grateful that fashionable stores carry your size. Be grateful that you have your health. Be grateful. But don't you dare try to speak for those of us who didn't have your opportunities. Don't you dare tell us it's easy.

: don't call me, don't write.

2010-05-18T13:16:00.000-07:00

I've spent a lot of time feeling guilty about the people I've loved. A lot of time feeling guilty for not loving them the way I guess I think they deserve to be loved. For not loving "right". I spend a lot of time, in general, nursing the sense that I need to be perfect for everyone around me, that I need to keep everyone happy, that if my life isn't a constant fucking orgy of love + peace I'm doing something wrong. I exacerbated things this last year by putting myself through two consecutive, unhealthy relationships in which I was my significant other's "everything", in which s/he had to be around or talking to me all the time, in which s/he couldn't stand distance, in which s/he wanted me to be the alpha and omega (in those exact words, in one case). The second of those relationships was ended (by me) almost two months ago.

And I'm finally starting to feel free from the guilt.

So, this is an open letter to my second ex (the first is water under the bridge; our breakup wasn't exactly pretty and we're both kind of shitheads, but he treated me with the respect I would expect from someone who loved me and I did my best to do the same). The one who left me feeling like I was some kind of monster for weeks. This is for you, baby. I don't know if you'll read this. I don't really care. If you do, I hope you at least have the balls to take some of it to heart.

We have both barely cracked our twenties. Despite your prior repeated assertions that you'd dated other people, as soon as I dumped you you started claiming I was your first breakup (this being your excuse for harassing me and telling me you wished I lived closer so you could just punch me in the face). Do you have any idea how many "first relationships" end? Do you have any idea how many second, third, fourth, fourteenth relationships end? We dated for just over four months, and when I broke up with you, you acted like I had just broken off an engagement, asked for a divorce. You acted like we had been fighting the good fight for years together and I'd given up. You told me the way I acted, after "years of friendship", was (in a few more words) cruel, heartless, calculated, inexcusable. I didn't calculate anything. After four months of dating you -- maybe six of speaking to you regularly -- I had come to realize that we weren't compatible, or, at least, that you weren't what I was looking for. There's nothing personal or cruel about that. Your ideology horrified me. We came from very different backgrounds and I felt, too often, that you'd never be able to understand where I was coming from on a basic level. You've been sheltered and pampered, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to live the life I want for myself if you played such a large part in it. I want to travel the world on as little money as possible. I want to work for NGOs and nonprofits. I want to teach English as a second language in dangerous countries and, if I ever make enough money to do it, give a significant chunk of it to charity. I want to go all over, learn all kinds of languages, not be tied down to any one job or place for years. I want to experience the world and work out my philosophy on it. I don't want money or stability beyond what I need to stay fed, sheltered, and sane. You want to make a lot of money and have a bunch of nice things. There is no level on which our life plans or lifestyles are compatible. I mouth off at any dickless motherfucker who tries to make me feel uncomfortable for looking good -- when those idiots catcalled us in the car going past and I yelled right back at them, you freaked out. You were convinced they were going to come back and attack us. How can I possibly live a happy life when you would be intent on putting so much fear into it? You're the only American I've ever met and maintained friendship with who defended your healthcare system as it was. You don't see why social services should be offered by the government, why people who've learned how to take care of themselves and their money should subsidise those who haven't. Fuck you. If it hadn't been for social services, I would have grown up homeless. My mother would be dead. I don't know where I'd be at 21, but it certainly wouldn't be in my fourth year of attaining two Bachelor's degrees simultaneously, an Honours student, volunteering with charity, writing for local publications, working my ass off so I can help other people who didn't make it like I did. You crowed, when I told you about me and my mother spending six hours in emergency just to find out she didn't have a broken foot, that it was a point for American healthcare. My mother has multiple chronic illnesses. If we lived in America, we wouldn't have been able to go see the damned doctor. Fuck you for making me feel guilty about my horror at your ability to write off everything I have lived through. Fuck you for making me feel like I was wrong for doing what any responsible, mature person who cared about you would do upon realizing that I could not love you the way you loved me: ending the relationship. I agonized over it for weeks, I asked my friends for advice, I read wanky articles on how to sensitively end a relationship just so I could try, for once, to minimize the damage. I stayed awake nights worrying over it. I tried and tried again to make myself love you, and when I couldn't, out of respect and the desire to preserve our friendship, to end things before I ended up hating you, I walked you through it, I spoke softly, I explained things.

And you shat all over it.

It's not even the waves of psychotic text messages you sent, or the fact that when I wouldn't reply (because you deserved the opportunity to blow up, because this was your prerogative but there was nothing to be gained by fanning the flames), you e-mailed them to me. It's not the endless barrage of out-there accusations and attacks on my character that pushed me, made me realize I couldn't have someone like you in my life. It's the fact that when I called you on it, asked you to back off for the sake of our friendship, you wouldn't leave me alone. Every forty-eight hours you'd send another conciliatory message I wasn't ready to read. You told me not to treat you like a child. In grown-up-landia, sweetheart? You give someone more than two days when they ask you for some time. The assortment of ways you've found to insinuate yourself into my life even now -- through friends, through mutual interests -- is astounding, but I'm done. It took me a long time -- it took me a couple weeks of hashing things over with my friends and many weeks after that making a gargantuan effort not to, because I didn't want to have to put them through it -- but I'm done caring about your desperate cries for attention. In the end, it wasn't even the ideology that cracked me -- it was the way you acted like it was okay to depend on me to be your only friend (and the way, right after the breakup, you immediately latched onto our mutual friend as your new/old only friend, having previously ditched her the entire time we were together). I've come to accept the fact that your psychological damage is not my problem. It was there before me and it wasn't and is not my responsibility to "fix" you. You can't live with yourself, love, and I wouldn't have done you any favours by pretending hopping into a serious relationship would somehow make you the person you wanted to be.

I'm sorry that I hurt you. I'm sorry our friendship was ruined, and I'm sorry that I'll never really be able to put an honest effort in to repair it. I hope you're happy to know that I'm moving on and that I've forgiven you. I know you've had a lot of difficulty coping with the ideologies you've been pitted between. I know you're definitely not the craziest person in your immediate environment. But I'm not going to be your, or anybody else's, "one and only". Love is about two separate individuals meeting each other and forging some kind of relationship out of their distinct but compatible lives. It is not about incomplete people smashing together repeatedly in a desperate attempt to feel whole. I hope that, one day, you reach a point where you can be comfortable with yourself and not depend on someone else to validate your existence. I hope that when you do, you find another person who you can make some sort of life with, and I hope you find happiness in doing so. I hope I do, too.

Goodbye.

adventures of an unwilling writer, part 2:

2010-03-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

I feel entitled to make this entry, quickly, because I only have one scene left, and then all I'll have to do is write the story properly.

I detest that fantasy has been turned into a mass market thing. I detest that fantasy has been appropriated by largely untalented masses and turned into a thing anyone seems able to do. I think the same could be said of any genre, but it's especially odious for fantasy, which already had trouble defending its reputation, being based, of course, on Things That Are Not (quite). What I hate most is that the proliferation of bloody atrocious fantasy writing has meant that I have become incredibly wary of engaging with TTAN(q) for fear of being shut down and told to Write Properly, Damnit. This will, naturally, be less of a concern when I am writing largely for my apathetic rejection from various publications, as opposed to my current situation, which consists of submitting my stories to a class of my peers (mostly), and a very formidable woman I am exceeding grateful to call my Professor. My Professor who, furthermore, holds a distaste so far as I can tell for Fantasy in the common, generic sense, and appears to view Magic Realism as its more desirable sibling. Which isn't a bad thing; I think magic realism's quite lovely. It's just that sometimes I'd rather have realistic magic.

And so the dilemma with Elijah. I've discovered that the only scenes I'm having trouble with are the magical and mythical elements, those scenes with characters who are more than people. I think I'm definitely a character- and relationship-based writer, which makes it scary for me to write larger-than-life characters; I will always make them people. Not everybody likes that.

I must remember to follow the example of Messrs nolan henry & Doug Neilson, the latter having written GOD (literally, in special font, which I now ape), and the former having created mythical characters with Biblical basis, incl. The Traveller, for whom I had to rename a character in Elijah to The Rover. I have no idea if (N)nolan likes his name capitalized or not. I think he tends to decapitalize it on his title pages, though, so I assume I'm kosher, if not right. Ultimately, the goal must be to write the story as it needs to be written, and bugger anybody who detracts anything on generic terms. If I want a goddamn dryad in my story, you bloody well bet there'll be a goddamn dryad in there.

adventures of an unwilling writer, part 1:

2010-03-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

In another vain attempt to avoid actually having to write my story due Tuesday March 30th, for which among other reasons I begged my way into a term paper extension from Tuesday March 30th to Friday April 2nd, I have decided to document my trials and tribulations in today, Sunday March 29th, my last ditch attempt to get a first draft before sundown sohelpmegodIwillnotleavethiscoffeeshopuntilitisdone,noteventogotothegym,myonlybreakswillbeskimmingarticlesformytermpaperandgettingmyfriendstotalkmedownviaiChat.

I don't even know what a tribulation is. I just use the word because it's what comes after trials.

Compensation #1: I've tried to write this first draft a number of ways so far. I'm doing my best to commit to the "let your first draft be the shittiest piece of shitting shit that ever shat" theory of writing, but when my shitty paragraphs dissolve into displays like this:

[Igpy] can't write this in public. She is too afraid. She wants desperately to hide at home and turn out the lights, clear a space and write in it, avoid this, motivation, because if she writes the motivation what if it is weak? Will people remember that generally when people explain why they're doing something, they're wrong, or at least incomplete? Is this needless, intrusive? Do we really need to know? We probably need to know. Oh god oh god oh god oh god

or this:

It took less than ten minutes for him to storm out from his cottage and onto the field, leaving Costantin to pick up the pieces behinnnnnd him lalala cliches lalalalalalala ALALALALALALA!

Graver methods become necessary. My first step was to skip over scenes, come close to summarizing them but not quite, to skim their surfaces so I could add to them later and just get through it. I quickly discovered that this did not work to my advantage as I simply became very concerned that it was shit, shit, all shit (the point of a first draft, but still not conducive to my nervous health), and have resolved to use a new tactic:
I will write in Courier New. I cannot possibly fail in Courier New. Why? Courier fonts are the fonts of this means business. Chelsie has been using them for Gyre set-ups. They make me feel comfortable and taken care of. They look like they have been typed up by someone who can kill you with hir bare hands. Therefore, if my summaries are written in Courier New, it will be very clear to my brain that they are summaries, that they are business, and that they are not to be fucked around with. By using this method I hope to eradicate nerves and feelings of self-worthlessness. We'll see how it works.

: you really got a CORPORATE EVIL (& cupcakes!) on me.

2010-02-10T15:03:00.001-08:00

Starbucks is a very clever company. Not only do they provide dried fruit as an option to top their way overpriced oatmeal with, and do things like go around offering pieces of cupcake to their customers, and have a generally good soundtrack, but in the customer survey they are currently conducting (for which you must be *~randomly selected~*), there is no white space. There is almost no text entry. You answer a bunch of very yes, no, this one, highly satisfactory questions. I had been all excited, having been randomly selected for the survey, and had had grand plans of talking about hippopotamuses and corporate evil in my survey, but the only time they gave me a chance to type was when they asked what the best part of my visit had been!

...it occurs to me, in hindsight, that I should have talked about h&ce THEN.

Anyway. They leave very little space for negative feedback. But I filled out their survey so now I get a free tall drink! (Cheap bastards. If you really valued my obedience you'd shell out for a grande at least.)

: panic.

2009-10-09T10:52:00.001-07:00

it looks wrong it looks wrong it looks wrong it looks wrong it looks wrong

2009-09-29T10:19:00.001-07:00

You know how when teachers have sexual relations with their students, they're fired and shunned and suspended and in some cases never allowed to work in education again?

I think baristas who can't/are too lazy to make foam deserve the same treatment.

: bah, humbug.

2009-09-02T08:48:00.000-07:00

For my 21st birthday I have been socially pressured into going to Banff to spend money I don't have and be sociable all day.

Tomorrow, I will be taking a second, unofficial birthday day, in which I am allowed to ignore everyone, stay home, and write.

Pah.

: let's learn to be alone together.

2009-08-07T17:42:00.000-07:00

my sudden intense dissatisfaction with life over the past few weeks may, i realized today, be an effect of birth control. or pms. or both. i know i had an accidental break (way too behind almost period time fuck this and let's start fresh in a couple weeks!) but i don't remember when. know i have been delayed. YES i was delayed this cycle because i couldn't find the pills at first and i had to pay if i couldn't find them so i delayed and waited until sunday. delayed a few days more than i usually do. this could be intense fucked up readjustment but it's weird because i had no problems getting on the pill the first time. right now harvey's mum is curious as to why he isn't home yet. she is upset because her brother is in the hospital with a bleeding ulcer from tremendous alcohol abuse, and may indeed die from alcohol withdrawal. fantabulous. she is waiting for him and he isn't coming because he used his second thirty five cents calling me since i told him to and i was sobbing and asked him to come please come as you are not like that and he did. no cents left. sense. so i can't call her because i'm guilty because i'm selfish and stealing her son over a pill but i can't hold these objects without the fear of penetration detonation or worse so i am carefully avoiding bathtubs and sharp edges (ends!) for fear of rejection or worse acceptance. my cat is somewhere in the house. i hope it's her making all that noise. i hate the kids here.

what is relevant here is that, much like i am a shitty girlfriend and a shitty potential daughter-in-law, i am also a shitty friend, and i acknowledge that. i want you all to understand that i know i'm a shitty friend, and if you don't think i am you never got close enough to miss me. i run away and look after my own needs and that's just evolution, baby, but i'm still sitting here pulling people away pushing them elsewhere and that's the facts. i love you all. you have no idea how much i love my friends. you are such special, wonderful people, but i have no basis for human interaction. i am motionless and unfeeling in this room which never changes, quagmire of dirty laundry and old bottles. i am so, so sorry. i am sorry that i can be charming and endearing and sometimes even wonderful and then pull it back in hiss and claws and isolation. i am sorry that i am unreliable and disappointing. no one has ever said these things to me but i see them and would like them said. if i have ever hurt you or let you down, i apologize. i function the best i can. i never meant to hurt any of you. i am so, so sorry.

