dibs on the dylan...

Sometimes, whether you like it or not, the truth rears its ugly head like a bearded woman waking up from a long winter's nap, and it's not pretty, not by a long shot.

The other day I found myself doing the John Cusack, making lists, alphabetizing my collections then I switched to a more Jason Lee-esque obsessing wondering what I would get dibs on, such as mall rights and for me, listening to Dylan, when the catastrophic relationship that was ended.

And so the truth of the matter remains that I still obsess. I do. I'm not going to lie. Everyone knows I did. Is it a woman thing? I don't think so because the two examples of such desperation were males, but its definitely a human being thing and it doesn't go away.

In my dreams, I'm the Queen of Hearts and I hold court every other Tuesday and I hear the battles of who verses whom and I sentence people to years worth of Britney Spears on repeat or award unoffending parties dibs on the Dylan.

But alas, alack, heavier than the stones in my pockets, is my sense of inequity and a deadly waking fear of dying alone.

oh curious rambling, I have not forsaken you...

I haven't forgotten about this blog, though I'm sure its readers have. That's okay. The reason I haven't written in so long is because a. I've been busy updating the travel blog and b. Having difficulty separating traveling me from Canada/normal/person with roots me. I don't know why I'm still so esoteric in terms of blogland but I still have a difficult time just letting it all hang out, spouting my mouth off because this is a forum for doing so, but it's not just in blog land that this issue raises its ugly head.

I wish I could say it as I feel it. I wish I had the answers for the questions that still plague me. I wish I could get over it, that, this, you, me, the weather, the government, etc. Maybe I'm just weak. Maybe I'm just sad. Maybe I'm just a storytelling of hearts, all beating in 3/4.

I don't know what I am. Isn't that what it's all about, though? Finding out? And to think my rambling would come to this.

the soft revolution...

When we've all grown up and stopped our protesting on principle, where will we be, you and I? Standing on the same side, weapons down, hearts heavy or I am out there alone?

Will the ties that bind simply loosen themselves until such time that their slackened strands beat only out of habit? When the bluebird stops singing on our shoulders, does that mean that the clock has struck 12 and I'm standing next to a pumpkin, wiping away tears?

Do friendships need physical distance to evaporate or did they share the same bed and yet were miles apart? Will you and I ever see to eye to eye ever or again?

Let your feelings of doubt wash over you like a warm blanket. Let them in, let them die, mourn their loss and move on.

moving sale...

That's unfortunately a bit of a mis-gnomer as nothing is for sale here. However, I am moving, however temporarily to
http://laureninsevilla.blogspot.com/
so please check me out there. This is to accommodate my new life situation and to depart from the old. I am not giving this up, just letting it remain a place for my thoughts (unrelated to my travels and the visiting eyes of parents who though doubtful with the internets, might like to pry).

Keep posted on my travels at the other spot, that's right TWO blogs. Gross, but understandable.
Hasta muy pronto-ish.

-Diggs.

sign of the times...

I recently drove home, from my old home to my even older home but that's not important right now, westbound from Calgary to Vernontowne via the new and literally out-of-this-world construction encompassing Rogers' Pass. Jesus. That is a sign of the times. A far cry from when Paul and I took the bus to Vancouver through sleepy, winter deathtrapville. Now it is bustling, late summer outer-Jetson-city-limits style with divided highway reaching to the sky and a bridge fit only for a rocket ship (if rockets took bridges that is). The whole way home I thought about Matt and Jamie and how they would love all these crazy rock formations and how different it all looked since my last trip home.

Anyways, that bridge is a sign of the times. And while I'm on the subject, let me talk about other signs of the times. My full car careening down the highway with my mom at the helm, a sure sign of her attempt at controlling my inevitable departure to Spain. Fair enough. The coolish nights in Vernon that signify the coming of fall (only barely). Our new summer cabin, furnished and looking fabulous (development and luxury). Wincing, holding back tears but refusing to break down and finally letting myself admit that you hurt me more than I've ever been hurt and accepting the fact that I'm not a bad person for wanting to forgive you but never ever forgetting the deception, the heartache and just the general lack of compassion you brought to the table: a sign that I'm going to be okay after all.

I hate to do this blog style but it's the only way I know how. I'm not playing cold war games anymore. It is not my responsibility to fix this. My life is fabulous and I have many people who love me. It's my party, and sometimes your invitation just gets "lost in the mail".

a parliament of owls...

Re: Getting out of a roundabout.
A worthwhile resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout.
It would appear that when dabbling in roundabouts, both verbal and non-verbal communication from all participating drivers is key. Would one signal left with the intention of going right? I doubt it. Wouldn't failure to signal in its entirety only lead said driver to go round and round with no seeming end? And so, the lesson here is this: Afraid of roundabouts? Unsure how to navigate them? Then: Learn how to properly communicate before setting sail across the UK, or wherever your final destination may be.

Re: Today's shenanigans.
Last night was wonderful. I've never felt more loved in my life, except for this morning when all three of my parents mystically materialized at the same longitude and latitude at my house and the universe did not implode in on itself. My father was pleasant and the most pleasant of all? Jamie was there for breakfast with my mom and I and I felt like the most normal, most lucky and most loved daughter on earth. Not even three men and a baby could compete with me today! Now I need some sleep, some H2izzle and some Stacey and Clinton.

Now, who's in need of some humble pie?

the lesson...

The funny thing with life is, whether we like it or not, there is always a lesson. I've learned some good ones that I thought are worth sharing. First the cliche ones and then the ones where I run my mouth off:
1. Experience adds, not subtracts.
2. You kill more bees with honey (or something to that effect).
3. Listen twice as much as you talk (very difficult for moi).
4. Don't romanticize being the Machiavellian hero in any given situation. Being malicious and vindictive and conniving just because you're hurting just makes you hurt more.
5. Everyone wins from a richer, more stable Mexico.
6. It's okay to want more. It's divine to know you need less.

Okay Confucius, go do something of substance. I didn't say go do substance(s). Just checking.

fervent...

This is one of the words I've written down as of late, to join the other random words that spill out of my brain and onto the page late at night.

An older lady got beaten up on our street late one night last week. Just goes to show how right Anthony Burgess was back in 1962, about all this ultra-violence happening right before our eyes. There is so much I want to say these days and as usual I profess to not know how. Everyone laughs at this claim, coming from I, the Verbose.

However, I continue. My brain feels like 1920s South Georgia (probably due to the muffled Morons singing and chanting outside my office) where it's hazy and hot and there's voodoo and corn on the cob. Things are not as they seem and amidst the shady underbelly of our Harper Lee-esque existence, I'm sitting on the porch, sipping Bourbon, taking it all in.

I dreamed a few nights ago that I found my grandmother drowned in her clothes, in her bathtub, in her apartment. It was not sad, nor was it macabre. She's been gone for a long time. I sat in the tub, drenching my clothes, and rocked her like a baby. I apologized because that's what I do when there is space to fill. She had a wet, nearly see-through, sheet wrapped around her face but she was smiling. Maybe I miss her just a little bit.

In the end there was no life raft; we all drowned too.

now i get it...

I always wondered why Jerry and Elaine ever broke up. I always wondered how they could have come to the conclusion that they were better off as just friends. I wondered if one party was more hurt over it than the other or if they came to this conclusion together. I watched every episode with my ear to the ground to try and figure it out but I never could. I always wished that they would get back together and that things would be rosy (shocking, I know seeing as my family has never made this dream the be-all-end-all).

Anyways, now I get it. Sometimes I wish that life were like TiVO and we could just freeze frame things at their funniest/prettiest/most intellectual and that like Miranda, I would have a lifetime supply of icecream to watch it with. However, perhaps they are the moments most precious that come inbetween the times we wish to pause. The moments where the plot thickens, the characters develop and eventually break down, the prologue and the denouement where we're at our worst/ugliest/most sleep deprived. The inbetween times where we drink coffee (or tea and diet cola, as it were), wheel and deal, scheme, cry, laugh, hurt eachother so badly that we think we'll never heal, and then BANG! we're phone stoning or watching the Liffey rise and fall and we've never been happier in our whole lives.

So yes, I do get it. Some things are better left as they are, at that pause where nothing could be more perfect, where Jerry and Elaine can share the most mundane banalities of life together and be the best of friends, no matter what, because that is the magic of television.

maybe we'll be alright after all...

I'm pretty much terrified these days. I don't fall asleep until several hours after initially lying down. I find myself making my way to the bathroom floor, hovering over the toilet but never amounting to anything. Dry heaving, looking to rid my body of what, I don't know, trying to make things right but not knowing how. Afraid to say goodbye, afraid to embark on the next phase of my life, afraid of what awaits me in the upcoming weeks.

But maybe, just maybe there is a resolution to all of this. Perhaps if we mourn the ends of certain things appropriately, we may be better equipped to move forward with the new. I feel better admitting that I am afraid. Like finishing highschool afraid. The sort of afraid that we don't discuss.

But maybe, just maybe, we'll make it after all...

enough of talking or: someone else always says it better...

plant MAGIC dust

  expect hope doubt

    (wonder mistrust)

    despair

          and right

   where soulless our

  (with all their minds)

 eyes blindly stare

life herSelf stands

            -e e cummings


And with that, I'm all talked out.  I'm all sobbed out.  
I'm all heaving in a paper bag, between cigarettes and
gulps of diet cola, blurry visioned, want to barf-ed out.  
We're on the bus of life, and this is my stop.

july is the new september...

