Regarding that double-suicide in Etobicoke
where the elderly couple jumped 18 stories to their respective deaths together because the wife was in severe pain and didn't want to live anymore, and her husband didn't want to live without her, so they jumped from their balcony together.
I wonder how they felt.
(Euphoric? Scared? Filled with regret?
-Hopefully not the last one.)
I wonder if they cried.
I wonder if they held hands.
I wonder if I would do it, if it were me.
As morbid as it is I've thought about suicide a few times -not in the immediate future, but what it would mean for me as someone who will get old and whose body won't always be kinda nice to look at kinda work the way that it's supposed to.
It also makes me think about what it would mean for other people, and why they would make that decision.
It also makes me think about how we, as a society, view suicide.
It bugs me that most people look at it as something that only fucked-up people do. Remember that guy Martin Manley from a few months back who took his own life and put up a website about it? I read a mirror of the site when the news exploded and he seemed like a pretty level-headed guy. He knew what he was doing. But still we had (have?) this urge to paint everyone with the same brush because it's easy -I remember reading boatloads of comments about how he just had to be fucked in the head to even consider suicide as a viable option.
I think we have this reaction because death is scary and I think we're scared by the fact that people can look at death head-on and think
"yeah, I'm okay with this."
That doesn't make it brave, or noble, or any of that shit. But I don't think it makes it cowardly, or selfish, or any of the other things people call it, either.
It's just a thing that some people do that makes us sad.
Mostly because our society doesn't really give us the tools to cope with it. We see it as some sort of giving up, as rejection of life, which is something that we should always want.
But we don't always want it, and we shouldn't always have to.
It's fucked up, but by and large that's how life is.
Fucked up.
What I learned at my graduation
Which actually happened last Friday as I'm sure most of you know but I didn't want to write about it until I'd had some time to sit back and reflect on what happened and what it actually means to me, if anything at all.
Here goes:
It's not about you, the graduand, at all.
Which seems like an obvious statement but when you spend a bunch of time preparing for what is supposed to be one of the most important moments of your adult life, your transition from being a lowly student to being a lowly intern or administrative assistant or whatever, you kind of expect it to focus a little more on you which it really doesn't. Or mine didn't, at least.
The UW sent out this "what to expect when you graduate" form a few weeks before which, in addition to providing me with my place in line and gown rental info also said that Convocation lasts around 2 1/2 hours which I assumed meant that there would be a speech or two and then a bunch of us graduating because that's why we were there.
This was an incorrect assumption on my part.
Instead I sat with my graduating class in an auditorium while a bunch of people awarded degrees and titles to each other and gave flowery speeches about how great they, the person giving them the award, and the university in general was.
It also happened to be the 100th Convocation which meant that they felt the need to give awards to dead people as well as people who could be there to accept them.
The whole ceremony was so long that it had an intermission for people to get up and stretch their legs and during which my poor Nan and Granddad had to leave because they actually had other stuff to go and do and hadn't expected to be there that long. Luckily for the time that they were there I was seated close enough to them that we could make faces and eyerolls at one another to indicate how bored we were, so that was nice.
All in all the whole ceremony was nearly three hours, two and a half of which the University of Winnipeg staff and alumni spent patting itself on the back instead of recognizing the students they were supposedly there to honour. The actual process of everyone going up, walking across the stage to shake the necessary hands and get their diplomas, and sitting back down took about twenty minutes.
I was too hot, stiff, bored, tired and absolutely starving by the end of it.
But that weird feeling of pride, that swelling in my chest when I moved that silly tassel from the right side to the left of my mortarboard was something I'm so, so glad that I experienced.
Even if it still doesn't feel quite real just yet.
I bet you want to know why I'm watching 'Chocolat'
The answer is that it's partially because it's on Netflix.
But mostly the answer is because back when I was fresh out of high school I knew a girl named Rae-Annon and it was her favourite movie if I recall correctly. If it wasn't, and I'm wrong, it was damn near her favourite because she talked about it a lot.
Even though she and I went to elementary school together, or maybe it was middle school I'm not sure anymore I knew who she was because she was the weird goth chick that my yuppie friends and I would look at from down the hall with big saucer-like eyes and wonder what could possess someone to dress that way.
(We, however, were dressed in as little as the school would let us get away with wearing without having to wear a garbage bag for a shirt and we were barely on our periods so who were the fucked-up ones, really?)
Anyway after high school we reconnected by chance because we both worked at the same McDonalds in Winnipeg Square where I wiled away a year of the year and a half between when I graduated and when I moved to Ontario.
She was way more self-assured and I didn't realize it at the time but I really looked up to her even though she had slightly hippie-er tendencies than me like not always shaving her armpits and talking about shakras and stuff.
She went to the East Coast for a month and brought me back a small bag of sea glass which I still have and treasure even though we haven't talked in years.
We used to hang out in her parent's basement which was basically her little pad and watch movies like East of Eden and Breakfast at Tiffany's and drink wine from a box and talk about the boys in our lives. She showed me how to paint watercolours and bought me a martini glass set for my 18th birthday and we had stupid made-up words like 'citag' that we used with each other because young girls are dumb that way.
She knew me back when I was still a pretty fucked-up mess and sometimes I feel bad about that.
We've completely lost touch over the years after a nasty falling out that was, largely and unsurprisingly, my fault. But when I think about those years I try not to think about the end, but rather the rest of it which was sweet and amazing and good.
So when I saw Chocolat on Netflix the other day I put in my queue and even though it's not a very good movie (which I didn't expect it to be) it's nice to remember her and my friendship that feels like a lifetime ago.
