Marseilles cards.

'I'll always picture you with a book in your hands.'

-Grandma

Now, if you too have been puzzled by the bizarre reasoning of a certain popular song of 2007, you had better read this. Right now.

Haven't written in a long time (I guess it's pretty obvious), although I'm not short of ideas. Short of discipline, maybe. But I've been scanning some stuff, so Flashback is being updated again....

Oh, and one more thing you should check out: Reverse Graffiti. Another 2007 treasure -- I think it's one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time.

Beauty is a sudden radiation of inspiration.

And I quote from our horrible, horrible history manual.

'Est-tu supérieure à ta mère parce qu'elle est allée au couvent jusqu'en neuvième année avec son costume bleu [...] parce que tu deviendras peut-être électrotechnicienne, cardiologue ou même Premier ministre, alors qu'on lui enseignait à elle l'art ménager pour qu'elle devienne une bonne mère de famille?'

Obviously, I can't take that as a personal insult to my mother, but their sweeping generalizations are like spiders burrowing into my skin. Ma mère est cardiologue, for your information.

Man I really want to go outside again.

I have thirteen finals this year. That is not cool.

Me in front of school this morning: 'I accidentally left my clarinet in the music room. Couldn't I please get into the music room for two seconds?'
Janitor: 'School's closed!'
Me: 'But I have a playing exam on Wednesday. Look, it won't take long.'
Janitor (over roar of snowblower): 'I can't hear you.'
Me: 'I HAVE A PLAYING EXAM ON WEDNESDAY.'
Janitor: 'SCHOOL'S CLOSED.'

At first, I was convinced that the inflexibility was because I'm not stunningly beautiful, but I'm not sure anyone would be able to counter such a ridiculous policy. I came to school, I'd have been supervised -- hell, I even had my student ID -- and I wasn't allowed because I'm a delinquent sixteen-year-old and who knows what I could have done. School is an institution established for the benefit of the student, so it's only logical to make sure that the student has as few rights as possible.

High school has been fun and all, but it's also worn pretty thin in places.

Can you see the real me?

Confessions.

I didn't grow up with invisible friends. I grew up with my beloved stuffies. Now, I have more invisible friends now than I ever did before. They aren't invisible in that only I can see them, but rather in that I have never seen them and can rarely communicate with them. Some I know very well; others I feel that I will never completely understand.

I have four mains. Cold, detached Arcturus; angry, cynical Fletcher; mysterious Silvia; and 'F', who I met in a dream. Silvia exists in our world, Arcturus does not, Fletcher can't seem to make up his mind, and 'F' isn't even human.

It's all so big.

Man I love snow.

'When you get the test, you'll think it's really long. It's not. The first twenty questions....'

-Orlando on an upcoming math test

'The first said I was going to die; the second said I had breathed my last; and the third said I was already dead.'

-Chopin on his doctors

My English project on The Pianist is due on Friday, and here's what I have so far:

-Ten pages of rough literal notes and quotes (I really, really like quotes)

-Four pages of notes on symbols, style, setting, irony, theme, intended audience, music, jump cuts, the point of no return, and guiding principles

-Six very rough paragraphs, three of which (somehow) are about Chopin. Six out of a future fifteen to twenty. It seems to be a very long report.

I have, however, come to the conclusion that Wladek is a pretty cool name.

Just jammin'.

For those who haven't already heard me talking about how great my English teacher is (which I do every day)

Instead of watching the film version of Lord of the Flies in class and comparing it to the book, we're going to watch The Matrix.

You taught me how to sing.

Snow is heaven.

Art can be a real pain in the ass.

Ninety percent of the time, you feel like you’re going nowhere. You work and work, and nothing seems to improve. Sometimes you’ll have a small breakthrough, and sometimes whatever you’re putting together – be it painting, poem, or piece of music – will turn out quite well, and you can be somewhat satisfied, but you still feel a little twinge of doubt in the corner of your brain, a little voice that says ‘Hm, that’s alright, but couldn’t I do better?’

Every now and then, though, there’ll be a real surge. True inspiration doesn’t build up over time, and it won’t come very often, but every now and then you’ll feel a real compulsion to do something. All the emotion you ever felt has flared up in one instant and is begging to be free. You’ll set it free in one long burst, singing, or pen flying across the page, or playing your guitar until you can’t play anymore, until your fingers are numb and the pain in your shoulder spreads across your back, until you crumple under the weight of all that passion.

And then, you’ll sleep. Or you’ll doze for a little, trying to sort out what just happened. You never will be able to pin it down exactly.

The thing is, nothing you create during that ninety percent while you’re actually working is ever as good as what came out in that one explosion. It’s frustrating to think about, but nothing in the world seems to make you happier than those surges.

Well, I think you can subsitute all the you’s for I’s and me’s. Obviously I have no idea what anyone else feels like, but it felt better to write it that way.

Man, my shoulder hurts.

Fi-ire!

Busy Busy Busy

is what we Bokononists whisper whenever we think of how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.

-Kurt Vonnegut

I could have blogged about how power corrupts, using the example of how I was picked on by three prefects for half a centimeter of white, but I didn't. I could have done a long blog all about my feelings about parades, but I didn't. I could have blogged about shunning the paths laid out for me, but, you know. I might.

I have a well of passion deep within me that no one sees, and that even I manage to ignore most of the time.

Another reason why my father is awesome

This is funnier if I've already told you about his bizarre practice of giving me an extra twenty dollars all the time.

Me: 'So I'm off to buy Ariel's birthday gift. I shouldn't be too long...see you later.'
Dad: 'Well, I should probably give you some extra money.'
Me: 'Uh...why?'
Dad: 'Well, in case you need to take a cab home.'
Me: 'I...I've got some quarters. I'll, uh, make a phone call. If I need a cab from the mall.'

He did this that time I hung out with ministers too.

It went by so quickly I could barely see it.

Guy on cell phone in street: "I'm at home."

I've been thinking about those visions again...the blackboard and the piano keyboard ...and I've realized that there's something else I do without thinking, but it isn't related to sight. I call it involuntary playback. I believe we all have the ability to some extent (how else could you have a song stuck in your head?)

On a completely different note (argh), I walked into a rescheduled piano lesson once not too long ago to the sound, unsurprisingly, of the kid before me. I sat down to wait until he was finished, but my teacher, upon noticing me, decided to use me as an audience.

Earl (to student): 'Why don't you play your theme song for her?'

What he began to play was, well, eerily familiar. I just couldn't fathom why...it didn't seem like the sort of piece I would listen to for pleasure. Yet although it resounded in the depths of my memory and was clearly a well-known tune, it didn't seem like it was music of twinkle twinkle little star immortality. I identified it only moments before the end...it was Sousa's Liberty Bell march.

If you aren't sure what I'm talking about or why, congratulations on being less of a loser than I am. And then go watch some Flying Circus.

My writing's deteriorating, and it's time for me to close up again.

Well, that worked.

Even cold November rain.

"BANANANA."

-Marisa

Empty mind of all pain and pleasure, until nothing remains.

Impossible.

They say nothing lasts forever.

Half-post from the depths of the drafts.

"You sell more bananas, you get more money."

-Mr. Zigby on capitalism

Here's to my latest musical interest. His name is Jeremy Fisher, and he's a not-very-underground Canadian artist. I'm surprised I hadn't heard of him before. I discovered his concert on the wonderful CBC radio 2 the night before halloween, and I had the privilege of carving pumpkins while listening to him talk and sing (We're just friends who sometimes happen to kiss, ain't that right). I think that his youtube video Scar that Never Heals is great.