Which only means that maybe September won't be so cruel when she comes. I am a waltz at an autumn wedding not my own, my 3/4 time makes you stop to smell the flowers in my hair. I'm falling backwards but you're holding my hands and the room and I are both spinning. I hope to die, I take a deep breath, right there in that moment before I read the epilogue and know the ending is not what I had planned.

He told me that the reason I had never fallen in love like I expected to (the fireworks-when-we-met / can’t-think-stop-thinking-of-you-day-and-night / you’re-the-one-who-completes-me type of love) was because it didn't exist, because men like him created that illusion of love to sell pantyhose.

I still am not sure if I believe him.

the whites...

Let us not air out our dirty laundry in the world of cyberland,
Let us speak in third person so that no one will understand.
Someday we'll be old and grey, with a house upon the hill,
We'll laugh and shrug and drink our tea, questioning our will
To have made things work in times of impossible circumstance.

I love you not because you are perfect but because I am not.
I have faith in God and grace, though neither can be sought.
I mustn't miss the lesson, though it aches to learn it.
A heart can break and burn and crumble but love you still must earn it.
Lead us not into temptation in times of impossible circumstance.

To wear a heart on one's sleeve is better than none at all.
So soldiers and sons be ready when the general comes to call.
For death, taxes and love evade no man and are as inevitable as breathing.
So let love and hope and honour soothe your lips even when you are seething.
There will be an answer, even in times of impossible circumstance.

catharsis...

Tomorrow we will all wake up and this will all have been a dream. No kool-aid. No nike shoes. No stress. No drama. No diagnosis to report. We will have fallen into a long slumber and tomorrow we will wake up, knowing it's all going to be okay. We will have stopped worrying and the earth will continue its spin.

We will have all the answers. We will feel content with our questions. Nothing will go unsaid. We will go back to 'normal'. As normal as we ever were, anyways.

The end of the world will be filmed in black and white with no sound. We won't mind a bit because we will watch it together from the best seats in the house.

eleanor rigby...

She pulled over. She looked out at the sky. She threw up into the ditch. She was crying. There's no way this could be it. But it was. She was certain. She could only think in simple sentences. She put her flashers on and sat down on the side of the road. She dry heaved until every pittance of sentiment had been expunged.

She knew that she could not explain it. She now understood what it felt like to be in one of those inexplicable situations that you don't wish upon anyone else, not even your arch nemesis. It was one of those that she always said that she'd never be in. That she would never fall out of love. And here she was, on the side of the highway not only having fallen out of love but having purged every remnant of love out of her.

And then she sobbed some more. She let the tears fall sticky and heavy on her face because she hated herself and her complete inability to explain how just like that it had happened. How just like that she could no longer lie to herself or to him. She knew he wouldn't understand. He'd probably hate her for it. She already knew that she would want to call him in the middle of the night to come over to kill a spider in her bathroom and then she would beg his forgiveness and it would start all over again.

She wanted to scream but when she opened her mouth, only a whisper remained.

the horrible and the miserable or 'what kind of fuckery is this?'

I'm spending the afternoon with Woody Allen and asking myself a wide variety of neuroses-inducing questions, and they couldn't come at a better time. Needless to say I'm very conflicted at the moment and the indecision and anxiety of a middle-aged Jewish comedian who can't date anyone smarter than him makes me feel a lot better about myself.

The inner monologue that runs as the rest of the cast is on pause, this happens in my life on a daily basis. The subtitles of what someone really thinks running along the bottom of the screen, this happens only in my wildest dreams.

Nevermore have I felt luckier to be miserable in my life. "Masturbation is having sex with someone you love." How truly awful it would be to be one of the horrible cases with no hope of recovery, blind, deaf or dumb. It's much better to be miserable, to feel bad about my situation (which really isn't that bad) than to have a real cause to feel horrible about.

Love fades, it's true. But that Woody Allen, he just gets better with time.

Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?

You gotta love Back to the Future. When they play the marathon on TBS, I will put down whatever I'm doing, cancel any plans I have, and I will settle in for a long haul with my two favourites, Marty and Doc.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that things are heavy in the future. The unknown and the undecidable, both kill us. The unforeseeable and the impossible. When you look at it like that, the odds seem heavily stacked against us. However, I promise we will look back with a smile and a heavy sigh of disbelief that we survived it all. At the end of the day we will wish that we could do it all over again but we don't because we wouldn't change a thing.

"Between the desire, And the spasm
Between the potency, And the existence
Between the essence, And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom" - T.S. Eliot

So when things get heavy, just hang on and remember to breathe.

hello again or good day sunshine...

It would appear that it is late again and I am up again. I thought of somethings today that make me truly ecstatic.
1. The first being the perfection of holding mittened hands, of feeling the warmth of someone else's (preferably a special sort of someone) hands through your mittens in the cold when it's snowing.
2. The second, that first awe-inspiring, dizzying inhale of "party" smoke exhaled by someone else (again, preferably the special sort of someone) into my own mouth. Sounds sorta gross but it reminds me of a first kiss. The kind that doesn't warrant a "do over".
3. Lastly, the ecstasy of good, clean fun. I know it doesn't seem to fit here, but hear me out... Playing pull the purse and laughing until you dry heave and the supposed hilarity of the situation. Going on the rides and the Stampede and trying to get all "zen" even though you're screaming at the top of your lungs. The shock value of being mooned. That never gets old.

These are the thoughts that accompany me as I try for sleep yet again. It has cooled off, only slightly and only temporarily, but the insomnia still remains.

Good day Sunshine...

untitled... (or la-dee-da or it's times like this where you just close your eyes and kiss...)

Cause everything after this is just bullshit and being cruel...

I've tried several times today to write this post. I can't get things out right it would seem. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's my mind and the past day's (months') craziness. I find myself once again in this same old strange place of tug-of-war.

I don't have any answers. Ask me though and I'll give you everything I've got so far. I will convince you of the brilliance and shrewdness of this well thought out plan. I will reassure you that there are no setbacks, no cons to this plan but really I have no idea. In the end, it's your call and if nothing but your original plan will please you, then don't take this on. No matter how I try to say otherwise.

I guess I figure that if I nominate a plan and you choose it, that means you are choosing me. I know that logic is all wrong. Or that we both agree to take the chance, hold hands and jump feet first because that's all there is. I know that isn't all there is but sometimes I lose sight of it all and I just...

I just want to walk away but I keep running my mouth off with new plans even though I'm running out of ideas.

has anybody seen me...

I awoke this morning earlier than I have in a while. I went to work, earlier than I have all summer. I made pleasant conversation with my coworkers, like I do everyday, and I realized how much I've grown to enjoy those first few minutes where we share the previous evening's jive. I read on the bus to school and for a moment forgot the pressing neurosis of getting my tires changed, paying the utilities, explaining my seeming indifference to one thing or another and selling my wares.

It is in these brief moments that I find some semblance of myself which I seem to have lost these last few months. There is no one to blame for this and I resolve only to be grateful for the moments of the day that pass and during which I see myself. This is not meant to be selfish or egotistical. During these brief moments that pass, for once I don't find myself wishing to be elsewhere. I'm happy and content with the friends I've made, the jobs I've done and I'm blissfully excited about moving forward with my life.

Maybe this sounds silly but I just caught a glimpse of where I'm going, what I'm doing, what I think instead of that of something or someone else. I've grown weary in this maze and I haven't seen me in a very long time.

the midnight disease...

I cannot take one more sleepless night. I cannot toss and turn again. I would give just about anything right now to guarantee a night free from my mind racing, my heart racing, my teeth clenched. It's active indifference, which is the worst kind for certain.

I'm counting sheep. Now I'm herding them around Scottish moors filled with fog. Now a dog is barking. I am still awake. I am pacing around my room. I don't play guitar because I'm afraid my child-like ghost voice will wake Megan and she will again believe that our house is haunted. I don't write in my journal because that would mean that my thoughts had won themselves a place on Primetime, a place where we could all return when sleep finally comes. A place where my thoughts and confessions seek refugee status and demand food and water and shelter and I won't be able to refuse them.

I've written down words lately in hopes of using them in some profound fashion at a later date: meniscus, sinister, holy, prolific. These words glare back at me, gutless. I'm tired but I can't close my eyes. I cannot bear what comes next.

if i came with a warning label...

If I came with a warning label, it would say: Beware of quiet Lauren. Beware of unnervingly still, pensive Lauren. Beware of all the things right below the surface that are trying to get out. Beware of sinister resignation. Beware of the sticky afternoon and the cool of twilight.

Right now I am calm. Quiet. But not serene. Not at all caught in a reverie.

When the dusk has brought the children indoors for the night, I will be sitting outside on the stoop, smoking a cigarette and drinking from a bottle of wine and I will be quiet. Unsettlingly so.

I will be thinking about playing the saddest songs in the world.

Canada, je t'aime...

Canada, je t'aime. Dans toute ta majesté, je m'endors dans tes bras, sûrs enfin de ce que je ne sais pas.

I am in love with you in a way that I cannot describe.

lashings of the old ultra-violence or: the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry...

