I haven't been honest so here's what's up
for the past while
days, weeks, months, maybe
I haven't been myself.
I've been a shadow of my former self due to heartache and confusion and betrayal and all of that good shit that makes you
lie awake in the dark at night
feel heartsick all day every day
write secret poems and flowery letters that you burn immediately
and pore over
every word
text
syllable
and, inevitably
each silence
until you drive yourself mad with it.
We become so wrapped up in the versions of ourselves that we feel that we need to be
(or remain)
that we lose sight of what can, might, maybe make us happy
or, in some cases (like mine)
we try to avoid and run away from our problems and the difficult decisions that need to be made
until we start hurting other people.
which is basically the opposite of what you ever
ever
wanted to do.
And for the past while I've felt almost utterly unable to create anything of value.
Just broken words, broken promises, broken hearts.
Until today.
Maybe it's the text message conversation that I had
or that walk in the rain
crying sitting in the middle of all of my posessions
or the crepes with way too much butter
listening to The Smiths
or just sitting here and writing in a more open and freeing way than I've done in months
I'm finally starting to feel like myself again.
Paper Moon
First fell in love with this song when I was living on Strathcona
in a house with too many rooms
which only accentuated how lonely I was at the time.
It's easy to fill a room with the sound of your own voice, or
alternatively
the sound of nothing at all.
It was a weird time.
Kind of like how right now is a weird time.
So it feels fitting that I should find myself listening to it again.
Sometimes you write for other people
Sometimes you write to other people.
Sometimes you're writing for yourself.
Sometimes you slam poems into yr iPhone while folding marketing materials at work.
Sometimes you scribble them onto papers and let them go in the wind off the Osborne bridge on yr way home.
Sometimes you hope they reach the right people.
Sometimes they do.
Sometimes they don't.
Sometimes you wish they wouldn't.
Sometimes you wish they hadn't.
Sometimes (most of the time) they're all we've got.
Orson Welles wrote a love letter
and of course it was amazing:Dearest Angel Girl,
I suppose most of us are lonely in this big world, but we must fall tremendously in love to find it out. The cure is the discovery of our need for company — I mean company in the very special sense we’ve come to understand since we happened to each other — you and I. The pleasures of human experience are emptied away without that companionship — now that I’ve known it; without it joy is just as unendurable as sorrow. You are my life — my very life. Never imagine your hope approximates what you are to me. Beautiful, precious little baby — hurry up the sun! — make the days shorter till we meet. I love you, that’s all there is to it.
Your boy,
Orson
*via a post by Tony.
Texted my bro "happy bday dude"
"what are you up to tonight? Want to grab a beer?"
which seemed like a perfectly reasonable request to meet me to drink beer and probably eat greasy appetizers at The Toad or maybe Cornerstone since he doesn't get out of the suburbs all that often.
Which apparently it isn't.
Later on, while on the phone with my mum and after a hilariously frustrating conversation about
how to use her call waiting
when is the appropriate time to use call waiting
(always!)
and finally
that she does in fact know how to use her call waiting but likes to be difficult
(typical Mum behaviour for which I both tease & love her endlessly)
I mentioned that I had texted my bro and she said
"oh yes, he called and mentioned that he'd seen your messages"
to which I said
"why didn't he respond to me?"
to which she said
"because you didn't ask him to call you, or to text you back"
EUGH.
Bless my family, who are permanently stuck in the Dark Ages.
Sloan was supposed to save rock music
or so I've been told by those much wiser than myself.
'Underwhelmed' came out when I was embarrassingly young -too young to be listening to music as cool as Sloan- but it was still kicking around in the form of my friend's cd of Smeared
(a word that I didn't yet associate with gross sexual stuff, but never mind)
when I was older to start appreciating the finer things in life.
We listened to Smeared to nonstop on her boom box while sitting on her concrete front step in front of her house, which was across the street from mine.
She was a few years older than I was and spent most of our time together explaining to my juvenile self just exactly why Sloan kicked so much ass
(a word I didn't dare say anywhere but on that front step)
why Jeff Martin of The Tea Party was so sexy
(hair, voice, perfect pitch)
why the Our Lady Peace album Naveed was clearly better than Clumsy
(I don't remember this, just that their videos freaked me out)
or why Treble Charger's "Red" gets more depressing the more you listen to it
(see what I mean?)
in addition to other life lessons that, sadly, have escaped me as the years have passed.
But the important ones stuck with me, clearly.
Avril Lavigne
wat r u doin
avril lavigne
stahp.
(awful video here because all the vids posted to youtube keep getting taken down)
At Thom Bargen
It's so warm outside that the door is open, so
the shop smells like
coffee
wood
and spring.
Which is lovely.
I am here with the intention of getting
positively loopy
on caffeine
and reading
The Gone-Away World.
But am too
distracted
enthralled
and otherwise
nosy
to pay much attention to the book.
The people in the shop are as follows:
Two baristas.
The nice man with the shaved head and
kickass
ginger beard
and
the nice girl who
despite my anxiousness over the decision
nicely
helped me pick some beans to take home.
Three guys.
Discussing something I can't make out
they all have nice
red/dark brown leather wallets
splayed out on the table
between napkins and notepads
and smartphones that keep chiming.
I think they are discussing an art show.
Two girls to my right.
Talking about
travelling alone
hashtags
the rules of the road
the CBC
iPads
and boys
(of course)
Outside.
An amazing man
in a tattered pinstripe three-piece suit just walked by
wearing white wrap-around sunglasses
clearly not giving
one single fuck
just walked by
and
(obviously)
made my day.
Plus me.
Clearly
utterly
tremendously
failing
at reading my book club book.
But that's okay.
People are far more interesting anyway.
RIP 'the Beave'
aka Adam Rickner
who hosted the MTN Kids Club on what is now Citytv
as a puppet beaver named Beave, and his cohost Buckley the dog.
Watching clips from the show, now, I realize
how totally cobbled-together it was
and how they totally sounded like hosers.
I used to watch the shit out of that show when I was little
in-between cartoons after school
and on the wknd
and it's funny how looking at a picture
or watching a video
gives me warm fuzzies for my simpler,
younger days.
(Man, I'm getting old.)
