Happy birthday, little brother.

This morning I woke him up with a bugle call. And a Beatles song. This afternoon I bought him a Stewart's. (They have ginger beer again!!) I have a funny feeling he's going to like the gift too. I haven't wrapped it or anything, and I don't have a card, but he'll like it. Whereas if I were giving it to my sister I would wrap it up and put ribbons all over it (all over it). That's just the way I do things.

Today I had my first ever class with Schottenfeld. I won't describe her stories of being a nobody at McGill, watching the tech channel with Mr Excel, or people who buy lattes every morning, because if you've had her you will understand and if you have not...it's truly indescribable. As I said numerous times, if Jacob or Kaj were in my class it would be far worse...I already have Kelsey, and I know that if I look at her when the teacher says something strange we're both going to dissolve into laughter. That's just what we do.

On a completely different note, I would like to say that I am not considerate of others. I lack a helpful, compassionate nature. However, I do possess a killer conscience. In other words, I'm nasty and I hate myself for it.

This isn't really an exaggeration. Let's take the example of when I accidentally threw a yogourt cup out instead of washing it and putting it in the recycling, then went back to the kitchen later. Italics are conscience.

You shouldn't have done that.
I know.
You should take it out and rinse it.
I hardly think it's worth it.
Come on, do it. If you do this once then what's to stop it happening again? It's not that hard. Just take it out and rinse it.
Well, I'll just see if it's covered in garbage or not. If it's right on top I'll take it out. Ew, it's covered in garbage.
Wait! Stop walking away. You know this is wrong. Come on, don't be selfish. Don't be such a spoiled advocate of consumerism. (It didn't exactly word it that way -- didn't exactly word it -- but that's the nearest I can come and still make any sense.) You're so wasteful!
No. It's not a big deal.
How do you know? Maybe something terrible will happen tomorrow because of this. You don't deserve anything nice if you do this. It's not a big deal! Be decent.
Fine! But I hate you! I hate you! I hate you, conscience!

Okay, now you're wondering why you talk to someone who writes about their conversations with their conscience about rinsing out yogourt cups. I won't even start on the other voices. Wait, I shouldn't have said that. Um, I think I should stop writing. Come back tomorrow or something. Yes.

Do you think I possess the courage to follow through?

Well, blogging is part of the routine.

Today was better.

It's amazing how utterly dependent we are on routine. It's amazing how much every single one of us likes to have a normal, an outline of the day that he or she can blindly follow time after time after time. Now, is this inclination to regulate activity into a pattern a natural impulse or something we as a species have developed, to replace the instinct that drives other creatures? Because we have been granted the ability to think, does it make us feel safer if we do not have to?

School, as an unfortunate example, has been completely engraved in our minds, branded into our being, as a part of this routine. When we are older, work will replace school in the routine, and by the time we retire we shall all be too tired to care that we no longer know what to do with ourseves. It is entirely likely that we will then begin new routines (bridge on friday with the girls!).

I think it is sad that we are lost without our normals. I think it is sad that anyone can be bored during the summer. I think it is equally sad that those who look forward to summer as the only free time of their lives must endure such a long stretch of work. Truly school is preparation for the future in this way more than any other: causing us to accept and welcome routine into our lives.

But there is no future worth wasting the present in order to prepare for. Life starts now. It doesn't start when you turn eighteen or twenty-one or forty. It doesn't start when you graduate or are hired for the very first time. Life began well over a decade ago, my friends, and it is not going to hang around while you finish up your homework.

Think of a life without routine. I don't mean that we should constantly live for the moment, having fun and thinking of nothing but having fun, but imagine if we had no need of normal. Does that not seem incomprehensible? Is that not a beautiful lunacy?

The piece of cardboard covering part of my window fell off. Looks like it's going to be a chilly night.

I promise never to leave you, as long as you want me around.

Returning to rant. Again. This girl has issues.

I don't think I'm a pessimist. I'm certainly not optimistic, and I make some pretty depressing predictions, but I don't think I continuosly see the worst. This is what I do: I expect the worst. I tell myself that the worst is coming. As I have told Kelsey, this means that I am often pleasantly surprised when the worst doesn't show. Disappointment is avoidable, at least in part. Now, is this artificial? I don't think so, unless you take it to an extreme extent.

