yesterday was tough

February 27, 2013 - 11:00pm - by admin

in fact, despite one really good thing it was probably the worst day I've had in years or since I can remember at least.

no I don't want to talk about it.

maybe in the throes of things I would have been ready to pour my heart out here but the internet isn't cool with that kind of stuff anymore, and nobody wants to hear about how sad I am unless it's a major catastrophe or a loss of some kind

(which yesterday was and then wasn't)
(which I realize makes no sense)
(but neither did yesterday, so there).

the nice thing is that after a good sleep everything feels a bit brighter.

more manageable.

today was better.

had an amazing americano from parlour coffee.
took some sassy senior ladies to the casino with my work and one of them bought me a grilled cheese.
played bingo and was an I 60 away from winning $47,500+ dollars which nobody wound up winning.
(but it was nice & exciting to hope)
found a message on the way home that made me smile.



it's good to feel happy today.

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eyes are the windows of the soul, I said casually

January 31, 2013 - 3:01am - by admin

and he stood in front of me and held me by my upper arms

came in close so our lips almost touched

even though we'd only just met

looked straight into my eyes and said

'so I'm looking into your soul right now?'

and I shivered

in that good way.

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you know I never liked modest mouse

January 23, 2013 - 5:57pm - by admin

dude I dated a few years ago was super into them.

he used to play their cds in his car all the time.

it sucked because and he would always do super-sweet things like wake up early to pick me up and take me to work even when it was his day off.

but on the mornings he'd play modest mouse it was just ruined.

I know, I know. I should be thankful that he even went out of his way in the first place. and I was.

don't get me wrong.

but their music is so intrusive and annoying and it was really hard to have a conversation

with modest mouse blasting over everything I said

especially first thing in the morning.

it's important to pick the right music to listen to when you start yr day

I'd tell him

which is why I always pick something super upbeat.

a nice 90's playlist or cbc radio 3. y'know.

but this guy

his alarm in the mornings was the intro to chop suey by system of a down

which was probably the worst thing to wake up to ever

then he'd rush out the door and listen to modest mouse in the mornings in his car

and then be mad all day.

I don't get people.

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okay so we didn't watch solaris

January 16, 2013 - 5:00am - by admin

it's my fault, as are most things. I admit.

I'm working on this huge project of sorts which is sucking up a lot of time now that I'm back in school and tomorrow I'm having a pre-interview coffee with one of the former mayors of the city which I'm a bit freaked out about, honestly.

I'm sure she's super nice and she'll be charming and hilarious and I'll be this weird nervous wreck all hopped-up on coffee because we're meeting at Starbucks and their coffee makes me sick to my stomach, a little bit.

doing work for this project has been eating up a lot of my time but it's going way better than expected and I think my prof is impressed with it, which is always a bonus.

still doesn't make me less nervous to start interviewing people, though.

so basically I put off watching solaris because we needed to clean the apartment, you guys, and I needed to make sure I had all my shit together for these interviews I have coming up for this project. by the time I was done it was like 10:30pm and tyrone was all

we can't watch solaris. we'll fall asleep and jason will yell at us on the internet more for falling asleep during solaris again.

which is probably true.

so we hung out in bed and tyrone fell asleep and I read more of ham on rye which is just, wow, so messed up.

weird thing is that I've been having amazing dreams after reading bukowski. not fucked-up weird things, but these ridiculous adventure dreams where I wake up fully refreshed and ready to take on the world because I just finished kicking ass in my dream.

you know what I mean.

usually in the mornings I tell tyrone what I've been dreaming about because he never remembers his dreams and I feel bad for him. sleeping is one of my favourite things to do, mostly because I have really intense dreams and I feel like he's missing out by not remembering them.

the problem with dreams is that they never make sense. like, ever. so he kinda rolls his eyes or makes a weird face and then leaves the room without saying anything.

I've thought about keeping a dream diary and maybe making a book out of the amalgamation of my stupid dreams and becoming a bazillionaire off the profits. I mean is twilight and 50 shades of grey can be bestsellers why can't my piece of crap novel?

but then I wouldn't have time to blog here because I'd be doing pressers and tours and stuff, so fuck that shit I guess.

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there's a spot on campus where I like to sit

January 10, 2013 - 11:11pm - by admin

I come and sit here whenever I can. it's a four-person table but it's always just me and like most of the tables in this little seating area in Lockhart Hall the chairs are attached to the tables by metal poles and swival a bit.

like being in an academic mcdonalds.

I like sitting here because I can watch everything. to my right is a window

(and I always sit with the window to the right and my back to the wall. I don't like when people walk behind me)



the window overlooks boring stuff. a surface parking lot and the Booth College across from that and some sidewalks but because it's sidewalks around the school there are always interesting people walking by or driving by in cars that look like different kinds of dinosaur heads.

if I don't look out the window I eavesdrop and watch other students while pretending to write on my blog (like now).

