Sunday, October 31, 2010

i have a real comfortable workspace

...but i am still typing this from the couch instead of my desk. To be fair, my desk is currently smothered in paintings/paints, drawings, sketchbooks and pens, but still. This is why I have old-lady back pains.

I love being able to work on art every day. It's the most amazing feeling. I don't have a "real" job (still working casual, same place I've been at for almost three years), but I make enough to pay rent and buy groceries, and that's really all that matters.

Despite not having very much money, I recently made a somewhat extravagant (for me) purchase: a trip to Montreal for my birthday. My lovely boy will be in his ancestral homeland for both of our birthdays (two days apart), and I didn't want to be lonely, so I planned a trip. What makes it extra special is that it's the same weekend as Expozine, so I will get to see a bunch of my zine-pals and perhaps even make back some of the money I spent on travel!

I'm really excited for this trip for multiple reasons:

1. ZINES!
2. I will get to see my dear friend Jim, whom I very rarely see. And by this I mean we've only hung out three times in person. But I'd say Jim has been one of the biggest and most positive influences in my young life. I doubt I've met a more patient, understanding, and generous human being.
3. I get to see my friend Maude, who always brings out my famous drunken bravado (last time I was with her, I saw Michael Cera dining in a restaurant on Queen W. and she had to physically restrain me from running in and beating him up. why did i want to beat michael cera up? i will never know). She was the first person to ever encourage my drawing/zine-making, for which I am eternally grateful.
4. I will meet a new zinester-friend with whom I have plans to make a split zine about being an anarchist who is also religious. An acquaintance of mine made reference to the fact that "she is Christian and an anarchist...which i still can't wrap my head around" and i thought: i should contact her and ask her if she wants to make a zine about religion and anarchy! So I did, and she was totally into it which makes me so happy.

I think it will be one of the best birthdays yet. I might wear my purple prom dress (which I sometimes refer to as my "Grimace's Girlfriend Dress", because I honestly do look kind of like Grimace in it...you know, hips).

Birthday trip aside, everything else is really great, too. As I said before, I'm making more art than ever. I'm starting a new zine and retiring Little Gardens for Invalids, which was a really difficult choice to make, but ultimately one I'm happy with. AB and I finally set up our studio and it's lovely - our desks are back-to-back right beside the enormous bay window that looks out onto our street with its huge, ancient maple trees and aging brick houses. There are books crammed everywhere, which makes it feel super-cozy. There's also a couch (upon which I am sitting as I type this) for friends to crash on, or for one of us to nap on when we get all tuckered out from writing or painting. Life is paradise!

One last thing: AB and I really love to read aloud to one another and right now I'm reading him The Wind in the Willows, which is one of my favourite books. My dad read it to me growing up, and he gave me this beautiful illustrated edition of it for my birthday last year. It's so lovely to share it with my dearest love. And I do really good voices, if I do say so myself...Mole is my favourite one. He has a scratchy little high-pitched snuffly British accent.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

nice to come home.

Early in January, I predicted that this year would be one of the best.

Shortly afterward, I was dying to take that back.

But now? After the summer I've had and the fall I'm beginning, I know that my prediction was right. I come home from work to a beautiful house which is quickly becoming a beautiful home. Or if I don't work that day, I see my friends or draw or go for long, long walks through the city...or I just sit quietly with myself and when my dear love comes home (if he is working that day), we eat dinner and curl up and always tell each other just how much we love one another.

Things are so very, very right.