So I plan on steeling myself for the worst school year ever. I'm going to see Dr Gordon close to every day of my life, and sit through fifty minutes of her halfwitted drooling until I loathe English enough to close down this blog and go into science in college. Forget drifting: my friends are going to swim to opposite ends of the river without pausing to exchange glares. I'm going to drop out of music class for some inexplicable reason and spend the rest of the year in...well, it doesn't really matter. Art and drama would be equally disasterous for me. Oh, and let's not forget the possibility of failing advanced math and/or french.

Hey, this could be a great year. As long as I'm wrong. It'll all be better tomorrow, right?

Dr Gordon AGAIN????

I don't know why I posted that. It doesn't really say anything worthwhile, and the mood it expresses is not one I feel right now. I can't say I feel optimistic about the future.

Let me explain something. The present, for the past two years, has been beautiful. Before that, all I had was the past...the memories of nothing at all. At the beginning of the summer, I had the future as well. For a time. If the present leaves me I don't know what I'll do. If I lose the beauty I have known so fleetingly I will likely overreact and do something extremely stupid.

Probably I overreact now, but I am not happy. Tomorrow had better not fail me.

Why don't you understand?

Should have been posted last night. Stupid connection.

I didn’t mean to post tonight, but I think I should.

The pool closes at eight now, and there aren’t many people who still go. When there’s Free Deep (in other words, when the deep end…and no I don’t know why we still call it the deep end when it’s been a separate pit for ages now…is open to swimming as opposed to diving boards) there can be as few as six people in the main pool. On nights like these, on nights like tonight, I like to practice swimming underwater. I was preparing to lunge forward when I heard a voice.

“Come on, go for it.”

I looked around and realized the lifeguard, Harrison, was speaking. Harrison was my sister’s teacher this year, and was in my lane last year. One of the most popular topics of conversation among my peers was Harrison’s latest girlfriend (he seemed to switch weekly, and occasionally had more than one at a time). I thought he was annoying and a bit of an idiot, but all right. (Unfortunately, I think his mother happened to be standing behind me when I voiced these thoughts at one meet. Anyway.)

“Me?”
“Yeah! I want 200 IM. Now!”
“What?”
“You were in swim team last year, weren’t you?”

Not his most potent argument, but I was thrown off. I didn’t think anyone remembered me as anything more than another nameless face. There you have it.

“Yeah, but….”
“Oh, come on.”
“I…okay.”

So I did two laps of each stroke, my warm-up from last year, instead of swimming underwater. And then we left, the thin crescent moon shining through the clouds.

Isn't this where we came in?

Today it's raining, not a summer storm that finishes in fifteen minutes, but a true autumn tempest. Summer is over. Fall began about a week ago, but I think that summer ended today. That explains why waking up was so difficult, why I got out of bed and promptly fell onto the floor. Seasons change...this is reliable. The weather is not always desirable, yet we are never bored...the ancient routine is always new.

To my friends who put up with my inadequacies: thank you. Kelsey, I'm sorry I'm such a weak rollerblader, but thank you for going with me anyway. It's something I'll remember for a long time. Alicia, I know I'm useless even at appreciating art, but I know you have a great deal of talent. The rest of you at RWA I will see very soon, and I can't deny I'm looking forward to it. (My posting will likely become better and more regular once I get back into school and have less time to do it.)

We might as well.

Life in the shade

Small-town stores can be pretty shady establishments. Here's a list of Montreal West's vilest:

1. Mrs U's
My mother really, really hates this place. I don't know what happened to provoke this, what traumatic past event would have caused the mention of the fruit store to become taboo in the Malcolm household. All she will say is that the owners are corrupt, crooked. This is all I know, yet the mention of the name strikes a chord of fear in my soul.

2. Flower shop (not florist's, the place by the key store)
Of late my mother has remarked that the owners of this place are friends of the fruit store people, and are also corrupt. We're being overtaken, it would seem.