I found myself this past weekend, after a fairly heavy conversation, wandering the streets of my neighbourhood in what felt like a search for some lashings of the old ultra-violence. All I needed was a bowler hat and a cane and some poor unexpected louse to give a good lashing. Why I was filled with such thoughts, I don't know. I listened to "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" over and over again until I thought my brain would burst. I walked with purpose and agitation. I clutched everything I passed in my hands. I was immensely frustrated and hugely perplexed at a very unexpected situation.

Then the sky got very dark and it started to rain so hard that the old lashings of ultra-violence were turned back at me and I took several pieces of hail to the face. I laughed at myself and finally decided to change the song. I let my mind wander and tried to think things through. Surely none of the ideas proposed had been bad ones, that was true. In fact, most of them had been good ones. But then the doubt set in. But what if it's a Steinbeck novel and our best laid plans leave me killing a mouse and then a lady and we're run out of town before we buy the farm of our dreams? What if it's the Jeffrey Eugenides Virgin Suicides version where my head's already in the oven while you're out warming the car for our getaway?

The hail stopped and the sun came out and I made it home in one piece. My inklings towards the old ultra-violence had passed and I had quelled my Steinbeckian fears momentarily. I was beginning to like the sound of saying "yes" to you, which came as a pleasant surprise, indeed.

if i had a million dollars...

I would buy a van and drive to Mexico and fill it with catrinas. Especially these ones. These are the most beautiful I've ever seen. Anyone looking to drop $800 on me? Pretty, pretty please?

good burns worth writing down...

I would just like to point out that calling someone a "dirt bag" or "dirt sandwich" is way funnier than I remembered. As is giving someone a "knuckle sandwich". Anything in a sandwich is pretty funny, well almost anything. I remember going to Mabel Lake with my dad when I was six and my dad threatened to give his shady friend Barry a knuckle sandwich after Barry cut his thumb off with the axe in a drunken attempt to chop wood. Even at five I thought that shit was pretty funny.

Just like I think toilet papering cars is funny. Sometimes I'm reminded that I'm actually only 13. Or drive-by mooning people. That's pretty funny, too. It's pretty crazy what sorts of inventive shit you can come up with being a youth in Vernon when you were underage and the only liquor stores out there were government owned meaning that you had to plan weeks in advance to get any booze.

Those were the days.

I'll bet you think this post is about you...

Well, it probably is. My mind is still reeling, so how about that?

don't ask me again...

I just gave someone the most selfless advice ever. It took everything I had to do it. Even though it was contrary to every feeling and intention in both my heart and my head. Even though the thought of it makes me want to die.

Don't ask me again, okay? Because I don't think I could tell you the truth again. I don't think I could tell you to do what feels right despite all my selfish delusions.

Et comme le vent il s’en allait. Et moi je suis réveillée. J'étais seule encore.

thank you for the music...

What can I say? Mamma Mia was everything I had hoped for and more! Cheesy "everything in Greece is perfect all the time" set. Check. Soundtrack from my gestation. Check. About ten martinis too many. Check. Mild hangover. Check. Check.

After my parents saw Mamma Mia, my life was not complete according to them, until I had seen it. I put off seeing it in London, knowing that it was coming to Calgary and I knew that if I couldn't see it with my own mother, the next best person, Glenda Ducharme, would gladly accompany me. We had a fabulous time. Anyone who thinks music can't change the world obviously hasn't seen standing room only at the Jubilee, blonde hairs, blue hairs, cell phones, oxygen tanks, all dancing in the aisles, innumerable Dancing Queens thanking ABBA for the music that surprisingly we've all grown to know and love.

An aside, well two asides actually.
1. I have a new found appreciation for my mom and her bookclub aged crew. It takes a will far far stronger than the one I currently possess to be able to sip more than one dry vodka martini without making a face and running for the toilet.
2. Waking up at 7:30am at a mom-aged sleep over to Ray Charles crooning all throughout the house, fresh squeezed juice and croissants for breakfast. This is bliss, people.

If I could, I'd retire today.

barking up the wrong tree...

Where to begin? I'm sure there's lots of necessary preamble here, but I'd much rather get straight to the point for a change. So, lately in this Beatles class I've been writing down my thoughts and questions as I go along in hopes of later discussing them with someone else who sees their relevance and resolving my numerous conundrums. The first person I asked is my go-to person. He is the person I take anything that I ponder to. I always just assume I guess that he has all the answers. Combine this unrealistic expectation with my unspeakable fear of being found out that I'm actually secretly a complete ignoramus about everything, and what do you get? You get me wound up about nothing before bed unable to sleep, persisting to some unwritten breaking point that this irrelevant issue must get resolved, and RIGHT NOW.

Then Megan came home. I asked her one simple question, to which she replied quite simply, "Well, if that had happened, the world would be a completely different place." We continued to debate the issue back and forth for a half hour or so and then I started talking about painting and her face glazed over (hopefully from lack of sleep as opposed to my grueling conversation) and something struck me.

All the cliche bullshit for the most part is true. You can't please all the people all of the time, despite my desperate attempts to do so. One cannot be expected to be well versed/even remotely interested in exactly the same things as someone else. The best we can do is find some common ground where a forum for responsible, informed waxing poetic is encouraged and very much appreciated but also where unsure but eager spectators can gain their footing and become participants in whatever capacity possible. This is the ideal set-up.

Why I didn't look to Megan for the answer to the John/Paul question from the onset is beyond me. It's questions like those that she absolutely adores from me. It's her shared passion for music that makes us such a right-on duo. She didn't even pause when she answered. She came out with both dukes up and socked me right in the eye and I liked it.

bats in the belfry...

It's a tricky question, this notion of ego-stroking. I'm not adverse to doing it, in fact quite the opposite, but it comes as such a shock when the person you'd least expect it from, fishes for it. The appropriate response would be a simple "yes" but instead, good ol' L-diggs with the proverbial foot-in-mouth disease, stammers and makes a mess of it.

Once again, I, the Queen of Verbose, was at a loss for words. What I should have said, wanted to say but couldn't was: of course, without a doubt, absolutely. I would have followed that with a "you're amazing" or a "your brilliance astounds me" but I can't say these things in person, let alone over a phone or internet connection. Does that make me mean them any less?

Do you remember when we shared tea and you told me your dreams and I had nothing to say? I was trying to remember the day as exactly and as perfectly as I could. I wanted to remember how the sunshine hit your face and how your eyes crinkle when you laugh because when would I see them again? I wanted to hide the feelings of awe and pride that must have been written all over my face. I must have appeared a fool but it doesn't matter because I will remember that day forever.

I wish I could have responded appropriately but I was too stunned. Sometimes humility just takes me by surprise and it was only upon heavier footing based in feigned modesty that I was again able to catch my breath.

wednesday malaise...

Here we are, Wednesday, the proverbial hump of the week and it feels like it. For the first time in a while I realize that the guise of "Summer" does not always mean what we build it up to mean. Yes, don't get me wrong, there is dancing the light fantastic and socializing more than one does during the school year, but the weekdays are still the weekdays and the weekend still can't come soon enough and though September is a cruel mistress, I miss her all the same. And so, where does that leave me? Work wise, interviewing and recruitment has almost come to a close, reference checks are underway (and are undoubtedly the bane of my existence), training is done (for now) and the real test comes this weekend when my program starts in realtime and the children all come out to play. So, what's with the malaise? I suppose it's just a case of the Wednesdays. I just got my pre-trip package for Spain and travel is all I can really think about right now. I hate that three month calm before the storm. Inevitable though it may be. It makes me wonder how much time is spent preparing to live versus time spent actually living. Don't feel sorry for this louse though. Wednesday precedes Thursday which in Universityland is the first day of the unofficial weekend celebrations. I think I might go somewhere exotic this weekend. Maybe the spa (too broke, scratch that) or maybe to fish with my dad. I would actually really like that last option. Fishing. With. My. Dad. I know. It must still be Wednesday.

ummm, gross or: my house looks like fear and loathing...

I came home today to find that my house looked like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. There was shit everywhere, wine glasses, hooka pipes, ash all over the floor and everything smelled skunky. Megan was nowhere to be found to throw the grapefruit in the bathtub when White Rabbit peaked.

It wasn't even a ruckus night. It was low-key. I'm reminded that it's summer and this is how we do in summer time. So, why am I so spooked about the whole thing? Why am I getting all neurotic and needy? I'm over the post-vacay "where is this all going? why are we all here? the grass is always greener" routine and now it is time to embrace full-heartedly the gong that awaits. No more neurosis. No thinking about Spain until July. No waxing poetic about days of old, of loves lost or absent members of flavours of weeks gone by.

It's time to get obliterated, as Towers would say, on whatever we can get our hands on. Time to drink in the sunshine, play in the grass, paint all the pictures I keep in my head and move on from the past year's hang-ups. This sounds like New Year's Resolutions to me. Perhaps the calendar year really starts with the June Monsoon...

No point in mentioning these bats, I thought. Poor bastard will see them soon enough.

the dumbo sessions...

If Marco is out there somewhere in Cyberspace-Landia, reading blogs while avoiding work, Marco: This one is for you.

I'm sorry I passed out during Dumbo. I was zonked and thank you for just telling me what happens so that I don't have to google it or watch it again. Also, sorry about the brick/marble-filled pillow. I should already know better than to offer it to guests but the reaction still cracks me up every time. I needed the Dumbo sessions, and I needed a quasi-objective male perspective on the shambles that are my life right now. Well, that's a little dramatic, it's not really in shambles but you know what I mean. I also apologize for the chalky/ashy sheesha. Not a great first impression to make with sheesha but you get the gist.

