lying on my bed i watch this big world float

Now the war has come, bringing with it a new attitude. Youth has turned to gods we of an earlier day knew not, and it is possible to see already the direction in which those who come after us will move. The younger generation, conscious of strength and tumultuous, have done with knocking at the door; they have burst in and seated themselves in our seats. The air is noisy with their shouts. Of their elders some, by imitating the antics of youth, strive to persuade themselves that their day is not yet over; they shout with the lustiest, but the war cry sounds hollow in their mouth; they are like poor wantons attempting with pencil, paint and powder, with shrill gaiety, to recover the illusion of their spring. The wiser go their way with a decent grace. In their chastened smile is an indulgent mockery. They remember that they too trod down a sated generation, with just such clamor and with just such scorn, and they foresee that these brave torch-bearers will presently yield their place also. There is no last word. The new evangel was old when Nineveh reared her greatness to the sky. These gallant words which seem so novel to those that speak them were said in accents scarcely changed a hundred times before. The pendulum swings backwards and forwards. The circle is ever travelled anew.

The Moon and Sixpence
W. Somerset Maughm

waltzing my tears to a tom jones song

things i've learned recently:

you know when honey crystallizes and gets all gross and hard to pour so you have to cut the top off the little bear's head to get at it? boil some water. remove from heat. submerge entire container of honey in said water. let sit until honey returns to liquid form. it's amazing.

gyprock is made from gypsum rock. therefore the name. i am probably the only person in the world who thought gyprock was a racial slur.

carmel mikol is an extremely talented musician and songwriter. and i'm not just saying that because i live with her and she keeps our house clean and cooks really good food. i'm saying it because she promised to make us orange floats when her myspace page hits reach 1000. do your part in getting me some free ice cream. click on carmel's link. and maybe even listen to her music while you're there.

can't wear a toque or your mohawk's crushed

it is definitely trying to snow today.

so to comfort myself, i have turned to food. i attempted a squash soup about a week ago and it wasn't quite right so today i went for the second round. newest room mate (carmel) insisted it was wonderfully easy. and after i compared my lunch of doritos with hers of grilled tofu, i decided a proper meal was a good idea.

this one turned out much better than the first. i think i used far too much chicken stock last time. and a little too much pepper this time. but it is amazingly easy. even for a... well, me. whatever i am.

there is nothing gentle about the light you emanate

me summed up in images. think you can figure out what it means?

ignore me in the parking lot

in high school i read hemmingway's for whom the bell tolls. i expected to enjoy it. hemmingway was an interesting man. his works are famous and i assumed there must be a reason for that. however, i found the story dry and his writing style terribly boring. for years i dismissed him and all his novels.

just recently i decided to give him another chance. i picked up a collection of his short stories on a whim and was blown away. his style is direct and dry but it perfectly captures the snippets of life he portrays. i fell madly in love with his brief but insightful portraits of broken people.

this had me wondering why i enjoy him so much now when i had sincerely detested him mere years ago. i returned to for whom the bell tolls and found that, while i still did not enjoy that particular novel, it didn't grate on me as it had before. how am i different? what has changed?

i decided that it is the taste of failure that he so accurately conveys. when i first read him i was an idealistic teenager who had yet to experience the reality that life does not go the way anyone expects. i strongly believed - and part of me still does believe - that i had the strength to create the life i envision for myself. but life marches ahead without any concern for what we want or what we think we've earned. hemmingway subtly captures the embitterment of people who feel they have failed to live up to their own expectations. he observes cynicism in its purest form - disappointed idealists.

i feel that his short stories are nearly perfect in every way. his novels are also interesting. his poetry, however, is terrible. it's humorously reassuring that even hemmingway failed at some things.

hold on to the corners of today

i have found myself in an interesting state. i have a couple trips planned in the next year (mainly a trip to paris next summer for the international convention! ack!) so i am incredibly broke these days. my paycheques have varied somewhat drastically over the past few months because my schedule at work has been quite up and down. not too long ago, i was rolling in it; yesterday i spent my final five dollars and forty-seven cents on some well planned groceries that are supposed to last me until payday. (thank you pete's for your lovely rotting fruit clearance shelf!)

i am normally ridiculously private about the specifics of my financial situation. but i have to say that i have thoroughly enjoyed this past ten days of desititution. of course, i do have food to eat, a bed to sleep in, clothes to wear... all that necessary, perhaps luxurious, stuff. i am probably still considered to be one of the wealthiest people when compared to the entire world. but after bills on the day i got paid i had nothing left for groceries, emergencies, or entertainment. i reluctantly took twenty dollars from my savings and tried to budget it carefully.

