impromptu

if i drove up eighty-seven
up past montreal
following the bluest veins
following through icy rains
would i emerge in the present
and know just where to begin
and you say yeah, but why so cold, and so canadian
i guess it's got to feel like some exodus
and if i succeed, well there will be more of us
and if i don't well i don't really know

girls
who have found our unsung nation
where we left so much land to itself
that everyone had her own mountain
well if you think of this girl and the dreams that made her
write your secrets on hornet nest paper
and blow it high across the border

fortnight

these are my hands.

i spent the day in today. i started to recognize that i was beginning to feel stretched and it's better to be preemptive then have to recover in the aftermath. i got a lot accomplished and enjoyed relaxing a lot too. i've started to catch on the the fact that not everyone enjoys or needs alone time as much as i do. this is important for me to keep in mind so that in the future, instead of thinking "what's wrong with that person?" i can think "he or she is different than me". everyone is different. yes, it's a little pathetic that i'm just catching on this now...

well, melinda and i hit the road for PEI at noontime on monday. right now i feel like i'm waiting to exhale. i relish the thought of taking off in the car and leaving everything behind for 2 weeks. i'm getting excited about it. i checked the forecast on the island for this next week, it'll be a little chilly but i just need to dress appropriately and i'm sure it will be fine.

i must admit something to you. my apprehension about having kids were the result of another issue. i felt as though i can't live up to the parenting level of my sister. and i loathe the thought of being compared to her parenting style/ability by the "adults" in my life. but i've been reassured that i'd be a good mom, even a cool mom who'd have a hippie baby-sling.

speaking of cool moms... i heard thru the grapevine that dawna had her baby!! congrats dawna on your new little bundle of boy. err, i mean joy.

and as the summer's ending,
the cool air will rush your hard heart away.

scotch tape

i'm up way too late, but that's ok. i won't regret it in the morning. i was up talking to my friends who have reassured me that i'm doing fine and i shouldn't listen to people who say anything to the contrary.

what's the future, who will choose it?

counter-clockwise

i made myself go to work today. i felt rotten but felt i needed to go since i leave for my second holiday on monday. i was told by several different people that i looked awful and really sick. i appreciated their sympathy, while at the same time felt kind of bad because i knew my awful appearance was largely due to the fact that i didn't wear any make-up today. i did that on purpose because i felt really crappy and thought if i wore make-up i'd look fairly healthy. i wanted it to be obvious that i was still sick. i didn't intend for people to recoil in disgust. hahaha. i see the humour in it, inspite the fact it's got me wondering how i managed to get any boyfriends before i started wearing make-up. hahahaha.

p.s. i updated my blogger template and it screwed up my links. i tried to re-add everyone, if your blog is missing please let me know. k?

you don't know how precious you are.

these

i had to call in sick today. my cold had intensified and was full-fledged by morning. i've spent most of the day reading harry potter, sleeping and drinking neocitran. right now i feel kind of hungry but i don't have much of an appetite. maybe it's because i have no sense of taste so eating is not very enjoyable right now. i hope my boss wasn't too put out that i didn't come in today, but i was just so sick i couldn't have gone to work.

lately i've been surprised by what comes out of my mouth. not bad things, just things that i didn't realize were so important to me until i hear myself talking about them repeatedly.

it's hard to live the way we want because we're constantly resisting ourselves. deep down we have hopes and expectations, and it's almost impossible to detach ourselves from that. hope is a double-edged sword. i do have wishes, but to stop myself from getting hurt i tell myself that i don't really what such-and-such. but i've had enough of that, i don't want to live in denial. i just want to be content, and if that means admitting certain disappointments than i guess i'll have to get used to that.

the other day my foot was aching when i stepped on a certain part of it the wrong way. this has been happening a lot, and i'd grown annoyed by it. for a split second i thought i'd just cut that part off of my foot and that would solve the problem. then reality kicked in and i remembered that was not a solution at all!! that's the kind of person i am. when something hurts i cut it off. i don't know what else to do! it sort of worked once, a temporary solution, but it doesn't really fix anything. i honestly don't know what to do with myself sometimes.

if i seem to be afraid
to live the life that I have made in song,
it's just that i've been losing so long.

surrogate

it's awkward when someone insults me by accident. when they assume certain things about me (usually that i have the same opinions or outlook as them) and as a result mouth off about something, bashing me in ignorance. then i feel too embarrassed to speak up and say "actually, i'm [such and such]". and i KNOW they'd feel like a jackass as well, because for the most part, no one actually wants to be rude and offensive intentionally.

terrence and i went all out with the calamari tonight. we planned to go out for calamari and took that mission quite seriously. we went to tango and got tapas. 4 different kinds, 2 of which were different kinds of calamari. it was really fun. i always have a good time with him. however, i find it IMPOSSIBLE to tell when he's kidding or serious. however, i do usually figure it out then laugh extremely loud because i was duped again. i apologized for my loudness, but he assured me that he didn't mind at all. later, the people behind us were being really rude and obnoxious and actually called US "the loud people behind them". well at least terrence didn't have to apologize for me when i left the table. to our great delight we discovered that we went to tango the night that all tapas were 40% off! awesome.

well i should go. the knickers gave me HOMEWORK tonight (ARGH!?!?!). honestly, i don't know how i'll get that done unless i stay up late, which will (no doubt) make me feel like crap when i wake up in the morning. and my job performance will suffer :( it's a lose-lose situation.

i don't agree with this whole "a picture's worth a thousand words" thing. i'm on book 5 of harry potter, and even though i loved the movies when i watched them, they PALE in comparison to the books. there just aren't enough pictures in the world to explain certain things. i know there are some things in my most inner being that couldn't be expressed, couldn't be understood any other way but thru words.