Although perhaps not as great as this one.

My sister was the most elegant dark-haired vampire on Halloween night, with her curls slicked back and wearing a long dark cape.

This is from a year ago.

It is a world of slate and silver, a world governed by silence and illuminated by the fading gleam of ancient gas lamps. It is a world of mist and of whirlpools of emotions -- fear, sorrow, fury, love. Sun and moon coexist, each singing counter-harmony to the rhythm of life, the world and the everlasting. Crows perch on the upturned limbs of the shadows encircling the lake. A whisper of wind, the sigh of the leaves fluttering over the ground as you pass, making your way down the path.

Welcome to November. Welcome home.

As much fun as I have delving into old notebooks, I will try and post soon.

But we knew the truth, deep down. And the truth was that we never fit in, not once.

Best wishes times two.

Jocelyne's birthday: today.

Jenna's birthday: tuesday.

-www.explodingdog.com

Another earth-shattering revelation.

Sometimes, I find it really weird that I am able to move. Sometimes in Honour Band or History, I'll just stop and think about my hand for awhile. I like to move the fingers, to clench and unclench my fist. Sometimes I feel like the fingers on the hand aren't my fingers at all, but that I can control them, that I can watch from a distance.

I don't feel as though I am my body. I feel as though I wear my body, as though I put it on every day when I come back from dreaming, from being in other bodies (because I am almost never in mine at night).

It's difficult to say this kind of thing without sounding as if I am either complaining or spouting body-image clichés ("it's what's on the inside that counts"). I think my body's alright...it's perfectly capable and functions about as well as average, while allowing me to blend into a crowd (and thereby observe that crowd from within). But it's just a covering for me, a costume that is particularly difficult to get out of. My body is a puppet, and I'm pulling its strings.

Of course, sometimes we're so perfectly synchronized that I don't think about anything of the sort.

Scrolling down on this page, I noticed that it's been somewhere like three weeks since a proper post (i.e. a musing or a rant with a more ambiguous title). Again, I apologize. Next week shouldn't be so bad, so I'll be able to get back to what I love doing.

I'll let you imagine what that might be.

And sometimes, my mouth moves completely independently.

Have a good one.

Today is Sophia's birthday.

Some quotes.

Alicia on blog: "And really, all of my posts usually contain some sort of rant about something or other, so I figure maybe I should try and find a different way of dealing with things that upset me...."

Shruthi on me: "She doesn't talk. She rants."

Me on monday at 5:46: "Gotta go now. Plenty of work."

I have nine tests this week.

So my blogging has lagged a bit. But I'm back, briefly, to tell you all about how incredibly mod I was today. I bought Quadrophenia on record while wearing my mother's good dress clothes (black suitcoat, grey skirt etc.).

(Yeah, okay, it's an unhealthy obsession. But the guy that seemed sort of familiar in the store agrees with me that it's a "great album".)

Oh man I need to study.

Don't let it bring you down.

The perfect amount of sleep...?

EDIT: I've officially forgiven my math class. Now, as for these parties....

I felt really good today, which is probably why I said so many stupid things and so many teachers yelled at me. Here's a brief selection of quotes, in chronological order.

Math Class

Kelsey: So this six is the b parameter?
Me: No, that six. (jabs at Kelsey's notebook)
Kelsey: But why can't this six be the b? It wanted to be the b.
Me: Because you have to simplify the equation.
Kelsey: Why does everything have to be simplified?
Me: Because we have to simplify everything to understand it...(preparing to launch into RFS-style rant)
Teacher: What are you ladies talking about? Is it math?
Kelsey, me: Yeah, we were talking about the b parameter.
Class: Yeah, sure guys. Good one.
Me: No, really! (resolving not to invite any classmates to Kelsey's calculus parties)

French Class

Uh, aside from teacher's comparison of GVinf and being in the closet and being yelled at repeatedly, and Kelsey singing Twist and Shout continuously over fifty minutes....

History Class

Chen: Jazz band!
Me: I'm late.
Chen: ....?

I managed to guess Marisa's word.

Moral Class

Sub: (heavy Russian accent) But it is not a free period. You either watch the movie, or you read. Or you draw pictures.
Eric: Can we play chess?
Sub: ...yes.

Jazz Band

Fortin: This piece is level three. Or maybe three and a half...I don't remember.
Me: It says three here.
Mikel: Uh, that's the page number.

I really had a lot of fun at Leadership. Having like six people in charge is a very very good thing. Ariel: Moral wasn't as interesting as it perhaps sounds.

Captions!

Future band name: Academic Death Warrant.

Those of you with whom I have spoken in the past few days are probably well aware of my latest source of excitement. In Rainbows is coming out on the internet in five days, and even though I'm not going to hear any of the songs for a long time, and even though Radiohead isn't my favourite band ever (although I do think they are pretty damn awesome and pretty damn good musicians), I've been jumping up and down about it.

Why? Could be that finally being part of anything current is having its effect. We like belonging, and the fact that many of one's favourite celebrities are dead, well...it makes one feel a little out of the loop. I could digress into another commentary, but I think this is all for today.

ImPOSTer!

Here's what I wrote beside DATE on my science test today.

2007-09-01.

Think I need a little more sleep?

Countdown to Radiohead: a little over a week....

Bagging was fun. No, really.

"It was fun in the way that manual labour with people you don't really talk to usually is."

-Me

"Who's Pippin?"

-Me

I am having a good time with APS in band, though.

No posts for awhile, I think. But you should check out Alicia's artblog.

By the way, if anyone is going on the bio trip, what are your room situations like?

Get Plastered, You Bastard

"For WAR.
...And for pots."

-Mr. Zigby on the uses of copper

Alicia's birthday. She's already written a lovely post about it, so I will try to avoid redundancy.

Predictably, all my friends looked stunning -- Kelsey fabulous in a short black...uh...slip...Arthi gorgeous in gold and brown, Alicia and Jocelyne in their beautiful and vastly different green and blue dresses, and Ariel in a magnificent electric&black skirt that defies description. (I'm exercising my command of synonyms.)

Alicia was indeed stressed.

(on the bus on the way to the Colombian restaurant, coming up from Place-D'Armes)

Alicia: "Well, the metro station you're really supposed to get off at is Mont-Royal."

Me: "Oh, uh, then...Alicia? Afterwards, couldn't we take the metro from there, then? Alicia?"

Alicia: "No."

Me: "Why not?"

Alicia: "Because we don't have enough time." *nearly bangs head on pole*

Me: "...?"

(Dufault correctly pointed out the other day that, in true Canadian fashion, I tend to finish all my sentences on a high note. As if I'm asking a question, you know? Like this?)

The food was good (although I don't recommend it to vegetarians) and the waiters were all wonderful (Alicia fell for the one who gave her alcohol "from his country"), and I generally had a very good time. We were kind of immature when it came to sing, though.

So what went wrong, for me? (You knew this was coming. The post reeks of shoe-drop.) It was my decision to leave. I had a lot -- a lot -- of work to do the following day, so I called my father and asked him to pick me up at midnight. It was only at ten minutes to midnight that I realized that I was making a mistake. We were eating cake in the kitchen, when I suddenly arose and flew out of the room, aiming to catch him before he left the house, but I was too late. It was a crushing experience, having to watch the wrong thing happen, as though in slow motion.

Kelsey, as we walked to meet my father at the door: "It's like we're walking you to your execution."

Alicia, I'm glad you had such a great quinceañera.

That's all for now. I have loads of drafts, so more will probably appear.