3. Antiques Cacharel
This is by far the weirdest one of them all. There used to be two antique stores with the same name...that alone is weird, don't you think? They were constantly having going-out-of-business sales, often simultaneously...we never believed them, but one of them has finally closed. Which means, of course, that the back-alley dealings I have been imagining for the past several years are now concentrated in one place. Someday they'll be found out. Remember, you heard it here first.

4. Hotdogerie
I really, really like this place. But the owners (incidentally, not the same ones who started it out) annoy me. I like to go there and ask for the most obscure soft ice cream flavour, then watch them root around in boxes underneath the counter, smiling at my revenge for the loss of the old Chien Chaud sign.

MoWest...quaint half-suburb, or giant conspiracy? To us in this enlightened era, the answer is obvious.

Also I saw V for Vendetta and thought it really good....

Grasping at the last strands of summer. (It was great.)

Nothing said, and nothing worth saying really.

August is ending.

It happens every year. August is an ending month, after all, in the same way as January and July are static months and November is transition. By my brother's birthday, we begin with the sweaters -- and it starts to smell like fall. Soon I'll have to rewrite that paragraph in the sidebar.

Now, I could say that this summer has been a terrible disappointment, because we had such high hopes at the beginning. It hasn't been bad. There have been good times when a lot was going on, and low points when days of nothing stretched in either direction. Seriously, though, we have to give summer credit: it hasn't been life-changing, but I suppose that's a lot to ask of one season.

And I went to Italy.

I'm finally ready for school to start, finally ready to walk into room 314 and take up a lonely seat by the window. I'm not anxious, but I've accepted the future. After all, as Alicia put it, it's GRADE NINE.

Hey, I can't help letting my hopes fly high again. It's what I do. Believe you me, if anything worthwhile happens you are all going to hear about it.

Someday I'll do worthwhile stuff. Someday I'll swim a lap underwater and write a book and master the Pete Townshend Electric Guitar Windmill Strum and create something truly beautiful. But as the summer sun sinks toward the west, I am filled with a strange, uncharacteristic sense of calm. I should be jumping up and down because time is running out for me and my life, should be worrying that soon I'll have to actually do stuff, the way I ranted about for Public Speaking. I'm not.

Is that stupid or wise? I have no idea...it probably isn't permanent anyway. Whatever the answer, it's making it a lot easier for me to go back to school. That and the prospect of seeing everyone again. I love you guys.

Maybe I'm just not awake yet, or bored. We shall see.

Working through my list of Things I Need...first stop, uniform sale

Life is a sexually transmitted disease with a 100% mortality rate.

Today I took Emma swimming again, hung around reading through A Walk in the Woods, and then off to the library...on the way to which I did actually run into Mrs Robinson! I was amused to discover that Barney's Christmas Star was Video #666 at the library...it does make one wonder.

My father was supposed to pick me up from home to go to the uniform sale at four, but at four thirty my mother called and said that there had been some emergencies. The problem was that I wanted to go swimming at six, and I foresaw crowds.

"What time will he be home?"
"He hasn't actually left yet."

Noooo. I bitched a bit, but what can you say? It's not a life-threatening situation on my end. I then did what I always do in a crisis: read a book on the front porch, composing a mental blog.

Actually, crowds were few. We were out in half an hour. It was especially interesting how I said to my dad, "Ariel's sweater is the best!" and then turned around and saw Ariel.

I went swimming with Jenna and Dad for the whole hour, during which we rescued plastic ducks from the deep end, conversed extensively about winter sports, and swam some laps so we didn't feel totally useless. I still can't do a length. Not yet.

Open the bag and pull something at random. I will not be surprised.

Babysitting Emma isn't so bad.

At the pool: Everyone knows Emma. All the lifeguards say hi to her, even the ones that haven't taught her for a year. Everyone knows Dad, too...my dad's a pretty cool guy, after all. But I'm the one who was on the swim team for three years, and no one remembers me. Maybe that's not so strange, but I didn't see fit to hang around after dropping Emma off today, so I went to visit our Time Machine at EBS (the tree). On its trunk was an enormous chestnut dragonfly, speckled with green as the tree was with moss, its gauzy wings stretched over the bark -- a sign?