Friday, August 20, 2010

if i could, i'd get lost tonight.

everything, everything, everything.

i'm so very lucky to have the friends i do. Cat, whose clockwork gears of vast intelligence and unconditional compassion and forgiveness, of brilliance and innumerable ideas seem to whir audibly when i'm near to her. Alison, whose careful thoughtfulness and reflection, whose intricate logic and precise ability to name the unnameable cast unwavering light for my thoughts to become clear in. Steph, whose nonjudgmental nature and tiny beautiful creations, whose selflessness and bravery quietly make themselves known through a glowing, crackling cable from her heart to mine. Ferron, whose deliberate words and never-closed embrace, whose never-blushing laughter allows me to speak uncensored when i'm seated next to her, our touching knees a tiny physical manifestation of our ability to always be together in one way or another.

and beyond these friends, there are the acquaintances who have taught me things i didn't know i needed to be taught. Rachel, my very first love, who i reunited with a week ago. we spent hours in the sun by a hill we once tumbled down together in the thunderous rain (holding hands and unable to contain our cackling laughter). she told me to not be afraid of doing things differently than i thought i would. told me that i didn't have to tie myself to half-promises i made to myself as a teenager. she spoke about her life and love in a far-off country and how, with nearly nothing, she has become unwaveringly happy and peaceful. even in the worst of times.

Adam, who i barely knew, spent a night with me on a fire escape and showed me that i am not alone - in my hatred and fear of my body, in my need for forceful reminders to reunite my body and my spirit, in the aimless and wandering annals of my strange brain. we said goodbye feeling healed and whole.

thankyouthankyouthankyou.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

unexpected fortune.

has it been long enough since i last wrote in here?

this has been the best summer of my life. which seems totally naive, i'm sure, as a non-friendly acquaintance accused me of being when i expressed my joyful anticipation of starting a family.

but it's unbelievably true.

my last few months in toronto were hellish. my eating disorder was symptomatic. i couldn't muster the courage to end a relationship i hadn't been present in for months and months. i begged so many psychiatric institutions to help me and was repeatedly turned away and ignored to the point where i ended up in the hospital on more than one occasion. i don't mean to sound precious or melodramatic - this is not an exaggeration. i was so, so miserable.

i went to my hometown to live with my parents because i couldn't simply couldn't survive in toronto anymore. after three days in saskatoon, i checked myself into the psych ward and was handed a new diagnosis and two new meds by two almost comically cold and stoic psychiatrists. much to my surprise, they helped me enormously.

my parents took me to israel for my sister's wedding. i spent four days in a beautiful, weird, and scary country with my beautiful, weird sister. it became apparent to me just how much she has taken care of me and taught me so much. her and her husband restored my ability to believe that a caring, mutually protecting relationship is possible. i ended my unhappy relationship the next day - perhaps not under ideal circumstances, but in a way that made me feel unexpectedly whole.

i returned to saskatoon with my dear brother-in-law's assurance that my basherte or basherter was on her or his way. while appreciating this very much, i was pretty confident in spending an undetermined amount of time alone.

then, through a guilty and heartfelt apology to a potential acquaintance in toronto whom i had repeatedly snubbed, i started building a careful and strange long-distance friendship. we sent letters with hastily scrawled drunken post-scripts; silly half-confessions that neither of us could confidently disclose in sobriety. and then there were phonecalls, midnight phonecalls during which we'd read to one another and shyly, metaphorically scuff our feet in embarrassed tenderness.

and then, we were in love. unashamedly, we planned our future children's names. our home together. he came to visit me and we spent every waking moment with our hands interlocked.

in a little over two weeks, we'll be living together in a beautiful old house in toronto. i have no delusions that it will be easy: i'm not exactly financially stable and toronto life will once again be taxing and anxiety-inducing. but i am completely sure that we will be okay together; that we'll keep each other safe and close.

i can't believe my unbelievable fortune in finding this person who i love so wholly, who makes me feel that i am capable of navigating adulthood, no matter how much struggle there will be, financially and emotionally. someone who makes me feel confident and competent, as an artist, a creator, as a future wife and mother. someone i am able to help feel less anxious, less self-conscious, and more confident in his unbelievable skill and genius as a writer and human being.

i've never felt so beautiful and strong and safe in my entire life.