Speaking of slow motion....

More about Memory and Visions

"Your lab report won't taste good."

-Mr. Zigby

My grade five teacher, Mr. Brown, once told us that he had a blackboard inside his head. When he closed his eyes, it was there; he could write things out on it, and erase them, watching the letters appear in his deliberate but fluid handwriting. None of us in the class understood what he was talking about, but somehow the comment lodged itself within the dark recesses of my brain and very slowly trickled into my subconscious.

The idea lay somewhat dormant until a short time ago, when my piano teacher explained to me his own particular perception. He sees a keyboard when he shuts his eyes, sees his fingers spreading over the monochromatic levers, sees the familiar groups of three and two. I understood what he meant, but I couldn't share in his vision.

It was only last week that I was speaking to a boy now in the seventh grade and I had the presence of mind to inquire as to whether he, too, had anything imprinted on the inside of his head. He informed me that he sees gears, and I accepted this without comment, pensive.

There is a reason I take so many pictures. I don't have a very good visual memory. I will always recognize a face as one I have seen before, but I cannot easily summon an image of a particular person in my mind. There is only one image I can retain without any effort at all, and this is my own recurring vision, a vision that I cannot control.

Ah, the suspense.

I see printed words. I see letters and sentences parading past me. I see the curve of the m in smile, the particular purplish tone of the ou in colour. I see marsh and mouse and precipice, but I do not see the things the words describe. I cannot listen to a song I know well without simultaneously reading the lyrics. I do not associate characters in books with the physical characteristics they are described as posessing, but rather with the appearance of their names.

At my second or third piano lesson with Earl, he spoke to me of how, in most cases, human visual memory far exceeds auditory. He asked me to hear an E in my head, which I did (an entirely different subject which I have doubtless already mentioned).

For comparison's sake, he then asked me to picture the colour red. I couldn't. I couldn't picture red. All I could see was the word.

I am extremely pleased that the week is over. I apologize for the lack of a decent conclusion, but you have doubtless become accustomed to that on my blog. Endings are my favourite, but they are also very diffcult.

You know, I'm just going to twist everything until it suits me.

By the way, it is a really bad idea to play the electric guitar for more than an hour

while standing up. Talk about shoulder pain. How do the pros do it?

Because the world is round
It turns me on
Because the world is round

Because the wind is high
It blows my mind
Because the wind is high

Because the sky is blue
It makes me cry
Because the sky is blue....

-messrs lennon and mcC

Wherever you will it to be.

Listening to: Quadrophenia (The Who)

This is the first and last time I use Alicia's opener.

When I was younger and lived downstairs in the blue room with my sister, we had two clocks on the wall: a green plastic Ikea clock, shaped like a green plastic Ikea plate with a bee on a stick for a second-hand (secondhand!), and a Sylvester-and-Tweety clock that my grandparents gave me and that I've had for ages (unfortunately, it's a little broken now). They both ran off single AA batteries, and these batteries tend to run down after awhile. A little over two years ago, both of them stopped within a few weeks of one another. This was unexpected, but not unusual. What was truly staggeringly unbelievable was that both of them stopped at exactly the same time, to the second. They stopped at 7:51 and forty-five seconds.

How?

A few months ago, I took the metro from Tyndale to Vendome, where my father had volunteered to pick me up. I stepped onto the train at the Georges-Vanier station, wrapping an arm around a silver pole at one end of the car. Then, looking to the other end, I noticed the hair. Not one hair, but two hairs -- one short and black, one unmistakably distinctive...I had walked into Ariel and Kelsey's metro car.

How?

Over and over, we dismiss such apparent "coincidences". We do not understand why such things happen, and therefore we pretend that they do not happen. Much is based on perception, yet no matter what our carefully established opinions, something always happens to shock us, to make us lose faith in our preconceived ideas.

The unpredictability of life is difficult to capture in literature or in analysis. No matter how carefully you evaluate all the potential outcomes of even the smallest event, what winds up happening will surprise you. There ought to be a scientific law...nothing that is expected will happen, or will happen in the way it is expected to do so. I have never been able to say, with complete certainty, what will happen in the future.

Because the few times that I have known, with complete certainty, I did not conciously realize that I knew until I looked back on the event. Had I realized it, the outcome would, I am sure, have been different. This is why premonitions, from what I gather, are impossible to prove.

I am no Cassandra, but I think that everyone makes a few surprising predictions in their lifetime. And in a lifetime, much more than we would like to believe is inexplicable.

We like to have explanations handy, but knowledge is not always the same as understanding. Think back to Grade Nine biology. Think about everything you learned about the cell. Think about DNA. You learned what the basic substances in DNA were; you learned that DNA transmits genes, that it coils up during mitosis, that bits and pieces of it are interchanged, somehow, with other cells. But did your teacher even once attempt to explain to you how a strange shape composed of protein can contain all the traits of the cell? How can a code composed of only four "letters" transmit information, and how can a cell, an organism without conscious thought, adopt that code and become as the code specifies? I have absolutely no idea. Of course, I won't even mention that question so taboo in the world of science -- the why.

That is why I find so much of school so frustrating. Book learning deals very much with what, very rarely with how, and almost never with why. (And, no, I don't like ME.)

I believe that all things are interconnected. I don't subscribe to the notion that art and science and religion and athletics are four concepts in direct opposition with one another. Rather, I feel that all four are complementary. Indeed, I have never come across two areas of human interest that were mutually exclusive. I am fortunate enough to have never been required to confine myself to one field, and therefore I have become very interested in learning to perceive more of the whole. I can never see the trees for the forest.

I dislike being asked what I want to do when I'm older, what I want to "go into", because I don't want to "go into" any one thing. I want to understand things, and I want to help others to understand things, and I know I would not be able to do so if I chose to specialize.

This two-part rant has been brought to you by the creator of such anti-classics as Being Born in the Wrong Decade Runs in the Family and Somewhere, Anywhere. Life is thus shining.

(Yeah, I've been looking through my archives again).

Let's all battle our own demons.

She came in through the bathroom window.

The five of us were walking along fielding yesterday, after having been to see Across the Universe. Alicia and I were talking about movies, or more specifically about The Science of Sleep (which I haven't seen) and Amélie (which I have, and yeah, the full title is longer). Just before she turned off on her street, I mentioned the scene where Amélie calls a public telephone booth.

Me: I'd like to learn a whole bunch of public phone numbers. I'd call one of the phones on the second floor during recess.

Five minutes later, walking along with Jocelyne on Fielding, we passed a telephone booth. The phone was ringing.

I kind of loved that movie, by the way.

I guess I don't expect it anymore.

Like Father, Like Daughter

Mr. Dufault: What I'm going to do is, when I look at all your marks for all the quizzes, I'll drop the lowest mark. So if you're going to blow it, you can blow it -- once.
Manraj: Can this be my first time blowing?

Yogourt. It appears to be one of the family curses. The bane of the Malcolms.

My father's famous accident took place when I was very young -- although still old enough to remember scenes from the event. The lesson he learned? Never to hold a full container of yogourt by the top. No, the lid wasn't on properly, and yes, there was much yogourt and gnashing of teeth. Mainly my father's teeth, as my mother was rather preoccupied with laughing.

Newton provided us with laws of gravity, and my father seems determined to prove them as creatively as possible. Action: container hits floor. Opposite and equal reaction: yogourt sails out of container, hits cabinets, refrigerator, ceiling, and father.