(and that's why i was sobbing into your toilet, jesse jesse powell, who i am also doomed to disappoint tonight. have a good show. you're a star.)

: there is a fine, fine line separating me and amy winehouse, and it's called "regular drug abuse."

2009-08-03T17:46:00.001-07:00

Dear diary,

Yesterday I was upset. I was so upset I actually drank melon liqueur straight. I don't know if you've ever done that, but let me tell you, it indicates a real abundance of desperation. So I met up with Harvey and we went to Jesse's house, and Jesse was actually there. I swam in the river with Jesse and then we drank a bunch with Harvey, and I was violently sick in Jesse's toilet. My vomit was bright red, and I cried the entire time, repeatedly apologizing to Harvey and Jesse. They were very nice, and I love them very much.

Today I am still somewhat nauseous, and feel better about life.

The end.
-Ig

: no one's laughing.

2009-08-02T12:44:00.001-07:00

I'm not impressed with anything or anyone right now.

I have no idea how I'm supposed to make it back to school like this.

: come on come on come on come on.

2009-07-21T14:31:00.000-07:00

I seem to be succeeding in almost every aspect of my life.

It's creeping me out.

: stuck on repeat.

2009-07-14T10:45:00.000-07:00

This is disturbing. It's way too easy to forget that just because it's (comparatively) easy to not be straight-carrying-the-picket-fence in Canada, doesn't mean the world's anywhere close to making sense.

: inertia.

2009-07-13T14:20:00.000-07:00

Today I ordered from Boston Pizza and accepted the five dollar delivery charge mostly because I could.

I don't know when AC's coming back.

: graffiti up his toys.

2009-07-10T14:57:00.000-07:00

Why am I surrounded by people who think it's my fucking job to baby them all the goddamned time, even though they're my age or much older?

Fucking Christ, people, learn to take care of yourselves. I'm not a fucking social worker.

: one more time with feeling.

2009-07-09T09:54:00.000-07:00

Today I was repeatedly woken up through the morning by a mix of construction noise and nightmares. Then, about 15 minutes before my alarm was due to go off, my mother came in to harrass me about the will-related letter she wants me to write up and send. (I do not see how she qualified this as civilized behaviour. She is possibly a neanderthal; intelligent, certainly, but not of our blood.) Then, again, about 2 minutes before my alarm went off, Harvey phoned me on my cell to ask me if I could look up some things on his resume because his laptop's dead. As soon as I hanged up the phone, the alarm went off. I groaned, pre-menstrual, into my pillow for a minute or two, before resentfully picking up my laptop, subsequently hitting myself in the head with my powercord, almost crying, plugging in said laptop, calling Harvey back, and pulling up the resume, only to discover that he didn't have the updated version on his e-mail.

I told him I'd call him back on the landline. I peed, gave my cat some water, brushed my teeth. Went downstairs, called Harvey- triple-checking the number to make sure I hadn't in my stupor added a three somewhere- grabbed a dark chocolate Kit-Kat while the computer started up with creaks and groans, and dutifully read off the necessary information. He made fun of me for being grumpy, and he will suffer for this later, when I apply for two or more jobs at once.

I need to clean the house. My mother is fond of reminding me of this, while simultaneously doing no housework herself. I find this curious behaviour. I suspect I would be a better housekeeper if my partner-in-keeping didn't consider sitting on the phone, smoking and telling her friends 'we're cleaning the house today' a fundamental part of housework. I hate it when people apply the "W" word to me without asking. I don't like unasked-for spokespeople.

I've been writing a lot lately, but nothing publishable in its current form. Maybe later. Edits everywhere. Have to come up with a creative writing portfolio for August 15th. Will probably work on that in Kananaskis. Should look up the guidelines later.

All this stuff is torturing me. What do I really need out of this room? Some of the books, most of the CDs, quite a few of the clothes. I'd like some makeup from the hall. A few accessories. How did I end up with all of this crap? Too many good intentions.

Listening to Regina Spektor's new album. It's not what I hoped for, but it's good. "Eet," "Dance Anthem of the 80s," "Laughing With," "Blue Lips," "Folding Chair," and "Genius Next Door" are all great. Mostly beautiful. You can probably hear them on her MySpace.

To cheer myself up: a Kait KaBOOM! style list of ten.

Not-so-secret very long engagements.
Kitty cats.
Piano and head-dancing.
Burlesque.
Polka dots.
Trees.
It's been a long, long time since last year.
Led Zeppelin.
Old friends becoming intimate strangers.
Lights and tunnels.

: quiet please.

2009-07-08T17:57:00.000-07:00

My mother is aware of my express wishes not to have any sort of contact with my grandparents in the near future, following their protracted and unwarranted attempts at interfering with my life. Despite the fact that I have made it abundantly clear that I have no desire to speak to my grandfather in the next month or so, she's under the impression that it's appropriate not only to invite him into my home (a violation in itself), but to request my presence downstairs to speak with the man.

I am extremely unimpressed with my roommate.

: no one's laughing at god

2009-06-16T15:59:00.000-07:00

I am listening to the new Regina Spektor album (streaming here). I am not quite sure how I feel about it right now. The piano is making too much sense and the words too little. I am waiting for an impressive moment and I'm sure it's coming but right now I'm uneasy.

One of my favourite people is rapidly losing her means of long-distance communication and this makes me really, really uneasy. She works at Barnes & Noble and this means she does not have a lot of money, which means that she will not be buying a shiny MacBook or anything anytime soon. I just got back from visiting here. I wanted to keep talking. This makes me nervous. When you ____, it makes me feel ______. More space for oneself. Naturally.

I sometimes think the main reason we need jobs, aside from the economy, is just so we're rendered unable to think. Thinking is scary. I don't think/I like thinking.

I do not want anyone to go away, ever.

: since i kicked him in the teeth

2009-06-15T12:56:00.001-07:00

I'm just going to pretend that the big scary bug mum just dumped in the toilet is the same big scary bug that was on my bed at 7 this morning.

: busy being here before

2009-05-10T16:48:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia won't tell me if you can die by using nail polish as body paint, except for in a theoretical situation where you coat yourself so heavily you get poisoned by inhaling the fumes.

How much fume does it take?

: no, seriously, you can go now.

2009-04-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

I'm done.

Done school until September.

Done done done.

Done done didda done done done done done done done done done done done done done DONE.

Oh my God.

I'm going to go get trashed and vomit in an alleyway.

: time travel is lonely.

2009-04-25T18:49:00.000-07:00

I just got this incredibly strong desire to start writing a series of short stories where each would have the title of a song as its first line. Summer projects?

: i'll get money i'll get funny again.

2009-04-17T15:58:00.001-07:00

We expected something, something better than before.
We expected something more.
Do you really think you can just put it in a safe behind a painting, lock it up and leave?
Do you really think you can just put it in a safe behind a painting, lock it up and leave?
Walk away now, and you’re gonna start a war.

Whatever went away, I’ll get it over now.
I’ll get money, I’ll get funny again.
Whatever went away, I’ll get it over now.
I’ll get money, I’ll get funny again.
Walk away now, and you’re gonna start a war.

We expected something, something better than before.
We expected something more.
We were always weird, but I never had to hold you by the edges like I do now.
We were always weird, but I never had to hold you by the edges like I do now.
Walk away now, and you’re gonna start a war.

Whatever went away, I’ll get it over now.
I’ll get money, I’ll get funny again.
Whatever went away, I’ll get it over now.
I’ll get money, I’ll get funny again.
Walk away now, and you’re gonna start a war.
Walk away now, and you’re gonna start a war.
-The National, "Start a War"

I wanna cover this song.

: gila

2009-04-16T16:10:00.001-07:00

proposals won't save you now.

: by a bottle's end.

2009-03-29T20:52:00.000-07:00

: aloha oi

2009-03-26T14:27:00.000-07:00

I am having a regularly scheduled identity crisis, and to be fair, I've been having a lot fewer of those these days, and soon it will pass and this will not matter. This week I had four things due in three days. I'm actually pretty damn impressed that I did the first three, and did them well. Now I'm just worn out. If I wanted to do this essay in time I'd need to have it cited, printed, and done in time to run upstairs and hand it in before 4:30. That won't happen. Today I missed all my classes. I keep telling myself that won't happen anymore but it does. That is part of the reason -- actually, the vast majority of the reason -- I want Certain Persons to get demanding jobs. Jesus H, there's little else I'd rather be doing (as is evident), but I have shit I need to do. Shit that needs to be done if my name isn't gonna get renewed on my hip every week; shit that needs to be done if I'm going to be a functional nutcase who doesn't curl up and hide underneath desk/cubicles in the hallways. Jesus H Motherfucking Christ, I'm so worn down. I'm out of ideas. I need time to myself. I need to not be searching for other people's things or putting on their shows or writing their ideas. Oh my fucking God there is not enough of me to go around. I'm so fucking tired. I don't have the energy to do the things I need to do, and the less of it I do the more there is to do and I need to be focused this week and NO ONE IS LETTING ME FUCKING DO THAT LATELY.

I'm so fucking tired.

: sleep now

2009-03-16T10:30:00.000-07:00

H stayed just long enough for me to acclimatize to his body against mine nightly, in a non-sexual context. I was too exhausted on Saturday to notice the gap -- or maybe its being forged so recently made it unremarkable -- but it was hard getting to sleep last night. Bed wasn't as warm as it's supposed to be. Wasn't anything to hold onto. Didn't like it. A living bed's better than a dead one (onan! onan!), even if the living one involves a lot of almost-falling-off and constantly-losing-the-blankets.

Had bad dream re: H last night; imagine that was part of it. Don't know why I keep having nightmares about infidelity; suspect because it's the least of my problems when awake. There's not really any particular danger of it, so far as realism goes. Hence mind makes lies, unsettling everything one's smug in with open eyes. In dream, H had not one, but two or three secret mistresses. Evidently, in my dreamspace, H lives a badass life comparable to those of the fictional strongholds of masculinity to whom he is so fond of making bold claims. Yes, H. You can has Stagger Lee.

Went to sleep again after waking up with alarm at 8:30. Didn't want to start the day like that.

Second dream more pleasant, but somewhat unsettling. Oft. perceive H as childlike when he is, well, doing things I am gracious enough not to mention on this very public blog. In this dream, H came down the stairs with a small child, and he was, well, about 5. Did not find this remarkable in the dream. Just thought he looked childlike.

Fell asleep again.

Third dream somewhat closer to reality. H appeared & acted more or less as he usually does. Staring in rapture at the television at childish programming while I got ready to go out and tried to get him to move his plebe ass. Eventually motivated to get up with enthusiasm upon glancing at me while bent in sexualized pose putting boots on. Pretty realistic. Then we went in the car.

Been using lots of fragments lately. Part laziness, part influence caused by focusing on too much Watchmen for school? Possible. Presently eating oatmeal + blueberries. We have his favourite chips on the stove. I have no particular desire to eat them.

Keep thinking in terms like "okay I'll just watch a couple of these LotR extras and then I can rewatch them when H's back," without acknowledging that, no, that's not happening for a while. Great. Have to spend the day highlighting & typing up notes on history book about George Washington; reading atrocious creative writing submissions & leaving editorial commentary; working on own creative writing submission and trying to make it better than theirs. Have to take cat to the vet, 3 pm. Blow another 125 on shots. Great. Life is marvy.

Too mechanized, at this point, to really complain. "We all know this is impossible, so let's get to it."

: buy one song get one free

2009-03-03T14:23:00.000-08:00

My mother was the one who made me get a cellphone. This was when I first started going out all the time, nearly a year ago. She wanted to be able to keep track of me, so she made me get one, emphasizing that I could use it "for emergencies only."

Now mum calls me a half dozen times a day, to convey important information like "I fed the cat some tuna, sorry, I know you don't like it when I give her too much human food but I needed to give her her deworming pill," and "I was watching The Drs today, and it reminded me-- when are you and Harvey getting tested for STDs?"

"I don't know, mum, but thank you for making me pay 30 cents a minute to listen to this now instead of getting the reminder for free at home tonight."

Jaysus.

(This would not be a problem, were it not for the fact that I pay my damn bill.)

: do all of this gay shit and wake up feeling

2009-03-03T07:39:00.000-08:00

Started the day officially with a dream that felt too real to ignore. I'm always perplexed by how my subconscious links together hallucinations sequentially; I often can't remember the dreams that the dreams I do recall reference, but I do understand the references, and understand what the contents of the dreams were. Dream memories. Things that never happened but still effect. In my dream, we were all in school together, me and some people I know (some from old schools, some not), and a lot of people who probably don't exist (maybe). We went on a field trip, and this was right after the dream I had in which a really huge, deadly spider was trying to kill us all in my grandparents' house and no matter how we tried to drown it it would not die; eventually it was shot, at the end. There was also a dream of a living video game where huge snakes burrowed at incredible speeds through sand tunnels to kill. They were venomous, too.