Monday, June 28, 2010

First of all:

http://lexgill.com/2010/06/28/urgent-conditions-at-629-eastern-ave-illegal-immoral-dangerous/

Second of all. This G20 stuff has filled me with so, so much rage that I can hardly breathe. Yesterday i felt my bones itch with the painful, desperate need to be in my city fighting alongside my friends and comrades. Several of my nearest and dearest were detained, threatened, and clubbed. The reports of their safety are now pouring in, but it doesn't undo the horrific amount of police brutality that went down this weekend.

But: lying in bed with the phone cradled to my ear, scheming and plotting protest hijinx with my long-distance lover until we both fell asleep? That. That made me feel stronger.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

smaller, smaller

I have a guilty admission to make.

I shaved two days ago. It was an act of desperation; of scraping off as much of myself i could without hurting myself, without bruising my knees on the bathroom floor and retching up the contents of my stomach.

It wasn't premeditated. It just...happened.

Not shaving is a point of politics and pride for me. It has been a way for me to reclaim my body and show myself that I cannot and will not adhere to standards of beauty that are, to me, obsolete and ridiculous. I don't judge women who do scrape the hair off their legs and armpits and cunts, but it does make me a little sad. When I see other women with hairy armpits and legs, my heart does a bit of a leap and I feel loved and hopeful. This is maybe naive, but it's honestly what i feel.

As i watched these tiny hairs make their way down the drain, i felt this stab of pain and regret, my level-headedness returning to me. What the hell just happened?, i thought.

It was like being in a trance of utter self-loathing. I'm glad that I didn't hurt myself physically, but this really does hurt my heart. I feel weak. Personally, I mean. I don't think other women who shave are weak by any means - but this is something i have spent a lot of time thinking about and have decided is important to me.

it'll grow back, of course.

Friday, June 18, 2010

we had hot caramel sticking to our teeth

I got a letter in the mail today from Lisa.

Lisa appeared in my life when I was 15, wandered right on in, all wild curly hair moccasins the faint scent of patchouli patchy jeans little girl giggles and calligraphy-penned notes passed through boring classes.

Lisa knew how to find beautiful lace slips and paisley-printed vintage tunics, ancient beautiful wedding dresses and pocket watches, even in the most picked-over of thrift shops. She knew how to scent her letters without getting grease stains, knew how to make moonshinish strawberry wine in secret, squirreled away in parents' attics.

We were, in many ways, the most embarrassing white-girl cliches. But I loved Lisa so hard. Her and the girl I fell in the sort of deep love reserved for in-the-closet-highschool-girls, would always joke that they were stripping me of my innocence. But to me it felt more like they were carefully undressing me, exposing me to the sunlight in ways my pale skin hadn't yet felt.

I can't remember the last time I saw Lisa, with her untamable thatch of hair that made her, with her long slender body, look like a dandelion in the breeze. But hearing from her like this, as she writes to me from across the country - still the same Lisa running with horses and tending farms and feeding the birds and bedding brown-eyed musicians - makes me feel more glad of her existence than ever before.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

She is robed in strength and dignity; she smiles at the future.

It's been almost a month since I last posted and an almost comically large quantity of things have changed in my life since.

Disclaimer: This is a somewhat ridiculous post about marriage. Not for those who can't stomach the sickeningly sweet.

A week before I left for Israel, Gab and Ferron and I lounged on the hardwood floor of their apartment, sunlight filtering through the windows in bars that bisected and trisected our lazy bodies, warming us in selective stripes which made me keep taking off and putting back on my cardigan.

"I can't see any reason for getting married," said Gab. I expressed some sort of tepid agreement, mildly acknowledging that I had enjoyed some weddings - they were just not something for me. It seemed like a waste. Of money, of time. Having a huge expensive party for myself? It seemed like it would be lovely and thrilling but also embarrassing and as if it might accidentally tread into the valley of the selfish.