When Dad came home, I went out biking with Jenna. We didn't run into Mrs Robinson, although it was a close call...we saw into five people from the elementary school, as well as both Rachelle's parents. It was good fun actually being able to go places, such as TCBY and Mini-Cout...and I'm reading A Walk in the Woods; it's hilarious. Last week of summer.

I never said I was boring. I know some good stories. Of course, I can't tell them, and they do all belong to my friends. Well, you know.

The first day of fall

"Oh, great," I said loudly. Someone had slammed the bathroom door, and the picture had fallen down again. Probably Tom in a temper, I thought.

A few minutes later, I saw my father go into his room. He asked me to help him, so I saved my Brave New World report and went to see what he needed.

He was lying down on the bed, feeling his pulse. When he saw me, he said that he'd fallen and could I please get him some tissue paper. I went into the bathroom -- blood all over the floor.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I fainted," he said, his voice slow and dazed-sounding. "I was going to lie down, and then I guess I fell. I don't remember hitting anything, but I must have cut myself on something." He pressed the toilet paper to his forehead, just above his right eye.

I made sure he was alright, and I cleaned up some of the mess so my brother wouldn't freak out if he went into the bathroom. I then did what anyone would: called for Mom. She was grocery shopping with a family friend; amazingly, her cell was on. I must have sounded like an idiot though.

Me: Hello?
Mom: Hello?
Me: I'm calling Mom. Wait...you're alright? I'm calling her. Mom? Well, do you want to speak to her?
Mom: Hi? Are you talking to me?
Me: No. Dad says he's alright.
Mom: What??
Me: He fainted in the bathroom and hit his head on the sink. There was blood everywhere. He's says he's alright though.
Mom: What??
Me: Well, he sounds a lot better.
Mom: Okay, we're coming back.
Me: He says it's not important.
Mom: I'm still coming home.
Me: Eh? Oh...good.

Dad, who was really sounding better, began explaining to me that this is why we have eyebrows. Also if I ever felt like I was going to faint, I should lie down and not get up for awhile, because if I tried to get up I'd just faint again. Then he asked me to time him taking his pulse, and concluded that it was nearly back to normal. I fetched him some water, although he assured me that it had very little to do with that. Apparently it was only about the second time in his life that this had happened.

After Mom came home, it was a bit like a mystery novel in which I was subjected to interrogation. How much blood was there? (A fair amount, but it always looks like more.) How do you know he hit the sink? (Well, there was blood on it.) Did you hear anything? (Yes, but I wrote it off as Tom being weird.) Dad started diagnosing himself, Tom wised up and came in to inquire if what he had was contagious, and I went downstairs to talk to the bird.

My poor father is much better now. My mother says that no-one had better pull this stunt again, because she's had quite enough of this fainting business. I finished two of my summer reading reports.

Either I'm a perfectionist with an eye, or I'm self-absorbed enough to think I am.

Lazy moose.

I haven't been writing nearly enough lately (I know, it breaks your heart). I'm watching my sister in the mornings next week, so I'm not sure how my summer reading is going to be done...ah well.

I've been told that it's a good idea to figure out what you like about yourself, and tell yourself about this over and over -- I think it's useless. Who needs to be reminded that the only thing they like about themselves is their third toe on their left foot? Seriously, though, I like my hands. They aren't slender like Jocelyne's, nor are they strong like Kelsey's, and they certainly aren't the most beautiful hands in the world...BUT I like them. After all, they're the only flexible part of my body, and more importantly they can play music. Let's hope this doesn't evolve into a minor obsession.

Something I dislike, now. Coming out of the water. It's coming back down to Earth, and you hit hard. You feel heavy, hot, and the water running down your back becomes a burden rather than a blessing. In the water, believe it or not, I can be graceful. I am at ease, calm, perfectly in control of my movements. Yes, believe it or not. Perhaps I'm part duck.

Don't look now, but there's still hope for the future.

