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.