Then, little more than a week later, I found myself chewing my lip with great concentration, willing tears to roll back within me, as my new brother-in-law sang to my elder sister at their wedding. A friend who I had made that day - a brown-eyed bespectacled henna artist with a laugh that hit me tenderly right between my ribs - whispered a translation in my ear.

Eishes chayil is a song from the Book of Proverbs that describes what a virtuous woman should be like. From that description, one might expect something painfully outdated and possibly offensive.

But it is the most beautiful song I have ever heard in my barely-over-two-decades life.

And watching my sister leaning her face on her palm as she listened to my brother-in-law sing to her gave me more happiness than anything I have felt to date. This is no exaggeration.

Anything that can give someone that degree of happiness, completely inadvertently, cannot be anything but good.

And I decided then that marriage is totally a party that I can get behind.

Friday, May 14, 2010

worst suit EVER

One of my least favourite things: body hate.

Being crazy (clinically speaking, anyway) and having an eating disorder (though currently asymptomatic) is like wearing an enormous full-body suit with lead hands and feet which cause you to stoop forever, which causes chafing because the belly of the suit is made out of steel wool. Oh and the suit has built-in goggles which are always dirty and made of frosted glass. Also, the suit is way too warm and you want to take it off SO bad, but you can never ever ever take it off.

So today at my parents' house i tried on a dress my aunt gave me two months ago and when i zipped it up it was decidedly snugger than it was then. I started to freak out, verbally, while my mom was in the next room. "Oh, it's probably your new meds, honey!" she said.

To which my only thought was: ohgodohgodohgod i have lost control over my body i gotta get it back NOW

and what really tops this scenario off is that two of my most special, best supports for body stuff are 1) a health professional i can no longer see because she's in another province and 2) someone who recently has demonstrated that he cannot or will not be a support to me through his complete lack of condolence during another time of need.

i am going crazy (crazier) in this fucking suit, you guys!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

taking pictures of a girl who's in a wheat field

My dreams have been startlingly sad lately. I choose to think this the result of the new, sleep-inducing medication I've been prescribed.

Last night after I closed my eyes I desperately wandered a nameless New York metro station, rocking forward on tippy-toes looking for a tall figure in the crowd. Wandered into an underground symphony hall where a beautiful orchestra was practicing Brahms. I sat alone in the huge theatre and began to weep into my bag of candy. I tried to call out a request for Sibelius but my voice wouldn't emit anything but a pale squeak.

When the orchestra took an intermission from rehearsal, I stared into the familiar brown eyes of a cellist and my heart didn't flutter but stung like bitten fingers; itched like a new sunburn. We leaned in and didn't kiss but breathed gently into one another. He pressed two new HB pencils into my open palm and then I was alone in the metro again as trains rushed by.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

with your silent brand-new sneakers

In the eight days that I've been here, there hasn't been one day where it hasn't rained (or snowed, in today's case).

Not to be overly dramatic, but I've also already been to the hospital. It's all okay right now, in the immediate sense, but I can't shake this feeling of doom.

She said, in her completely public blog.

On the positive side of things, I have already been to the liberry (liberry! LIBERRY), the statue garden, the teen sex cove, various drinking establishments, the quasi-vegan bakery, and the roastery.

My drawings haven't been very good lately.

Last night Steph and Cat and PD and I curled up in blankets and read out loud to each other whilst drinking peppermint tea. It was really lovely.

That's really all I can report. I'm hoping for feeling better once printmaking starts.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

you hear me now.

I am visiting my hometown, which i have been counting down the days to forever.
I have seen three of my dearest friends (feminist posse!).
I have had the opportunity to hang out with my parents quite a bit.

And: I am, of course, unsatisfied. But more than that. I feel as though I'm wrapped up in a soft but strangely itchy veil, and i'm completely naked underneath. I need the veil's protection and it is inhibiting everything, at the same time.

Friday, April 16, 2010

we don't have to be anything quite so unreal

So, school...is done.

I'm strangely not even that ecstatic. But I am really glad it's over. OVER!