and for some reason, i had a lot of fun trying to find meals for a dollar or less. or spending the entire week of jazz fest outside the tent looking in but still being able to hear the music. and so i couldn't actually see john k samson's face - i heard his voice and that's what really mattered. i felt free from the constant pressure to consume. it wasn't an option so i didn't bother considering it.

that is definitely something i struggle with - remaining content with what i have. i'm sure it's a challenge for everyone, especially considering the society we live in. but something clicked last week that i hope i can maintain for the next year - since it's not likely i will have extra money for at least that long.

the same things but on a different day

on my way to work, i feel a little superior to the people that get off the bus before i do, as though how far i have to travel means i have a better or more important job. but in the evening, i resent anyone who gets off before me because they get to be home first.

i obscenity in the milk of thy fear

i suppose i should make an ammendment to my last post. my dad was a little horrified by my revelation. his exact words were 'not your finest moment.' perhaps the link to the video was a bit much. but, in my defense, i didn't watch the video before linking. i should have, i know, but i was doing this at the library and was very limited timewise. and, just so you know, my hair didn't come out of a gross pimply bloody spot. it just appeared out of nowhere.

there dad, i did my best to salvage some of the munn pride for you.

as for the latest and greatest in the land of erin... not much to report. if i failed to say so earlier, i am madly in love with halifax in the summer. there is constantly something going on. i just wish this level of activity and excitement could be maintained over the entire year.

monday evening we took the bus to tiny chocolate lake to cool off. it's close and accessible by bus but, unfortunately, a little rough. but water is water no matter what the atmosphere. matty generously bestowed a couple of cold beers upon me and beth, which we hoped to drink on top of a roof. failing to find one we could get to without being arrested, we switched our attention to the multitude of billboards just down from our house. again, we couldn't find a way to get up there. so we ended up sitting in a park and watching the sunset instead. and we decided beth will make us a rope ladder so we won't have this problem again. it's my job to find the grappling hook.

my heart is always on the line

last night i was putting aloe gel on my sunburnt back when i felt something a little strange. i quickly got in front of my mirror and tried to look over my shoulder to (hopefully) prove that what i had felt was not what i thought it was. unfortunately it only confirmed my fears. i had a hair a good six inches long growing out of the central to lower area on my back. six inches! get out a ruler and see for yourself how disgustingly long that is! it's half a subway sandwich.

of course, i left it in until monica and beth got home so i could share this treasure my body had generated for me. it was when we were trying to colour it with a marker so it would show up in pictures that it came out. it sends shivers down my spine just talking about it.

not that that stops me. i tend to enjoy things that send shivers down my spine.

so when i got to work today i had to share this with people. one of them reacted like this happens to her all the time. she wasn't surprised or creeped out. she just said it must have been an ingrown that i had pulled out when i was rubbing the aloe in. i could have hair growing all over inside my body! have you heard of this before?

i'm fascinated and horrified. and i'm not alone in this! google it. you get all kinds of information, pictures... there is even a video on youtube of a guy pulling out his ingrown hair! we humans are quite gross.

we are growing at the speed of light

for those of you who are not yet aware, tomorrow is the launch date for canada500. visit their site for explanations and concepts. and pictures of steve-o and my mom and dad! that's right. it's like they're celebrities.

i'm strangely excited for this trip considering i'm not going on it. all i get to do is check the site for stories and pictures. but i'm bordering on obsessed! i love the idea, the freedom, the potential for horrible mishaps. i can't figure out the reason. dan mentioned that he's noticed canadafivehundred is most popular with rationals. that too intrigues me. what is it about running away that appeals to intuitive thinkers? i constantly have to fight the urge to disappear - to just leave my house and my friends and my work and start over somewhere i'm completely unknown. it's mostly the disappearing that stays on my mind, the walking away and people wondering what ever happened to that girl they once knew.

in other news, last night i went to an all girl dance party and today i hurt. but it's a good hurt.

as small as a world and as large as alone

while i was battling my sinus cold we had an incident in the bathroom.

the girls started to notice a nasty odour that would not go away. because of my condition i had no idea there was a problem, though they keep telling me that the smell was so bad that it continues to haunt them. they tried a thorough bleaching and replacing the shower curtain but it didn't help. after a couple days beth called our landlord and asked him to come inspect.

i should also explain that we have had a couple of problems where we've had to call our landlord in. he's generally very nice about it but he's convinced we are nuts. once monica called him in to check on a loud cracking noise coming from the roof. of course it didn't happen once while he was there and he couldn't find a thing in or on the roof, at which point monica joked that perhaps it was just God talking to her. apparently he doesn't really get our humor. he probably thought it was a Witness thing.

when he came in to check on the mysterious stench he first claimed he couldn't smell a thing. monica was again the one home that day and she resisted the urge to make spiritual references. instead she just insisted that there was something seriously wrong. so he opened up our fan and pulled out a dead bird.

i had been trying to come up with something to add some colour to the bathroom so in honour of the fallen bird and inspired by crappy art night, i created this.

i know it's probably hard to believe, but it only took me about fifteen minutes to complete. what can i say, i'm a natural. i'm considering making a whole series.

smell the ocean in your hair

everyone needs an injection of adams in their day. i could quote so much more but i will limit myself to my favourite section. i think my second favourite is a description of san fransisco that britta would especially appreciate.