As science-oriented as my house tends to be, it is hardly surprising that another famous scientist enters my story. His name is Charles Darwin, and proving his theories appears to be my unconscious goal. Unlike my father, however, I dropped only half a container of peach-flavoured, and no one was in the house at the time.

Your turn, Tom.

Find me....

I dream of coconuts that crack open to reveal tiny dinosaurs with amber eyes and tiny dagger teeth.

Title is taken from an old correspondance between myself and a friend. I unearthed it in my inbox a short time ago. I have no idea what I was talking about.

Home from a day that seemed like cheating and at long last holding my sheet music for the band I wasn't sure I was in, I decided to look over said music in preparation for rehearsal tomorrow -- a rehearsal for which the majority of my fellows, who played said music all summer, are vastly better prepared. Three are okay, but the other two pieces look like hell on a staff. One in particular. I can't play the first line. I can't play the first note.

My strategy for tomorrow? Hope no one asks me to play it.

But before this occurred, a strange encounter made me halt in my progress toward my attic dwelling.

Passing Jenna's house, an unexpected motion caught my eye. I say this although I do not remember any unexpected motion, so perhaps an unexpected presence caught my soul. However it was, I found myself looking down to the base of her tree, where I spotted a tiny pair of eyes and a thin, silver tail. A squirrel the size of my fist was sitting in the grass, eating a tomato.

I was worried about him or her, squirrel being so small, but she or he managed to climb up the tree in the time it took me to go home and get peanuts. She or he also didn't seem interested in the peanuts. Jenna, I think you should keep an eye open for squirrel, just in case.

And so I draw my post to an end. The english in this one is often bizarre.

Haze.

Sunset and Skyline

Me: "Yeah, I didn't have any callouses because I was used to classical guitar."
Kelsey: "Yeah right, you had those...neon strings."
Me: "Uh...nylon."

Three hundred. Yeah, that's it. This is my three hundreth post. It's been well over a year since I began my blog. In my true characteristic dramatic fashion, I've decided to pause for a moment. I'll probably come back, sometime, and someday I will indeed stop posting forever on Reflections and Fuzzy Slippers.

I can track my life so far as having been through a three stages. The first, earlier childhood, lasted up until I was about ten or eleven. The second, earlier adolescence, is one that I divide in two: before and after coming to Royal West. The difference between the two is enormous; the character with which I began high-school was a major improvement on the person I was before.

The third began July 27. I think it must be undetectable at this point, but it will become more apparent with time. I'm not going to change much more. Certainly, I will always metamorphose more than is probably normal; I will always shift and adapt. Yet the base for my changing personalities, the core, that which is actually me will not be altered.

This is something that, if ever I am able to communicate, I must refrain from analyzing until it is strong enough to endure such probing.

You see why I am certain that RFS will not exist forever, as much fun as I have had writing it. It is absurd to assume that I will ever stop writing, or to even assume that I would be able to if I wanted. But this blog is from a different stage in my life, and although it must change as I do and have done, someday I will choose to end it. Endings are my favourites.

True to its name, Reflections and Fuzzy Slippers has always, I think, been an outlet for both my most philosophical and my most ridiculous ideas. And it has always served its purpose as a mirror, the mirror that I hold up not only to my life but to the world at large.

There I was, watching the waves roll in. And out. In. And out. Watching the moon, breathing, through the rain. That gorgeously hideous thunder. I am in love with the ocean and with the rain. Redemption. Whether everything ends or nothing does is one of the greatest questions the world has ever known.

Makes you yearn to the sky.

Chez Chantal

Extracted from the ubiquitous notebook. Because it was there, and it remembers better than I do.

In a corner of Charlevoix, where the village of La Malbaie, the Saint-Lawrence River and the train tracks meet, there is a building that was once a very tiny house. It is now a restaurant and store, neon-lit, selling everything from hot dogs and Pepsi to cappucinos, postcards, and fireworks. The exterior walls, like those inside, are plastered with posters and advertisements -- for motels and movies and concerts and whale-watching tours -- and all around are brown chairs and tables, some with umbrellas. Few cars drive by, but those that do are invariably filled with teen-agers, laughing, four of them crowding in the front seats...and occasionally a particularly drunken young man will stand up through the sunroof of his friend's car, grinning and shouting at no one at all.

It is a Monday at the end of August, and my brother has led us here in search of ice cream -- mint chocolate chip for myself and my father, swirled soft cones for the younger two.

There are two people working in the store. One is a youth who reminds me of Weiner, despite little physical resemblance. It has something to do, I suppose, with the tilt of his white uniform cap. The second is a girl with brown hair tied back; I cannot see her face, for she is standing at the back of the vast area behind the counter, near where a flight of red steps ascends to the unlit second story. By the window is a display of figurines and trinkets that my father cannot resist inspecting. Once in our new green van, he declines to show his purchase, hidden in its white plastic bag.

Outside, a waxing half-moon dances behind clouds. To the right of the store is a street and one last line of houses, a a phone booth crammed on the border between two private lots, as if in afterthought. To its left is a single railroad track, and a fenced-in area. Beyond the fence lies the bay, the Malbaie, and beyond the bay is the river and the ocean. There is a black motor scooter leaning against the fence, which -- in the absence of other signs of life -- I conclude surely belongs to one of the store's employees.

I finish my mint chocolate ice cream as I walk back to the car, savouring the last bite. My mother looks at the sky.

"Let's go for a drive," she says.

So we get home, and Emma's room, which was supposed to be painted dark blue and light yellow, has been painted dark blue -- and light pink. But at least Ambrosine is alright (one gets paranoid) and tomorrow I'll walk over and pick up the birds. And then, straight to hell, or hours locked in my room (metaphorically...I have no door) writing summer reading reports.

Alright, lyric break.

Morning found us calmly unaware

Noon burned gold into our hair

At night, we swam the laughing sea

When summer's gone, where will we be?

-Yes, it is The Doors.

Banana.

My kitchen is covered in egg.

I've been learning a lot lately. Honestly, I don't know what school is for. Today I learned why it isn't a good idea to fry eggs in olive oil. Yesterday I learned that it isn't a good idea to automatically assume that your piano teacher will expect that you have been learning the third movement of the new sonata. (They tend to begin with the first.) I've learned that it isn't a good idea to bike while carrying nine hardcover books in a backpack, and I've learned all about bad ideas concerning drugs (seriously, if only Keith Moon had been to therapy or something). I have learned that there is no better way to wake up than to the sound of rain pounding on the ceiling. (Yes, the ceiling, considering where I live.) I have learned that there's really no point in worrying about the future. I have learned that elephants are awesome.

Using the word "awesome" as the deft transition between paragraphs, my guitar is pretty awesome. I'm infatuated with her. I've named her Ambrosine.

Okay, I'm tired and currently unmotivated, so it's time for yet another round of stuff I found on my computer. I don't know how I manage to stumble across so many things that I've forgotten about. This is completely different from the last one, and although it's fairly old, no one aside from me has seen it before. I hope. It's a little unusual, not only because I don't usually write in the first person, but also because it draws a little more on my own experiences than I feel comfortable about. It was an experiment.

They always told us that we could do anything. As if that made it true, as if we were equally gifted and would all be offered equal opportunities. Perfect honesty has never been perceived as the best method for raising children. The idea, of course, is to shelter them from the brutal truth of the futility of their existence, pacify them with fantasy. Adolescence is the hellish repercussion.

In the ninth grade, our guidance counsellor distributed questionnaires among the classes. These were designed to uncover each student’s ideal profession, and were full of questions such as Do you enjoy working with children? Would you be interested in a career involving travelling? Do you want to work outdoors? The guidance counsellor was tall, and the smell of his clothes reminded me vaguely of the shoehorns my father kept in his closet when I was a little girl, which looked like ducks if you turned them the right way.