My past few weeks have been really lovely and weird. I've been house-sitting at this house with an ungodly loud refrigerator and a suspiciously uncomfortable bed and super loud upstairs neighbours, but somehow this hasn't upset me too much. Instead, I have fitful sleep punctuated with bizarre dreams about refrigerators. It's kind of fun.

I shaved a small band of my head. On the left side of my head. It runs from my temple to the nape of my neck and you can't see it unless i wear my hair up. It feels like a newborn kitten, and I can be seen absent-mindedly stroking the patch behind my left ear (handy because I can adjust my glasses with my right hand at the same time).

Ten days from now, I'll be in Saskatchewan. Before that, I have a tonne of zines to finish and photocopy (on a real tight budget) and a festival to attend. Oy. I need to stop by Midoco and pick up some new pens, as I've been wearing them down like a fiend with everyday drawings. I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere. Maybe.

This summer I want to shriek with giggles and kick my feet, wholly delighted with something ridiculous. I wanna sit in the Cooleymobile at the Teen Sex Cove eating blood orange sorbet and talking shit and listening to silly music. Ohhh and drink baby duck by the Meewasin eat five-cent candy on the rooftops of Broadway listen to new order while i get ready for art shows.

Things are going to go well. I know this.

Monday, March 29, 2010

tummy rumblings.

Your fragility is so destructive.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

your dreams blindfold you by the light you make.

The end of March is hard for me.

The anniversary of J's passing is creeping up. I've been having dreams about his dark brown (almost black eyes) set in his thin face. About how his nostrils flared ever so slightly when he was anxious. I've been thinking about how when he burst into a grin at one of my silly jokes, it never reached those almostblack eyes, and how guilty I feel that I never noticed this fact until after he was gone.

J...if you can read this through some magical afterlifey powers...please know how much I've been thinking of you. Don't feel guilty or sad; I know you had to go and the decision would have been hard enough without having to think of how others would take it. Maybe I was just some peripheral figure at your hellish workplace, but J...you made me happy. I looked forward to heading into that cramped, cold chart room because I knew you'd be there. I knew you'd do your hilarious Ali G impression or tell me about Derrida or that we'd talk about Einsturzende Neubauten. You were truly special to me. I hope you're somewhere, full of light and love and that your beautiful dark eyes are part of your smile now.

On a separate note, late march is also when my stomach starts clenching with the remembrance of love. I don't try to push it out of my mind; I gently allow myself to push at my own swollen heart. In wonder.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

not forests but gentle trees

Here's a factoid for you, tiny readership, which I will now ask you to help demonstrate:

How old are you?

What number sprung to mind when you read that? According to my (mumbles under breath) psychotherapist, if this number is not your actual age, it is often an indicator that part of you is stuck in a traumatic or momentous event that happened during the (inaccurate) year you instantly think of.

I find this fascinating and touching and mildly depressing.

Lately my head has been in my sketchbook and in the clouds. I've been having strange thrilling nerve-wracking dreams. I've been drawing my friends' faces and thinking about how I do and don't want to spend the summer outside of Toronto. I think it will be a good break, but I will miss it terribly. I have a problem with romanticizing whatever I've left or am leaving. Nostalgia addict.

Everything makes me anxious and/or excited these days.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

yours truly, jens lekman

(note: i am not jens lekman)

Today I had a four hour rehearsal for my reading-theatre-class final, then promptly spent the rest of the day changing my clothes every five minutes, bursting into tears, breathing weird, eating a sammich, listening to jens, trying to get people to go drinking with me... and finally watching an episode of kids in the hall, during which i felt like crying because it looks like they are having so much fun at the party in the opening credits (shot in Toronto at the old Guvernment...season 4).

What with my wildly oscillating living arrangements, emotional turmoil(tm), etc., I've been a very silly basketcase lately. I sat down in my poetry class the other day and everyone looked at me expectantly. It turned out I had a seminar presentation worth 1/4 of my final mark. I had no idea. I hadn't done the reading. I didn't even know what day it was; it was amazing that I managed to get there at all.