I like listening to other people but my earphones are in playing a quiet BNL song so I'm sort of in my own world but not really. this way only the people worth paying attention to, the loud or obnoxious or angry ones actually catch my attention.

for example two girls at the next table over were having a discussion about horoscopes which meant the volume went up. another friend showed up and started talking about how her mom thought she was an alcoholic because she brought a bottle of vodka in her purse to class.

headphone volume down.

I spend a lot of time here studying and writing and listening and watching people. in three years I've sat here more times than I can count and it never stops being interesting.

what it's taught me is that people are infinitely complex with really dramatic problems that usually have simple solutions.

that there are some really well-dressed people who walk by my school.

that more students have imacs than anything else.

that boiled eggs are not okay to eat in a public place (smelly).

that lots of people are unhappy in their relationships and would rather complain to their friends than to their partners.

that we all drink too much coffee.

and that an unbelievable amount of women have the exact same voice. wtf.

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nobody has blogs

January 8, 2013 - 11:30pm - by admin

which freaks me out.

one of my profs asked today if anyone has a blog and I was the only one who put up my hand. this is the third time that's happened this year and I'm developing a bit of a complex about it because when I do everyones heads turn and they look at me like I'm this antiquated freak.

who do I think I am? why am I putting my thoughts on the Internet?

one girl asked me if I got paid to do it and I said if she meant was that how I made my living, no, and she said well then what's the point? and that bothered me.

I remember back when it was cool to blog, back when everyone had one and I was just starting to get into them because I had shitty dial-up until like '06 because I lived at my parents house and as a result doing basically anything was a huge hassle. I found out about it because my friend kira wrote a blog at manicidosyncratic.blogspot.com that she used to be obsessed with that isn't around anymore.

I started a blog because I envied how easily she seemed to talk about everything in her life. she just put it out there, boom. typed and hit 'publish' and maybe regretted it but the blog never saw that. she had connections with these equally interesting, thoughtful and crazy writers all who she communicated with all the time. she had public fights and falling-outs and flame wars and it was amazing to watch, this brilliant and beautiful girl that I knew making her mark on the blogosphere.



do we still call it that?

nobody in any of my 'communications' classes knew what it was.

that worries me.

especially because most of the blogs that I used to read that I considered to be "good blogs" have just become vehicles for promoting crap that they probably would never use in real life if someone wasn't paying them for it. I'm not saying I don't think it's okay to blog about a product you like, or an experience you were lucky enough to have comped but if that's all a blog is -just a place to advertise stuff without any actual heart, soul or thought that otherwise goes into it- is that still a blog?

or is it just a commercial with a blogger's face slapped onto it?

I think that's what has ruined blogging. nobody wants to share their lives or be frank or sad or angry or drunk or fucked up anymore because there's the possibility of getting a blinged-out necklace or a car for the weekend or a trip somewhere if you just sell your soul & your integrity off to the highest bidder a post at a time. heaven forbid that there's an actual person underneath all that jargon with something real to say.

which is what we used to want to see.

which I think is why a lot of blogs -the good blogs- have died out. been privatized or shut down because the people who give a shit about writing feel like there's no point in putting it out there because if so-and-so is going to an MTV party once a week who wants to hear about what I did on the weekend or what I thought about a movie or whatever.

I think that's why people who don't write blogs don't know about blogging except for the Jenna Marbles' of the world (which is mostly vlogging but that's a different story) which is a damn shame because it's these everyday people that should be blogging in the first place. it's their experiences that make blogging important and interesting, not what the same six people did at the same party which they all attended every weekend for the past year.

maybe it's because I came late to the party, but blogging means something different for me. which is why I still do it.

which is why I wish you did, too.

but with the attention people pay to blogs these days, I doubt you even finished reading this.

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we're in an abusive relationship with facebook

December 18, 2012 - 8:15pm - by admin

let's just admit it already.

what was once a great user experience that connected us with everyone we had ever known and every single new person we met that (I'll admit) revolutionized the way we interact online, this relationship is going downhill and we need to face facts: it's just not good for us any more.

it changes our privacy and sharing options constantly (and resets them at random). it suggests weird and sometimes offensive ads based on what people in our feed say. it crashes (often). it's slow. it's become less about networking and sharing and more about ad revenue based on flash-based games and ads inserted into our news feeds. the only thing it is good at (event management) has fallen by the wayside so much that it's barely even worthwhile to use when there are third-party sites like MeetUp.com out there.

and now facebook is going to be bringing videos to our already overly-cluttered networking experience.

auto-playing, probably audio-enabled, full-window, at least 15-second-long videos.

and it does all of this so blatantly, flying in the face of a positive user experience. nobody wants to deal with ads or videos or intrusive weird privacy policies that we constantly have to police and re-correct to the way we want them, but the people behind facebook do it anyway because profit is more important than respecting the people who made your site what it is in the first place.

as a user of multiple social networking sites, this hits me like a drunken smack to the jaw. none of my other beloved sites would treat me this way! why am I letting facebook get away with it? why are we?!

because we're stuck in an abusive relationship with it. it's safe, it's easy, we can go back whenever we want and even though sometimes we get frustrated and upset with it, and it does things that hurt us (like completely disregard our user experience), at the end of the day we feel like we can't do any better.

which is the very definition of being in an abusive relationship.

we can do better, Internet.