I am so happily surprised that the Mexi-crew still reunites every so often. It's really good to have made an unexpected crew and that we haven't "killed eachother" as Voldemort would say. All in all, though it took us a year to get it together, the Dumbo sessions were a huge success. Low-key, relatively good clean fun (well, not really but who's going to tell?) and another episode at Denny's for the books.

Who's down for Robin Hood, say, this time next year?

Ticket to ride...

Why do I feel like this song is so sad? Sad lyrics but no so sad music. I'm confused but I like it. I had a ticket to ride... Was I sad? Yes, for portions of the trip, I was. Was living with you bringing me down? A little bit, yes.

And Day Tripper. Sunday driver, oh yes! To Cochrane for icecream? Check. One-way ticket, yeah! What a solid guitar riff and the tambourine is a nice touch! It took you so long to find out!

Going to nail the midterm!

why the bridge is often the best part...

Mostly because it has more variety, musically and lyrically, than the verses. This isn't always the case and we can't make stark generalizations like that, so we won't. But, on "No Reply" off "Beatles for Sale," the bridge is wicked good and guaranteed it's on the exam. Key change, check! Unexpected additional D phrase, check! More noise, check! This reminds me of a riddle that Paul used tell me about what a nose, a guitar and song have in common: all have a bridge. Silly, I know. But it took me a while.

Speaking of bridges... Riding home on my bike from the universidad after school/work I can smell summer under the bridges. When you're on a bike you go fast enough that you can only smell the scent of the river on the air, not the urine that you'd smell under the bridge if you were just standing there. Being under the bridge creates a pocket where the air blows and can't escape and the smell is just as incredible as one's first time to the ocean or the overwhelming smell of chlorine at a Las Vegas pool. This city is exquisite right now. Sunny, 31 degrees without a cloud in the sky. The river is all shades of green and blue and the city skyline takes my breath away. The geese just chill and shit wherever they feel like it. People are out and about which is a trait that I usually don't associate with this city. Cans glint in the air in peoples' rafts as they crack their river beers.

Summer came just like that. I admit that I'm getting dumber everyday that passes without some sort of academic class to attend (the Beatles doesn't really count) but the air is fresh and relatively clean. I'm going to miss Calgary. I admit it. It's been a surprisingly quick 4 year courtship. I didn't think the breakup would be bad but it might be. Ask me again when it snows in like, a week.

no loitering or the "new" sign in kensington...

If you are currently reading this, firstly scroll down and read the previous post as it is a gooder. Then you can come back and read this one:

I love the plethora of new signs outside CPU and the Roasterie in Kensington. Seriously, maybe if you write in really big letters "NO: loitering, congregating, littering, hanging around, causing a motherfuckinriot" and post it several places the misspent youth will gather their things, wash off their makeup, have a wash of their greasy "all-ages-show" mops and get real. Not likely. Especially when the space there, a little raised garden bed with small trees for shade, surrounded by benches, is perfect for passing-out on and for keeping the hackie-sack from reaching the ground.

I went there tonight and sure enough, there were the youths all standing around the sign, loitering now with an ever more fierce congregating, cause a motherfuckingriot agenda than ever before. This is a shining example of useful public policy that they no doubt came up with at a Council meeting at the West Hillhurst Sunnyside Community Centre.

Applause.

And Calgary Transit is striking, so I'm told, on Friday. I may just not go into work at all. Stay tuned.

hedge trimmer: the lightsaber's distant cousin...

I would like to point out that our hedge trimmer operates as I would imagine a lightsaber does, only it's not cordless. However, when yielded properly with the ample extra cord grasped in my palm, I was able to shape the hedges with surprising finesse and agility, as if I were fighting off the many forces of darkness which exist in my current life situation. Unfortunately it jammed and started making a really awful noise and I started swearing on the lawn. My jedi moment was fleeting but awe-inspiring.

The true purpose of this post though is about music and its ability to change the world. One listener or one lowly down-and-out song writer/composer at a time. When I think about some of the greatest songs ever written, the events that inspired them and the repercussions they evoked, I can say without any doubt that music can change the world. Or maybe just our perception of it. A boy loses his mother to cancer, your young son accidentally falls out a 53 story window, a family friend reaches out to his best friend's son as he can see the boy is distraught by the effects of divorce, doing one more hit of heroin before promising yourself you'll get sober, praying to a god that you never before believed in to get you out of Vietnam. Music was there through it all and we survived.

Every time you hear doo-wop or skiffle or blues, remember that people once had to hole up in basements and listen to it secretly because it was seen as being too devilish, too defiant, too dangerous to be played in public. Music brought people together in church, in jail, in captivity and continues to do so.

Don't knock your parents' or even your grandparents' music, okay? Where would we be without Chuck Barry or Muddy Waters? There would be no Elvis, no Beatles, no Clapton, no Stones, no Beyonce, there would only be silence and poor attempts at soundproofing basements. And you certainly wouldn't be rocking out at the Hifi to remixed versions of "Mr. Postman" and "You Can't Hurry Love".

And lastly, Happy Hanukkah everyone!

rainy day dream away...

Last night I had a dream that I was in love with a jazz musician. No one in particular, but everyone at the same time. By the hazy light at the Vernon Jazz Club and the sweet sounds of his trumpet echoing out into the night, I smoked a cigarette and tried to appear indifferent but my foot kept tapping. I knew that by the light of day that we were nothing, has-beens, never-will-be's, but I didn't care.

He looked like Buddy Holly and I was in love. He wore a silly hat and his pants were too big. He was constantly pushing up his glasses. He could play the sax, the drums, the trumpet and he could sing. Oh, could he sing. His voice was sweet and slow and though I pretended not to be transfixed, I was drunk like a bee on pollen. Off stage he was awkward and neurotic but on stage he was cocky and yet still slightly laissez-faire.

I danced alone, wishing he was beside me but this was what happened when you fell in love with a musician. I knew the morning would come and he'd smell like stale cigarettes and beer and he wouldn't want to get a day job and I wouldn't blame him.

I awoke from this dream and his face had disappeared. Lost, like the name of your first roommate in college whose face you swore you'd always remember but now can't, on the tip of your tongue. He was sweet and I loved him. It was raining outside and then it was time to get up.

home, where my love lies waiting silently for me...

In true Simon and Garfunkel fashion I am Vernon-bound tomorrow bright and early. Though I have had my fill of planes as of late, I am not complaining one bit about going to see my parents.

My my, how things can change with time. Five years ago I was "coming home" from Mexico. I use quotations because "home" was a relative term back then and "home" for me meant where ever my mom had decided to hang her hat (and her many objets d'art) as she'd packed up and sold our house, divorced my step-dad and moved into Jamie's house. I came "home" to a new home, a new family and a new life, for the second time in my short life.

Now that new "home" has become the home without quotation marks. It's become the place of serenity and comfort and stability that I yearned for as an angsty teenager. I go home and I know exactly what to expect (depending on the particular folliage of any given season, mind you). My mom will tell me jokes and make me laugh like I didn't know possible. She, Jamie, the dogs and I will listen to jazz and watch sunsets together and I will remember why I am the luckiest girl in the whole wide world (because of said "home" finally being just a home) and I will feel refreshed and invigorated and most of all: loved.

All of this begs the question though, what will another five years bring?

painting the roses red...

I'm back again where I started. Back at a job, back at school. Things feel slightly different but surprisingly the same. The seasons pass like fireflies, flitting elusively with the turning of the calendar's pages.

I have a lot to say but the words come out all wrong. My biggest fear is that I love something more than I had planned and try as I might, I cannot shake it. What of this city? What of this season? Why do things get so higildy-pigildy in the Spring time?

Am I just trying to paint the roses red? Is this an attempt at something impossible? When I say that I'm certain, not judge-jury certain, but certain-ish, does that count? And do all the cliches of loving and losing and which is better and all that, do they ring true or we agree to simply call our mistakes 'experience' and tear our hearts from our sleeves and move on? Can a hurt so profound still be immune from 'regret' status?

"Hey Jane... get me off this crazy thing... called love."

c'mon l-diggs or a list of don'ts...

In an attempt to pull it together (it being the perverbial "it" of life, love and why are we all here?) I've come up with a list of don'ts that I am currently dabbling in that are not making the pulling-it-together process much easier. Without further adieu, do not under any circumstances undertake the following:
1. Listen to the playlist entitled "Criers" and if you must listen to it, DO NOT INDULGE AT WORK!
2. Do not utter words like "I love you" or "I miss you" under your breath to no one in particular.
3. Do not check facebook more than twice in any given afternoon.
4. Do not start another painting until the Elton John one is finished.
5. Do not quantify things like emotions, this process is a recipe for disaster and disappointment.

Instead:
1. Curse the photocopier at work for only working when the people who could replace it are around.
2. Call your mother, she has all the answers and talks of all the fish in the sea.
3. Turn that fucking playlist off. Seriously. Anything called "Criers" can only be meant for dark days and we're not doing those anymore.
4. Schedule your volunteer interviews and plan training. That should take two weeks. Seriously. Do it.

Oh diggs, you're only a mess when you want to be.

a brief mention of bsd 2007...

This does deserve honourable mention for being a truly exceptional gong this year: Towers outdid himself. Allan Bailey outdid himself. I outdid myself. Well played by all.