I was only ever called into his office once, when a teacher was given cause to believe that I was suffering from depression. He asked me if I had been contemplating suicide, and I told him I hadn't been. He made a few notes on a small white paper with a blue pen and a businesslike manner, and we never spoke again.

My questionnaire advised me to consider work as an anaesthesiologist, but I didn’t go into science when I left my high school, so I never found out if I would have been a good anaesthesiologist. I could never bring myself to put much faith in the accuracy of the analysis. An anaesthesiologist kills a patient for a little while and then brings them back, and I think that the best anaesthesiologist would be someone who was able to make the patient feel perfectly at ease with that idea. I can’t imagine anyone being at ease with their life in my hands.

Sparkles.

Guitar picks are supremely overpriced.

"I don't know. I just...don't get it. I remember one thing...I think it's called algebra."

-Neil on math

(ha ha, on math. it's funny because it sounds like a drug reference.)

I like people, but I'm not a people person. For me, people have always been only a small part of the whole, just one element of the painting or one motif of the fugue. People are interesting...watching them, listening to them, provoking them, imagining what they might do when you aren't there...but are certainly not my main focus in life, and the relationships between people are not usually the most interesting relationships I encounter. I am a setting person.

I realised this a few months ago, but I have probably been holding onto the knowledge all my life. I like really really big pictures. I like places and periods of time. Rather than other elements such as characters and events being influenced by the setting, I perceive the opposite -- everything contributes to the main idea, to the emotions embodied in the setting. For setting is not, as is commonly assumed, a mere backdrop to the more interesting things: it is the very essence of the story. It is what we should remember when we walk away.

This is evident, of course, in my choice of literature (hence the peculiar interest in fantasy, science fiction and anything described as "dystopian") and in my favourite pieces of visual art (photography included...it's landscapes for me), but it is also a prominent factor when it comes to my musical preferences and, indeed, in every aspect of how I live my life as a whole. Would you rather watch the people inside the bus with you or look out the window at the busy streets? I never ask myself this question, but it would not take me very long to form a reply.

All this to further explain the love of travelling I continue to allude to. And now, a stuff-I-found-on-my-computer interlude. This one is very, very old. It must be...oh, certainly far older than my sister. It comes with a diagram. I was a very strange child, I know.

The Mopfish

A Special Report

by Anne Malcolm

The Mopfish is a distant cousin of the Jellyfish. It gets its name from both its appearance and the fact that humans have often, unwittingly, used a Mopfish tied to a stick as a mop. These 'mops' are not suited to cleaning floors (despite the Mopfish’s looks) and so wear out after one use. Dishonest mop sellers have been known to substitute Mopfish for the genuine article. Therefore, the newly discovered Mopfish are declining in population. A truly wonderful campaign-'Save the Mopfish'- has been started to help protect these creatures from retailers such as 'Canadian Tire' and 'Reno-depot'. *

The Mopfish lives in the Atlantic Ocean. It can go all its life without eating, however it has a small digestive system and will eat soap and tulips whenever it finds them.

The Mopfish is a fascinating, though mysterious, animal.

*All rights reserved

Extra heavy, man.

Travelling Solo

I know of few things in this troubled world that are more wonderful than taking the bus alone, with no real destination in mind and with no one to meet at the other end. I know of few things that are more enjoyable than the serenity the mind experiences at having no obligations in terms of where to go or what to do. It is an explorer's joy. It is, once again, freedom.

On the eleventh day of May, I took a day off school. I have since resolved to, whenever possible during my life, take the eleventh day of every month off. I walked onto the 105 at 10 in the morning with the half-formed notion of going downtown to look at books or music (ah, but what else?). The bus was as empty as I have ever known it to be, as were the streets of Montreal-West (although Ste-Catherine, of course, was an entirely different scene). I have never known such quiet excitement as I felt stepping onto that bus, with nearly everyone I knew either sweltering in a classroom or running around the hospital (and it is interesting how so many of my acquaintances place in one of those two categories). The list of beautiful things is from that day, as is my copy of Forever Changes (really really good. no, really. check it out).

All this only serves as a constant reminder of my nomadic tendencies. There is so much to see, and I have no doubt that I will see much of it.

Love, reign over me.

I've found it. After so long and so much seeking.

Freedom. Freedom is a state of mind. You are free when you know you are free.

Home. Home is wherever you want it to be. The world has never been larger.

Monumental. I've found me, and I'll always have me wherever and whenever I am. I'll not worry about the future or the past or the present.

I've ripped out the last few pages of my diary. Yes, I had a diary. It's the first diary I've ever finished -- not finished all the pages of the book, but finished the book. I came to the end, so I stopped.

I know, I know I've made this impossible to understand. I couldn't have done it any other way.

Reorganizing.

I don't really like pizza all that much, but whenever my parents tell me they've ordered it for dinner, I invariably and inexplicably find myself filled with joy.

I know why, too. I remember. I remember when I used to come home from skiing, utterly exhausted, and I'd strip off my sweats and curl up on the couch in the livingroom that only I seem to find comfortable enough to sleep on (because I spent so many years of my life stretched out on it reading) with the radio on, waiting.

I have realised that I really don't need to worry about the future at all. As long as I am a free spirit, nothing will touch me.

Travel light.

Sinemaya gidemeyeceğim çünkü meşgulüm

"Hey, I'm playing all the wrong notes! Sounds great!"

-Neil

Excerpt from my book

Sinemaya gidemem: I can't go to the cinema.

Sinemaya gitmeyebilirim: I might not go to the cinema.

Sinemaya gidemeyeceğim: I won't be able to go to the cinema.

Sinemaya gidemeyebilirim: I might not be able to go to the cinema.

You were always a shadow to me. I want to be I want to be I want to be free.

Anyone want to suggest a Beethoven sonata?

"...and I thought, well, if I've got a big nose, it's a groove and it's the greatest thing that can happen because, I don't know, it's like a lighthouse or something."

-Pete Townshend in a Rolling Stone interview

My internet has been misbehaving.

I want to be a PIRATE.

Notes From a School Year, Part Two

Doodles from notebooks and the like. 54 000 minutes is plenty of time to waste. Observe the unbelievable difference between my own pencil scribbles (the stick figures) and Jocelyne/Alicia's (the artwork).

Such sad balloons.

So why am I posting this? Well, I actually find it very interesting to look over this kind of thing when the year is over. It doesn't really let anyone perceive my state of mind or anything, but it's interesting anyway.

Lots of eyes, I know.

Alicia, obviously. I just added the wings. Unfortunately, she tears most of her things up before I can get my hands on them.

With my scribbles, I like to think that it's the thought that counts. Something's got to.

Jocelyne did the next. My agenda is full of drawings, thanks to her.

Apologies for the poor quality of many of the scanned images.

Useless.

Three paths diverged in a wood, and I
I sat down and wondered for fifteen years.

And it wasn't even that simple; you see,
each one of those three paths was subdivided
over and over and over
again, so even after you'd made your initial choice
you'd have to do it again
over and over and over
till you came to a little cave, a little hole or something
where you'd stay forever and ever.

Hooray for society.

I still don't know what I'm looking for.

Yes, I have just come very close to titling my blog post after a U2 song.

It's a memory. It's a feeling. It is a place and a time and an event and none of these at all. It is the greatest moment, something I must at all costs regain, and it is something that may never have happened. It is the mystery within my mind, a mystery that only I can solve.