In the dream, our field trip was to kind of a cross between Jurassic Park, the Royal Tyrell, and Staples. It was fairly bizarre. Harvey was there, as was Annie, a girl from high school, which was odd. I only remember Annie from later in the dream, when she asked if I'd help her open the windows so the venomous bugs could get in and bite/sting people, and I said no. She referenced an earlier dream when she'd tried to set bees on me, I guess. Um. Mostly the dream was real life awkwardness, walking through this place and failing to make good conversation? In this dream, people were disjointed as they are not in real life, and Harvey lagged behind talking to some Asian chick who kind of resembled the lady who was talking to us through karaoke Saturday night, only younger. It was bizarre? Spent most of dream feeling awkward & somewhat abandoned, but the proper climax came at the end, just before my alarm went off -- my second alarm, I could have not had the dream, but I'd wanted to sleep more -- when I had gotten into the post-exhibit lobby before H&Asian Chick (AC! ftwlolrofl, etc, ad infinitum), and they came in together and started making out, and I walked over and took Harvey's palm and wrote "ow" on it with my finger but he just chuckled, I think?

Which would never happen, of course. Which is why it's so unsettling to wake up to. Fears you know are irrational being played out for you to see. Um.

& I don't want anyone to be worried by this, because mostly I just thought it was a really interesting, perplexing set of dreams, and I figured if I vented about them it'd get them somewhat off my mind so I could get dressed and make breakfast and go to school. Woke up feeling nauseated and insecure. It was rad. But actually things have probably never been better, which is maybe why my subconscious is taking its revenge on me? I don't know. Thursday is our three month anniversary and we talk about our six month anniversary like it's a pretty definite thing, so generally life is really cool. I think the only thing really worrying me lately is that come summer H will be done with school in all likelihood, whereas I have another two years, at least, before I am somewhat free, and it's easy enough to put up with your significant other having homework & academically-induced nervous breakdowns every other day when you have them, too, but I don't think it's so easy to deal with when you don't have the immediate personal reminder of the stress. Sure, I'm wasting some of the most precious years of my youth getting premature wrinkles from reading too many wordy textbooks, but I'm kind of resolved in that, and sometimes I worry that in the future -- not near, but the future -- I will have to make more choices re: school vs. the rest of life.

Mreh. Lots of homework this week. Have to go to school asap and start bullshitting. <3, life.

sonnets.

2009-02-25T16:44:00.000-08:00

You know, I can't write fixed form sonnets. And I don't think I'd particularly want to. Sonnets sound wrong to me. Ba bum, ba bum, ba bum, ba bum, ba bum. My heart does not beat in groups of ten. I want more or less. Does not compute. I disagree.

Shakespeare, you dickweed.

: seems so natural

2009-02-20T13:27:00.000-08:00

Great debates: go to the gym, or put more neon colour in hair? Both beneficial to appearance; non-compatible goals that do not often get fulfilled. If I just do 200 crunches and eat well for the rest of the day, is it alright that the elliptical machine never stood a chance?

: i will touch you where you need.

2009-02-16T13:22:00.001-08:00

I like the distance imposed by modern conveniences. I have to; I'm a product of my age. I like sitting here, without an idea or care of where my parents are, staring at this box that cannot convey answers except for abstractions squeezed precariously into oddly-shaped holes, satellite images, and red or green circles. (Empty if they're non-commital!) I enjoy the lack of purpose, or desire for it. I am in school. I am in school because if I were not in school I/my family/my friends would be disappointed in me. We cannot identify why this situation is better; after all, I do not appear to be in school on any really productive path. However, I am in school. 100 points! There are a lot of people I should call. There are a lot of things I should plan. I should clean my room. I should clean this room. I should clean the kitchen. I should dump the leftovers that my mother idiotically left out on the stove, waiting for something to feed & infest. I should clean out the kitty litter. I should stop encouraging the cat to play with my hands. I should go back to writing in my journal instead of whispering my thoughts in other people's ears; I'm more likely to treasure the words, later. I should stop writing sonnets for people. I should stop writing for people I know. I should either completely disdain modernism or elevate myself to its trappings. I should look up words before I use them. I should stop looking up words. I should review my bank account balance more often. I should get a job. I should stop wasting my money on 5 dollar coffee/booze/cigarettes. I should go to more concerts. I should go to less concerts. I should eat better. I should admit I'm just gonna die anyway. I should stop making plans for every possibility. I should just suck it up and fake it. I should voice my concerns in a more pleasant, accomodating manner. I should not only stop voicing my concerns, but learn to smile while doing it. I should show you exactly where the right spot is. I should reject these scripts I know are invalid, as biology, experience, and the green sex manual have proved. I should look at how overdue my library books are. I should find my library books. I should sell my books. I should give them away. I should keep them all. I should clean the basement. I should do my laundry. I should do my homework. I should remember and engage in my vocals exercises. I should stop fooling myself. I should switch majors, go into business, and become a Success. I should leave this place. I should make it better. I should pick a best friend. I should identify the dependent variables. I should investigate summer courses. I should stay below. I should never go. Can I, did you, will we go-go? What's that mean anyway? The curves of your lips rewrite history (his story; my); the world is changed because you are made of dollar store sapphire and murky lake water. Somehow, in all of these sparkles and hair clips, I will find a way to make myself pretty again. (I should stop placing so much value on prettiness. I should stop underoverestimating my own prettiness. I should stop begging for validation of prettiness.) You're not a poet so you make me sing (I'm; but). You love me and you have very good, but very dangerous taste. Am I better or worse when I'm nice to you? How much do you figure they've noticed? My tracheotomy scar has to come off some day. I have a hickey on my face. "Abandon hope, all ye who enter ♥." We are living middle class mid-life crisis letdowns and short-lived teenaged indulgences. We are 20-somethings. Just barely. Most 20-somethings still live at home, these days. I hate injustice. Buy me an iPod. Campus pro-life believes that they are just trying to make sure you don't make the wrong choice and feel guilty about it. All choices are, they assure, inherently good or bad. There are not simply choices. There are not simply stances. This is all much too post-modern to be fit into an age-old dialect. You can't actually read Anglo-Saxon out loud. Nobody plays the lute these days. We need to have separate lives to lead ours together, so let's go out and break shit and throw up. Yes, honey, that sounds nice; are we taking the Rempels or the Groots out tonight? Oh, I don't know, honey, tree tarts and explosions are always so busy; have you heard--?

It is impossible to focus on getting dressed & cleaning & studying & going to the gym & showing empathy for your fellow human being when embittered divagations of hope insist on shooting starring through your frontal lobe (& sometimes the other ones, too). The excessive use of ampersands and symbols assures us that we have not fallen too far into the sitcom script of a murder mystery post-modern indie film with 3 minute shots of a man shuffling cards. (menacingly?)

: the man i've become is a tragic bore.

2009-02-15T15:47:00.000-08:00

Inexplicability terrifies me. Too many songs apply without moving, and I can't quite identify feelings or their causes. I am jittery and restless and bad-tempered, and wholly unable to offer adequate explanations. I think I have let things pass too long and am now incapable of starting at beginnings, which is what the cleansing requires. (Cleanse. Compartmentalize. Compress.) I'm not entirely sure what I'm talking about, ever.

: & b-noun was a b-noun.

2009-02-06T07:25:00.000-08:00

har har har. "if you cast a wider net, and there's much more candidates, then you're much more likely to find someone...."

as it stands, the Bleachless Imposter trusts & adores Surprise! find this greatly amusing while grating noises come from left, accompanied by smoke and useless thoughts, commands, suggestions come too late. you can all fuck off. words said & words potential mixing halfhazardly, dangerous. storm. who was it who i thought of thunderclouds in writing? neil gaiman. not of this magnitude. he's dark grey you run from back to civilization, drenched cold but without any real fear. me, i'm reaching biblical proportions in the early morning light, saline water supplies and pillars of salt.

I should stop this before I say too much.

: looks like easy prey.

2009-02-02T22:31:00.000-08:00

Following a theory on my part that the reason our cat is so screwed up is because she has paranoia issues similar to my mother's, and a somewhat annoyed defence on my mother's part:

Mum: Do you know where Frank's collar is?
Me: Up in my room.
Mum: Oh.
*beat*
Mum: It's a transmitter for the FBI.
Me: Oh good.
Mum: The cat is a spy.
Me: Good.
Mum: Cats are really aliens, you know.
Me: Good.
Mum: Placed on earth to spy on the human race.
Me: Mmmhm.
*beat*
Me: D'you figure the FBI would pay me to spy on you? Cause I need a job, and I figure they'd give flexible hours for that. *nod at Mum's head* Could you ask your contacts?
Mum: Sure.
*beat*
Mum: They said you have AIDs.
Me: Good thing I didn't go on birth control.

: go for the eyes.

2009-02-02T15:44:00.000-08:00

The Very Important To-Do List I Will Absolutely Follow So That I Do Not End Up Phoning Anyone Sobbing Hysterically Tonight

~~Copy down shortened version of essay requirements & type up initial notes for it.~~
~~Finalize list of bands for AC show.~~
~~Format cover page & type up all relevant notes for Evans-Pritchard bio.~~
Fix FAQs.
~~Write summary of Evans-Pritchard book.~~
~~Chill for a bit; work on sonnet & word list.~~
~~Type up excerpt & explanation for E-P; search out 2 scholarly articles on E-P and read.~~
~~Breathe. Skulk around Blackboard and catch up on important stuff. Type up messages to bands.~~
~~Type up conclusion. Breathe.~~
~~Relax. Read mindless stuff.~~
~~Type up citations.~~
~~Pick a sonnet/hammer out the final details.~~ Finalize word tool kit.
~~Send paper to myself to properly format & print off a PC. Cry a little.~~

: boys if you catch meth, you'll catch your death.

2009-01-26T20:46:00.000-08:00

I guess that I'm just in a mood to evaluate my own hypocrisy, given encounters with overactive social consciences and discussion-based courses as of late. I've spent a long time trying to cut out the parts of me that pay too much attention to things that won't help me out, which in a sense is a journey to selfishness, but not entirely without its good points. Regardless:

I don't like it when my friends fuck around with drugs. Technically, this is a wildly hypocritical view. I drink more than most, and even though I only generally smoke a few times a week at worst, it's still more than I should. It is very easy to make the argument that I am simply holding my drugs of choice exempt from criticism, and to a degree that's true, but for fuck's sake, it doesn't fuck with my regular responsibilities. I go to school. I eat well. I go to the gym. I see my friends. Etc etc etc etc etc. (If I seem especially irritable it is because my mother is in my peripheral vision doing aggravating things. And because I'm irritable.) I don't tend to like "natural" drug use because... to be honest, pot's just so fucking lame and boring that when people do it on a regular basis they are generally devoid of interest to me, and when I do it I feel like shit. Mushrooms have pretty vivid side effects so if someone actually did that on a regular basis it would be moderately difficult to hold conversation with them. I dislike "artificial" drugs with far more intensity; from what I've studied thus far, many of them appear to have extremely adverse effects on the body and especially the mind. Take heroin. Heroin kills the parts of your brain that make you happy. This is A Bad Thing. Most artificial stimulants have godawful comedowns. Most drugs as a general statement are pretty good at creating dependencies, which is never a good thing. If I see my friends flirting with self-destruction, I might make a comment, but generally keep my reservations to myself. People can do what they want to their bodies. It's not really my business. But if it gets to a certain point I can't keep my mouth shut. I don't like the feeling I get when things have reached the point where there is a very real possibility that one day I will simply not hear from my friend anymore and there will be A Very Bad Reason For That.

I can't really go into specifics here, because I'm not knowledgeable enough about the subject. I'm not sure anyone is. I'm suspicious of the quality of what studies have been done, because it's so difficult to ethically and accurately do studies on potentially very damaging substances and their effects on humans; most of the info available on the pitfalls of drug use come from extremely partisan interest groups, and regardless of their good intentions, their claims are not exactly what I'd view as objective and purely scientific. I think the part of drugs that upsets me the most is it's the most brilliant of my friends who generally engage with them. Smart people don't like reality. Reality is a shitty thing. It's stressful as hell and generally doesn't provide nearly enough rewards for all the crap it throws at you. So it's my brilliant friends -- and especially my brilliant friends with wonderfully, incredibly, unreproduceably creative minds -- that always end up with the most damaging habits, and it fucking breaks my heart. None of us seem capable of coping with what we've got. Which is reasonable enough. I have no plausible, pleasant, realistic solution in mind.

I just wish that it was the boring assholes who developed terrible substance dependencies, that's all.

: gotta give to get.

2009-01-25T21:48:00.000-08:00

Ahhh, life. It's been a while. I've been too busy living life to actually document it in any real depth, lately. Actually, I've been too busy living life to actually get life done. It's a little disturbing, but good disturbing, generally.

I'm currently printing off all the new relevant material from Blackboard. Sunday is now Blackboard day. I shall print things off and hole-punch and file them. And then read them throughout the week. Hurrah. Assuming I have time this week. I think I am getting better at getting things done/doing things I like. Either that or I'm just delusional from tired when in reality I'm totally not getting that fuckin' essay done for Tuesday. Whichever.

I'm not entirely sure what to write here, because so much of what I have to say has to do with (not fooling anyone) "other people." I have plenty of anecdotes and thoughts, but being that these are collaborative musings, I feel that I am unable to discuss them in full here (and, really, have very little desire to). I'm pretty fucking happy, though. I guess the general community should know that. I've been doing less of some things and more of others, and it has its pitfalls but they're not even on the pro/con radar. I am being... pushed into viewing and doing certain things differently (and pushing, oh how I am pushing it), and it's good. It's constructive change. It is long-lasting change. It is the sort of thing worth getting Bs for.

Crazy.

Poetry!

2009-01-22T15:50:00.000-08:00

I'm terza rima, and I talk and smile.
Where others lock their rhymes and thoughts away
I let mine out, and chatter all the while.

I'm rarely on my own - a wasted day
Is any day that's spent without a friend,
With nothing much to do or hear or say.

I like to be with people, and depend
On company for being entertained;
Which seems a good solution, in the end.

What Poetry Form Are You?

: i want to sing to you, my love.

2009-01-12T00:00:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I will eat the kiwi with a spoon and think of you.