Next up: Hannukah in May and the 'Pede where I again try, this time by honest means, to obtain a giant Bart Man.

lest we not play that old, haggard game again...

It's been a month since I last blogged. I guess that's bad. I guess I'm not as fervent a blogger as I once thought. It has been a lovely month. I so enjoyed my sojourn to Ireland, Scotland and England and am happy to have returned safe and sound to the homeland.

I am pledging to myself to stop playing this haggard game we play of "oh weren't these the best times when?" or "how I wish it were this other time/place/life situation" or some variation of those. I refuse this retrospective 20/20 thing. It just makes us sad and miss what is happening before our very eyes. Would we have done anything differently, if given the opportunity? Probably not. Maybe we would have cried more, kissed more, laughed more, drank more, smoked more, prayed more, loved more. Maybe not. But we'll never know.

Even today's epic journey home, the Circle line of the tube being closed, the screaming child on the airplane (when I had no earplugs) could not take away from the joy of being home, seeing familiar faces and knowing that I had been missed, being the centre of attention for a moment, eating at Tazza, being up for long hours and knowing that I am living. This is living. Every day is precious. I've never been more inlove and infatuated with life and all its complexities than I am today and this is okay.

What more of a sign do you need than two people both being afraid of the slimy depths of under the sea?

a cyber flag at half mast...

Nothing is more bone chilling and heart wrenching than seeing the flag at half mast. I would like to raise a cyber flag at half mast for Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. who died on April 11, 2007 at the ripe age of 84. He is one of my favourite authors and I heard word of his death just as I started re-reading Slaughterhouse Five this week. Strange.

It's sad when a brilliant mind leaves our humble planet for the starry sky, but I guess that's just the way she goes.

You should read him. If you have already done so, read him again.

Sometimes ordinary is extraordinary...

Ever have those days where they're just sorta blah, sorta meh? Nothing goes wrong but nothing exceptionally right happens?

The weather is dreary but not worth complaining about. You bicker about the same old things, like esoteric fax technology at work, only to find someone has bought a new one. But I liked the old one, it didn't work, nor will the new one as I'm convinced that faxing isn't really real (but that's another matter entirely).

You have a conversation with someone and it's about nothing. Just more facts to add to the files. Things to remember, things that make that person seem real when they aren't around. Words that form the wrinkles between their knuckles, stories that fit where their freckles fall on their face. You exchange saluations and then goodbyes like it's just no big deal. And it isn't really.

But that's just the thing, is that with the right people, even the ordinary becomes extraordinary. And so when Megan and I wax poetic about the Stones vs. the Beatles, or Matt tells me about roads and maps and trains, or when Tony talks about anything politics/ his family vacations, I am utterly, blissfully, extraordinarily content.

Like when you're half asleep in the sun and have the whole day to read the news.

Kevin Costner, you moldy pimp...

Today, despite only going on four hours sleep, was a good day.

Two of my four classes are now over. Papers written and handed in. Not well crafted and brain is mush with two more papers due this week. However, I now feel that the end is actually in sight, not just wishful thinking.

It is raining in Calgary. But don't get excited. It is not the harsh and purifying rain that clears up and then there's a rainbow and it's warm and it takes your breath away and you feel alive. No, this is the rain before the snow, before more snow and I may in fact be mistaken about this. The sound I hear could very well be snowflakes so large that they sound like drops of water. Oh well, I'm leaving soon.

Today my seminar class ended and I did my first last class Den with the prof (in this case she is a PhD student, but whatevsies) and only a small handfull of the class. We discussed the movie that we watched for our last day reward, Thirteen Days, about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Unfortunately Kevin Costner was the protagonist and the plot had quite a few inconsistencies with the actual event but I was on the edge of my seat and biting my nails. Turns out that blockade is sort of interesting. Kevin Costner however, how was he ever the hunk of the 80s? Mention Costner to my mom and she swoons. WTF.

Also turns out that I am again one of the youngest in the class and despite four years of undergrad almost completed, I feel like I am in some ways still a first year. Who am I kidding though right? I guess the time has finally come where I have to buck up and do the work. Even if the 94-98 range for an A in my faculty is definitely not happening .

And no, Towers, it was not called "Dances with Indians".

He says he's not scared and I just natter on...

I feel the need to clarify something.

When faced with the idea of 14 days of sharing my company, he says that he isn't scared. "Not scared?" I think to myself. Not scared? What's the matter with you? I obviously implied that after that much time together we'd get sick of one another and want to "kick the other one out". What I wanted to say but couldn't get my feelings together was that I'm afraid that after 14 days together I'll realize something that I've already feared, through our previous conversations, that I don't want to face the next 14 days without you, the next fourteen hours, the next fourteen minutes... and then comes the idea of doing something crazy... and all this world really needs is a little more crazy from me...

If it makes any difference, I'd take an instant, just long enough to see you smile and to hear you say something outrageous, over nothing at all.

Regardless, it's going to be 14 days to remember. That's for certain.

eulogy for vernontowne...

Shimmering golden
Kalamalka lake beckons
Birds and bees alike
The heat makes people lazy
Even the act of perspiring is too much
A tropical, manufactured

scent lulls on the breeze
while
In other distant parts of our vast nation
The prairies flood
And in the Shield the summer smog kills
Children and adults alike
We are far removed from all of that
Remaining in a golden bliss
of breezy dusk and fireworks
To celebrate the fact that we're alive,
have free elections and drive our parents cars

Your clothes stick to your skin
The water is warm and feels like urine
And your mouth
and now
my mouth
tastes salty

I'm breathless

An apology...

Towers, I'm sorry I laughed when you barfed on the Tilt-a-whirl tonight. I'm even more sorry that I told you to try and keep it in your mouth. Or that I told you to buck up when you said you were feeling nauseous.

It's just that I love rides and I'd never seen anyone actually barf on one and we were the only people on the tilt-a-whirl and I thought you were just being dramatic. Turns out you actually got sick.

And I got the nervous laughs and I couldn't get it together and I used the rest of the tickets on the Gravatron (which was much more provocative the second time round) and I laughed and am still laughing.

Barfing is funny when it's not you who is doing it. I am sorry and I hope you've washed out your mouth. I give you full permission to laugh the next time that happens to me. I can't believe we found a Midway in this disgusting butthole of a city. And went and saw the Nosehill Fire. What a night.

I am not the holiday inn...

This is a brief interlude from the story of the ship to post some outrageous news: I am not the holiday inn.

Today my wonderful father calls me at work and asks to stay with me for the next three days as something, as usual, has fucked up his plans and he has no place to live for the next month. Now I love my father, don't get the wrong idea, but this was the last straw. Considering the multitude of times this man has let me down, left me to sleep the night on a park bench, told me whilest drunk to go fuck myself, borrowed money and never paid it back and other surly activities, riddle me just what incentive would I have to go any further out of my way for him? Obviously he is broke, and did not suggest how he planned to eat/shower/sleep/be merry during said three days, which I'm sure would involve him ordering me to buy him beer for his troubles or allowing him to smoke in my car, which I highly disapprove of. Inevitably 3 days would turn into 3 weeks and so on and so forth...

Long story short: I said no. It was the second hardest thing I've ever done with him (the first was standing up for myself earlier this year after the "go fuck yourself" incident). I felt like a monster and I obsessed about the image of him sleeping in the street somewhere and it's snowing and he has yet another stroke and it's my fault.

It's not my fault. I'm not the Holiday Inn, and that's final. I earn my own dollahs to reside at the Fortress of Smoothitude and for once, I'm entitled not to share, not even a little bit.

Our first detour...

As luck would, or wouldn't have it I suppose, we ran out of drink early on in our voyage and Somnuk had taken to drinking whatever he could get his hands on. I had not yet acclimatised to the constant lull and lurch of being on deck all day long and I feared if we did not stop soon for supplies that it would not be long until Somnuk jumped ship.

The Colonel strongly heeded that Port Descansa Paradiso would be the best place for us to throw the anchor. I didn't really know any better, seeing as he was the map man, so we tacked one last time and headed ashore. Not five minutes had we put our feet down on land, and Somnuk had found a watering hole. It was a seedy place, a seedy place indeed. I believe it was called the Bonasera.

The Colonel tied Derf up outside, much to Derf's chagrin, and we took our seats. The sun had set hours ago and the evening was upon us. A fine femme fatale by the name of Magdalena had made our acquaintance and one thing led to another and before we knew it, we had one more to add to our crew. This young lady had several rather unsavoury talents, talents that would not become apparent until a while after we had left the port, but she was a good addition to our crew. So far she had wowed us with her ability to clap her flat feet, and when she did so she mildly resembled a seal, and we figured we had nothing to lose by bringing her along.

As the sun came up, we realized we'd slept on the beach and all walked a little worse because of it. It was time to stock up and get the hell out of there.

Looking for a crew...

Once I got the money lined up for the ship, I placed an add for a crew. I had secured the funds from several friends in high places, well versed in rhetoric and whimsy. I longed for the comfort of my old friend, whom I had recently let go, but knew that for this voyage I need[ed] some objective parties.

