Large Y loops are linked with large imaginations.

"I'm trying to be human here."

-Shotty

If you never had to copy off me, you might have expected me to have neat handwriting. You might have expected me to have small, streamlined writing, omitting some letters, virtual shorthand -- the writing of a busy intellectual. Or you might have pictured middle-sized, perfectly straight, somewhat loopy letters that fit perfectly between the lines -- clearly an honour roll student.

Then you probably tried to borrow my biology homework. You very quickly regretted this action, because you could not make out anything past the date at the top right corner of the paper. My handwriting is not straight up and down, it is not streamlined, and it certainly does not fit between the lines. It is very, very angular, and it is incredibly messy.

On a single sheet of paper, one letter may vary in shape and size many times (I have particular trouble with m's, tending to add surplus bumps). I also have a certain penchant for writing directly over the lines, so that I take two spaces to write one line. Yet I don't really like to waste paper, so when I come to the end of the line with a long word, I do not divide it with a hyphen -- I cram it in at the end, usually distorting the shapes of the individual letters to the point when it is no longer discernable as one word.

I take notes with alarming speed and apparent efficiency. However, I alone am capable of deciphering my scrawl. Letters jostle each other, battling for space. Slowly the paragraphs begin to creep to the sides of the paper, sliding off the lines and forming a tangled mass on the ground. Lines, appearing to divide sections but in reality merely cluttering what remains of the paper, are present in abundance. I cross sections out, I insert entire chapters by means of the margins. And all this has much improved since Grade Seven.

I have begun to practice writing with my left hand, because I figure it won't be any worse. (Ambidextricity, if that is a word, runs in the family. I suppose that's another post though. Things that Run in My Family...besides being born in the wrong generation of course....) My writing is very distinctive, so don't ask me to forge something for you (Kaj).

This belief that what one thinks about one's handwriting is the equivalent of one's perception of oneself/one's looks is what baffles me. What would that make me? Widely detested? Sharp? Impossible to read?

I had a dream last night.

I really like these socks, you know.

Like snowflakes, we are each different, but we start out the same, tend to avoid standing alone, and all wind up melting on the ground anyway.

Five and a half hours.

My family went for dinner tonight with Vivian's family, as we often do. Vivian is one of our few friends, her office being beside mom's at the Saint-Mary's (they compose the entire force of cardiologists with offices at the Saint-Mary's). We went to Oggi, which is a great place, comparable with the restaurants we discovered in Florence and Venice. The food is great and the decor certainly memorable -- while the curtains, as I attempted to explain to Dad, didn't remind me of anything, they were certainly of the kind that could remind you of something.

When we met up with Vivian and her two little sons, I remember looking at her and thinking, I wonder if Vivian's going to have another kid. My idea wasn't actually that distinct, more of a Vivan-pregnant-hmmm, but it can be difficult to explain thoughts -- and some more than others. Because sure enough, halfway through dinner Mom turns to Dad and tells him that there's going to be a disruption in the cardiology schedule next summer.

Something pretty important has occurred to me. I used to believe that social people who were well-liked all had a projected image, and that nearly any interaction between two people was impaired by the image clash. I don't think that you have to invent yourself. I think there is a way to be at ease with the world without bothering to create a personality. This is kind of an optimist perspective, but I think I'll deal.

More and more I begin to understand that truth exists, and that everyone is capable of achieving it. Disputes over truth, while one of the leading causes of violence in our history, are against the nature of truth, for obviously each person perceives truth, if they do so at all, in a different way.

Oggi means today, but I am really taken with tomorrow.

Five hours.

Hunter's moon.

Everyone dreams of escaping. Everyone constantly wants an easy way out, a way to begin anew. Everyone wants to instantly attain hope and resolve.

Life's already begun. It started a long time ago, so long ago you do not understand that memory can have existed. Life has begun, and it is not about to do it again for you.

There is no easy way out. There is one very difficult way forward.

I'm sorry. I haven't slept more than five hours in the past two days, and this sort of made sense to me when I was typing.

Why Joseph is awesome.

Today I missed out on free vinyl cafe tickets. Tomorrow I'm going to switch guitar with my father and skip school to study math. I mean. Just joking. Right.

I'm beginning to clear up my room. It's been a long, slow process. I also went to badminton, which leaves very little time for math and blogging. However, I have a new notebook to replace my Drug Awareness one, and I'll probably be posting bits and pieces from there now and then. I was going to do that today but I left it in my locker.

Because how many people do you know who have the guts to start piano at fourteen? That's why.

Please don't stand so close.

There's something so very inspiring about the dark. Everyone is confident in the dark. You could be anyone in the dark, and anything could happen. Because darkness is both now and eternal. In the dark, you live for the moment, and you live forever.

Putting together a dresser has led me to understand (a) how much my hands shake and (b) how filthy my floor is.

Imagine how he felt when he lifted off the ground.

Being born in the wrong decade runs in the family.

Neil had a great, great analogy today. We were talking about how people become extremely polarized by something as simple and trivial as musical preferences. He didn't think that it was anything worth arguing about.