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Winnipeg is the best place to be from

December 7, 2012 - 5:12am - by admin

which is something you don't hear often
not even from people from winnipeg
but it's true.

we're a big city still trying to be a small town
stuck being a small town with big-city problems
with shitty weather half the year
and a seething inferiority complex
in the middle of nowhere
(literally)
and we spend more time slamming
our sketchy mayor
our shitty transit system
and our winters
than saying good things about anything.

but our little frozen hovel
stuck out in the prairie
like a defiant 'fuck you' to common sense
breeds
amazing artists, writers, and most of all musicians
and a complex, intricate love/hate relationship
with the place we call 'home'.

this town makes you nicer
you smile and say 'hello' and make small talk in line at tim horton's
help out your neighbours or that guy
whose car got snowed in up the block
not because you want someone to reward you for doing it
but because it's the nice thing to do, dammit.

being stuck in the middle of the country
makes us much more appreciative
of what other cities have
oh you have efficient mass transit?
oh your skyline has buildings in it?
and up until a few weeks ago
oh you have an IKEA?

its size makes us all connected
everyone's had too much to drink at the king's head
gone to osborne village on canada day
seen a show at the west end
had a greasy burger at blondie's
been harassed the twoonie lady downtown
and we've all suffered from
missing a bus that came thirty seconds too early
or getting stuck outside waiting for a bus that came twenty minutes late
trying to strike a balance between two options
which are never in your favour.

living here makes you hard
we're sarcastic and cynical and critical
of everything
especially ourselves
and especially our hometown
which is why when someone else makes fun of it
they can fuck off
because that's our job
and unless you've spent your life
shovelling snow and dealing with overnight parking bans
hanging out at the toad people-watching on the weekends
driving to grand beach during the summer
and
complaining about all the things you could do if only
you were somewhere else
you haven't earned the right to bash winnipeg.

because you don't love it like we do
especially not as as much as when we say

"I fucking hate this town".

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why we're not Friends on The Internet

October 29, 2012 - 8:03pm - by admin

don't get too upset if I unfriended you or unfollowed you or didn't respond to your request on linkedin or we were never friends in the first place and you wannabe. it's just not gonna happen.



maybe you tweeted a bunch of stoopid shit and I got sick of seeing it. maybe you kept inviting me to events in a city I don't live in or even events in the city that I do live in but your events suck and I don't wanna go. mebbe you're just bad at the internet and I got sick of looking at your 9gag posts (reddit rules). maybe I just don't like yr face.

the problem with cutting people off on the internet is they get all offended about it like somehow the Internet matters like OMG HOW DARE U BLOCK ME U BITCH or whatevever. some people get all passive-aggressive like "omg you unfriended me but I don't care SEE" which means you do and then that's why I don't want to be Internet Friends with you, silly.

pick which one you think applies and go with it.

nobody actually cares who you're friends with in real life and this goes double for The Internet but it's stupid because if you unfriend someone or unfollow them it's a public attack on their person like how dare you not acknowledge them in a networking platform, already?!

facebook doesn't want you to do this, either. I just spent a bunch of time unfriending people that for one reason or another I just don't really care about anymore and it took way longer than it should have: you have to go to your page and then to your 'friends' page and then click on their page and then click 'friends' and then click 'unfriend' and then click again to acknowledge that the past few steps were what you actually wanted to do (yes omg) and I'm half-convinced that facebook does this so everyone has 5,000 friends because it's too much of a hassle to manage them.

I'm not even finished going through the list, either, this blog post is just a break from the incessant clicking required to clean up the mess that is your pretend online social circle.

so if I nix ya in the next little bit, you know why. not sorry about your feels.

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Neil Armstrong died today

August 26, 2012 - 2:25am - by admin

which basically means we lost one of the coolest, most important people ever, which is very sad.

I'm working on a painting for the occasion that you can most certainly buy once it's done because 1. it'll look really good and 2. I could use some tuition money right about now because baby's gotta buy some new textbooks.

though I'll be sad to part with this one because space is really cool and it's important that we explore it and painting someone I've looked up to since I was a wee lass is kind of, I don't know, cathartic for me?

the first nerdy thing I was into besides video games as a kid was space thanks to my dad who taught me about constellations and planets and let me put a huge map of the constellations from one of his 70's national geographics up on my bedroom wall which I swear was cooler than it sounds.

as I got older and started putting up magazine cut-outs of boy bands and liked and leonardo dicaprio and all those other 90's teen heartthrobs with their center-part haircuts up on my wall and the star map -which I realize now was probably super outdated- stayed up, there in the middle of the evidence of my early raging tweeny hormones.

even when my bitchy tweeny friends made fun of me for having it up, it stayed up there for most of my early adolescence until I became "too cool" to put stuff up on my walls completely, and then the poster which was by now totally frayed and falling apart went into the garbage with all the other glossy pictures of people I'd never met.

I don't miss the pictures of boy bands with shitty hair and shittier music

but I miss that poster.

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