The process of choosing the crew was pretty easy. Somnuk was a crafty native-american fellow who was savy with a fishing pole and could read the seas like a book. When the water bubbled and blackened, he knew how to throw the sails and in which direction to tack to keep us from capsizing. He had a penchant for drink but this was easily cured with the addition of the Colonel whose name we couldn't remember but he resembled the KFC man so that's what we called him. The Colonel had a dog named Derf (Fred backwards) whom he insisted upon bringing onto the ship. The Colonel had traveled far and wide and was a great writer of maps. He could site our longitude and latitude at any given location and could read the stories of the stars. As for me, I had a vision for the voyage, and that was the most important thing on the ship.

And so Somnuk, the Colonel, Derf and I set sail. I had gotten used to the taste of salt on my lips and my fair skin would soon be leathery. Exactly what we were looking for, we weren't sure. Freedom. Liberty. Honour. Independence. That was a place to start.

I'm afraid it's out to sea for me...

We sat together, you and I, on the big hill in Bridgeland overlooking the city. It was mid-afternoon and so warm that we could sit without sitting on our coats because the ground was dry. You strummed your banjo and I hummed a tune on the fly.

The city was beautiful, up there on Drury Avenue. We saw a jack rabbit and I swore it was the biggest darn rabbit I'd ever seen. And it was.

Some questions have no easy answers. Sometimes all we want to hear is nothing. Sometimes we don't want to be told what we already know which is that all signs point to heartache, no matter how you shake it.

He told me it's all alright on ice and I told him it's out to sea for me... We shook hands, parted ways and I swore I'd never forget him. I set sail for the high seas and didn't look back.

Beauty in the break down...

We're sitting across the couch from one another and neither of us has the answers the other is looking for. The who-yas outside are making a ruckus that we can hear from our house and we're left wondering why we're paying the rent when they're partying in the hood. T'was the same issue with the mormons though, she reminds me.

We're not talking. It's alright though. Because maybe we've talked it out. And maybe the answer is that the best times of our lives are right now and we refuse to acknowledge them in the moment they occur because hindsight is 20/20 and we're still young and think we know better.

We're on the cusp of something so big here than neither of us can put it to words. So we don't. We don't acknowledge that we're scared and we'll never be the same again as we are right now. Don't change, I beg her silently. Don't change for anyone.

When I look back, I will have remembered this moment for what it was. Someone far wiser than me once said that there's beauty in the break down. Never have truer words been uttered.

For lack of a better word(s)...

The procrastination station is in full swing here at the Fortress of Smoothitude. I'm sure there are many things to discuss, blog-style, like the pending vacays and the manic weather we're having but I'd rather start the list of best lines ever. I'm not going to restrict it to one given medium and the list is in no particular order. I'll be updating it as necessary I suppose but this will do in the meantime.

1. "Mama oooo- (any way the wind blows) I don't wanna die, I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all."
-Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen. Who hasn't felt like that, junior high style?
2. "And jesus, he wants to go to Venus, Leaving levon far behind, Take a balloon and go sailing, While levon, levon slowly dies."
-Levon, Elton John.
3. "And these children that you spit on, As they try to change their worlds, Are immune to your consultations, They're quite aware of what they're going through."
- Changes, David Bowie.
4. "open your eyes look around you, fuck what you heard, you were lied to"
-Don't Call Me Whitney Bobby, Islands.
5. "The man says, 'Get out of here
I'll tear you limb from limb.'
I said, 'You know they refused Jesus, too'
He said, 'You're not Him.
Get out of here before I break your bones
I ain't your pop.'
I decided to have him arrested
And I went looking for a cop."
-Bob Dylan's 115th dream, Bob Dylan
6. "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
-Animal Farm, George Orwell.
7. "but remember when i moved in you and the holy dove was moving too and every breath we drew was hallelujah"
-Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen.

That's enough for one day.

You can't always get what you want...

Strange title for someone who isn't exactly enamored with the Rolling Stones, but we'll let it slide. I've always had this life philosophy that you really do sometimes just get what you need, but only when looking at it in retrospect. At the time life seems like a real douchebag and nothing goes your way and the everyday seems just do damn mundane and why can't things be different? But then, somehow, something presents itself that you'd never expected and often it's better than what you had hoped and well, you just wish you hadn't worried so much about it in the first place. My quandary is this, is this a universal truth for everyone, or is this just something that has worked for me?

Many things in my life that at the time were real downers turned out way better after the initial disappointment of the expected didn't pan out. For example, in grade 12 when I wanted to be the lead of this girl who commits suicide in a play for the drama festival and instead was cast as the Ring Master of the Circus of Life. In the end the role had a lot more depth and was slightly more up my alley, not to mention the sequence and top hat I got to wear. Or in grade 12 when I initially was shortlisted for my exchange and had originally wanted to go to France. Instead, I was picked at the last minute to go to Mexico, where I picked up a language that I am in love with, and packed my bags and didn't go to UBC and instead came to U of C (and I don't want to even imagine what it would be like if I hadn't come here). Or the time I got shortlisted again to be a CA in Residence. Initially I was heartbroken about not getting hired but in the end Lacey and I came in late in the summer and turned out to be great friends.

So where is this all going? Right now I have a few people in my life who just don't seem to be getting what they want out of life. I want to tell them that life will inevitably give them what they need, when they need it, but I can't promise them anything concrete. I can't promise myself anything concrete.

But I've always just closed my eyes and jumped in and the self-doubt and anxiety last only a few seconds until it's a simple free-fall and it's blissful and it's everything I had never expected. So hang in there comrades, please...

Stealing batteries from smoke alarms...

I might not make it to summer. This I've realized. I may get swallowed by a giant book of Peruvian such-and-such and never return. I'm cranky and pouting and sitting on the top of my metaphorical suitcase wishing I could close it.

I don't remember this ever feeling this intense. The type of intense where I chew the inside of my mouth until it bleeds. The type of intense where I don't press snooze and instead I just pull the batteries out of the clock. The type of intense where the days of old seem like the best ever days that I fear will never return, even when I should know otherwise. I just want to close the suitcase and not unload the laundry for months. I keep reviewing my email and reviewing my photos and no where was there any evidence of the pending cold war. I didn't see it coming and now I'm holding nukes in both hands while my toes are curled and telling me to just give in, calm down and cool my jets.

This type of existential thought does us no good. But I do it anyways and no one steps in to stop me. Fine. I'm a big girl and I could pout all day long.

All You Need is Love...

A few things dawned on me today that I thought I should share:

1. Julio Cortazar's "Noche Boca Arriba" is a tricky bastard and it was only today, after twice having studied this short story, that I understood that the main character does in fact die and it is the Indio telling the story, not the man on the motorcycle. Well played, you tricky bastard, it's that sort of thing that makes it a classic.

2. "All you need is love..."- J. Lennon. I know, I'd heard it a million times but maybe I've been too pessimistic or indifferent to the realize the strength of this statement. If we can put our faith in the supernatural or the spiritual, two causes that very well may not exist, then surely putting our faith in our fellow human beings is a worthwhile gamble. The swiss watch simplicity of maybe love is enough came as a sweeping, existential, utterly overwhelming and transcendently beautiful idea that I really hadn't considered until now. So, John boy, as usual I applaud you.

3. Joanna Newsom: Why is your voice so Bart Simpson-esque and yet so heavenly? And with a full, all most classical sounding orchestra behind you, you exceed my expectations once again.

It truly has been a day of realizations, greatly encouraged by the sunshine. A life that only a few days ago was utterly unbearable short of a Badlands-esque homicide spree across the prairies has become now sunshine, warm breeze, Malibu and Good News for People Who Love Bad News (definitely a summer classic album) weather. How lovely indeed.

Two thumbs way down...

Alright, I admit it. Towers and I have officially mobilized the terror that is the "We have to see this movie, it looks absolutely terrible" club. As of this evening we have seen the two worst movies all year, as I am refusing to see the third: Snakes on a Plane. I like that he and I can lower the bar together and talk jive and laugh at grossly inappropriate jokes and then pretend that we didn't really find them funny.

On a completely unrelated note. I return to this issue of naming, it is something that I obviously have a bit of an obsession with. Language is a real bitch sometimes and when saying nothing is as potent as the anticipated response, then I'm really left in a bind. And so, Towers, if you succumb to reading blogs, let me just say: Though I'm sorry I'm acting like a girl, I do believe that's what I am entitled to do given the circumstances. Your silence can only be interpreted one way which is absolutely ridiculous to think that you'd be left out in any capacity so grow up.

PS. From the second worst movie of the year, "Hey dude, I just had the best dream." Response: "Hey, you're driving dude." Thank you Matt for humouring me tonight.

Facebook isn't real assholes...

Just in case you were wondering, FACEBOOK ISN'T REAL!!! No I haven't lost my teeth or grown a mullet. I can't believe I'm getting flack for putting up my favourite disgusting photo of all time on my facebook profile. People I haven't talked to in years getting up in arms about it. Honestly, if you know me at all, that photo more than sums it up. I know that my sense of humour is sick and mildly offensive. That's fine. Consider yourselves warned.

Facebook isn't real. Putting slutty/I look soooo good/hammered/pantsless photos on your facebook profile is lame. No one cares that you we're sooo drunk and managed to look super sultry and coy (which I assure you, you didn't really) or that you are super artsy and really don't care all that much about the great photo that you managed 'by accident'. And so to set the record straight, I have changed my photo to that of the very person who claimed to have hated the previous photo. So there. That's right, I'm mature.

This time I haven't lost all of my teeth, I have instead turned into Ricky from Trailer Park Boys and am sporting the most fashionable of Ravine-haircuts. Take that Bucket Richardson. Take that.