"It's like, if we were getting ice cream, and I said to you, 'I don't like vanilla.' You wouldn't be offended because I don't like vanilla ice cream, would you? You just like vanilla and I just like chocolate. There's no explanation for why I like something you might not."

I have often, as has Ariel and perhaps everyone reading this, wished I was born earlier. The world of our generation is -- in my opinion -- not only lousy but pretty boring. Turns out I'm not the only one, even in my family.

My father shrugs, almost mournfully. "I should have been born in the nineteenth century," he jokes. "I would have been normal."

My mother nods her head. Having been an only child for ten years and skipped two grades of school, she has always lived among people who are older than she has. "I should have been born earlier -- a decade, a century."

I'm not sure what they mean. From my perspective, the world of their youth is the ideal. Perhaps it was the same with their parents.

I've been spending more time talking with my parents of late. Maybe I'm avoiding the work that's piling up in the background, or maybe I've just realised how alike we are.

And Ariel: Happy perfect birthday.

REPEAT FROM SECOND POST EVER WRITTEN: I'm not depressed, I'm just pessimistic.

Merely Scratching the Dawn

Jocelyne, Kelsey has pointed out, likes musicians who are shy, addicted to drugs, and record mostly on their own. After watching far too many Goldberg Variations clips on YouTube, I have come across my defining preferences: passionate about their music and slightly out of touch with reality.

Although soaking one's hands in hot water before playing is a pretty good idea when my cold living room is involved.

...There I am.

Look what I found on my computer.

Cold. She gripped the object clasped within her fingers tightly, as if that action would alleviate the burning of frost on her lips and the stiffening of her limbs. She rose from her seat on the edge of the deserted square and moved to stand beside the broken fountain in the middle.

Her eyelashes scintillated with what could have been the remains of tears. In fact, a light snowfall that had never reached the ground had dusted her shoulders and face, a memory of angel breath sparkling in her long hair.

The air was utterly still, as though the world around her had shivered and died. The flowers strewn over the ground seemed to be left over from a celebration centuries before. There was no sound, no howl of wolf in the distance or scuttle of leaves across the paving stones.

She suddenly felt a wave of dizziness, and slid to the floor with a sharp intake of breath; nausea, acute pain, stars dancing before her eyes. She hovered for a while on the verge of consciousness, images parading through her mind.

She had been spared. She did not know what she would do, left to continue her people’s work on her own. She did not know how much longer she would live.

As the girl on the ground lapsed into deep slumber, the shadow in the air lifted and turned away.

Power. Sheer, pure power. And for what would you sacrifice it?

Centuries pass

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Every time I hear that stanza, I shall be reminded of the part in Nineteen Eighty-Four when Winston and Julia are standing looking out the window of their hiding place, talking quietly about their plans to oppose society.

“We are the dead,” he said.
“We are the dead,” echoed Julia dutifully.
“You are the dead,” said an iron voice behind them.

It’s hard to argue that the soldiers in Flanders Fields are the dead, but we all are really.

What I really want to know is, did all those people who went off and died for the children they would never meet truly believe that their selfless acts would have any impact on the progress of humanity? Did they believe that if the great war was won, we would learn from our mistakes so that future generations would not have to die in the same manner?

Because humanity never learns, I can only assume that they would not have believed their war to actually be the one to end them all. Perhaps they still had some hope that it would not happen again, but given our history this appears to be nothing more than a blindly optimistic daydream.

So why did they do it? Why bother to go off and fight, when you know it won’t make a difference and you’ll probably lose your own precious life in doing so? Why, when you know that your family and friends and all for whom you care are all, eventually, going to stop breathing anyway?

War is hardly going to end. I do not believe that we learn from our mistakes that quickly. I do not believe that incredible massacres will not happen again -- they happen as I type. Yet I do posess a very faint hope for humanity, and this is why: if the same species that invented the atomic bomb, that kills its own kind and other kinds, that has destroyed much of the planet and is working on what remains...if members of this same species will go to die for another, though they know their actions are futile...if they will go to die for another solely because they believe in their heart that they could not have done otherwise...if this can happen, there must be a chance, however small, that this species will recover.

The chance, of course, is very small. After all, this act we consider noble consists of running off to kill other people.

Took some pictures in an odd place today.

I wanna be a STAR.

How many generations does it take to catch on?

My mother and I were sitting in the car, driving home.

"My father used to write," she said. "I didn't know it for a long time, but he used to be good at it. I'm going to tell you what he told me once when I was around your age. He said, 'You know, I was good at writing once, but I stopped...started working...and I want to tell you not to make the same mistake. You have a real talent: don't stop using it.' "

She eased the car onto our street, staring ahead into the rain.

"But you did make the same mistake," I said.

"Well, I'm telling you, aren't I?"

There is an art to giving in.

Improvising is one of the hardest things in the world.

You know, I've figured out why they started selling poppies so early. It's so that people will buy more when they lose the first batch.

No posts in awhile. Not looking great for the future either. Again.