And yet...if what I seek is so important (because it is, is is...it is more important than I can fully express in words), why have I never come close to achieving it? Wvery time something reminds me of it, the sensation fades before I can recall anything more than the following:

-it may have something to do with a bar
-it may have something to do with a school trip
-it may have something to do with a film
-it may be connected to a certain album which Ariel let me listen to and which I subsequently bought for under eight dollars (it certainly revolves around music)

In fact, I should perhaps have called this post something entirely different.

Yeah, but look at my face, ain't this a smile?
I'm happy when life's good
And when it's bad I cry
I've got values but I don't know how or why

Leading in a dark place.

Each paragraph: to be read in the context of the other.

Of late, I have been plagued by an ever-increasing cynicism. Once, when the world was young, I was quite content to enjoy any story that came my way -- any novel, any film, any dinner-table banter. Yet I now demand an added sophistication to stories, a sophistication of a level so elevated that I find myself rarely entertained. In short, I have become a snob, and oh how I suffer.

I saw Ratatouille with my family today. It was alright.

Mmm. Mmmmm. Mmmmm mmm mmmm mmmmmm mmm. Mmmm mmm mmm? Mmmm mmm! Mmmm mmm mmmm mm! Mmmmm mmm mmm, mmm mmm...mm...mm...uh. Right. Right. Uh....

Turunju, meet....

Standard Fender Stratocaster HSS (two single-coil pickups & one humbucking, solid alder body and maple neck, tremolo), rosewood fretboard, "Midnight Wine".

Yesss.

Waves.

I like summer.

Did I really think it was a good idea to walk all the way across downtown with twenty picture books in my backpack...just because I didn't want to pay an extra dollar?

Yes, I did. I did indeed.

Hey, now I've been through the jazz festival three times.

I'm not pessimistic either, actually.

Happy Canada Day!

Excerpt from notebook

Flying (landing) through the rain was an exhilarating experience. The Ottawa airport, however, is the source of some of the most dismal sights I have yet encountered. A tiny restaurant called Toast! -- one counter, two tables, and a small refrigerated soft-drink display. An ancient playplace for children -- an upright prism of three corners and an open side intended to simulate a cockpit and decorated with a minimal number of white switches and bulky, plastic microphones. Ten chairs alone and unoccupied in a large, wheelchair-accessible carpeted space a few feet off the ground, close toe three antiquated vending machines -- Coca-cola, Montclair and a dispenser of packaged snacks. Unidentified gates, unopened windows, unused phone booths. I love it. I wish I had a camera to complement my words.

The old terminal (a single corridor) is deserted at night (8:00 p.m.), but for gate 22, where the Montreal-bound are concentrated (less than 30 of us, sitting as if in hushed reverence of our surroundings). On the wall hangs this message, handwritten in black Sharpie and accompanied by an arrow pointing the way:

GATES

1-18

GO THRU

WALKWAY

TO

NEW BLDG

The plane has arrived. I wonder if they'll pre-board.


k, time to talk about shopping

I finally bought sandals. I also found this awesome store by the White Rock beach.


Shopping talk over. Book review.

Johnathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach

I read this book awhile ago. I suggest you do too, if you haven't already. It's...well, it's really good. Suitably strange and in every way memorable. Really, though, it's just one of those books that affects certain people more than it probably should, and I'm one of those people.

Here I am!

Talk to you later.

So the new soundtrack to my life, being a Chopin Nocturne in C# minor, proves to be harder than I thought it might be.

Free!

And begin, too.

Failing an exam with grace, number 33:
From the moment the exam begins, hum the theme to Jeopardy. Ignore requests for you to stop. When they finally get you to leave, begin whistling the theme to the Bridge on the River Kwai.

Somehow, I don't think this was what Earl expected me to stumble across when he told me to look up Beethoven sonatas. Dudley Moore = Beyond the Fringe = a happy childhood memory.

Emma was brilliant in her piano concert. I'm so incredibly proud.

END, k?

Yippee.

Isn't it odd that, in the midst of so much misery, you have yet to learn how to feel compassion for others? Isn't it strange that the innocents seem to be punished? Isn't it your fault, no matter how classically melodramatic that thought is? Because even though there is no direct and obvious link, you know it, and you feel it, and this knowledge risks feeding your egocentric nature. Egocentric is your new favourite word, because you have so much cause to use it -- and this, too, is a symptom of narcissism.

Well, I'm leaving for a week beginning on Friday, so I reckon I'll fill you in on some of everything.

1. My sister has diabetes.
2. My brother is finishing another terrible year of school. He hasn't learned anything except how to slack off. His future (grade five) prospects are dim at EBS, he never seems to be enjoying himself, and his best friend is going through a very difficult time.
3. There seems to be no hope for either of the siblings switching schools next year, despite how they both need to for very different reasons.
4. My mother has never been so stressed, so stressed that waking up in the morning is painful. There's nothing quite like injecting your youngest three times a day (and blood tests, too, and trying to figure out how the school will handle things next year...they haven't been very helpful).
5. My father has been, from my mother's point of view, largely absent. But he's getting older, and he's been tired lately. His birthday was this week...he's nearly sixty.

Just figured I'd brighten your day.

By the way, I've discovered the soundtrack to my life again. I'm supposed to play it, too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsXRPvsUnHE

Wail is the best word here.

Notes from a School Year, Part One

The year in English is, thankfully, over. Looking back, I realize there is a total of three pieces I wrote this year that I was proud of. Each is an entirely different sort of writing, but each is distinctively my writing. A list is in order. (Just to make things more difficult, none of them have titles.)


1. Short (very! she suggested 400 words) story relating to themes of some other (lousy) stories (like much of the class, I chose death), winter.

I was proud of this not because it was particularly good, but rather for the sheer effort I put into it. We had very little time to write it in the first place (it was supposed to be in class, but we all know I find that impossible. I'll never plagiarize a story, anyway), and I wound up writing it twice. I wrote the opening to a story and brought it into class, where I let (had?) Marisa read it. She pretty well voiced my own thoughts, so I tore it up and threw it away. Too clichéd. Too normal.

I spent a long time trying to think up a new story. I don't think I've ever put so much effort into so few words. I lay on the floor, I stared at the screen, I ran up and down the stairs. Finally, I typed up something Marisa and I both liked better.

Excerpt: He was awake when the sky turned blue and the first rays of light crept across from the horizon. Pressing down the lever on the toaster, he took a spoon and slowly stirred his coffee, watching the milk diffuse. It was early. He had no longer any use for an alarm clock, for he barely slept: not wishing to descend into the horror of his dreams, he often lay awake until dawn.


2. Public speaking. Topic: Global overfishing. Spring.

I was proud of this for the sheer amount of work I put into it. I wrote it over a span of a day and a half, I practiced it, and I did an alright job of yelling at the class about one of my favourite subjects. I was also proud of this because I took something people had been laughing about and wrote a serious, angry speech about it.

Excerpt: The fishing industry stands at the brink of ruin. In the Mediterranean, bluefin tuna is being caught at four times the sustainable rate. Off the western African coast, villages are starving due to depleted stocks of their primary income. In our own dear Atlantic provinces, the decimated cod population threatens the future of coastal communities. Sharks are slaughtered for their fins, dolphins die in nets, quotas are disrespected and laws flouted.


3. Poem. End of year.

As you must well know, I am one terrible poet. But I wrote this poem (in Math class) and I turned it in, and that is enough for me.