Catch the sun

Eight-fifty, evening. The pool's all but empty, my family over in the corner and a few girls off to the side. I'm standing at the far end, looking toward the green lamplit water and the deep indigo sky. The ripples move across the surface of this interminable lake. I am reminded me of last summer when my cousin stranded himself on a rock, and we had to tie the blue kayak to the rowboat when we found him. Yet that lake was sheer and smooth, and instead of laughter there was only loons. Unfortunate how that lake may soon be merely a sunny memory to us.

I take a deep breath, my hand on my chest. My singing instructor, whom I saw a total of eight times, taught me to breathe. I am a tree, straight and tall. I know, however, that when I lunge forward into the water all thought of her teachings will disappear, evaporated into the warm mosquito-ridden night.

When my father was a little older than I am, he did two laps of his pool without taking a breath, claiming the neighbourhood title for his second consecutive year. My brother of nine years can swim across the width. Although I am not naturally fast enough nor do I have large enough lungs, I have been practicing of late...and gasping for breath during Winds could have taught me something.

I dive. Instantly, water shoots up my nose (painful!) and I must let go of some of my precious store of air to alleviate this discomfort. Streamline, I refrain from moving my arms and reducing my hydrodynamic advantage. I have always had a strong kick -- if they had competitive flutterboard races, I would be in the first heat -- and I press on, desperate now that I realize I am running low on air.

My father's advice in this area is, Swim until you're sure you absolutely cannot swim any longer. Then keep going. And this is where I make my mistake, tonight like many other nights. I come up for air too soon, three-quarters of the way across. The disappointment that surges within me is far worse than the discomfort of pressing on.

Why is this important to me? It certainly has nothing to do with any talent I may have. Perhaps that explains it -- I want desperately to succeed in this, miniscule though it may seem, because it is not something I find easy.

This means far more to me than a perfect score in science right now, in much the same way as laying my hands on that beach ball did. Some things are, quite inexplicably, extremely important, and triumph feels like the best thing you have ever done. And some things, like our last soccer game, are beautiful whether you triumph or not, because you know you have worked your hardest. Society will never recognize my achievement in swimming underwater without stopping, but when the day is over and the blue fades to black, the stars shine far brighter.

I shake my head, clearing my ears of water. Then I head back for one more try. I don't make it, not tonight, but it doesn't matter: I have plenty of time.

Perhaps life is woven starlight.

The brilliant experience of a woman

My sister received a little necklace thing from my cousins. Here's what it said inside the box. (Engrish, anyone?)

God creates woman and pearl as well,
Pearl is gestated with its matrix-clam,
which is like the brilliant experience of a woman,
True love gestated,

life is thus shining.

I think the last line is my new motto.

Plywood

She bursts into the room, into the world. I look at her face, and she’s complacent at last, resigned to the possibility of the worst being true. Of course he’s dead. He has been dead for hours, but I haven’t told her, and I don’t know if I can now. It isn’t cold, but I shiver.

She's nineteen. I know this with a certainty inexplicable. She stops in front of me to ask the question she knows she is expected to ask, and I cannot provide an answer. Like all doctors surely have, I begin to reassure first, as much for myself as for her.

“We have made sure to the best of our ability that he has not suffered.” Hollow words. Both of us know the road down which I am heading, my voice paving the way before with smooth stones. “I’m sorry.”

We hover for a little then, as always happens in this situation. I have known many different reactions to ill news. Some descend into barefaced grief; others assume a stolid, courageous face. She does neither, and we continue to hover as if I had not told her anything.

I too abandon my role, which would probably entail a gentle touch to the shoulder and a quiet exit. Instead, I stand before her, the two of us locked in time. It is then that the room fills with light, and I begin to observe a strangeness about her, as if she were elsewhere. It is then that another story begins.

If only waste was never necessary.

Mom....

Mom: I like that group [R.E.M.]. Better than some...more depressing things.
Me: There's nothing wrong with depressing.
Mom: You know, only someone who wasn't depressed would say that.
Me: ...yes.

Somewhere, anywhere

Man in ambulance: I only have room for one of you.
Guy #1: I'm the father.
Guy #2: I'm the boyfriend.
Guy #3: I'm the father's boyfriend.

-Saved. Ariel watched all three movies this time.

