I love the sound...

... of city when my windows are open.

Rumbly trucks, cars hitting the speed bumps on my street far too fast, the senseless chittering of small children, the faint sounds of siren, streetcars and trains, and that consistent thrum of many cars off in the distance.

It's gearing to be very nearly a lovely day with temperatures hovering in the 17-18C realm. I feel like I can breathe again -- that winter is very nearly out of the door (I'm not silly enough to pronounce it gone) and that I've survived another winter without withering to death.

I have so much work to do, and so little desire to do most of it. I just want to work on my crappy fiction projects and throw the excess away. Leave it out in the gutter to get soggy and ultimately wash away.

Holy crap, is my apartment ever a pigsty. Who left all of this shit lying around?

Oh wait. That was me. Oops.

Nothing more deadly...

A friend just handed me a small kernal of hope. It's tiny, and its chances for survival are next to nil... but its potential is enormous.

I'm scared to even talk about it in case I accidentally blow it away.

So... tired...

I've been lax lately, but with round two of unhealthiness (had a week of break after round one, which was spent drinking and cavorting until round two moved in), spending several days in North Bay to a "friend's" ex move his shit out (she was picking up the little guy in Nova Scotia and wanted to make sure nothing went missing), and helping another one of my dearest friends with her break-up and subsequent move (which was today)....

I'm just all tuckered out.

And there's so much work I've fallen behind on, and emails I've forgotten, and... and just stuff.

I'll be glad to see March end. Although while April is lovely and full of unfulfilled promise, most birthdays seem to be haunted by badness this year, so I fear that the gods have terrible treats in store for me.

Christ, I hope not. I've just about reached the edge of my patience.

Fortunately, I have a massage scheduled at a fancy pants spa first thing tomorrow morning. It's a bright spot after a number of somewhat bleak weeks.

Ever wish you could just take a vacation from your life? Just for a tiny bit?

Even in my hedonistic, responsibility-minimized world of laissez-faire, little piles of bullshit sometimes crop up. And they're rather vexing little beasts.

Seven out of Eight Jesuses agree...

... It's thumbs-up, baby.

Life in hell...

I've been recruited for two days in northern Ontario at a military base.

I'm to be spy for a friend, whose boy is moving out as I type this. My job is simply to ensure he takes nothing he's not entitled to.

It's a fun job, made even more tantalizing by the fact that I'm alone, I have two cats circling and hissing at each other -- not to mention a cold compounded by allergies.

Tomorrow I return home.
I can't wait.

I feel like a sinkhole for everyone else's failed relationships right now.

But in happier news...

Listening to The Streets' "Irony Of It All" cheers me up enormously.

Crap

Feeling lost tonight. Too much to do.
Too much I've fallen behind on.

Too much unfinished business, too many conversations unsaid. And there's far too much heartbreak going amongst friends and family in my tiny corner of the world.

February and March never fail -- in my limited experience, anyway -- to bring misery, sadness, broken souls and death.

And somehow, last night's horrible glimpse into the future of it-could-have-been-me seems to still lurk in my brain. I almost had an urge to ask an old friend for my ex's email -- simply to thank him for his part in my emancipation. Hours later, I decided that some things are best left alone, and that people don't always want to be bothered with the shadows of faces past. Especially if they've moved on.

That's the bugger with ignoring the past, and trying to move on without a backward glance -- it somehow has a most foul and irritating way of coming back and clouting you on the side of the head but good.

I'll deal with most of it eventually, but for now, I'm better off facing forward.

There's plenty of time for retrospect later.

See?

I did do good.

Everytime I start to feel like my life is shit, occasioanlly the gods come and give me news that makes things less offensive.

This evening, it was drinks with a friend and his lady friend.

Amusingly, we grew up in the same hometown, and she even went to my high school for a year -- we suspect we shared a class. Even weirder was that we moved in similar circles, knowing the same people as we grew up.

She still lives in That Town I Never Returned To. And this evening, she fired off a flurry of tales about mutual friends and acquaintances that served a very good purpose.

I like my life where it is. I got out.

And in all honesty, it is something of a miracle.