: so i can end my time with you.

2009-01-06T22:11:00.000-08:00

re: the title- multiple meanings. things stuck in brainspace become surprisingly versatile once pondering of the ripples begins.

No phantom pains, sir, but the phantom impression of your body against mine as I settle into the passenger seat of a 17% decrepit light blue 80s vehicle with an actively psychotic woman singing Meatloaf, Queen, and bands that I don't know. I would like to play in more photobooths with you. I would like to see you hit the space key two times. I would like you to write me more love letters. I would like to hear what you think of my mix tape. I would like to hear this present you keep talking about. I would like to articulate exactly what it is I want to say to you, so I can read it and finally sort out all the cross-electric thoughts shattering my skull all the time in the pleasantest, pleasantest way possible.

(I like pigeons, too.)

: life would be easier

2008-12-27T10:53:00.000-08:00

I've been sick for most of holidays, on December 24th my cat went missing, yesterday our fridge and freezer stopped working and Calgary Housing won't come fix it until Monday (bastard motherfuckers), and last night I forgot that you have to eat before drinking and subsequently lost my phone and (possibly) broke my toe.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to retrace my steps, stick the food in the trunk, go to the doctor and visit the Humane Society (on the opposite side of the city).

: your ex-lover is dead.

2008-12-22T13:25:00.001-08:00

I just read this article on the unnatural nature (heh) of monogamy. It's worth a read. I know a couple of people who, from my observations, may well be suited to lifelong monogamy, but given that I know a lot of people and only one girl (who's always been in a serious monogamous relationship, the entire time I've known her) comes to mind is a bit telling.

I think a lot of my friends who spend a great deal of their time bitching and moaning about their love lives would do well to consider exactly how well-suited monogamy is to their personal preferences and lifestyles. First off, nearly everyone I know is busy as hell, and unless you date someone who happens to have the exact same schedule as you (kinda creepy if you're in school/work part-time, less so if you're a 9-5er, I guess), finding time when both you and your lover are free can be a tricky thing. I don't understand the mentality where people are totally okay with being apart from people for weeks or months at a time and have no desire to sleep with other people. If you're one of those people, that's cool. I just don't understand. I had a random encounter/train conversation with a friend a while back where she explained part of her romantic philosophy, which consisted of "if we're not physically together in the same room, and I'm with someone else, and I'm loving him/her because s/he's a beautiful person, too, that doesn't mean I love you any less." It makes sense to me. I think people should live life to the fullest, and desperately trying to fit their whole range of emotion/thought into stereotypical societal frameworks makes no sense to me. I have one friend, for example, who's 100% monogamy in words, but is terrified of commitment, frequently has multiple people on the go on different levels, and travels constantly. This, to me, does not make sense. This, to me, is a self-fulfilling love doomsday prophecy. I'm not incapable of being fixated on someone. Anyone who knows me can vouch for that. But honeymoon periods don't last, and I don't see why people should settle for mediocrity and dissatisfaction just because they're desperate to 'make things work' despite suffocating stagnation. I think if people learned to loosen up and play around a bit -- with mutual consent, safely, and never ever if your partner has a problem with it -- they'd be able to 'save' a lot more relationships. If you've got a really good connection with someone, that's going to last, even if you mess around with other people, provided you don't hurt them. Chances are they're human, too, and at some point they're going to feel the same temptation to try something new.

I don't want to step on toes, here, I just read that article -- which, incidentally, has less to do with the psyche and a lot more to do with the comparative safety, sexually, of responsible non-monogamy -- and kind of wanted to... voice my agreement. It's a good read. Even if you don't agree, I'd suggest checking it out. It's good to know about other lifestyles.

: thoughts on the shelf.

2008-12-21T18:44:00.000-08:00

Love is bizarre. You go through life, generally content, pretty confident in your belief that you're generally okay. Certainly, there are moments where one feels something's missing in the single life -- there are also moments where one wishes one's bath was slightly hotter, one's paycheque was significantly larger, and one's hair would perhaps do what one wanted for once in one's life. These moments are only to be expected, and not especially surprising given the culture in which we live, which values coupling and security so highly. Flirting with strangers is fun. Sex with people you'll never have to forgive is good. There is excitement in a life of uncertainty. You don't really want anyone to come in and interfere with what you've got going. Things are fine and you don't need fuck-all except for the people you already platonically care about and maybe occasionally want to snog, thanksverymuch. It's not a bad life. Not at all, these days. Romantic films and love songs -- poems, books, stories -- can generally do a fairly adequate job of keeping longing at bay. I might be biased, because I've always had an excessively active imagination. I can keep myself amused listening to music with my eyes shut in my bedroom for hours on end. So even if you go out pursuing people -- even if in idle flirtations you say you're looking for something steady cause you're tired of the single life and how much less friendly everybody is in the morning -- you don't really mean it. (You depersonalize things by discussing them theoretically, in second or third person. One can't be too careful with matters of the heart.) You might need someone -- maybe -- but you don't want someone. You've seen them before. You know what couples look like. You don't want to be one of 'those people.' Love is a very nice thought, but there's not really any point torturing yourself looking for it. Sure, there's probably someone somewhere out there you could really fall for, but s/he's probably starving to death in a gutter in a third world country or something right now. Don't worry yourself waiting for hir. It's enough, generally, to just do your own thing and occasionally let someone in on a casual basis -- maybe even try a little to take things closer -- for a night or a week or a month or two.

Then someone shows up out of the blue, completely unasked for -- undesired, really -- and fucks with that. Things lose their appeal. Your internal machinations do not seem to operate with the same fluidity they once did. You find yourself distracted. Alarmed. Angry. Who the hell is anyone, to force themselves into other people's hearts like that? You never wanted this. You don't have time for this! There are people you have to see! You don't want things to change. With your friends. With the way you act when you go out at night. With your capability to accomplish previously simple tasks. Love isn't a very nice feeling, a lot of the time. It renders you unfit for many of life's other duties. If you think about it too much, it can suffocate you. But once it's stuck its nosy fucking face into your life, you can't really do away with it. Even when you try, what the fuck do you get for it? Lack of sleep and a guilty heart. All-consuming cynicism. Ridiculous.

I guess what I am trying to say, with my words coming out all halting and careful and bland, is that I think it's probably definitely worth it. Cause it's embarrassing, being one of those people who has an uncouth inability to pay attention to anything else in the room when someone's there, but you end up one of those people for a lot of reasons, and maybe, once the blood starts flowing again, it maybe even makes you better.

: i can't believe it.

2008-12-17T23:02:00.000-08:00

My mouth tastes like chocolate.

I just finished the hard part of what I think is probably the most high-pressure self-made present I'm giving this Christmas, which is good. It's not necessarily the present for the person I'm most fixated on so much as the person for whom I think the aesthetics will matter the most. S'good. I now have a cd burner, which will probably result in quite a few people getting burnt CDs. I think there are worse presents in the world, considering that for my best friends I am making presents that take hours and hours and bloody hours to create. Thus, I'm an okay human being.

Tomorrow, Christmas shopping, library fines, and volunteering for the Salvation Army. Market Mall, in front of the Old Navy, from 5-8 pm. Come give me your spare change. Or do a dance to attract donations. Last year, at Canadian Tire, I wore revealing clothes to encourage the old men to be generous. This year, given the higher likelihood of harried soccer moms, I may have to rethink my strategy slightly. Still a little sexy, but perhaps not so blatant. Hm.

"The men all sound gay but they rip out your heart."

: if i heard this song on the radio.

2008-12-14T14:28:00.000-08:00

I've been remembering my dreams this weekend. I credit this mostly to the fact that I've spent most of the weekend in bed thinking dark thoughts about my immune system's propensity for waiting until I have a spare moment to chill and then crashing completely.

(Still, perhaps insisting on the 20 minutes-either-way walk to the video store on Friday in the middle of a snowstorm to keep my mother amused wasn't the cleverest moment of stubborness I'd ever had. Especially with no socks.)

Regardless. On Friday night I had dreams about family members. I forget how my mother was involved, but the bit with my father I won't soon forget. We were at some entertainment function, a carnival of a sort (is my subconscious rebelling against media?), and the archetypal Seedy Creepy Carnival Guy in red, with a tophat and oily black mustache (you know the guy), was there. We were sitting in a plain room, maybe a dozen of us. One of us had to drink a vial, the contents of which we were unsure. There was some sort of waiting period; I had wanted to be the one to take it for the team and drink the vial, but father insisted on doing so. He was worried about me.

It was some sort of hallucinogen. In the dream, I could see through his eyes. Dream logic fails to account for the others in the room, but he saw all blues and monsters. Crazed grin. Like one hell of a fucking game of blind man's bluff. He had a power drill. The carnival man gave it to him. I found a side room and locked myself in. He heard the noise and started coming, bloodthirsty grin splitting his face into something completely unrecognizable. I could see the blues in his eyes. I was screaming it was me through the small, circular window in the door. He said he knew. It was okay. I opened the door. And we started struggling, he the stronger, with the drill running and pointed towards my chest.

I woke up.

Last night was somewhat less unsettling. I believe I may have dreamed a whole semester on my own, in which a fifth English class, taught by Kait Kaboom (no lie), was part of my schedule. I did not attend any of these classes for some reason, part of which involved me not knowing the awesome of Kaboom until the end of the semester? A large group of us walked through downtown and the weather was like late summer again. We discussed things; I remember at one point Kiri, awestruck, asked if I really had Kait Kaboom for an English teacher. I said yes, sheepishly, and felt kind of bad for not showing up to classes before then. The large group went to a strange gimmicky movie theatre. I was behind the others. We were seeing a horror movie and for some reason the area outside the theatres was constructed like a roller rink; we all had to take off our shoes to go inside. Before the movie was a pre-show in which a beautiful model somehow went through all the stages of pregnancy, including childbirth, very gruesomely and with excessive bodily fluids, before our eyes. Later in the dream I remember Kait discussing with me whether or not I could turn in my (very late) projects to her to save my GPA, so I didn't have a fail on my transcript.

My nose is itchy. I'm going to keep killing kleenex trees like there's no tomorrow and investigating the realities of an exchange in Amsterdam. Ta.

: things to consider.

2008-12-13T15:37:00.000-08:00

why do we care about singers? wherein lies the power of songs? maybe it derives from the sheer strangeness of there being singing in the world. the note, the scale, the chord; melodies, harmonies, arrangements; symphonies, ragas, Chinese operas, jazz, the blues: that such things should exist, that we should have discovered the magical intervals and distances that yield the poor cluster of notes, all within the span of a human hand, from which we can build our cathedrals of sound, is as alchemical a mystery as mathematics, or wine, or love. maybe the birds taught us. maybe not. maybe we are just creatures in search of exaltation. we don't have much of it. our lives are not what we deserve; they are, let us agree, in many painful ways deficient. song turns them into something else. song shows us a world that is worthy of our yearning, it shows us our selves as they might be, if we were worthy of the world.
-salman rushdie, the ground beneath her feet, p. 19-20

and then there was the time that one of them simply wouldn't return her calls to his office. so she called the number he did not know that she had, and she said to the woman who answered that this was so embarrassing but as he was no longer talking to her could he be told that she was still waiting for the return her lacy black underthings, which he had taken because, he said, they smelled of her, of both of them. oh, and that reminded her, she said, as the woman on the other end of the phone said nothing, could they be laundered first, and then simply posted back to her. he has her address. and then, her business joyfully concluded, she forgets him utterly and forever, and she turns her attention to the next.
one day she won't love you, too. it will break your heart.
-neil gaiman, "strange little girls," fragile things, p. 161

but what is amusing now, i recollected, shutting lady bessborough, had to be taken in desperate earnest once. opinions that one now pastes in a book labelled cock-a-doodle-dum and keeps for reading to select audiences on summer nights once drew tears, i can assure you. among your grandmothers and great-grandmothers there were many that wept their eyes out. florence nightingale shrieked aloud in her agony. moreover, it is all very well for you, who have got yourselves to college and enjoy sitting-rooms -- or is it only bed-sitting-rooms? -- of your own to say that genius should disregard such opinions; that genius should be above caring what it said of it. unfortunately, it is precisely the men and women of genius who mind most what is said of them. remember keats. remember the words he had cut on his tombstone. think of tennyson; think -- but i need hardly multiply instances of the undeniable, if very unfortunate, fact that it is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.
-virginia woolf, a room of one's own, p. 68

of the many definitions of poetry, the simplest is still the best: 'memorable speech.' that is to say, it must move our emotions, or excite our intellect, for only that which is moving or exciting is memorable, and the stimulus is the audible spoken word and cadence, to which in all its power of suggestion and incantation we must surrender, as we do when talking to an intimate friend.
-w.h. auden, "[poetry as memorable speech]", extracted from the introduction to the poet's tongue

she was remembering, as if from a place infinitely far away, the explosion of hope in her mind, that this time might be different because of that. because lancelot was not here, no third angle of the triangle, and so the weaver's design might yet be changed, because the weaver himself had made a space in the tapestry for change.
no one knew of that thought, and no one ever would. it was buried now, and smashed, and gone.
what was here, in its stead, was lancelot du lac, whose soul was the other half of her own. whose eyes were as dark as they had been every single time before, as undemanding, as understanding, with the same pain buried in their depths that only she could comprehend, only she assuage. whose hands... whose long, graceful fighter's hands were exactly as they had been the last time and the time before, every hurting time before, when she had loved them, and loved him as the mirror of herself.
whose hands cradled now, gently, with infinite, unmistakable tenderness, the body of his liege lord, her husband. whom she loved.
whom she loved in the teeth of all the lies, all the crabbed, envious incomprehension, with a full and a shattering passion that had survived and would survive and would tear her asunder every time she woke again to who she had been and was fated to be. to the memory and the knowledge of betrayal like a stone at the center of everything.
-guy gavriel kay, the darkest road, p. 131-132.

none of this has anything to do with you. "all of these things are true." stones and glass cages.