So hi Rae-Annon, if you're reading this.
Mushy Thanksgiving post
Woke up today with a crick in my neck because T. was sleeping on it
with my arm wrapped around Tyrone
(mostly for warmth but also for love)
in my little apartment with the leaves turning red outside the window.
Ford was in the window but wouldn't come post for the picture so that's okay.
You know he was around
being difficult in his kitty way.
Yesterday we had brunch with Ty's family
at his sister's super cute new place
and I realized how much they've all come to mean to me
as we drove home down the highway and I looked out at all the
red and yellow fields and the big blue prairie sky.
(Also living in the prairies. I love it here)
Almost every day I'm reminded somehow of how lucky I am to have the friends that I do
(honestly, I really know the best people
who are hilarious, smart, creative, outrageous, and largely inappropriate)
but on Friday night we played Catan with two of the people I've known the longest
since I was
what
13, 14? Something like that.
Which reminded me of how much my friends mean to me
and how far some of us have come together.
Tonight I'll call up my Mum
tell 'er I love'r
talk to my dad who will undoubtedly tell me some crazy story
and keep me on the phone for way too long.
I love them despite their craziness
but it doesn't need to be Thanksgiving for that to be obvious.
Obviously.
And Tyrone
who I'm thankful for every god damn day
for more reasons than I can and should list here
like hugs, inside jokes, long drives, morning runs, his beard and moustache
always having fun even when doing the most boring, mundane stuff
but especially the eggs benedict that he just made for me.
yum.
happy Thanksgiving kids, be thankful for what ya got!
I sure as hell am.
Boyfriend at the time and I would drive around
from his place
to mine
to the movies
to dinner somewhere
to the park
to our minimum-wage jobs
wherever
and we'd listen to bands like this
(so emo)
not because we were unhappy
but because we weren't.
Weird listening to it now.
It feels like a lifetime ago.
Everyone on /r/gaming is doing this
so here's the story of my first "wow" moment in gaming.
Which isn't really true because it's my mum's
but it's the first one that I remember
so here it goes:
when I was a youth we had a SNES and because we didn't have a ton of money
we rented The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
from the video store down the street
(for like, a year, but whatever)
and my mum was super into it.
Like, really into it.
So one day after school we're hanging out
Mum's playing away while dinner cooks
doing some stuff in the Lost Woods
and she says
"Wow this is so realistic! I don't think anything could get more realistic!"
So I don't know how thrilled she was several years later when I showed her this:
Sorry Mum.
Couldn't help smiling today
riding my bike home through the leaves and the wind earlier this evening
neglecting the bike lane on Princess St because
it's on the wrong fucking side of the street
and I hate crossing three lanes of traffic.
Didn't matter though
'cause
life is grand.
We're helping Adrian move tomorrow afternoon
which Tyrone says he isn't excited about but I think he's lying because it's brilliant when someone gets to move into their own place and you get to share that with them.Carrying be damned.
I moved out for the first time when I was 19 because I was sick of living in the suburbs and was fighting with my mom a lot. I don't remember what we fought about but it was awful and we were both awful and some friends were moving out together and I just kinda went
'Can I get in on this action?'
and they said yes and like two weeks later I was living in a house which was too big for the three of us and way too expensive for me but I didn't care. I walked to and from my minumum-wage job at the video game store in the mall and existed on a single small bag of salt n vinegar chips and an orange juice on the days that I worked and a few perogies on the days that I wasn't. Sometimes I had sour cream if I was lucky.
I lost a ton of weight and slept and drank way too much but it didn't matter.
Though a few months in I wound up moving to Ontario which was an even bigger shock.
Except there I was miserable and ate n drank all the time and put on all the weight I'd lost and then some.
Eventually I moved home.
I moved back in with my parents and my mum and I got along but once you've had that taste of independence it's hard to let it go, I think, so within a year I moved out on my own again and have been ever since.
I had my tiny character suite in an old building in Osborne Village and now I have my big-ass character suite in an old building in West Broadway which I love to pieces, which is also why I encouraged Adrian to move in here, too.
And by 'encouraged' I mean 'harassed him and the caretaker nonstop about it until it happened' which it has and everyone wins.
Adrian gets a super-cool bachelor pad right near campus.
My caretaker knows he has a decent tenant that he doesn't have to worry about.
And I get a new neighbour one floor down who loves beer, good food and has a super-cute accent.
Did I mention he's also single?
My life is about to become a sitcom.
Everything is perfect
Stayed in last night and watched The Tree of Life.
Which is
brilliant
gorgeous
makes you feel terribly
small
compared to the overwhelming space scenes
(I almost cried during a scene featuring the Horse Head Nebula to the tune of lacrimosa)
and smothered, claustrophobic
watching the characters live out their lives.
Terrence Mallick is genius
and Brad Pitt absolutely
destroys.
Though the movie lost it's shit a bit in the last ten minutes -sorry to say.
However
watch it anyway.
Then go watch Upstream Color
(if you haven't already)
because Shane Carruth is brilliant
and his film is like a Mallick movie
but makes slightly more sense.
We were up late, after coffee and a nice long walk
playing vide games and being nerds together
which isn't abnormal
but still nice.
This morning I woke up to rain.
The quiet sound of it outside
& the smell of it, too.
So we made baked eggs and kept few lights on
and here we are.
Happy weekend.
So Justin Bieber was on "Between Two Ferns"
and it's every bit as awesome and hilarious as you would imagine Zach Galifinakis interviewing Justin Bieber would be.