Symbolismo...

I deal with symbolism everyday on a regular basis. Among the Spanish Poetry, Short Story and Afro-Peruvian Slave Narrative classes I'm taking, all we do is talk about the implied, the indirect, the symbolic. Let me just say that a little directness never hurt anyone. However, I must admit that when the prof asked me to "profundizar" my statement about the silencing of the "black voice" in the works we've read so far, I took it like a dog to a frisbee and ran with it. I went on about how history is written by the winners, the oppressors and the elite and in many cases pertaining to our class, the white male. Continuing on with incredible profundity, I discussed the importance of reaffirming and reclaiming this voice as a part of restructing and redefining one's cultural and ancestral identity and validity and to a certain extent the collective memory of a given country. The use of symbolism is just one strategy of the reclamation process, which simultaneously resurrects the past while cementing its presence in the future. This applies directly to the case of Peru, who had the greatest number of imported slaves in all of the Latin American countries at the time (as it was the centre of the S. American colonial universe) menos Brazil (which is a different matter entirely) and whose population of the ancestral slave body goes virtually unacknowledged, entirely sin voz until very recently.

That was a tangent, but I do have a point. Symbols take many forms and in a world where words define us, symbols remain the quiet, passive representatives of the things we simply cannot, or will not, put into words. Whether it is a house key to your lover's home or a lock-shaped icon that allows one to read otherwise censured blog entries, these are all symbols of one thing or another.

Where the tricky part lies, my friends, is in the interpretation of said symbols. That is an art in and of itself. In the symbol lies the intrigue, which is what we all love the best and now we're back where we started.

You be Jerry...

And I'll be Elaine. And we'll laugh about who will be George. I'm so stressed out right now and yet I do know a few things for sure: This is all going to work out. You'll find a job and I'll get my visa and Towers will meet us somewhere. Megan will get a big promotion and it will finally stop snowing here. And the road trip and maybe even Berlin will happen. These are things I know for sure.

We were meant to build Fort Europa together. That I also know for sure.

All the Promises I Never Made…

I never promised many things. I feel the need to reiterate that, mostly for myself, but for the masses as they stand now. Why am I constantly plagued by self doubt? I never called myself an academic or an intellectual. I would never be so bold or crass to assume those titles. I would never express my dreams and aspirations of being prime minister or winning the Nobel Prize, except when slurring my confessions to Whitney, at Paul's 21st birthday party, in Fred and Linda's kitchen on a night that would forever in my mind remind me of what, if I was more of a loafer, could have been. But even then I did not make any bones about not being a grade A loafer. I don't consider myself a music snob or an arts connoisseur or a book junkie. I know a few things about mixing colours, a few things about poetic language, a few words of spanish and french and occasionally I do a mean parallel park and a mean banana pancake. Sometimes I think I know a bit about politics and would even go so far as to say I was mildly religious, but that's about it.

I want to feel like this four year sojourn has been a meaningful one. Just because I've chosen to express it in different ways and rather than accumulate a massive book list, I've instead kept the majority of my leisure reads out from the library for almost three years now (and since I have such horrible taste, only one of the 40 I have out had a hold put on it that I had to return). I dressed up as an indian and played drunken cowboys and indians with Megan in my first year at Chez Cascade 444 and got wrecked in a rental car with someone's mom on the way to being hypnotized at the Sexpo. I have repeatedly been known to build forts and not take them down for days. I have helped three underage kids evade arrest for spraying eachother with bear mase and have attempted to steal a huge stuffed Bartman from the Stampede and then beat the Stampede Cop with it. I have sacrificed many types of fruit produce to outlandish causes and ran with scissors on numerous occasions.

I've never pretended to have class or wit or intellect. I've never promised to be someone I'm not. And yet, I still feel like I have to justify the fact that sometimes I act like an asshole, or a 9 year old, or just a plain fool. My intentions were good, not that I ever promised they would be.

I can promise however that it won't be pretty when you see me dancing in the LJs to my dad's old records, waxing poetic (something I am in fact VERY good at) about an inevitably bullshit cause (that I think could change the world) but you will know, without a doubt, that this is me and I've never pretended otherwise, and that I was glad you were here to share the moment with me.

When the Woody Allen Strikes...

Where will you be when the Woody Allen strikes? Will you be alone in your kitchen, rocking out to the Beatles on vinyl, making homemade pizza, dancing in your longjohns? What will happen when the oh-so-familiar Woody Allen self doubt, that you've for so long been fighting off, worms its way back into your brain? When you wonder about how your life is going to play out? If you're going to make a good mother/sister/wife/professional/human being? If your life is going to change someone else's. If you're ever going to be successful or sought-after. What song reminds people of you? Where do you see yourself in a year/5/10 years? Am I going to finish the semestre? Could I ever create something as beautiful as someone else? Am I happy? Am I fulfilled? Is there anything right now that I would change if I could?

When the Woody Allen blues strike, just hope you're not alone and that there are people around who care about you and love you enough to assure you of the things that no one can really know for sure. Eventually I found that I was content where I was and that it would all play out in the end.

Someone attempt to explain this...

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen (Religious Version, 1984)

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah

This song will play at my wedding, my children's' births and weddings, and my death. Only Leonard Cohen could compose something that could be classified as the world's best funeral/wedding/birth/death song. Not even in my wildest dreams would I attempt to take credit for this one. PS> Check out the Sexy Version, circa 1988.

Things I Wish I Could Take Credit For...

Who am I kidding? In my dreams, I do take credit for the following:

-The Big Lebowski (my credits include writing, directing, casting, soundtrack composition)
-The Royal Tenenbaums (same credits as above)
-Eleanor Rigby (mostly Paul McCartney, but really it was me)
-A Case of You (mostly Joni, but really it was me)
-Candle in the Wind (mostly Bernie and Elton, but really my contribution was the greatest)
-Catcher in the Rye (enough said)
-The Graduate (see above)

I'm sure there are more, but those are the few on my mind right now.

99 b-line...

Here we are four reading breaks later and one thing has stayed the same: Avra Laarakker. Here's a person who's been through it all, the thick and the thin of it, the strikes and the gutters, the ferries, the buses, the mustaches, the pulling-of-purses, the b-lines, the a-lines, I would say that together we've pretty much seen it all.

And so here we are sharing our new spaces again. I've moved again. She's moved, again. We've done Vernon, Vancouver, Nelson, Calgary, Kelowna. We've pretty much covered the Interior and the West and along the way we've partaken in beer out of nalgenes, CNIBs out of nalgenes, medicinal pharmaceuticals, a guy who in the middle of the UBC campus could find the joint that he "left for himself" a few hours later and that still lit after a torrential downpour.

How do we know where life is going to take us? How do we continue on when we know nothing for certain? How can certain mundane, completely casual, everyday moments take my breath away? As I creep around the world of blogs and facebook and virtual unreality, I can't help but wonder, isn't the view from the 99 b-line one of the most beautiful sites ever created? Why be inside when you could be out smelling the moss, feeling the inevitable rain, putting dirt in your hands and laughing at absolutely nothing with your favourite person in the world? Maybe we do know where life is going to take us, afterall we've driven this route a thousand times before.

Yet every year feels just a little bit different.

What's in a name?

I really do like to indulge in self psychoanalysis at times, I must admit. This is something that I've come across many times in my life and I wonder if it's a female thing, or a me thing, or an all encompassing theme for humanity: the necessity of naming. Obviously I'm studying languages. It seems to make sense, psycho-analytically speaking, and is slightly ironic that I would end up here.

I've always thought that one's academic pursuits truly reflect more than just their interest in a given subject but perhaps bare witness to their entire life philosophy. After all, with all of the different possible majors, what makes one want to choose just one? With subjects that are very closely related, why do we make the choices we do? I always ask the engineer types, "why this field, or this field, or this field? You mean they aren't all the same?" Of course they're not and only the ignorant (guilty as charged) would fail to make the differentiation among them.

And so, as this applies to my life in general, why me? why here? what is this? what do we call this? what does this mean? what does this (the non-presence of the previous question's "this") mean? Interestingly, I, the Annie Hall obsessive compulsive type, has ended up in a field where what we say is as important as what we don't. Imagine this: I once wrote a term paper arguing why what the characters in Othello choose not to say was equally important as what they do. A whole paper on what isn't said. Oh the dreary, grey world of the implied and implicit.

This is the world of the everyday. Not just of Shakespeare or Donne. It's the world of you and me and it's where we dabble the most of our days awaiting the rare occurrence where we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, if only for a moment, to call a rose a rose and to bask in its' sweet fragrance.

And the show must go on.

So I could be wrong, but I don't think so...

This post isn't going to be a very long one but here's the query: Just because you can do something, does it mean that you should? Just because I could make 25 hours, does it mean that I want to? What if the act of not doing something just makes you realize that you want to do it more? What if I don't want to wait 25 hours, or 25 days or 25 months? I don't want to wait 25 minutes sometimes. And so, if the time passes and we make it, then swell. But if it doesn't, then why should it matter? Or, what if I should not want for time to pass at all? What if these hours have just made me crave more the moments where there's no waiting time at all because we're sharing toast and tea, face-to-face, with the Queen?

This waiting thing is a predicament. But all good things are worth waiting for, so I'm told, so I'm going to hunker down and build a fort and wait, wait, wait it out with visions of tea time dancing in my head.