Here lies one whose name is writ in water.

: a beautiful girl can turn your world to dust.

2008-12-02T23:18:00.000-08:00

playlist 12/02&3/2008

1. reckoner (radiohead)
2. ura fever (the kills)
3. pyramid song (radiohead)
4. talk show host (radiohead)
5. m.e.x.i.c.o.c.u. (the kills)
6. creep (radiohead)
7. tape song (the kills)
8. cheap and cheerful (the kills)

: he's got my measure.

2008-12-02T14:59:00.000-08:00

So, I have a presentation and three papers due over the next three days, so naturally I'm labeling and archiving all my thousands of old e-mails (back to about 2005, presently) on gmail. Because I am a strange, masochistic human being, I decided to read one from Danielle, oh-so-long ago, apparently from the beginning of our second (?) 'official' spurt, doomed to failure before it started, really...

It's very heartfelt. Extremely. And I miss that. August 2005 means I was 15. We were wonderfully naive children. And I miss that. We poured our hearts out to each other. We didn't play games; at least not the way we do now. We felt so much and we thought it was so special and sometimes we were so sure. There was love there. I have, for a number of years now, comfortably said that Danielle was the only time I was confident that I was in love with someone who loved me back.

The thing is, the lack of brutal honesty in many of my interactions bothers me. Because most of the time? Brutal honesty isn't even that brutal, man. Sometimes it's just putting shit out there and letting it be. And I think most of the people I interact with presently have serious problems doing that. Everyone is so afraid of letting people in, of making the wrong move. It's like Lauren was saying to me during one of my more recent identity crises, something I think surprisingly rang true: we were discussing physical vs. emotional intimacy and, though the general public doesn't need the details, she implied my attitude towards physical intimacy indicated I was more willing to be emotionally intimate than some others would be.

I believe this is true. Despite the fact that I do have a tendency to play mindgames and withdraw and manipulate -- Lord, do I ever -- I believe I am exceptionally willing to engage people. This has manifested itself especially in recent months. I am willing to take chances. And I don't think it is entirely unfair for me to ask this of the people around me.

Lo, friends, lovers: take heed. Take a chance and say what you mean. Put yourself out there and let people deal with your reality rather than the illusions you choose to represent yourself. If you want to touch someone, touch them. If you want to say something, say it. If you're feeling something, act accordingly. I sometimes realize how very much many people tend to avoid these actions, and it makes me sad. Life is so much better when you live the way you want to.

-igp

: and i went into a dream.

2008-12-02T14:31:00.000-08:00

The Libertines covered the Beatles and judging by the horrible over-produced, painfully restrained sounds of it, they were not given adequate creative control. Note especially Peter Doherty's complete inability to sing the song at hand. Not even in an aesthetic "I don't like the way his voice sounds" way-- in a "he cannot hit the notes, and they made him try to do his best schoolboy singing despite this" way.

This may be the first time I have heard something the Libs have done and just. fucking. winced. (Well, aside from all those really shoddily recorded sessions and some of their more experimental moments, but really, this sounded like it had money and attention put into it; why couldn't they just be allowed to break out their guitars and do it properly instead of making a very very poor attempt at being the fucking Beatles?)

: let me kiss you.

2008-12-01T12:19:00.001-08:00

SFJ, v. 2: Mixed Messages (a guessing game)

1. bloc party- storm and stress
2. morrissey- let me kiss you
3. frank sinatra- dream a little dream of me
4. tori amos- bells for her
5. css- knife
6. t. rex- universe
7. the kooks- tick of time
8. against me!- animal
9. radiohead- house of cards
10. connie francis- everybody's somebody's fool
11. bbc proms- song for ten

2008-11-27T19:00:00.001-08:00

: uh oh

2008-11-26T15:23:00.000-08:00

I just found a Yoko Ono song I like.

Never mind that I've never actually heard a Yoko Ono song before. I just always assumed we were all supposed to hate her. I realize now I've been indoctrinated by persnickety music fans and feel lost, shaken and alone in this knowledge.

It's called "O'oh" and it apparently features someone called Shitake Monkey. As far as names go, that's a pretty sweet one. It reminds me of the time fungi and baked goods were combined to make muffrooms. Would this be a muffrey? A monkroom?

I am amazed by all the diversions I can find when I have a paper due.

: we are stars colliding oh we crash like lightning into love.

2008-11-25T23:21:00.001-08:00

A playlist for m'love in honour of a shitty mood.

What Will You Do About Diamonds?
1. my brightest diamond- inside a boy
2. neko case- i wish i was the moon
3. lykke li- little bit
4. dirty pretty things- b.u.r.m.a
5. essie jain- you
6. maximo park- apply some pressure
7. bloc party- this modern love
8. mamas and the papas- dream a little dream of me
9. peter doherty- the whole world is our playground
10. a-sides- let's become diamonds
11. david bowie- rock n' roll suicide

: all the evils in their eyes and the backs of their minds

2008-11-25T04:18:00.000-08:00

I know I'm stressed for sure now, because I'm having trouble sleeping and when I do I have nightmares.

Been waking myself up at 9 every morning to make sure I get things done. Sunday after the blog meeting I and... I hung out with Jesse, which resulted in approximately 2 solid hours of sleep and a bunch of scattered unconsciousness aside (which is to be expected, as I never sleep more than a few hours if I'm staying at someone's place drunk). Was already sleep deprived, bags under my eyes, at that point. Had to stay up, cause I had schoolwork and advertising the show to do, along with class, so I did. By the time Ellen and I were walking into cafes asking if we could leave ads there, I was already on autopilot; it didn't take long for me to fall asleep after I got home.

Also, I've been having heart palpitations. Fast hard beats. I think I'm rapidly approaching panic attacks. Every time I think about everything I have to do I think it's going to rip out of my chest. Irrational solutions are presenting themselves, albeit quietly and without any real danger.

Had nightmares all last night. Woke up at 3 when the girl lying with me in the toy house romantically began to pinch my insides, killing me in the most painful way possible while her boss man watched gleefully through the window. It was fucking terrifying. Got back to sleep again. Kept dreaming we were being attacked. Zombies, all sorts. Vampires? Ghosts? Things that don't normally bother me. Frightening. Being chased. Supernatural powers one is unable to escape. We all cut our feet off at the ankles, but they were growing back after the slide. She looked at me, a sympathetic stock character, and began to have some terrible revelation but I promptly woke up. It was 5. Time to get up and write the project I've barely started, which I have to present in... 5 and a half hours, now. Meet and discuss with my group in 4 and a half.

Hair back, bangs out of my eyes, makeupless with lip swollen in pyjama pants and an oversized grey t-shirt. Gonna drink lots of water. Gonna make some chai. Gonna take my vitamins, even. Send out some important e-mails, write this report, get working on other homework. The amount of work I have to do in the next two weeks (less, now) would need approximately a month to do comfortably. Taking the show into account (worth it, but).

I know I'm unwell, because I never remember my dreams, and I never wake up feeling this terrified any more.

: i will be there

2008-11-23T12:23:00.000-08:00

Well here's something I can use this blog for. My playlists!

If you ever want a song (for, y'know, legal 24 hour preview and all of that), e-mail me at igpykin@gmail.com. If you ever want to ban me from sharing your music on pain of death, e-mail me there, too.

November 23, 2008- venti drinks and mood shift sinks
of montreal- heimdalsgate like a promethean curse
m.i.a.- 20$
cat power- wonderwall
kate bush- running up that hill
amy winehouse- he can only hold her
veruca salt- benjamin
css- knife
rufus wainwright- not ready to love
dirty pretty things- fault lines
the epochs- mouths to feed
devotchka- commerce city sister
venus in furs- tumbling down
camera obscura- country mile

out of touch, out of mind
the dodos- winter
the kooks- crazy
the kinks- a well respected man
the kooks- shine on
landon pigg- keep looking up

: christmas is a'comin'

2008-11-19T14:42:00.000-08:00

So, Christmas is nigh. In approximately one month I will be officially panicking about all the Christmas presents I have not bought/need to somehow inexpensively convey to various places around the world in under a week/didn't have the money to buy in the first place.

In the spirit of preparation (slacking off gives you incredible time management skills, I swear; did you know I managed to wake up at 9 but not roll out of bed until quarter past noon today?), I present to the world a list of things I'd generally enjoy getting/buying myself for Christmas (mostly so I have an answer aside from 'money. CDs. mostly money so I can buy CDs myself' to give relatives when they ask me), along with a list of people I'd like to buy/make/do SOMETHING for at Christmas this holiday season:

exhibit a: things I would like/kind of need for Christmas

new socks and stockings
a macbook (I'm buying this myself, but I might use Christmas money towards it)
a CD burner
books
- anything by Neil Gaiman
- Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws by Kate Bornstein
- Suicide Bombers in Iraq by Mohammed M. Hafez
- Twilight or That Other One She Put Out Where Everyone Finally Goes Batshit Crazy And All Her Half-Baked Plots Come Undone by Stephenie Meyer (good stuff, man)
- any of those important novels I always should have read and never got around to reading
- books about counterculture
- oh my god books on anarchy
CDs
- Alas, I Cannot Swim by Laura Marling
- Doctor Who soundtracks seriously
- Across the Universe of Languages by B for Bang
- The Facts of Life by Black Box Recorder
- Nights at the Circus by Bishi
- Couples by The Long Blondes
- Version by Mark Ronson
- really basically any music I don't already have how awesome is music?

DVDs
- the second season of carnivale
handmade gifts top any of this shit. so does taking me out for coffee or drinks. basically everything above this just exists so my mum can still attempt to surprise me on Christmas Day. she is very big on the Christmas surprises.

hair accessories

K NOW THE FUN BIT.
exhibit b: family I need to buy for

mum, obviously
grandma
grandpa
craig
debbie
nicole
dusty
jeff
paul
blake
I would also kind of like to get something for Doreen

exhibit c: Calgary friends I need to buy for

Elspeth
Jess
Jesse
Caitlin
Zahra
Ellen
Jen (Aurgasmicalgary whoo!)
Carey
Young
Chris

exhibit d: other friends I need to buy for

Skelly
Jess
Lauren
Dolly

Please note that when I say "buy" I may well mean "make" or just "write a really nice letter to". Or "hug really tightly." Otherwise I would be so broke. So, so broke. And just because you are not on this list does not mean I don't love you/won't be nice to you this holiday season. It just means you have probably not been a be-all end-all part of my life lately so while I love you if I put all of you on my to-do list my head will actually expose and we will all be very sad. <3

: these are the good old days!

2008-11-04T16:05:00.000-08:00

So, it's been a while. Let's do some train-of-thought-til-I-get-bored before work. I would've had Carey over tonight but yesterday I got my period and I couldn't work up the will to spend the night cleaning house on top of having to prepare to leave for Montreal on Thursday, and glancing worriedly at the preliminary American election results (but I know not to get upset, because in 2004 I thought joyfully "he's gonna be out!" after preliminary results and look where that went). Anyway, I did manage 25 minutes on the elliptical machine before the cramps got too bad, but cleaning, no. This is incredibly mundane, but human life's pretty mundane, so I should probably at least occasionally admit that. (Mango-scented placenta.) Today I was bored before work so instead of cleaning, doing laundry, doing homework, or finding the overdue library book I have right now, I did my hair and makeup, then painted a red stripe and a big splotch on my wrist, then painted my nails two different (sorta-)colours, and danced around a lot to the Libertines. I also have a sticker of a complacent-looking frog on my cheek. I'd leave for work so I can get rid of this nervous energy but showing up half an hour early's a bit excessive. I am, as usual, completely unprepared for everything rushing at me. I should budget. I should think. I should work ahead. I'm happily floundering. I like these fishnets, these boots. Don't wanna house or a home or a cake just want some more wraps and raps and push-up bras? Who knows. My prof in class today talked about how when he was young he wanted to be a writer cause he wrote a short story once, but then he thought about whether or not he could make a living off it and decided to become a prof instead. Now he has no time to write. Too busy writing bullshit about other people's bullshit. Bullshit squared. What a life. Don't want it. Don't wanna be a professor's wife. Don't wanna be anybody's wife. Don't want a wife. My shoulder hurts. I nearly fell down the basement stairs today but I always do that (just not usually the basement the Blair Witch basement cat discourages frequent visits; besides, all that's down there is laundry and cat litter). Sometimes I think all I am aiming to be is a human, and then I go "but they won't pay you for that, Y!" and I figure that's okay anyway. Didz is up in the polls, Anthony's bottoming out and Carl remains neutral... nobody ever remembers to count their votes. Anyway, chai tea isn't bad when you do it right. Tonight's my last shift before Montreal. I'm not sure what to expect from Montreal. Usually when I travel it's to visit trusted strangers. This is sort of like moving home to a far-away flat. Which I guess is the idea, ultimately. I have to bake cupcakes so I can get profs to write letters. Maybe I'll ask for letters first, then add the cupcakes? Might make sense. Who's tired of broken promises? Hands up! I think this is the first week I've been a well-nourished vegetarian in my life. On the list for the weekend: "Chateau" by Brute Force and "9 Lives" by Dirty Pretty Things. Gods help us all. I should write something but I'm just not there right now and so long as self-satisfaction's all that's necessary I'm doing fine, just a few more crunches burn the pictures. Sometimes it hits me, how far off my boundaries are from everybody else's, how different the way I see emotion can be, but it's not really a problem, some even find it refreshing, glory be! So many promises to so many people. You can only juggle so many Ming vases before it all goes to shit. "I was lookin' forward to dancin' with ya!" Blah blah blah. Right now gotta focus on term papers, gotta do the background research so I can get a thesis I don't immediately disprove, ow ow. Remembering 2004 and lunch hours in the library with Kelly far away. Remember Christmas pictures? God damn it was cold. "Half Fling." My years this age have been chronicled by bound-as-brothers gay lovers on screen written painstakingly with various pens in lined notebooks and a number of thighs. One of these days, man, I'm gonna get it right, and if memorial tribute done-justice is on the agenda, god damn I'll come through. Gotta say bye now too much to say.

