all the unborn chicken noises in my head

beth says i smell like a library.

love is the heart of fear

i do not enjoy food preparation. i am very likely the laziest person in this regard. i despise having to think about or plan or prepare or anything to do with food prior to eating it. if i was rich i would hire a chef before i would hire a maid. i go through phases of eating pop tarts or popsicles for every meal simply because they are brainless.

it's definitely a trait i inherited from my mother. she cooked out of necessity, not pleasure. and she often told me that we would save amazing amounts of time and energy if we didn't have to eat everyday - and multiple times everyday!

it's true though. if i dedicated as much time to writing, or painting, or playing guitar, or graphic design, or service, or reading the Bible... the list goes on - all the things i'd rather be doing. for the sake of example, let's say playing guitar. if i spent hours everyday and set aside a budget every month solely for guitar, i would have actually learned an entire song before i turned 24.

i just remembered that britt is doing (or just finished) the master cleanse. i did that a couple years back and it was fantastic. except i did miss the joy of eating.

so i suppose in my paradise food will just be lying around waiting to be eaten. platters of sushi, trays of tarts, banquets and feasts randomly set up throughout the earth. perhaps britt and karen will take care of that for me.

imagining lightning striking sea sickness

now he would never write the things that he had saved to write until he knew enough to write them well. well, he would not have to fail at trying to write them either. maybe you could never write them, and that was why you put them off and delayed the starting. well he would never know, now.

* * *

it was not so much that he lied as that there was no truth to tell. he had had his life and it was over and then he went on living it again with different people and more money, with the best of the same places, and some new ones.

you kept from thinking and it was all marvelous. you were equipped with good insides so that you did not go to pieces that way, the way most of them had, and you made an attitude that you cared nothing for the work you used to do, now that you could no longer do it.

ernest hemingway
the snows of kilimanjaro

proud of ourselves for using so many verbs and nouns

gonna let everybody see just what you are

today i am 24. i do not enjoy getting older. i fight it with all my being but time doesn't even seem to notice my efforts. i've been anticipating this day for months now. i thought it would make it easier on me if i made a list of things i wanted to accomplish before i turned twenty-four. unfortunately, i suppose it only helps if you do the things on the list.

but instead of dwelling on how much i don't want to be older, how i don't feel older, definitely not wiser or more mature, let alone successful or accomplished, i'm going to attempt a positive perspective. what did i do while i was 23?

the obvious: i traveled across the country in a vw van. i made friends in every province and territory except newfoundland and nunavut, climbed buttes in saskatchewan, ate bagels in montreal, watched cirque du soleil in toronto, went to the stratford festival, camped by the great lakes, reached the atlantic ocean. definitely the highlights of the past year.

what else? i auxilliaried as often as i believe i was capable. i persisted in finding work that will enable me to pioneer again (hopefully soon!). i settled into the middle of a new congregation instead of disappearing in the edges. i started learning guitar (again) and actually made some progress. i stayed in close contact with my parents even after moving so far away.

i have many regrets. those are much easier to list. but i won't. at least, not here. i'll put them somewhere else - on a page entitled 'things to change and accomplish while 24.' check back in a year to see how that works out for me.

i saw a spaceship fly by your window

not too long ago, i wrote about a dream i had involving myself and my fictional wedding. it has come to my attention that all i have to do is whisper the words 'marriage' or 'wedding' and some of you people start to giggle like little school girls. (you know who you are.) i'm not here to defend myself. i feel that my celibacy is such an established fact at this point that it is beyond needing justification.

i have a wild and wonderful life in my dreams. some nights i'm getting married; others i'm an international jewel thief being chased by tin soldiers. last week i had a dream that i was wearing a rubber unitard painted like a fish and rollerskating down endless hills; later, that i was visiting with an old friend in a grocery store when a random boy came up and kissed me then ran away. (yes, i said 'kiss' and 'boy.' no giggling.) once i drove from pg to paris on a motorbike in a single night. when i am stressed, i am usually trying to save small children from certain death. last night i was cooking in an unknown kitchen when it was brought to my attention that i was not wearing any pants.

i consider all these dreams to be equally preposterous and unlikely to happen in reality. so me dreaming about my wedding is not a sign of anything. you can stop with the giggling.