The Midnight Disease: Things I Love

Here's a list of things I love: (In no specific order)
-puppets (of any kind)
-talking jive (the best jive is always found with Avra, but jive in general will suffice)
*like about Manny the Mannequin, or that crazy Mexican party, or that funeral at Christmas, or that fucking cat book man, our families, bowling, swearing, wearing mustaches, etc.
-the #9 bus, when it's warm and on time
-Catcher in the Rye (my copy with all the pink high-lighting)
-self-righteous indignation (it's an ugly one, and infrequent but everyone gets to be right sometimes)
-megan bailey's burns
-other peoples' travel photographs
-rain
-momentum
-my warm bed
-that weird cat book my mom got me last Christmas
-jokes that never get old ("your mom" burns, Lebowski lines, bad tv like Dog the Bounty Hunter, that weird cat book)
-belly laughs
-being able to share silence with someone
-receiving Amazon packages
-rock outs

I'm sure there's more, but that's a good start. There should be more of these things. But say no to more meats on sticks.

Welcome home...

Tonight I was reminded just why I ever came to this crazy city in the first place. Today I took the #9 bus downtown, not quite through to Bridgeland, but close enough. It hit me that I haven't taken the #9 into downtown in months. I used to take this bus several times a week to visit Paul, and I would curse it for coming early, curse it for coming late, curse it because one isn't allowed to drink liquor on public transit or just curse. And yet, on that 45 minute sojourn I was left alone, with my reflection and my thoughts and if I was lucky, a few good tunes. Tonight, having caught the #9 on a whim, having met it downtown completely by chance, we met, made eye content and smiled. We exchanged our silent "I've missed you(s)" and "gee, where have you been(s)?" and I took my seat. In the middle of downtown, having to crank my neck to see where the lights end and the sky begins, it took my breath away and gave me the shivers. The empty devonian gardens looked it's usual pristine, steamy, glorious paradise and it was still snowing.

I remember coming to visit Paul as a wee adolescent when he lived by Fish Creek Park and coming to downtown in his mom's Volvo was a real treat. Seeing the skyline chilled me. The excitement of knowing that Calgary was "the biggest thing" I'd ever seen. It's funny how in youth everything comes in superlative form. I would dream of my "big" life, living in a pink apartment down by the river in Eau Claire. I dreamed of playing in the kiddie fountain and of my mom singing "que sera sera" to me while telling me of how my wedding would one day look. I remember dreaming of my Christmas Concert at Rideau Park Elementary, worried that I would be late or have bad hair. I dreamed of walking Sandy Beach with my dad counting punch-buggies.

I came home from downtown tonight and after having said goodbye to the #9, I swung by CPU. I munched my grossly large, surprisingly delicious Hawaiian pizza, and made my way home. It's nights like these where I miss this city and I'm still living in it. It's nights like these where I realize I'm not alone in this great big city and that despite the jive I talk about SUV-driving money-crazy Albertans, I feel at home. At home, more so here than anywhere else right now. Home, it's where you are when you're wishing to be somewhere else.

Welcome home, Lauren.

Sometimes you only have one shoe...

I just want to say that Avra has had some of the most exceptional blunders this year and they should not go unaccounted for. The first that comes to mind was when she got rerouted from Vancouver to Edmonton before Christmas and ran into someone from Vernon whom she later accompanied to a funeral (of someone she didn't know, but always the good Samaritan went anyways as there probably wasn't much else to do in Vernon). Upon her arrival to the funeral, a family member who has long shared much disdain for Avra and who didn't seem to care that she had infact saved the day and helped said Vernonite arrive, though late, at all, says, "Well, well. Avra Laarakker. God works in mysterious ways." Well played, Avra. Next faux pas worthy of broadcast: a day or so ago Avra, once again the good Samaritan, decided to help Greg cut his hair. At first try with the clippers, they seemed a wee bit dull so she lubed 'em up and tried again. Wielding the newly lubed clippers she proceeded to buzz a reverse-mohawk up Greg's head that from what I hear looks tres bad. It's about an inch and a half wide and goes right to the scalp, which makes me laugh to beat the band, sadly at Poor Gregor's expense. The best part is that they have to go to the synagogue tomorrow and Greg looks like a skinhead. Poor Greg. He always puts up with our bullshit. All I can say is that I hope they make yamakas in XXXL. Greg, takes it like pro, and moves on and is always a good sport. If he gets stoned, as in pummeled with rocks (not as in consumes marijuana) by the synagogues' attendees, it will be a sad day indeed.

And so it is without further adieu that I salute my dear friend, my most lovely heterosexual life partner (in the vein of Jay and Silent Bob) with this: one shoe. This is the girl that is perpetually losing one shoe. It doesn't seem to matter that it is snowing outside and -20, she's only got one shoe on and we remain none the wiser. Infact, I bet she only has one on right now. Well played, buddy. Well played.

No thanks, I've already had my incompetence for the day...

Yesterday, for whatever reason, my patience ran out. This is highly unusual. I wouldn't say that I am normally an extremely patient person, in fact, what by most is perceived as patience on the outside is really a lack of genuine interest in disguise. But yesterday there was no disguise. No, I can't help you study for this exam. Not because I can't but because I have no interest. So what if I can bullshit my way through it, alas you cannot. Then, at aquasize, the old women and young women milled like cattle in the road aimlessly with no where to go and all the time to do so. There were no lanes in pool, only one giant corral of bitter ladies knocking heads. Not to mention that every time I go to the pool, one of my first ever profs at the Uni attempts conversation with me while she is noticeably naked and I am noticeably uncomfortable. Everywhere I looked, incompetence was leaving it's wake.

Am I worried about this slip up of impatience? No. Not at all. The only thing remotely worrisome is that my disguise of disinterest may be blown. Oh well, so what if it is. This was one of those days where in my dream, I'm Paul and Ringo isn't walking out of the recording session, I'm kicking him out. I'm telling him to "shut the fuck up" and then I take my seat at the drum kit and tear it up on Back in the USSR, without that moldy fucking pimp. And my version, is way way sweeter.

So, no thanks, I'm already full up on incompetence for today.

Come and keep your comrade warm...

For my inaugural blood donation today, I was joined by George, John and Paul (and not Ringo, because he walked out on the recording of that tune) to I lay horizontal for my momentous 11:29 of blood pumping vigor. But that was not all. I also eavesdropped on a girl discussing with some fellow comrade in the blood line about how she is currently sponsoring not one, but two foster children in Africa. She seemed to get a kick out of saying, "yeah... so I have two kids and I'm only 23," which was then followed by her Angelina Jolie-esque "I'd someday like to have one on every continent". How romantic.

*Insert future blog topic, that my roommate and I have discussed many times: Why only the real thing will do...*

This is puzzling to me. Do I criticize her because she's a do-gooder with two children, whom she's probably saved from the drug and/or prostitution trade(s), or am I just jealous that at this current moment I may feel sorry for those poor bastards on the infomercials but am in no way, shape or form willing to support one? Is it wrong to question why a person might feel compelled to give overseas and not at home? Has she cruised by the Drop-In Centre lately? Better yet, does she live at home with the rents' or is she working-for-the-weekend every single weekend to pay for the dump she curses herself for living in? Once again, the inevitable comparison takes place and suddenly the good karma I've wracked up for giving blood is side-swiped by two foster kids.

Damn. Damn. Damn. Looks like I'll just have to do more good-doing, which I had not planned in my schedule.

Further curious ramblings will discuss the long awaited fall of an empire of drones and automatons somewhere under the University of Calgary umbrella-services. Stay tuned.

PS. Who knew that the Beatles would also be good for listening to when having massive quantities of blood extracted? John probably did. It figures.

A Case of You...

This is just a teaser, and since I'm now addicted to blogging and Megan encourages multiple posts, I will indulge. That tune, A Case of You by the glorious Joni Mitchell, brings tears to my eyes and in imagining who I could drink a case of, I get the shivers.

There's a few works out there that will never be matched. Things that are so perfect, so unique, so transcendent that words don't really do them justice. They are the works of genius that make everyone else's attempts feel mediocre and impotent, fallow and desolate, utterly, desperately futile. That song is one of them. There's just nothing that we would change.

It is a challenge that lies sleepily in us all, to create one of these works, inspite of the bullocks we do in the meantime. Let me just say, I am well aware that this blog is not one of those things.

Molly Ringwald or Ally Sheedy?

I really can't believe that I'm starting a blog. It's pretty much like Facebook, I swore I'd never join the ranks and here I am. Guilty as charged. But let us go there, you and I:

Twice this week I've come across one of my all time favourite movies, the Breakfast Club, on channel 34. I don't know what possesses them to keep playing it. Actually I do know: Because it's the movie my generation grew up on, grows up on, fails to grow up on. I came home today and the scene where they had smoked pot and were dancing on the rafters was playing and I just felt at home. Not only the soundtrack, but the familiar faces, the games we play, all those things come flooding back and I'm left with a compulsion to watch it again from start to finish. Which I can, because I own in on cassette. Yeah, you heard it: cassette.

But what we here in blog land are left with is this: are you a Molly Ringwald or an Ally Sheedy? Or an Emilio or a Judd or even an Anthony Michael Hall? And let me ruin this surprise for you, after the movie Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall dated, le gross.

Welcome to Blogland... Which sounds like Bogland. Here's to an inaugural blogural???