When you hear of old comrades out making babies in loveless relationships, sitting in jail cells or institutions or still dating the people they dated when they were teens (and working in the local arcade?! Ai ya)... well, you can't help but thank the gods for giving you enough sense to get the fuck out when you did.


One thing most people never understand... how far I have indeed come.

It's unsettling.

I will return to my home town in the next few months, with laptop in tow and ready to declare war on my past. But for right now, it's nice to know I left most of it -- with a few persistent ghosts -- behind.

Stupid tagging pricks.

Boo, Tali. She tagged me and threatened me with ghosts. So now I have to write 10 random things about myself, and tag six other people to follow suit.


1) I am a universal blood donor (this is useful you to know, I think)

2) I once knocked over The Tragically Hip at a music industry party when I was drunk. Or at least that's the story. In actuality, I just kinda shoved my way through them and their cohorts because they were in my way and taking up too much room.

3) Family legend has it that one of my relatives has gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

4) Meeting Joe Strummer was the closest I've ever been to being starstruck. He was very tiny, but incredibly nice. In second place was a couple of hours spent with Johnny Marr, who I dreamt of marrying for a couple of days.

5) I fractured my upper jawbone when I was 8... I ran up a steel slide one snowy January day, fell, and landed on my face. Lesson learned. My front teeth never recovered.

6) A couple of years ago, I danced onstage with the National Ballet Of Canada during a production of The Nutcracker.

7) I was about half an inch away from touching a Van Gogh painting when the Barnes exhibit came to Toronto. I didn't even realize I was doing it until my friend started hissing at me. (Although once at the National gallery in Ottawa, I accidentally kicked a small cardboard house that was part of an installation. Oops.)

8) When I was five, I was the child selected by my kindergarten class to draw for a quilt made by the class. In a box filled with hundreds of ballots, I drew out my own name... twice. My luck has been shit ever since.

9) I don't really believe in ghosts, but I had an "encounter" in an Ottawa hostel (formerly the Carlton County Jail -- a fascinating place to stay, though very bizarre) that to this day, I still can't explain.

10) I still have a lingering phobia from childhood (ever since I was a baby, which makes me think someone once dropped me) of being upside down. I can go on rides and roller coasters, etc., but there's always a slight level of discomfort. When I was smaller, I used to be terrified that gravity would simply cease to exist, and I would fall into the sky.



Now. As for tagging -- well, I don't really read too many people's blogs. So if you've read this, considered your self tagged.

Annnnnnnd... go.

And I guess felicitations are in order...

Was leery of posting this, since I know the dear gal does tend to read this from time to time, but a very old friend of mine -- old in the since of knowing her for many years (since we were 10, to be exact) rather than in the geriatric sense -- has decided to tie the knot in a few months.

For interest's sake, I wish I could say I have great misgivings for this couple -- but I truly believe that they have as good a chance for happiness as any other couple that goes scurrying off in search of nuptial bliss.

All I ever ask is that my friends be happy... or at least pursue that happiness. And in case the fella in question decides to get creative with my dear friend's happiness... Well then, it's a good thing I still own my pair of trusty, steel-toed doc martens, isn't it?

Although all of this marital action from friends and family is truly going to put ideas into my boy's silly head. And I certainly can't have that.

However, in the unlikely event that someone put a gun to my head and forced marriage upon me, I always had a place in mind for the sacrilegious event (amusingly, given my complete apathy for most churchie-type things... I think a red dress would do nicely). Fortunately, I don't think many people know where (or what it is), or why I picked it.

I seem to have avoided getting entangled in bridal party duties -- not sure if I should feel relieved or insulted. A bit of both, I expect.

I am weary of messes

Everywhere I turn, there's seems to be a jumble of blech lately. Literally and figuratively.

Whether it be the mess in the kitchen (or entire apartment), the one in my chest that has kept me tired and hacking into the wee hours of the morning, or even the one that exploded over a week ago when a close friend's relationship abruptly ended... I just can't keep up.

I feel like I'm constantly behind on everything. I feel frustrated, inept... impotent.

I wish NyQuil solved more problems than cough-laden sleeplessness. Technically, I guess it could, given that you could sleep until the messes cleared themselves up, or become such a disaster that someone else is forced to do it for you.