Fuck Sarah Palin and her guns and her laws.

2008-10-13T16:37:00.001-07:00

Women Against Sarah Palin; a good petition to sign if you give a shit.

: rocky raccoon.

2008-09-24T23:40:00.000-07:00

I am much too sober to have finished a bottle of whiskey tonight.

I love you more than life, you love me more than death.

Reconciliations were made and we dug through the annals and our minds to find suitable monikers for the semblance of intimacy in a wireless world. Aella. Shoshana. Ariadne. Eos. Haruki. It's been a strange week -- and even stranger that it's only been a week, really -- but things are levelling out even though they're completely falling apart. I still need to remember and find and turn in that library book. I NEED to apply for that award. And moreover, I need to remember that so long as there is love and art all around me the world will be okay, and I did, and there is, so there we go.

Good night, good night, I wore a coat for the weather, sirs.

Sir.

"Sir."

Sir.

: kiss me now that i'm older.

2008-09-24T01:05:00.000-07:00

Tried to bottle my breath for you, sugarbean.
The smoke faded, along with the smudged remains of my decline.
The stars are so cold tonight.

: we'll die in the class we were born (that's a class of our own, my love)

2008-09-19T11:27:00.000-07:00

So.

Every time something like this happens (for those of you in the know this is essentially in regard to Peter Doherty and Carlos Barat, formerly co-frontmen of the Libertines, playing another surprise few songs together together together together), or at least so I say struck by my sudden wanderlust, I go a little insane. Because everything that consumes me over the past number of months (or maybe it's been longer) has seemed to be the relatively nice well-intentioned do-gooder in me battling the hedonistic artist who really just wants to fuck everything and run away with a could-be-good friend and live in some shitty foreign apartment on practically nothing and destroy her body. On one hand, I think the latter is a more important experience. On the other, I can't justify wasting my potential on my own needs rather than The Good Of The World and all of that.

I just need to document this because right now all I really want to do is shut everyone functional in my life out, go get an impulse tattoo, drop out of school and move somewhere to create for a while. I'm not going to, because I've learned to keep myself under control (positive?) by now, but I just want it acknowledged that this functionality, all this great stuff I've been achieving lately, sometimes it makes me feel ill.

: i don't wanna be your friend.

2008-09-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

I hate cards.

I hate cards because they are pre-packaged sentiment. They have cards for every appropriate reaction to every appropriate situation (and a few inappropriate ones, granted), and then people pay card companies to react for them. Long gone are the days where you would actually talk about things -- of course it is entirely beyond our capacity now to have a conversation, or send a letter, stating why we are happy it's someone's birthday, or why we're sorry my grandmother is in the hospital with bowel cancer. We couldn't possibly exert the effort to actually say these things. Instead, we send cards.

I fucking hate cards.

And for the record, I send a letter when I actually give a damn.

: we are in a state of flux.

2008-09-11T23:49:00.000-07:00

Saw an upset Kele Okereke last night. Going to fight the good fight tomorrow. Bursting with too many thoughts tonight. We're going to start a collaborative effort to keep a comprehensive list of Calgary gigs and publicize it because I've had too many conversations about how nobody knows and because of that nobody cares. I am always fascinated how I am the optimist when pitted against the troubles of my friends and a fatalist when it comes to my own potential success. Wearing suspenders hung down lately. Wishing I had less to think about. Very behind on readings. Can feel the pressure building again and know that great spurts of poetry and perhaps prose are soon to come. Dump Me (I Need The Material).

We need to talk.

: eleanor put those boots back on, kick the heels into the brooklyn dirt. i know it isn't dignified to run.

2008-09-07T22:27:00.001-07:00

Love as imposition.

: mr streetlight!

2008-09-03T14:19:00.000-07:00

I am officially back at school. It is official now as I was reminded today that final exams exist, and I am about to head out to do school-related errands. I am thinking school thoughts, making school friends, and contemplating school opportunities. School school school. This is, of course, the fun part, when I still maintain some delusion of free time. I have about 15 free-time reading books right now. Guess how many of them I expect will actually get read before being returned to the library?

Heh.

In other news, I have decided to update this MWF from now on. Whether they're interesting updates or not. This is, as you might have guessed, an example of a non-interesting update. Now if you'll excuse me, I must convince people to pick up my shift next Wednesday, buy pretty new school supplies, annnnd talk my mother into being my chauffeur so that I may continue my path towards taking the government's money and returning library books.

Hurrah!

-I,G.P.

: we don't feel pain or ache or lust.

2008-08-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

So I could start by debating the merit of documenting moments that seem important at the time but luckily(?) enough right now this seems too important to bother with that unanswerable self-deprecating bullshit.

I break promises. I break a lot of promises. So far I've only kept one promise made this summer, and only then, I suspect, it is not entirely my love for the person concerned/the damage it would do to her, as fear of what it would do to myself if I were to break said promise and throw myself in. I suspect if that were to happen we would end up seeing Exhibit A, the former college student, standing on the street wondering whether or not she's really gonna go this time. Wind blowing dusty leaves. No, not a good idea.

One promise I didn't even mean when I made it. In my defence, we both recognized that, even if I didn't say so. Denied it, in fact. (But honestly, I treasure honesty above all things. I am such, such an asshole, using those words as a means to a selfish end. God, what a bastard.) The other promise, well, I meant it, and it drove me crazy, but I was released from it, so here I am, all bitter and full of hate for a new place, trying to figure out exactly what will hide it this time, and reminding myself that, like the initial promise, I don't want the broken conclusion.

This morning, lying in bed, slightly hungover, I reminded myself: either you end up ugly, or you die. That's it. Become the villain, leave a beautiful corpse, etc, that's it. Nothing lasts forever! What a shit, shit conclusion.

I have a set of shotglasses of famous drinkers. Red, Oscar Wilde. Yellow, Dylan Thomas. Blue, W.C. Fields. Green, Yeats. Last night I was Oscar Wilde with lychee until I decided there was little enough that it made sense to just finish the fucking bottle off, to hell with counting shots. I was a few other things, too, but that was when it really started getting bad, when I started actually thinking about the things I'd done beforehand while smoking cigarettes I didn't even enjoy on the phone with foreigners. Oops.

I have been listening to Romance at Short Notice by Dirty Pretty Things so often as of late. Sometimes it's made things worse. Usually it's kept me safe. If I ever have occasion to I will thank them for doing that, although they've certainly heard it before.

Tonight I work, and attempt to go to both the Last Ostrich Show ever and a magazine release, both of which I feel obligated to go to. Frankly I feel more obligated to go to the former but the latter is right by work and ends earlier so it's stupid not to, even though I don't have surf clothes. Hopefully I can stop there and then go to the latter and still fulfill obligations, and get home without, I don't know.... just get home. Getting home is good for me. Wandering back there at an absurd hour of the morning, still drunk but conscious enough, by then, to recognize I feel dirty imposing or sleeping with or God knows what else...

I like sleeping in my own bed. I'm not happy with my living situation right now, but I like sleeping in my own bed, alone, as I please.

This week has been very interesting. I have enjoyed living alone immensely more than having her around. I have cleaned more, done more dishes, kept things looking nicer, been... somewhat more productive. On the other hand, I have also been wildly more self-destructive. I really need someone in the room for them to affect me enough to make me stop when I get into a mood. I feel terrible for all of my friends who cling on desperately to the good parts of me, which they have watched me trash, attack, and kill over the past few months. I remember being able to objectively say I'm a good person, and I'm trying to recall exactly what it is that's making me bad. I think I'm well aware, but the truth is I'm not willing to go there yet. Not just yet. Worth dying for. Worth killing your soul for? Maybe.

The point is, I would love to live alone, I'm just not sure how long I'd survive it.

'Til next time, unattentive world,
I,G.P.

: sleeping with people I don't even like!

2008-08-22T12:19:00.000-07:00

The most-repeated bit of advice I've seen from people telling the world how to be a good blogger is to update regularly. I'm not sure if being a good blogger is one of my goals, really, although my goals appear to generally include "be good at everything" so I suppose it is by default. I suppose the main problem is my confusion at what is and isn't appropriate to be put here. I wouldn't narrow things down to a theme because I have places already meant to contain the 'purely professional' side of my life, and I can't ever commit to an interest long enough to maintain a real blog on any of it. (Obviously, various creative things would be an exception, but as I don't believe in putting forth one's opinion on art with any sort of authority, that's not about to happen. Otherwise I'd be bugging BeatRoute Magazine to let me write for them all the time (and they are really a very good Calgary-based music mag so I would recommend checking them out, certainly).)

So what is this? This is me, attempting to present my life to the anonymous world, in some cohesive fashion. This makes it an entirely unremarkable blog as far as theme goes, but so long as I continue doing so in a largely well-written fashion I believe I'm all right with the world.

Currently, my life is in a very odd state of transition which involves the final stages of that process that began last month, where I began to reject my identity as the drunken fun-chasing spastic wastrel (as much as it was ever there), and tried to slide back towards my identity as the (well, drunken) intelligent, analytical university student who recognizes the numerous problems with post-secondary education and how it is not suitable to her goals, but also accepts that it is, at present, a necessary evil for her personal journey.

The transition is now mostly complete. I've hardly been out for over a month, saving up to pay my tuition (ouch), and tonight, even though my mother's out of town and I don't have to be at work until 6 pm tomorrow, and I could afford one night out, I turned down an invitation to go out, get pissed, and see good music. I'm not 100% proud of this, but it's what I'm aiming for right now, mostly because I think I need to wiggle into my identity (not the named ones; the whole) a little more thoroughly before it's safe for me to subject myself to that. I'm taking the small victories right now. There's a pack of menthol cigarettes, mostly full, on my couch that I keep thinking how to sell, but will not. There's a former 15-year-old crackdealer somewhere in Costa Rica right now who has my picture on his cellphone. The dishes are sitting in the sink, begging to be done, giving me accusatory vibes every time I walk past them. But generally, things are good.

In one week, I will have my birthday party. In a week and a day, I'll go see Oasis, and then go to Chris's going-away-and-birthday party. In one week and -- my God -- 4 days, I will be 20 years old.

I don't want to turn 20, but at this point, I suppose, I've accepted it's going to happen. Sir said last night I should come to NYC and celebrate with her, which is of course an absurd suggestion as I have no money aside from tuition money (fucking student loans come through already). Furthermore, there are promises to keep. We realized that it would make more sense for her to come here, as then we can actually drink legally. When this will happen -- if it does, which, given both our scattered natures, is debatable -- is unsure, as she will already be making a foreign trip this fall. Of course, if either one of us gets a brain tumour, the day will be saved, and we'll blow all our hard-earned savings on finding a quicker death. That would be interesting, I suppose.

I have been making a very conscious effort -- all my life really, but especially this past week -- to be a better person. The rational parts of me argue that this does not make me a better person. It is an exercise in repression, in masochism, and in lying. Unfortunately, my brain is currently battling my heart, and I'm not used to such a violent clash between them. Perhaps it's because both of them are so irrevocably tied up in the matter at hand. Biggles has trash-talked repeatedly, furious on my fightless behalf, while the Kid maintains that it's just a sad sad situation, and is hoping for a happy ending. I'm trying to decide which of my friends believes in love. Perhaps this would be easier if I fully understood my own views on the situation.

I think it's going well, though. I'm saying a lot less than I used to. I'm biting my tongue and keeping my chin up and focusing on the f without the g. It's not a way of life I'd advocate normally, but right now it's either that, self-destruct, or cut off contact. Much as I'd love to indulge in the second, the guilt would eat me alive (heh), and the latter is simply not an option. Sentimental attachments and lifelong connections or not, I couldn't handle a complete re-working of my life again. Not right now. So, I'm biting my tongue. I'm performing complex exercises in replacing jealousy with admiration. God only knows if it'll work, but I am trying, and I'd like to think some of the Herculean efforts I've made to combat my innate mercurial, melodramatic, selfish qualities as of late qualify me instantly for "pretty good human being" status, despite whatever the final result may be.

I'm listening to a lot of bitter songs at night, and sometimes it sends me to sleep with the feeling that my chest was filled with lead while I wasn't paying attention and the poison's making my eyes water, but it's good therapy, mostly. I compare myself to people. It's not rational, but it helps.

In final news, I'm making a multi-volume playlist documenting my 19th year, as much as one can do so in the last week of it. It's good. I won't be able to do it justice because there's no way to do such a big thing justice, but it'll be good, anyway. I'd like to think that when it's done people will be able to listen to it and, on some level, understand me a little better.

-I,G.P.

: embolden me against the manifestations of fear and doubt

2008-08-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

Igpy extends this very public apology to everyone who saw her last night at the Soda, and particularly to the owners and employees of the aforementioned fine establishment, as she is really incredibly lucky for all their humour and generosity and definitely imposed on their good will.

Here is the best explanation I can offer the world at large: I have social moods and non-social moods. They are much more dramatic than those of most people. I'd just gotten back from a camping trip where I spent all hours of the day in the company of others, and then yesterday during the day I had worked. All I really wanted last night was to stay at home, write, veg about on the computer, and go to sleep. However, even more than that I wanted to support my friend Kiri on her first venture onto the stage, so when I was reminded that it was happening last night, I rushed over to Soda, even though I was not in a state to be around people. Predictably, once I got there I started feeling awkward and out of place, and when I couldn't get other people down there to surround me and keep me sane I decided to find the nearest liquor store and down something. (Anything.)

I feel I should mention at this point that the extent of my mental unhealth yesterday was such that a lot of the things I was doing when I was stone-cold sober seem like they should have been done by a drunk person in retrospect.