these days i seem to think a lot
about the things that i forgot to do
and all the times i had the chance to.

snore

i have found that once something is thought to be certain it immediately becomes uncertain. upon concluding something is permanent it subsequently gets taken away from me. i feel like i live above water, and every once in a while it gets stirred and washes everything away. what can i say? what can i do? all i know is that it doesn't work the same way for crappy things. upon accepting something is miserable, the misery usually remains.

i feel rattled, and unfortunately it will take some time to recover.

the festival was great yesterday and it reminded me that my stage of life is A-OK and i wouldn't want to be in any other phase. i'm questioning myself and the things i always thought i wanted. marriage. children. thankfully i don't have to make any life changing decisions right now, but i'm plagued with doubts about whether or not i want children. i'm not convinced i'd make a good mother. i am not maternal. the thought of having to teach and instruct another human being – educate them about the world they live in – just seems like an enormous task and not something i'm even remotely up to. yes, i know all the token pep-talks "you could do it", "it's different with your own child", "maternal instincts will kick in". i'm aware of all these things, i just am doubting if that's something i actually want to do. i suppose that if i met the right person i'd be happy to squeeze out his child, that's not really the issue. i'm simply turning a deaf ear to my biological clock and it's not intimidating me anymore.

how did i get onto that topic?!?! i guess it's just something that's really been saturating my thoughts after spending a week observing families up-close and far-away.

my neighbour gave me a bottle of red wine and a calendar for taking care of her cat while she was on her own family vacation (and swearing she'd never do that again). i've never been given a bottle of wine before. i feel like such a grown-up.

on that note: i've concluded i'll truly be a grown-up when i stop feeling a need to announce "look at me! i'm a grown-up!" just like joelle will actually be a big girl when she stops telling everyone "i'm a big girl!"

well i suppose i need to get into bed so that i might sleep off this hung-over feeling i have from being up so late last night. feeling exhausted is not the ideal condition for returning to work after holidays.

beckie has just returned home. i'm outtie here.

nobody gives a damn either way.

emancipated.

i'm home. i feel exhausted. i'm relieved that even though it took me one week to lose my identity, it only took one day to regain it. i had a GREAT time at the wolfe island music festival today. i'll tell you more about it tomorrow. but for now i should head to bed. poor beckie and kevin had to drag me up queen street on the way home.

how as camping? not so great. it was like i was 15 again, i felt like i was stuffed in a show box. i love my family but i don't think vacationing with them is a good idea.

you never really understood me.
you never really tried.

saffron

ah. today was my first day of vacation. i took today off work (i basically had my civic holiday today instead of monday) and used it to run errands, do chores, bake, and start reading harry potter and the goblet of fire. it's been a really nice day, and once again i'm struck by just how awesome my balcony is. i'm quite tired and think i'll pack it in shortly seeing as i leave for camp in the morning.

i'm pretty organized, i made up a master packing list on my computer so that every time i travel i won't need to create a new list. it made packing really easy. hahaa, i think packing is mostlikely the most frequent-boring topic i discuss on pspd. honestly, i think i talk about packing a great deal, and i do it completely aware that it's really quite a dull subject. hahaha. well too bad.

i'm determined about a couple things going into this camping trip:
1) that i will not be snippy with my mother.
2) i will pull my own weight. and perhaps help carry others.
each year i show my family a little more that i am growing up. i don't want to be the thoughtless baby who needs someone to prompt her to start dinner/do the dishes, or expect to eat everyone elses snacks. i don't know how it works for most people, but sometimes i find myself realizing "hey! i can do (such-and-such). i don't need to wait for someone else to do it, i'm just as capable as the next guy". i feel a lot more prepared this year, i took my responsibility of providing two meals very seriously and actually grocery shopped in advance instead of leaving it to the morning of and making us all late. i don't think it's that i'm immature for my age, i've just never needed to excerise maturity in that way before.

i live on the widest and smoothest street in all of kingston, and yet they're doing construction right outside my window. they're tearing up the street so they can widen the sidewalk. there was nothing wrong with the sidewalk, it was already at least a foot wider than your typical walkway. as i sat on my balcony today i had to listen to loud machines and tanned men speaking in portugese. i was both astonished and slightly amused that they chose to camp out on my neighbours front lawn during their lunch and break. it must have been because of our big tree that stands between our properties. although, the m centre front lawn is right across the street, and there are picnic tables in the shade. it was both enterting and puzzling.

it was one hundred degrees,
as we sat beneath a willow tree,.

guillotine

it's four in the morning and i'm having a crazy bout of insomnia. i KNEW i shouldn't have had that coke!! it's annoying because i'm physically tired, but my mind is completely sober. it's also stiflingly hot, so i think i might hop in the shower to cut the tension caused by the humidity. you know when it's so hot your body feels on edge?

i'm happy to say i'm completely over my summer crush. the thing that amazes me is how quickly a crush can turn to "oh my goodness, i can't stand that guy!" but anyway, hooray for me! i love being crush-free. let's hope this lasts a while, shall we?

maybe i'll go take that shower and see if anything else comes to me other than "i feel ookie and gross". ah! much better.

so now that august is here, i'm getting all geared up for vacation. i leave on saturday to go camping with my family for a week, then later in august melinda and i are road-tripping out to PEI. i'm excited because i've been desperately in need of a break from my 40-hour work week.

i just finished the third harry potter book. and when i say just finished, i mean during this mid-night break from sleeping. so far it's my favourite, i like them all, but for some reason this one particularly tickled me.

well i'm going to try and sleep again. got to be up at a decent time tomorrow. wish me luck.

i've got this energy beneath my feet,
like something underground's gonna come up and carry me.