**

Arthur looked. Much to his surprise, there was a velvet paisley-covered Chesterfield sofa in the field in front of them. He boggled intelligently at it. Shrewd questions sprang into his mind.

'Why,' he said, 'is there a sofa in that field?'

'I told you!' shouted Ford leaping to his feet. 'Eddies in the space-time continuum!'

'And this is his sofa, is it?' asked Arthur, struggling to his feet and, he hoped, though not very optimistically, to his senses.

'Arthur!' shouted Ford at him. 'That sofa is there because of the space-time instability I've been trying to get your terminally softened brain to get to grips with. It's been washed up out of the continuum, it's space-time jetsam, it doesn't matter what it is, we've got to catch it, it's our only way out of here!'

He scrambled rapidly down the rocky outcrop and made off across the field.

'Catch it?' muttered Arthur, then frowned in bemusement as he saw that the Chesterfield was lazily bobbing and wafting away across the grass.

With a whoop of utterly unexpected delight he leapt down the rock and plunged off in hectic pursuit of Ford Prefect and the irrational piece of furniture.

They careered wildly through the grass, leaping, laughing, shouting instructions to each other to head the thing off this way or that way. The sun shone dreamily on the swaying grass, tiny field animals scattered crazily in their wake.

Arthur felt happy. He was terribly pleased that the day was for once working out so much according to plan. Only twenty minutes ago he had decided he would go mad, and now here he was already chasing a Chesterfield across the fields of prehistoric Earth.

Douglas Adams
Life, the Universe and Everything

don't be amazing or i'll miss you too much

it has been a fun filled month of fashion and frivolity... o wait. i think that must have been someone else's month. mine was more of the procrastinating, then working too hard until i make myself sick variety. but i enjoyed it all the same.

honestly, i love working too much. i really do. it's only when i'm overdoing things to the point where i don't have time to even consider standing still or thinking for any period of time that i stop over analyzing my life. and at any level of activity below that pace i constantly feel i should be doing more. unfortunately, my body doesn't seem to appreciate it the same way my mind does. i have been down and out with a cold for a week now. and it is not pleasant. i'm pretty much over it. i'm down to the hacking cough that explodes inside my head all night. almost better.

it has been a ridiculously long time since i've posted here and i've had bazillions of things that i've thought i'd like to write about. can i remember what they were? of course not. i am quite excited about the comments and suggestions people had about my last post. crappy art night? that's awesome! i'm doing it. and it's gonna be great in its crappiness.

have i ever mentioned how very much i love the sun?

this house is sad because he's not tidy

i fear i have no imagination.

i am constantly humbled, even crippled or paralyzed, by what other people are capable of creating. i have some pretty amazing people in my life who are simply fearless. they can plunge their fingers into dirt and form art without considering that what they are doing may be difficult for other people. they don't wonder if what they do is 'good' - it is original, it is theirs. they ask nothing from it but that they enjoy the process and perhaps learn something. and in shedding the challenges, or maybe not even recognizing their existence, they free themselves and are able to create incredible music, art, poetry, and design.

i think i lack something they have. i've given this a lot of thought throughout my life, as it has almost always been an issue for me. i desire the ability to freely create but something holds me back. sometimes i wonder if it is simply raw talent and other times i think it is the determination and drive. or maybe the courage to fail hundreds of times in order to succeed just once. then again, i also use the excuse that i am a left-brained rational mastermind and perhaps i just have no creative juices flowing through my veins. or they are immobilized by my decided lack of emotion or heart. i have many theories, as you can see.

perhaps i just use up all my imagination making excuses for myself. that and my dreams.

i have read ryan's ideas for strengthening one's right brain and i occasionally remember to do the exercises, though i'm not entirely sure that i'm doing them correctly. and i have been trying to force myself to do things i am not comfortable with, such as writing and painting. even showing it to people. trying not to care what they think but just sharing so as to inspire and encourage one another to continue in these attempts. i don't know if this will ever come naturally to me. any tips?

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.