Regardless.

I bought a bottle of Jameson whiskey that was larger than a mickey and smaller than the big effing bottle, and I drank most of it. Mind, I shared, but initially I only had Megan to share it with, and she only wanted a little bit because she had to play that night. By the time other people came we'd done with most of it. Point being, I drank a lot of whiskey. And then went inside and did a shot. And I had hardly eaten that day. This did make me feel much less self-conscious, but it also made me a drunken idiot, as those of you who noticed me fall fucking down in the middle of someone's set can tell. (I am so, so sorry.) I would like to think I was a very friendly drunk who apologized sufficiently for being so drunk, and I would like to think I was somewhat endearing despite myself, but for the record, if I offended you somehow, know that it was not out of malicious intent, but only the sad side effects of a broken heart by default, scared of the consequences of speaking to strangers and friends. I sincerely enjoyed speaking with all of you and I'm so sorry to everyone who I made feel odd, because you're all lovely people. I'm just a shambolic mess of a human being, and for this I apologize, although I must add that I don't think I'd have my life any other way, right now.

"A night is discovering that you really can't see the stars from city gutters."

: i was calibrating! i know exactly what i'm doing!

2008-08-03T22:29:00.000-07:00

I've just realized that I haven't been writing things in my paper diary lately because if I write it down then I have to admit it happened. I've also just realized that the reason certain people keep wounding me deliberately is not out of ignorance but out of the desire to make me admit things are happening for my own good.

Unsurprisingly, this only makes me wants to plummet further into oblivion.

: beg steal and borrow.

2008-08-03T12:45:00.000-07:00

Oh my.

Well, this summer has been a summer indeed, which most people will understand and certain people will not, and perhaps this is evidence of previously unsuspected damage, saying very simple, obvious things and believing them to be full of depth that only a select, fine-tuned few can truly 'understand.'

Ergh.

Okay, so. I've been sort of in a quiet, calm, very peaceful crisis for the past few hours or so, having realized all of a sudden why all the people I've disdained have done the things I used to disdain them for. The truth is, they're right, and this is actually much too personal and dangerous to write here so I'm going to have to find some other way to cope with my sluggishly racing mind right now, cheerio!

: sow it up kid.

2008-07-31T17:04:00.000-07:00

Unrequited love is a peculiar thing, and I am very, very good at it.

I would like, for the sake of maximum empathy and not-feeling-like-an-asshole, to pretend I'm only ever on one side of it. However, the standing issues of all the people who I've destroyed and my mother argue against that. I frequently wonder if I am only interested in people who are not nearly as interested in me. They present a challenge. There is more suffering, and more need for hope. The worse things are, the better I can pretend they could be. Then once I've won, it's all down the drain.

Love disgusts me. At least some love. I feel smothered and suffocated by it and it makes me feel ill.

Tonight, I have concluded at the same time as various other parties, there is no God. There is no God because if there had been that would have been the excuse and it all would have been fine, not only in my head in very hypothetical situations but also in reality, and patience would have won out and when I got there the legend (no happy ending, but worth it) would have been there waiting. As it is, such delusions have been cruelly shattered and leave an absence of hope behind them, no desire for east coast but beyond to England where the other half of me presumably waits, left over from my father, who I should not be emulating but cannot deny. The problem is, I need that person and I have not found her. I have found many, many people who are like her in various aspects, and I embrace those aspects, foolishly overlooking others and desperately trying to shove my perception into particular puzzle slots that never look quite right. I need my other half, and I am sure she is out there somewhere but the chances of finding her seem quite slim, and this is no slight to my best friends all of whom are physical parts of me that hurt like hell when they're missing, but I need someone who finishes my sentences and understands my goals and wants to rot away in a shitty apartment with me making beautiful things, not to succeed, not to win approval, merely to create something of which we can be proud and then if we die we die and that's okay because we lived and were in love, and that is so, so rare and never, ever lasts, but unless I have it I will waste away wanting it, and you can only really have it like that when you're young so time is running out for me you see because my romantic years are waning and will soon be replaced by years of shirked responsibility and "why can't you ever..."s.

I am dead I am dead I am so dead before my time. If I don't try I can never succeed, but if I don't put the effort in it doesn't hurt as much when I fail. I need to get out of this conventional situation but you see I am all my mother has and then I will break her heart and she will die in mind and soon enough body because she already has those thoughts sometimes and if I am the catalyst I will surely die and become a hardened shell of something that might have been a person if it had just I don't know but everything is a lie and I have childhood best friends but none who are quite that to me and I am looking everywhere for this saviour of mine and maybe she is nowhere and that is the single most fucking terrifying thought in the world, that no matter what I do or what chance befalls me I will still be stuck in this feeling for the rest of my life and see I am bitching at my mother and tearing her down because I am falling falling apart and nobody can be allowed to see this weakness or I will surely go mad, I moved everything around in my room to hide from myself including taking the mirror down because I cannot see myself without going mad but it didn't work and I know from watching firsthand that carving does not solve a thing you can't take out the evil in you that way or the ugly and maybe they're the same thing or may as well be right now, I am not so-and-so so I will never be acceptable, and the problem here is I am too selfless so I act selfish in retaliation for having lived a life for all of you when what I really want to do is fuck you all and run away.

:

2008-07-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

would like to know why she falls in love with everyone.

At the same time.

I can't believe the things you say.

2008-07-24T14:13:00.001-07:00

and oh how she needs it, the punishment.

together together together together together together togerther.

2008-07-05T12:51:00.000-07:00

For a variety of reasons that many of you will easily be able to guess (but most of you will not), I have been dwelling a great deal on that which attracts me to people (but mostly men, since at this point I have women, or my attraction to them at any rate, mostly figured out). I have discovered, suddenly, upstairs, when I was reading and should have been cleaning or saving the world, that successful men repulse me.

This is not to say that I look down on achievement in them, but success for men as currently defined by my society, as I have perceived it, involves... well, a career, and a lot of money, and let's say well-kept hair and a nice car and clean clothes and a sort of cutthroat ambition... accomplishments. Many accomplishments, as sanctioned by society.

For fuck's sake, who really gives a shit if you have a nice car? Most nice cars cost too much, kill the fuck out of the environment, and are gonna be un-nice (according to the people who mind such things) within a couple years. I... and then, all of this career business, I just don't know. It's nice for people who want it but careers as defined by society drive me insane. These people who live to work frighten and sadden me. I... if it's contagious....

As you can see, these thoughts are nowhere near fully formed, I just had to share them in some capacity at the moment, before my head really derails today ohchrist...

FUCK. Okay. The point is (there are too many external stimuli here for me to focus enough to properly express myself, so I apologize for sounding like an idiot here, I'm just so very fucking close to so very many fucking things right now that I don't know if I'm about to laugh or cry or storm the fuck out of here), the point here is that I don't give a fuck if you're going to be a fucking CEO. I fucking hate CEOs. Accomplishment to me is having lived and loved and focusing on living your life the way YOU personally should have, instead of constantly "fixing" yourself because it's not the thing to do. I would say specifically what impresses me in men at this junction, but unfortunately that would be too specific, and would open a bunch of doors that need to stay shut for just a little while.

Fuck. I'm going really fucking insane, and I wouldn't have it any other fucking way, but I can't help but feel that something's gonna fucking snap. Probably because things have been constantly fucking snapping for the past month. Fuck.

Okay.

My mother has a really bad smoker's cough and I can't stand to be around her, the stench of death is overpowering and I just want to clutch my head and scream and run away. The other night I took a couple drags of a strange man's cigarette, partly to see if I could, partly because I wanted to, and partly just because I knew it would fucking hurt her. Fuck. I can't stand all this fucking inertia around me. The stillness and the death disgusts me. I'm swinging between feeling so vital and feeling trapped by the conventions and hang-ups and disgust of the people around me, and I just want to divorce it all and get the hell out, but it's definitely not time for that yet. I haven't been able to write for a week because my head's way too screwed up, I need to resume some modicum of control to be able to create anything oh motherfucking hell there is too fucking much to deal with right now and I'm not nearly this disturbed right now see I'm very fucking calm for the most part and generally in a good mood but my thoughts are so fucked up right now I have no idea how to control them and I don't know which way is up or who I'm supposed to stop or when I'm supposed to go but everything's felt like something else for a while now.

There's this quote by Neil Gaiman.

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”

: a design for life!

2008-05-07T08:06:00.000-07:00

It's a rainy week. Being that I my current employment involves painting the exterior of duplexes with latex paint, this means that it's a not-so-much-work week. I'm generally okay with this, because I'm currently owed about 800$ in emergency money, so I can survive just fine with a small paycheque if need be. It's also giving me time to work on housework, gymwork, and writingwork, all of which are important things which demand some lovin' time. Today I went for a nice long walk down into Silver Springs and back from about 7-8:30. Stopped in three different grassy areas and worked on my still-untitled sci-fi short story, which I suspect will be the first "official" short story I finish and send out. It's a bit odd, because the style really isn't mine for a good chunk of the story. One of my protagonists is basically without analytical thought or emotion -- in a way -- which makes writing from his perspective very alien. So's describing the people he lives with, because they ignore sensation and emotion in favour of logical, analytical thought. Fitting enough, since they are aliens, but still. It feels like wearing ill-fitting clothes. And it's very, very dark. And chock full of social messages. I think a lot of people won't like it. I don't even know if I like it. But I think it's good.

Last night my grandfather ambushed me. I thought he was just giving me a lift to the gym, but he began pontificating. He criticized the Silent Rave, basically saying (in more, less blunt words) that I hadn't a fucking clue what I was doing, and I was a stupid kid who was in over her head. Then he said that my mother was worried about me, and so was he. They believe (he said) I'm going out too much and drinking too much. He asked me if I knew that alcoholism could be genetic. (No, grandpa. The entire patrilineal side of my family has issues with alcohol and it's basically ruined my dad's life, but NO, no I had NO idea it was genetic. Gosh.) He said he didn't like the people I was hanging out with. (Not that he's met them, or knows anything about them.) He says I shouldn't be hanging out with older people (for the love of gods), and I especially shouldn't be hanging out with people in bands. Because, you know, it's very easy to fall into depravity and drug use with those people. As opposed to the friends I've made over the past 10 years, who have all been productive members of society who subscribe to complete sobriety.

The thing that really pisses me off -- aside from the fact that he's criticizing my friends, because people talking shit about the people I care about isn't fucking on -- is that even if I explained the situation to him properly, he wouldn't empathize. He wouldn't listen. I respect that he has radically different values from me, and I do my best to accept the validity of his values, even though I disagree with him. He doesn't make that effort to respect my values. If I told him what I've been telling everybody since day one of this post-secondary escapade -- that I'm only in it to pay my dues to my family, to shut them up and get on with it, that I don't want a second career or stability or a corner office or a white picket fence or a happily ever after -- he'd do everything in his power to restrain me, forcibly chain me to my textbooks and a career path. My family does not comprehend me in the least. I have no delusions about what I'm aiming for. I will probably end up wanting to punch things a lot with the "career" path I'm going for. I will not make good money. I will not have financial security.

This doesn't matter to me. Maybe it will in a few years. Maybe it will in a decade. Maybe it will when I'm 40 or 70 or 92. It doesn't right now. I'm not currently planning to have children -- and I've come to a conclusion about that, too; I'd be willing to do it, but I'm not going to plan on it and then be upset if it doesn't happen; what happens happens and that's okay, I'll handle that when it does -- so there's nobody I need to be building up money for. I'm not going to live forever, so just as long as I've got enough money to get by, that's enough. I guess I'll probably start a retirement fund or something after I'm done school, since that seems logical enough. I don't know if I'll retire. Logically, I might not live long enough. My genes are loaded up with predispositions for all kinds of diseases due to my family history, and my mum's smoked around me constantly for my entire life -- it'll be a small miracle if I don't develop some sort of cancer. But all I really need is enough money to live somewhere, to afford food, to be able to go out and occasionally buy things, and to have time to write and fucking live. That's all I want from life right now; the chance to write, and to live. I don't want an official career or fucking corporate success. I don't want to be a millionaire. I'm so sick of living with people who don't understand a fucking thing I believe in no matter how much I explain it to them.

So, we're due for a blow-up, my grandparents and I. I'll do my best to keep my values a secret from them until I'm done school; it's the best thing for both of us. But if he keeps talking shit about how I should be hanging out with people "like me" -- my own age, students -- something's going to have to give. I don't like 99% of the students I've met. I don't actively dislike most of them, but I don't want to know them. Their values are not mine. Their concerns are not mine. The things they have to offer do not interest me. For the first time in my life, I'm surrounded by people I adore, who I find fascinating -- this is no insult to my older friends, because they've been my friends all this time for a reason. I adore them. But I've never known so many people I adore at once. I'm finally acquainted with people who believe in things I can (and already did) believe in. I'm finally surrounded by people who don't stare at me like I'm some weird alien life form when I tell them I don't want a car or a steady career or a white picket fence. Jesus, I've never been so fucking happy in my life. These past nine weeks have been heaven on earth. It's been incredible. It's done so much fucking good for me. I've been happy. I've actually been fucking believing in myself. I've cut unhealthy ties and I'm cleaning up my act and writing and getting enough confidence to try to publish things, to get out there, to fucking embrace the things I've been craving for years. My life has been fucking gorgeous.

It pisses me off that the people who believe they have my best interests in mind liked me better when I was miserable and sneaking drinks alone.

: instrumental.

2008-04-12T20:35:00.000-07:00

I felt bad about the last entry, so I thought I would post an excerpt from my paperjournal from earlier today, when I was in the same mood as I was when I wrote my last entry. This makes perfect sense.