Excerpt: No excerpt. It's not long enough to cite in part, nor is it good enough to post on the Internet.

It's snowing.

My Favourite Kids' Movies

I never "grew out" of childrens' stories, and I never will, although I now demand an additional sophistication to fantasies that makes it difficult for me to find books I truly enjoy.

The Last Unicorn
This is just such an incredible movie. I love it so much. It's funny how some authors' work just transfers so well to motion pictures (see last entry in list). It's brilliant, it's tongue-in-cheek, it's engaging, and the music is awesome (although vocal talents are occasionally lacking). Each character is a work of art, both by animation (amazing what lousy technology can do) and by construction of personality. Yes, I like unicorns.

The Swan Princess
You'd think an animated version of Swan Lake would become tedious after a few watches. You'd think the characters would be clichéd and the movie would be forced to rely on cheap laughs. You'd think, in short, it would turn out like most Disney adaptations of fairy tales. To cut to the chase and end the suspense, it isn't. It isn't even Disney. Every single character is shockingly well constructed and terribly likeable (none of this absolute evil and absolute good). The movie is pretty, with some nice animated dusk. And it's funny, to cap it all off. Not rolling-off-chair hilarious, but tastefully amusing. With this movie and the preceding one, it's no wonder I was such a dramatic, oversensitive, and confused child.

The Aristocats
There are some movies that, like the previous one, I watched enough to be able to recite certain dialogues. Then there are the movies that I watched until the cassette tape deteriorated and the film stopped two thirds of the way through. Did you know that there's a point in the film where Duchess' collar changes colour? Well, I did.

The original Winnie-the-Pooh series
Winnie and sequel are two of my favourite books ever, and Disney didn't mess them up so badly the first time around.

The Great Muppet Caper
Any film featuring the Muppets is worthy of mention, but I personally feel that this is the best of the bunch. The brilliance of the Muppets, like that of Winnie-the-Pooh, lies in their appeal to all ages and all manner of people. I laugh just as hard today at Gonzo's bizarre antics (an impulsive nature that may parallel my own) and Fozzie's lovable incompetence as I did when I was six, if perhaps at different points in the movie. This happens to be the only film on my list that is not animated. It also happens to NOT be the only film to feature John Cleese. (Guess the other?) And I'm jealous of the buses. Very jealous.

Monsters, Inc.
Arthi will attest to this.

Howl's Moving Castle
Obviously, I didn't watch this movie as a small child. It wasn't in existence. I don't feel I missed some sort of deep reaction, though, because I thought it was pretty incredibly good when I first encountered it at the age of...oh, fourteen? I'm not sure it's exactly a kids' movie, although I've always seen it classified as such.

And I swore to defend you.

Another end. Another.

Back for a bit, only to say:

There are now only two Marcos in my homeroom.

Helping Kelsey clean out her locker was priceless. So ends grade nine.

Here's to...the Rolling Stones.

Pictures!

(Music store)
Mom: Why do some of them have only four strings?
Me: Those are basses.
Mom: Oh. I see. Well, why does that one have five strings? (points at five-string bass)
Me: Er...maybe it's missing a string.

I finally had my Washington pictures developed. Here are a few noteworthy photos. Click to zoom: it's worth it.

The room: Kelsey, Arthi, Alicia, me, and Ariel.

Ariel and the ducks. This couple waddled to us, searching for food. Kelsey was uneasy; I fell in love.

As these are people pictures, I've chosen to post them here. Flashback continues, for now.

05/06/07.

EDIT (04/2009): Flashback is gone. Here are the others:

Au revoir.

For the next three weeks, I am going to become an Internet hermit. I am not going to post anything to this blog, answer any e-mails, or send any instant messages (unless I have a fair amount of free time in Computers). I'll be back around the 17th.

Unpolished.

I Am a Rock, S&G

I can't believe I've never written about this before. It's pretty much one of my favourite songs ever -- one of those rare recordings that speak to most people without becoming overly emotional and sappy. In fact, emotion is exactly what the song warns against. I think many consider it their personal theme song, or have at some point in their lives. I certainly do.

I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain
I am a rock
I am an island....

Three Cheers for Radiohead, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Box

Foap and sood drive?

Geography test: les combustibles fossiles. May 23. Six questions and a bonus. Bonus question: nommez les trois types de gaz naturel. Bonus answer: propane, butane, éthane.

See what a difference paying attention in class makes?

It's such a beautiful day. Perfect for sitting outside on the swing and reading Asimov in the late afternoon, and then running around with a camera in the evening, taking pictures of the pastel spring sunset -- a muted, more delicate version of a summer night. This I did, in my father's plastic clogs (rather too large) and my pink pajama bottoms, in between watching The Great Muppet Caper (one of the best movies ever, I'm convinced, and I'm jealous of the ride on the red double-decker bus) with my little sister and until my film ran out. The sky is now a beautiful blue-gray.

These times of beauty are why I do love Montreal-West, but I know there's more beauty out there in the world than I can imagine from my vantage point.

Funkin' it up.

Story Topic: My Earliest Memory

It isn't actually a topic for anything school-related, but my story would do well if it was. It's a cute one.

I'm two years old. Two years and a month, if you're looking for precision (although a post about distant memories is probably the wrong place to look). Christmas morning (OK, two years and a month less a day. There, you have my birthday now) at my grandparents', and I wake up and I go downstairs. All alone -- no one else is awake. I think. It's hard to remember everything.

Anyway, the first thing we used to do when we woke up on Christmas morning at my grandparents' was check the stockings lined up at the base of the stairs. That's not what I do, though...I guess tradition means little to a two-year-old. I head for the tree. It's illuminated in bubble lights and little coloured bulbs, with the softly lit pastel angel on top and all the family ornaments -- the silver one that sings, the snoopy bell, the ancient and brittle ones, Uncle Andrew's notorious orange Miss Wooster Christmas tree ornament.

Yet in my mind, the light is dim. It's strange how this, probably my oldest memory, seems to take on a strange, diluted tint in my mind's eye -- almost like sepia photographs. Yet the lights are on, the tree is clearly green, and under it...

...there is a bear.

A white polar bear, taller than I am, although he's sitting down, the hint of a smile playing about his lips. The entire world centres itself around him, focuses on the bear; he is the subject of the painting and the epitome of a moment that seems to last forever.

That's all. The bear was christened, rather appropriately, Big Bear. He would become one of the ruling elders of the growing society of Malcolm animals, and one of my dearest friends. Today he sits, a little dirty around the face and on the paws, beside the door leading into my sister's bedroom. Expect him to turn up again someday; Big Bear has a tendency to do so.

Slog on!

Is the geography test tomorrow?

I can't pay attention in Geography. I just do not posess the ability, no matter how I try. I can do my geography homework, and I can pay attention in biology, but there's nothing keeping me awake in room 104. Here's an example of a day I actualy made an effort.

Dupaul: Alors il y a trois types de gaz naturel le propane le butane et l'éthane....

Me: Okay, let me get that down. Propane...ethane...hm, ethane. Ethan. Ethan is a really cool name. I really like the name Ethan. (Writes ETHAN in notebook.) I wonder what kind of person Ethan is. Ethan Ethan Ethanethanethanethanethan....

(Twenty minutes and one drawing of a flying sheep later)

Dupaul: Alors on extrait les sables bitumineux en les mélangeant avec l'eau....

Me: Whoah. Guys? Guys? What the hell is she talking about? Guys? AHHHH STEPHANIE GIVE ME YOUR NOTES AHHHHH (Whips out purple pen, begins scribbling furiously.)