(Note: it was fine. I did it the next class, and did very well I think.)

I've also forgot doctor's appointments, plans with friends, my age, etc.

The good news is that I've been offered a position as an artist-in-residence in Halifax for a few weeks this september. I'm thrilled at the prospect. Also a little nervous.

Lately my heart feels like a terribly wound up elastic band that keeps being plucked and shot around the room. This is a second-or-third hand metaphor I picked up a coupla years back.

Unfortunately, I suffer from an illness that has the ability to either make me incredibly eloquent or incredibly incoherent. Today it's the latter.

Goodnight.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

lump.



i am a lump.

today i went to my new coffee shop. drew a bit, worked on my zine a bit, and then lay on the couch watching Larry David make an ass of himself.

made some vegan chocolate chip cookies.

please please please let me have more energy and happiness tomorrow.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

the swans are all huddled together

This little robin doesn't have a nest anymore.

I'm living out of a suitcase in a cramped basement suite that isn't mine. And it's fine and I'm lucky I have someone I can go to. So lucky. And the home I left behind was broken and fucked up and it's good that I'm gone, but...

I don't have a room anymore.

My stuff is still at the old house, and I don't know when or how to get it.

I don't know how to tell my parents about the chamber of horrors the past three weeks have been.

My body is extremely displeased. So is my bank account.

But I'll be in a much safer place in 61 days and We Will All Be Well, etc.

I'm okay, everyone!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

ampersand after ampersand

Do you remember faux-swingdancing with me in the streets at night when no one else was around?

I've been doing the following: swilling beer with my roommate, wearing a million different colours of tights, thumbing through 18th century novels lazily, showing off my armpit hair in cramped bars, seeing lots of plays for class, chomping down on fruit bandits (a no-name equivalent of runts, i think), and spending hours in waiting rooms and specialist offices. I'm actually doing considerably well. The trick is spending extremely little time in my mind and lots of time finding other things to occupy it.

Drawing and writing have been hard lately. Too much in-my-mind time. Blogging clearly isn't helping the situation...but i wanted to anyway, since last post wasn't especially cheery.

I want to spend the summer in cotton dresses and wool socks, cycling through the streets of my hometown with a fisherprice tape recorder blasting my themesongs (I mentioned this to V at the Only and some guy at the bar turned around and told me he liked the idea...eash). I want to finish a million unfinished art projects and drink on the river landing. I want to drive far away in the Cooleymobile, eating blood orange sorbet.

Oh, that living in the future. Doing my best to live here right now. Magnetic Fields this month, possible zine trip to Chicago, and visits with the lovely M.E. are all on the horizon.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

oh, how quickly optimism is quashed.

i'm reminded of this scene in Shortbus where Severin, the dominatrix, bursts into tears in front of Sook-yin Li's character. "What if I can't afford to live here anymore? I can't go back!" She cries and cries, then, sniffing, tries to convince herself that she can just stay in New York City and make art all year.

that scene touches a nerve. i know i know, those fucking Torontonians comparing themselves to New Yorkers when they couldn't be more different...but i'm genuinely struck with fear when it comes to this city. it's too expensive. as far as employment, i live contract to contract, in constant fear of where my next paycheque will come from. how long can i stay in Toronto before it chews me up and spits me out?

and i'm sick. i don't want to scare anyone, but i am really sick right now. i can't tell my parents, provinces away, because i just don't want to cause more confusion and concern. my eyes burn and my stomach has stopped growling for food, knowing there isn't any more coming. i sob out of nowhere. make late-night teary phone calls when i'm so delirious that i might as well be drunk. Not Good.

i'm going to go to a facility tonight, and i'm not going to tell my family. i need the people who read this to help make sure that this remains quiet. i promise i will seek help, but i really do need to do it in privacy.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

absolutely cuckoo.