I've realised how boring it is when I talk about things that I did, so I'll try and keep to the basics. Alicia, Ariel, Kelsey and I met up...I remember it was fun before we went back to Kelsey's, but I don't remember exactly what happened except that Ariel bought me a C-Plus for fifty cents plus tax and I spilt it on my green skirt. Also that Ariel and I spent awhile browsing the dollarama talking about sesame street and old television cartoons ("Don't you think Big Bird seems like a pedophile?")....

The driver of the Chateauguay bus with the weird accent was not a very nice person, which led to the necessity of paying far more than I should have just to get on the stupid bus. However, the professor-type guy who sat in front of us and listened the whole ride made up for that.

Topics of conversation: Kelsey's neighbours, the Sex Pistols, and the pointlessness of our existence...also included in the mix were periods of silence, while we all travelled through our respective worlds.

Ariel said, rather optimistically, "We can really do anything with our lives." We are incredibly lucky to have so many opportunities. On the other hand, the most evident response to that statement is somewhere along the lines of, "What does it matter? We all end up dead and forgotten eventually."

I'm a romanticist. I love to invent hidden meaning and read in between the lines on blank pages. Perhaps I am merely fooling myself, but I feel strongly that there must be some higher purpose. For one thing, to imagine that we are as high as it gets is both demonstrative of the conceited nature of our species and extremely depressing. Yet also I feel that there must be something to separate us from Nothings....

Although everyone is equal on an intrinsic level, for everyone is human and everyone should posess a voice in whatever crowd they belong, some are greater than others. Perhaps this is a sad truth, perhaps it is a necessity...but look around you; there is always someone higher and someone lower in any given field. I will never be the equal of Beethoven as a composer. It is also likely that I will never suffer the way he did.

Is suffering a fair exchange for talent? Do talents actually balance out? For I fear that, as Ariel pointed out, not everyone is good at something. There are some who are far more talented than others in nearly every way. Perhaps the reward for those who work harder to achieve the same tlevel as those born with an ability is the strength that they have gained through effort. What am I saying? That we must be great to be remembered? That life has to be unfair? Or that life actually is fair?

Let me draw upon something else that Ariel and Kelsey were debating. What is the definition of intelligence? Capacity to learn? Perception? If indeed we are more intelligent than any other life form we have encountered, then why are we so damn stupid? Would that make the lunatic the most brilliant of us all?

Regarding knowledge...all say ignorance is bliss, yet we are constantly striving to make out Truth. Shall we ever succeed? We are squinting at a raindrop while behind us lies an ocean, if only we could turn around. If comprehension is a burden, why is it so important to us to have all the answers?

I don't think I would ever make a scientist, for I ask questions without attempting to answer them. I believe in God. I believe that life is meaningful, though I do not know that anything I do could ever be.

Yesterday when Kelsey and Ariel were discussing how they never felt in any way inspired or motivated, I decided to throw a sentence or two in.

"You might see something beautiful, and that could inspire you. The question is, could that beauty ever compensate for the futility of life in general?"

And I really don't know how to answer that melodramatic query. I really don't know at all.

Do the world a favour and send me very far away.

We know these things. These things we know....

A bad sign: when the girl you ask for directions has "no idea" how to get to the lakeshore.

"Hey that looks like it over there"
"Actually Fred that's a factory"

I think I need to skate more if I expect to keep up with anyone on rollerblades. My feet were killing me...maybe something to do with dragging Kelsey unecessarily over bridge and under pass that we could have just gone around. We were honked at over five times yesterday...can't people learn to share the road?

We then met Alicia at the movies where we saw...er...talla...tall...that one. How was it? Well, let's just say it put Kelsey and me in mind of The Graduate. It did have its moments, and every time there was a funny bit the three of us would simultaneously explode with laughter (while utter quiet reigned elsewhere in the theatre).

"You taste like America."
"Thank you."

Alicia had us cracking up with images of Kelsey's future as a bartender, or more specifically our bartender ("The usual, Kaj?"), and Kelsey made it quite obvious that she should like to take over my room. After which we walked Alicia almost all the way home. It was beautiful talking in the dark, but the best part was tearing down the street in my socks. There can truly be nothing else like breaking free and running solo, like that moment when you know you have no need of fear.

