getting dumb

Things are pretty good with me right now. My roommates gave me money for new pens and markers and a new sketchbook for my birthday. Today my aunt and uncle took me out for lunch and bought me expensive French peasant bread from some classy place in Yorkville (somewhat ironic).

The strike rages on, and only one prof made demands that we stick to deadlines. I started the essay for his class today and banged out a little over 1/4 of it in a little under two hours. I can't tell if it's any good or not, but it came fairly effortlessly. Maybe because it's for a course about comics and cartoons (therefore of interest)? Anyway, what I really wanted to say in regards to this is that while I don't really like school, I'm pretty good at it and it seems a lot more interesting when I don't have to haul my ass to campus. After a couple of years, it's probably safe to say that I'm not the academia-lovin' type (most of the time I want to scream and throw things at everyone), but at least I'm not struggling super hard.

I finished my portrait of Jean-Luc Godard today. Not that much time actually went into it, I just kept getting bored and wanting to do other things. It didn't turn out as charmingly as the Jacques-Yves Cousteau one, but I think it's cute. He ended up being hunkier than he was in real life. I totally suck at using these new brush pens, but I'll get it eventually. These pictures are just going in our kitchen, anyway.

Last night I had a miniature panic attack when I looked in the mirror and some pictures of me were posted to that dreaded facebook thing. Lately I've been feeling really ugly and weird looking, like a squishy alien with tiny watery eyes and a permanently stupid expression on her face. When I was in highschool, this girl I knew said "Do you ever feel like you're watching yourself go through your everyday tasks and all you can think about is how stupid you look doing them?" Like, gosh, how succinct. That's exactly how I feel. Bumbling and stupid and ugly. So last night I sat in my desk chair, terrified and horrified and feeling absolutely paralyzed.

Trying to not get like that too often. It happens less than it used to. It still happens though, and it's still scary when it does.

Today is my Birthday

(credit: PBF comics (http://www/pbfcomics.com))

So far, I have received a very sweet birthday e-mail from the CBC offering me $5 off my next shop purchase. This means I am seriously considering buying either season one of The Newsroom or all of Twitch City.

I've also eaten a bowl of cheerios and cornflakes combined.

It's a big day, people.

post-script

My friends and the people I used to know are all becoming insanely beautiful and falling in love and going to big cities to look at art! Help!

he had crashed the t-bird twice

After work and dinner I made some tea and put my hair up and sat in the bathtub reading this book that Kash introduced me to when we were 15. The Weetzie Bat books? Sure, google them and look at the trashy-looking glitter teenage covers with '90s photography and pink fonts. I secretly was unimpressed and a bit embarrassed when Kash handed me Weetzie Bat. Then I, you know, read them and they were filled with beautiful magical realism prose and the most beautiful things.

Anyway. Along I went with Weetzie and Dirk through the streets of L.A. and their little cottage with the aqua room and the rose room and the rose bushes and lemon trees and, you know, punk rockers and babies and taffeta dresses, and I felt comfortable and familiar with the words, with my green tea and flower-smelling bath, but...

I also felt a bit bummed. I think that's normal.

After my bath I looked in the mirror and saw pale skin and hair and eyebrows and mouth, almost stupidly dark glasses frames. Highschool ripped band tshirt and the underwear that I've had every first time in (inadvertently). Part of me wanted to punch myself in the gut. The rest of me just wanted to shake some sense into that pale shell, that baffled-looking weird face.

I'm working on a series of portraits of old French dudes for our kitchen. I think they are going to be pretty swell.

no false claims

Over a year ago, I kind of had this thing with a nice dude who sent me lovingly assembled parcels filled with incense and mix cds and national geographic collages and homemade comics. When we finally united, woke up holding each other on his cramped single bed, something was different and cold and slimy in my stomach. I went home and he said "I am still in love with someone else - I'm sorry. I thought you were my ticket away from all this; I really did."

--> and I was pretty steamed.

(but I got over it----------and we didn't talk again)

Then yesterday I got a message from him saying he finally read my favourite book and he loved it.

I feel like boys are constantly deciding I'm not their ticket away and then cold-shouldering my feeble attempts at friendship.

----> so I didn't want to cold-shoulder this boy, even though he was sort of irresponsible with my feelings. he is a genuinely nice person who cares about people

I sent a short, polite message back. I'm glad he enjoyed the book.


I'm not trying to say "SO I'M A MODEL HUMAN BEING", because I'm not. But I think I am trying to say that it isn't so hard to forgive people. It's actually easy. Maybe too easy? I don't know. I don't like to be mad.

looking for a robot to teach object lessons

This is my first encounter with Daylight Savings Time. I don't know have to change my watch, a (lovingly used) gift from someone seemingly no longer into talking to me (not to be melodramatic, but it is true), so that's sort of a problem. But problems are something I've been trying to not think about too much lately. Yesterday was All Souls Day and it was maybe the best time of my life in quite some time.

Vanessa and I had an incredibly anti-climatic Halloween the night before. We went to go see the Deep Dark Woods (a band from our hometown), but unfortunately we were both so tired and the show started so late that we were literally nodding off midway through the first set. We were planning on going to a party afterwards, but we just ended up going home. So I had an excellent sleep and woke up super late, ate some granola and soymilk, made some vegan chocolate chip cookies, drew a little... Then V came home and we ate a fairly magnificent lunch of nutted couscous with fresh tomato sauce (parenthetical aside: I know I talk about food a lot; that's a post for another day).

Then I realized that I wasn't going to get much work done at home and I went to my friend Chris' house. We listened to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On while I drew and he did homework. It was comfortable and we asked each other some important questions, like:

What three albums do you know best, like, start to finish?
What were the albums in heaviest rotation in your house growing up?
Is it weird to have an all-time favourite song?

Soon it was getting to be dinner time and I booked it to No Frills (after going to wrong way), bought some salsa-ingredients, and shuffled home. Vanessa, Adil, and I made salsa and pita chips, and then the roommates + boyfriends embarked on what would be the awesomest night ever.

1. We went to our old flatmates Edith and Sarah's new house-warming party. They are the nicest people ever and had an enormous (vegan!) feast ready for the insane amount of people there. There was hardwood flooring and halloween lighting and So. Much. Dancing. We didn't stop for several hours, dancing to everything ranging from the old school ska of Edith's university days to Spanish rockabilly. Edith is a fantastic dancer and so was pretty much everyone there. A bald dude and a tall blonde woman and their baby cut up some serious rug. It was this experience utterly lacking in pretension and it was wonderful. And! Everyone was sober. Which made it even better.

2. Adil and Vanessa and I went to Dance Cave, a local hipster dancing establishment. No cover charge and good music = I don't care what kind of people go there, and they all seemed nice anyway. We danced on a beer-sticky floor to The Pixies, New Order, The Smiths, and pretty much everyone else wonderful. Our last dance was Paper Planes by M.I.A. and then we walked a block or two and ate the best Lebanese food of my life. They had a big sign outside that said "VEGAN COMBOS" and I was sold. Everything was cheap and insanely delicious.

By this time it was past two, so we hailed a cab (one of my favourite things to do, but obviously something I can't do more than, uh, twice a year) and vamoosed home.

Study Summary

1. I should go dancing more often.
2. Dancing is way more fun when you are not with someone you have a crush on/are dating and therefore feel shy dancing around.
3. It's pretty easy to dance without being drunk, contrary to popular belief.
4. Marvin Gaye made a really good album in 1971.