Against better judgment, perhaps, I am having the best day ever. I should be working on an essay or something, but i'm instead sitting on my floor drawing and drinking boozy coffee in shortshorts (a.k.a. little boys' swimming trunks from sears).

This summer is going to be fucking awesome. Saskatoon (feminist posse!), Israel (my sister's wedding!), and maaaaaybe if I'm lucky Halifax. Yesss! 2010, I had no idea you were gonna be so fun. At least for the first while.

My new roommate is lovely. On my first night here, he gave me a ticket to see the Magnetic Fields and kept me company while I started unpacking. Our third roommate (his partner) will be here in a month and I imagine the awesomeness will only increase exponentially.

Goodmoodgoodmoodgoodmood.

Friday, January 15, 2010

wonderful and odd; our memories are all we've got.

I'm sitting on my mattress and listening to my new roommate singing along to an unidentifiable singer/songwriter. He has a nice voice and it pleases me that I will probably have a soundtrack most of the time we're both here.

The thing about gathering everything you own is, you reexamine all of it. I've found journals, so many journals. Thumbnails of so many potential comics. Half-started drawings. Reading and seeing who I was when I first came to this city is sort of heartbreaking.

"My life is about to fucking supernova," I told Jen on the deck of Red Rocket Coffee on the evening of her departure.

Thinking about the future means you want something.
-Douglas Coupland

Thursday, January 14, 2010

i don't know what i can save you from

okay, disclaimer.

it's 11:20 p.m., there's a party at my house, i'm drunk, and i'm packing up all my possessions.

dear goodness, has it only been 19 months since I moved here?

i came here in april. my heart was broken. i had short hair and i was wearing birds on my shirt. alone: that was how i felt. andrew t came over on my 2nd day here and in my peripheral vision, he reminded me of someone i loved.

i scooped out dishes of ice cream for him.

why am i moving? for cheaper rent. for a change. to be on the west side.

sometimes i think about the word "sublime": originally, feeling the sublime meant you felt tiny and insignificant; a speck of dust on the marred face of the universe.

that's how i feel tonight. in a happy way.

i think about slaughterhouse 5 too. about the aliens who see time as happening all at once. being happy about each moment of good, all the time. is there a reason humans don't do this?

of course.

would i go back tonight if i could?

do you even need to ask?

Monday, January 11, 2010

i'm ready for an adventure.

The past three days have been the best days of my year so far. And yeah, the year just started, but I think this is significant anyway.

So what have I been up to?

1.) Making coffee at home, to save money. This is my usual ritual:
-Put the coffee grinds in my 1-cup French press. I drink 10 000 Villages Fair Trade Peru Dark Roast, and sometimes various Intelligentsia beans from Manic Coffee
-Add a sprinkle ground cloves and 1 tsp ground cinnamon
-boil ze water
-brew for exactly 3.5 minutes
---->simultaneously, i heat up about an inch of soymilk and a splash of vanilla extract
-pour the coffee into the soymilk/vanilla mix
-DRINK UP! It's like delicious Mayan chocolate. Without the chocolate.

2.) Drawing. I've accomplished so much in the past 3 days! Cover for my next zine, 3 complete illustrations, 3 illustrations underway. How is that possible? Well, I haven't been called into work, and I've been acknowledging that I love hanging out by myself. It's so satisfying to sit in my room, drawing whilst...

3.) ...Listening to This American Life. I know I'm the last person on this bandwagon, but I don't even care because I've fallen so deeply in love. This weekend alone: 9 hours of TAL.

4.) Applying for a residency. Don't want to get too into detail, because I don't wanna get my hopes up.

5.) An excellent 59-minute phone conversation with Cat.

6.) Going to a sweet knitting group. I am getting pretty darn good at knitting.

7.) Plotting several textile projects. Eeee.

And now: back to packing my stuff up and trying to get in line with Academia. Note the capital A. Eeesh.