Kelsey and I turned back, going back to my place. We were forty minutes late for her mother, but we would rather have been later...those steps up to my door were very difficult. After all, who wants to return to the real, the empty world, when in the dark and the quiet I felt so at ease that I managed to say some half profound things, things that made sense and that I would not shudder upon remembering?

Let's do that again.

Fear not the fallacy of that which we call true.

Summer. Summer smells of ocean and thunderstorm, of running barefoot beneath the orange lamps and the stars. Quieter than peace sings the rich voice of reclusive, distant memory, but Present is (and this unusual) beautiful even that memory is inferior.

Dinner at home

Mom: So I asked her, do you have any chest pain? no, any mobility problems, no, no i go for a walk every day – she has no symptoms! What would you do?

JT: My friend and I operated on someone on the computer today.

Dad: Admit her! I’m worried about that (insert long word).

Mom: Well, so am I! Should I refer her to Peter?

JT: It was really cool, except there was a lot of blood.

Dad: That reminds me, I have an interesting story about Mr X, you know, the guy with (long word)….

Mom: Was his (long word) acting up again? I thought he was on (long word)!

*(sound of Em playing The Cat Came Back on the piano)*

Dad: Well, when I saw him he had quite the (long word)…person Y (lady) seemed to think it was his (long word for medical device), but I said no, though it’s the loudest (long word) I’ve ever heard….

Mom: Do you think maybe he had (long word)?

JT: If you tilted the table the right way you could see all his insides.

*(sound of Em playing The Cat Came Back on the piano)*

Mom: Anyway, I’m just not sure what to do about person Q.

Dad: Maybe you should consider….

Fred: I’ll be right back, I have to go write…something.

JT: And then you had to use a tool to stop him from bleeding so much.

Dad: A (long word)?

*(sound of Em playing The Cat Came Back on the piano)*

Mom: You didn’t like the clam spaghetti, sweetie?

JT: Nah, I feel like ice cream.

It is different when there are other people over. Then the topics become mostly politics and old British comedies.

Life is an Ikea vase of fake flowers.

"I like my bike," I said.
My mother nodded. "I saw you leaving on your bike this morning. It's so smooth the way you ride. It's like an extension of your body."
"Always at least one hand on it, switching from left to right, unconciously. And it's funny, because I was slow learning to ride."
"I think you're like that at skiing too," she said.

I am lucky because I have so many refuges. If I'm angry or depressed, I can go string chords together on the piano. Biking brings me out of my darkest moods, but only when I'm alone, when I ride so fast that all sounds drop away but the tireless hum of wheels on gravel. Skiing and sprinting are like that too, and poor snowboarder though I am, it's easy to feel free on a slope. Rollerblading has definetly not reached that point. If I'm still alive after tomorrow, I'll post a quasi-humourous anecdote.

The Wal-Mart people fixed my pictures! They aren't grey anymore, and all the red splotches/lines have disappeared. The colour is much improved as well. I'm going to have to look for a new album in the basement.

And that, my friends, aside from standing in front of the supermarket eating cheese curds and tuning my guitar down a tone, is what I did today.

I do pay attention, just not to the same things you do.

I have a blister on my wrist.

Really, nothing like hanging out with a couple of close friends while watching comedies (after we managed to fix the audio) and fooling with GarageBand. Even if one of them does cough herself to sleep while the other two watch the movie that she picked. Even if a combination of sun and dog wake the three up early. Especially if.

I hardly think we need another anticlimax.

Once more, life throws the possibility you never entertained in your face.

Words flew from my mouth, rolling off as if I were reading from a book.

Abruptly, I said, the potatoes ended, and the river opened before me. The water level was high, higher than I remembered it being, ever. Still it held a form of beauty, if a terribly stark one. I thought back to last summer, when my brother and I climbed on the branches that hung out over the water -- no more. It was a different place, an alien world I did not know, and I wished for another time...but this story you have already heard.

Drawing yet another blank.

Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict

This morning I awoke with tendonitis in my left foot, or in other words I can't really walk. Being crippled for a day is certainly a new experience. Limping very slowly around Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, humming a John Entwhistle tune...once she catches up with me there'll be no time to explain. Plenty of time, I thought ruefully, and no one's needs to worry about catching up with me.

Adding to my repertoire.

Dim lighting

Alicia was saying that she'd like to make an art movie someday, involving certain bizarre scenes and clan members. I've thought of a neat scene. It would be cool to get everyone in the group around a table -- a round table -- and just have them talk. Maybe it could start out as taking turns discussing a certain issue.

It would be interesting to note how it progressed over time, who spoke in which fashion, what alliances were formed, whether the discussion became a group of smaller discussions, each involving a few people. Focus on the ones who are talking, focus on the ones who are not talking.

As well, there would be the less evident things. How do people look at one another when they don't know anyone is watching them? What objects would fly over that table (notes and the like), what gestures would pass between players in this game?

Quite a few personalities could be created. Does person A often side with person B? Does person E chew her hair, staring into space, when person C brings up something in particular?

I realise this isn't feasible, given that it would never happen naturally and it wouldn't be the same if we knew we were being taped. I like the setup, though.

Don't get too near. You might catch what I have.

Pictures from the non-sleepover!

These are the ones from my place -- the ones that didn't make it on the display. Now someone should post Alicia's comic strip. It's hilarious.

Ariel looks happy here, although this picture looked a lot better before it was scanned and shrunk. Remember throwing Jocelyne into the snow?


Doesn't Kelsey look sweet?

Molly. Unfortunately no pictures of Alicia tripping over the bench.

Ah, the word searches. Ariel and Kelsey didn't like them much, as I remember.


Here's a bit of everyone (except, of course, me & Kim): Molly's profile, Isabelle's hair, Kelsey's back, Ariel's knee, Alicia's chest, and Jocelyne's leg.

Now that I've discovered this, I'm considering the ones of Kelsey's thumb, Kelsey's bandaged elbow, and Kelsey in a wizard hat. I'm thinking maybe Kelsey and I should come up with a little agreement.

Now go to www.engrish.com. I don't care if you don't find it funny. I do.

AAnd...Jenna's starting an explodingdog.com-type drawing site: http://www.freewebs.com/soccerroxmysoccersox/aliens.htm....

Night

I've always wanted to create something truly beautiful.

Last night was my first upstairs. It was pouring thunder, and I spent an hour on the telephone with Jocelyne comparing flashes -- "Did you see that one?" "Yep." Flash, crack, explosion.

I wasn't going to try and sleep after I left her, and it was only ten so I decided to try something -- listening to music in bed in the dark in a silent house outside of which a storm rages, its fury torrential. I think lying there with Smoke on the Water playing very softly into my ears was one of the most peaceful moments ever.

During the second song, something strange happened. I must have been in a halfdreaming state (which is pretty typical, come to think of it) because when I look back on it now the only other conclusion I can draw is that I'm not quite right in the head -- and that could be too hopeful a prospect for me to consider. I was there, eyes shut, and who swims into view above my face? Syd Barrett...you know those shots of him in the round shades? No? Well, anyway...he smiled, reached out an arm to me. And I put my arm forward until it touched his

-- of course, he faded.

The lightening flashed. The music changed. And I was left there, alone in the dark, beginning to think about the soundscape.

It would be some more hours, during which I went on a lemming-style rampage and lost a battle to the air conditioner, before I slept. If dreaming is still possible, I hope I never wake up.

I do believe in evil. I even believe in good.

Post!

Funny how whenever I get together with one or two of the Clan/Team JLGJSA members, we spend the entire time talking about everyone else. And funny how satisfying that can be. It's like having everyone there, without the noise and the essential fading into the background. But I'm definetly different around different people. With Kelsey, Ariel, Kaj...I'm the listener. They talk, and I appreciate. With Alicia/Isabelle, I talk their ears off and they respond. Sometimes, as with Jacob, it's often merely an easy silence. Jenna and I are perfectly even.

So today I met with Leecie and talked her ear off. And she responded. It was hot. On Sunday, my mom and I hiked up to the top of Orford following a black diamond ski trail.

The end.

Could never hate you.