Also, this talks about menstruation, so if you have a penis, maybe you want to skip a few sentences. Or maybe not. Maybe you have some interest in menstruation. I think you should. If you bled out of your penis? I'd be interested in that. Also, you should probably not take anything that follows seriously as I tend towards melodrama when I write. Which actually means you shouldn't pay attention to anything in here. Which is true. Moving on.

The cult of touch is here. What good is being pretty? People like looking at you. That's nice. I need to be touched. I need to be held. I need to be spoken to, understood, embraced. I need too much. I need the same damn things everybody else needs. I wore tampons this period. They made it last longer. Instead of the comforting flow of very red blood, vitality, it turned to a brown, murky discharge partway through. Here, in physical, tangible form, are the pitfalls of intrusion. Of making yourself something you are not for the sake of the other. Shit from my cunt. Who woulda thunk? The cotton smells like the very worst vagina smells every girl "should" fear. Why are we graced with all the talents we never wish to use? Why does everything we do fall into the category of "been done before"? Is this London in the 1970s? Should it be? Are you Pete Dock-rr-tea? Do you want 2 bee? Deliberate alteration of grammatical conventions proves to us how well we got the game down pat. Truth is [the truth has been omitted from the online version for the sake of public safety -igp]. I think I might be bi(polar). BUT. I have a theory of sorts. I'm swinging up and down on every word and event, but doesn't anybody think that maybe PART of the reason why there are so many cases of bipolar disorder right now, with doctors knowing so little about what it really is, is people doing things they hate? This is reasonable. 48 hours past I was doing things I loved. Today I'm doing something I don't enjoy. It makes sense to be happy then and upset now. Maybe people should just be planting more trees and seeing more rock shows.

That was fun. Don't take any of it seriously. Especially speculations of mental illness, which I am obliged to have on a regular basis, having grown up surrounded by psychology, but rarely put any stock in. I am fairly sure my present moodiness is the effect of a melodramatic personality combined with higher education. Let us post more excerpts! Much more censored this time, yes?

Oh wow. I wrote in this when I saw Rufus Wainwright at the Folkfest! And apparently latched onto similar phrases. Most of this no longer makes sense to me, but here we go:

JULY 26
2007
lederhosen
disco. fucking. ball.
paycheque + a half.
a palace in germany that i will never own.
and it's um you know stupid.
maybe it'll be on tv.
there i was in...uniform
wendy, everyone! ...debbie! i mean debbie... lovely.
judy garland song

Shortly after...

FOUR ALTOGETHER! THERE IS
A DRUNK GIRL WHO I DID
NOT IN FACT KISS STAGGERING
AROUND PRINCE'S ISLAND
PARK. BRIDGE THE VIOLINIST
AND THE BLOND GUY FROM
CHUMBAWUMBA!

Here is what happened when I went to a coffee shop to try to do homework. If I recall correctly, I succeeded! I also had some fairly delicious apple cider. Mmm, cider.

03/24/08
no rest for the wicked. the suspect state of business in 21st century Canadian stores on Easter Monday my hands are fucking freezing bluberry ice wine + blackcurrent fitting tea for a bruised day to hell with the holy city name?
Gloves don't make good sponges. My coordination, such as it is, has been very much impacted by laser tag and my nutty sense of direction. My beautiful won white sweatshirt is mildewed. A shambles. This cider is terrible. Today I discovered W.H. Auden, and we are not covering Dylan Thomas in class. Mad Ireland killed poor Mr Yeats, and that is a corruption of the tribute, my friend. One day, I will have PROPERLY illegible handwriting.
I can imperfectly remember the surprise moist of your lips during the very gentlemanly kiss you gave my right hand, sir. Rightfully, I should have kissed yours back, but these things take time, you see. [Omitted name] asked me if I was okay as I crouched on the stairs, watching for [omitted name and event]. Such politeness! The politics of lonely.
Cider's not so bad.
Today I will be writing about subversion + resistance, passivity versus passive aggression, and the man who would not let his students say "per." I am looking for you at every intersection, dear, Sunnyside + Banff Trail all over again. You make me proud of the name nature presented me.
So is this what you're reduced to, originality? Tea in a Safeway travel mug, college sweatshirt, conservation + cryption in a coffee shop. Smile + say please. Buddhist monk chant CD McNally Hot Wax Megatunes

Excerpt written in the margins along a rambly documentary:

all of this, incidentally, is bullshit.

And now before I go:

03/27/2008
I want to throw A POETRY PARTY. Currently, poetry encompasses everything I believe in, with ties to love, music, social change, beauty, inspiration + THINKING about things. People would bring poems + CDs + stories + songs + open minds and sit and drink and talk and share, and it would be beautiful, if only people would come. Solidify connections, then put the idea forth. I am finally ready to bring people into my home, pride has come, meekly, at last.

: hope no one can tell.

2008-04-12T13:56:00.001-07:00

I've discovered that I can no longer write papers at home. It is, of course, a terribly bad idea to put this in writing, as the more I reinforce the idea, the truer it will become. I can do it if I have to, but not until I've come so close to the deadline that I'm almost in tears, that I have to write it at home unless I want to fail the class. I don't like this feeling. So I've been going out, to shops and libraries, to accomplish anything academic.

I'm attributing this to a growing divide between myself and myself as a student that I'm worried about, but technically embracing. I don't like academia. It fascinates me, but I can't justify it on any logical basis. It's a bunch of smart(?) people wanking themselves. Yippee. Fun, but useless. Well. Sometimes it effects change. But most of it's just wanking. Maybe that applies to any field. But it's very distressing, having so much that you want to do, and instead... bullshitting about connections between various texts and themes and histories and debunking and... I don't like it. I don't know. I am currently in a headspace where everything bothers me, so maybe it's just that, but generally academia's bothered me for at least a year.

There are other things I could be doing, and I would probably enjoy them a lot more. However, blatantly informing my family that I don't want a career, that I don't want... stability, necessarily, at least for the moment, that all I want to do is be able to pay the rent while presumably living in some capacity, would end in tears. I don't like this. So I will stick with this combined degree business and presumably about three years from now, I will be done. It seems like an impossibly long time, but I've survived three years six times so far, so I'm sure I can pull off a seventh. I will be almost 23 then. That will be bearable, I suppose. That's just over a quarter of the average life expectancy of a female in Canada as of 2007, apparently. And other things can be accomplished in the meanwhile. It's all balance. The main problem being, of course, both sides thinking I should not waste time balancing with the other. My grandfather has disapproved of everything I've done as of late. He is wary of me actually speaking to people, you know. He is very afraid I will turn into my parents. Which is a silly idea to have, since I am much more concerned with my worth as a human being than they are. I am absurdly concerned with my worth as a human being. Fuck. Anyway, he liked me much better when I was miserable. I don't like that.

This isn't getting anywhere and I'm going crazier by the second so I'm going to publish this ridiculous flailing over-exposure of my disintegrating mental health at this second, and then get fully dressed and go to the school in a daze, listlessly clinging to the final shards of reality I've still got handy, and plot and plan and lie and print, and everything will be fine, I will be rewarded, we will all be so very happy, isn't this great.

: this world is only gonna break your heart.

2008-04-07T08:09:00.000-07:00

Facebook has many joys. I considered linking to Facebook when I said that, but assumed that would be sort of like mentioning "sky" and pointing for emphasis, at this point. Regardless, amidst the sea of "do you like me" and "am I hot" and "which Disney princess would you be in a Disney/David Lynch crossover film involving Kentucky Fried Chicken" applications, there are some which are kind of nice, like the Visual Bookshelf one. I just added a few books to mine (because it was either that or step away from the computer and pack my bag for school, how dreadful), including The Lesser Blessed by Richard Van Camp. It's very good, and you should all give it a go; my review consisted of:

I wasn't fond of how the story arc ended up going; for me it felt like it sort of fell apart as time went on, and not necessarily in the way I enjoy things falling apart. That said, it's beautiful writing, and even as I was actively disliking the story's arc I was still adoring how it was written, what it was writing about, and the gorgeous characters being used to tell the story. I wouldn't read it again, but I'd recommend it to nearly all of my friends.

However, as I gave a cursory glance at the other recent reviews -- including one detracting the novel's use of fucking strong goddamn motherfucker language and drug use -- I found a review that was very positive, but which had, as a disclaimer after the woman said it reminded her of her teenaged days, "(Hey, I'm not a butchy woman-I was a nerdy teenager)."

First of all -- how is this necessary? I don't read a woman empathizing with a male character (or a male person, or animal, or rock), and automatically go "WOW YOU MUST HAVE GENDER ISSUES, SINCE HUMANS ARE COMPLETELY INCAPABLE OF HAVING ANY EMPATHY FOR OR UNDERSTANDING OF ONE ANOTHER UNLESS THEY'RE THE SAME SEX, JUST LIKE YOU HAVE TO BE THE SAME HEIGHT, COLOUR, SIZE, AND HAVE SIMILARLY SHAPED CHINS TO EMPATHIZE OR UNDERSTAND." No. No, this is not okay. Furthermore, even if someone (stupid) did read that and go "Wow, butch," how is that a bad thing? If you're clearly not then what does it matter? Are you so afraid of the taint? Do you have some deep-seated issues with your appearance and personality that make you believe that, even though you know you obviously don't identify as butch, other people will, given the slightest encouragement to do so? How does this matter? How is this at all relevant to the book? "For nerdy teens -- not butchy women, obvs."?

It's too early in the morning for me to form a properly coherent opinion on this, but honestly? Grow the fuck up.

: come into your room

2008-04-03T11:34:00.000-07:00

What meaning of monograms?

The courtship rituals of the living dead.

Stupid Girls on Cocaine.

Daddy Issues.

& Veronica, Eleanor Rigby, et al.

March in the other place:
"( and she said [...] that she had fallen apart. ) and I cannot deal with a third wave of abandonment, please. Emphasis. Fuck. but I'm trying, which makes me happier with myself than I've been in a long time. But there were really good bands tonight. I almost wrote 'pants.' There were good pants, too. Consistency, you see, is key. Tweedle Dee acted like an idiot the whole time, so it didn't surprise me when he confirmed my judgment. However, Tweedle Dum is nearly perfect. Creepy Incest Shudders. Data Dissemination Wing / Office of the Registrar General, India even if they're friendly in leather pants, something about eating fancy ants but I don't even remember what happened in the Jungle Book. get away from me yer stupid chicken I feel like a worthy human being, mostly. I hate men. I love men. I think I'm starting to genuinely fucking detest Sundays. I want to harm myself as much as I like for the greater good and aesthetics of it all. I'll just pretend I'm not home. I'm anti-social, sort of, but I love people and watching people, and a lot of the time I think people think I don't like them, but it's not that, really, I'm fascinated by people, I just don't... work the way a lot of them do. including mildew and soap stains. My mother is crazy MY mother is crazy my MOTHER is crazy my mother IS crazy my mother is CRAZY MY MOTHER is crazy MY mother IS crazy MY mother is CRAZY my MOTHER IS crazy my MOTHER is CRAZY my mother IS CRAZY MY MOTHER IS crazy MY MOTHER is CRAZY my MOTHER IS CRAZY MY MOTHER IS CRAZY and sometimes it's the added emphasis that makes all the difference. Nothing! DONE. Onwards! pisscunt is sort of like pissant but much more satisfying, especially when taken literally. Tomorrow I'll go to J's birthday party and perhaps JJ's shindig, if only because the alliteration amuses me, even if I'm wary of paying attention to anything pretty right now. whose name is at least pronounced "Lynn" but may be spelt differently your opinion does not matter. It does not. Your opinion is just an opinion. It is not any more important than anybody else's opinion. It has no intrinsic worth. Just because you think something is cool, does not make it cool."

: to the man with no mustache

2008-04-03T00:00:00.000-07:00

Dear sir,
There is too much uncertainty involved in this. In itself, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but you, sir, are mixing uncertainty with structure, and youre not doing anyone any favours by doing so. You like structure. I know you do. No matter how messy your desk is, the books stay on the bookshelves, they are signed out and numbered and dated. You drink your coffee out of the same mug every day. You have worn the same shoes for years. You cannot give us this thing that is so clearly intended for an individual mind to tackle and tell us "go, share." It does not work this way. They are fine with this. They are fine with mediocrity. They are fine with white picket fences and SUVs. They are fine with hockey for the kids. They are fine with paycheques and pensions. They are fine with welladvertised radio. They are fine with GAPAEOBRON. They are fine with the hairdresser. They are fine with foundation. They are fine with whatever pen we've got for them, blue or black. They are fine with some bobby pins and a good pair of jeans. They are fine with a night out with the boyfriend and a teddybear for Valentines Day.
I am not fine with these things. I am not fine with this. I want it perfect. You are not letting me do this properly. This is not about teamwork. I can work in a team. I should not have to write in a team unless I want to. These are not writers. These are students. They can sit and take dictation. They cannot think about what is being said. If they spell something wrong, it is not intentional. These are not writers. Why do you want me to write with them? How will this benefit anybody? How does any of this benefit anybody?
As for you: okay. Okay okay okay okay okay okay okay. 3 years, 3 years, tomorrow, tonight. Okay. I think you will drive me crazy if we both get the chance, but that is okay, okay? You know why? Because I like crazy. I need crazy. Look above. Look what I'm doing. Look how I spend my nights. You might be a wastrel, but that's a hell of a good word. So long as its for the right reasons. To hell with the future, thats where its going anyway. I don't think it's right, though, SRP mixed in with these declarations of remnants of great, failed loves. Do you know what you're doing? No, of course not. Selfdeprecating insecure little laughs and the lines that follow. Marine life. No. Okay.
This is all I can do. Tried too hard, took too much, sitting here going crazy crosslegged, more interested in my legs and the imperfection randomly appeared beside the ink on my right thigh. Something about absinthe and the promise of fulfillment, but at what cost? How can we dwell on dust when the life is all around us? How can I possibly be expected to care for all these dead people? I dont.
I dont like what Im saying, but its what Ive got to say.
-IGP