(Ten minutes and four pages of recopied notes later)

Dupaul: Alors le test sur les combustibles sera mardi.

Me: Okay. Okay. Thanks, Stephanie. Thanks a lot. (Head drops, hits desk.)

No, I don't want to be a doctor. I can't even play on my Montreal West soccer team without my failures haunting me.

Take it.

I have never been someone easily bothered by the lies parents tell their children. I don't feel that sheltering is a good idea in the long term -- the more protected a child is, the more inclined to rebell they are likely to be as an adolescent -- but I don't have a problem with inventing stories. Stories, or lies, are my lifeblood, and I would much rather encounter both fact and fantasy than be kept from knowing the truth. (In my case, of course, the distinction between fact and fantasy tends to blur. And sheltering, come to think of it, is a topic I can discuss fairly easily.)

I find it more interesting, however, when parents lie to their offspring without realizing it. Sometimes they retain the lies they were spoon-fed from their own childhood, and these lies metamorphose to valuable pieces of wisdom that must be shared. I speak not of the Tooth Fairy, but rather of false ideas that have been ingrained into our subconcious, white lies that are passed on with each generation.

"You can do anything you want to."
"Everyone is good at something."
"Nothing is impossible."

Yet, upon brief examination, we discover that these are not as accurate as we would like to believe. "Nothing is impossible" cannot logically be true -- if nothing is impossible, then it is impossible that something should be impossible. How has a paradox become a parable? Why cannot we instead teach our children courage, courage to face both truth and lies without the support of comfortable illusions?

AHHHH 32 e-mails AHHHH

Shadow-dweller becomes us both.

From the back of my piano notebook.

Here is a list of some beautiful things.

-a starling walking on a front lawn covered in a forest of dandelions
-the golden-crowned bird that flew away from under my feet
-wearing indigo on a breezy day in May
-watching the bus leave, knowing that another will be there by the time I reach the station
-my own handwriting, free and unlike any other
-pink trees in Girouard Park and matching tulips
-looking up from underground
-walking downtown with piano scores in my backpack
-McGill College in spring
-children playing with a parachute in the park
-a well-deserved rest in a half-circle of park benches and trees in vibrant May dress with a bottle of Perrier and a book of Poe poems (and short writings)

A melody that you realize you have always known, a haunting lament for humanity, and a piece that defies description.

Recovered.

I wrote this awhile ago. You may have seen it before. I realize it kind of contradicts the previous post, but it's not meant to be perfectly realistic.

When there's nothing left but emptiness, when the coldest of dreams is the only comfort in a distant, bleak landscape of grey...when the stars are hidden, and the ocean is quiet and still, and silence replaces the screams of old friends and old enemies...when eyes are full of hidden shadows and words are whispered underneath the faroff sound of explosions, and hope is gone from the hearts of everyone -- still alive, though not living.

Hang onto your hopes, my friend.

What a stressful, unhappy, and cold day this was up to guitar. Walking to school in the bitter cold and the rain is not a pleasant way to begin. But at guitar...

Neil: "You were sounding pretty good, actually."

Sounding pretty good? I was improvising. My improvisation on the guitar is normally pretty weak. This is a combination of shyness and pure lack of technical ability (my picking has only recently improved past abysmal). Sounding pretty good? Hey, there's hope.

We'll be out of the machine soon enough.

In Defense of our Back Field

As high school students, we have all been called upon to lend our voices to numerous pleas for financial aid directed at the notorious English Montreal SB. The instance that most readily springs to mind is that of the latest building amenagement proposal -- the new gyms. This construction, scheduled to begin shortly, would cause us to lose our back field.

Call me crazy, but I'd rather have a seasonal green space to eat lunch, run around, and do gym than a building of low roofboards and cheap brick (if we are blessed with enough funds). Yet for a year I cheered at assemblies and helped fundraise -- like the stupid sheep I was, and am no longer.

I understand why some would want the gyms built, but I fear that some of us have simply not thought about it enough. It certainly isn't our fault, for blind following is encouraged and rewarded at every academic institution I have encountered. Yet why should we not be encouraged instead to formulate our own opinions? We are a school, a world of different people -- not one body, not one mind.

I oppose the plan. Some will disagree, and I am happy to encourage this dissent. Yet some, I am certain, will perhaps understand my opinions. Then, at least, we can form an opposition.

Only...only....

I think someone should come up with a better pronounciation of the word "subtle."

"There is nothing complacent about Bach."

-Earl

Kelsey has very kindly agreed to allow me to borrow her sax for a little while this summer. I figure I'll just learn an octave or so...the Baker Street solo...why not, right?

I don't have time (again) to post a rant, so here's some news.

NEWS: I can't play Bach. I love Bach, but I have a really difficult time getting my mind around the technique. My Beethoven piece is easy, because that's all dynamic contrast and angry flourishes. Bach is decidedly more subtle (harpsichord) in its intensity. I never know exactly what he's trying to say.

Impatiently pawing the ground

Whatever happened to grade nine?

"Guess we'll have to pick that up!"

-Neil on a dropped guitar pick

I don't really have time tonight to write a proper post. I don't really have any news either, or nothing that can be decently condensed into a couple of paragraphs. Of course, news has never been something in which I specialized.

I slept comparatively well last night, a full eight hours at least. I've never really been good at sleeping either, although I love dreaming and I am a total bitch when tired. Every night since I was young and small and sleeping meant missing things that happened around me, lying down and turning off the lights has been such a depressing idea. At night, peaceful solitude can become almost loneliness. Yet going to sleep does not become any easier even after I finally succumb to fatigue and collapse on my inviting, queen-size bed.

Night is the best time to think. I'm not the first person to say that...most have come to that conclusion through individual experience. All the emotions of the day, suppressed until that moment of impact upon pillow, come crashing down on me like a wheelbarrow of paving stones. And my memories, so carefully stored and lovingly cherished, begin to leak out of the corners of my mind and swirl around me. If I love to dream, I love even more to think, and it is unthinkable that I should each day pass up an opportunity to do so.

I never really understood how someone could have the ability to fall asleep practically on cue, so soon after deciding to do so. The sleeping state of mind is one I find difficult to attain. I don't know whether I envy them for this, although I would perhaps enjoy this talent during more during my down periods, which occur from time to time and notably when the moon is full. I have already written about my hamster-like insomniac antics, therefore I shall not repeat myself.

Soo. Anyone know what a bande infernale is?

This road is my road.

Maybe it's home.

I dreamt about the metro again last night.

There's something about the underground that seems to work so well metaphorically. All those trains, running underneath your feet, everyone going somewhere, a spiderweb network of orange and blue and green. I certainly dream about it often.

This is one of my dreams. Not the one from last night...a dream far more frightening and far more memorable. If I've already told you about it, never mind reading the rest.

I'm on the metro, at the back of one of those cars with white seats and orange walls in the front and the back, the ones you don't see as much anymore. The wall I'm against doesn't have a door in it -- it's the very end of the train. By the dim lights I can see a few other people in the car, each of them sitting on their own...reading their newspapers, or simply staring into space. And the train rattles on and on into the darkness. It doesn't stop, and it doesn't slow down.

I don't know where it's going.

I'm not giving up, ever. I swear it.

This girl is not me, but I love her.

It was windy. Warm breezes played through her hair and around her ankles. She was a wind person, as much as Corey was a creature of the waves and water and Liam a forest dweller. Air was freedom and invisibility married. Yet just as an anonymous writer may shake the world through pivotal prose, the impact of air and wind is often monumental – waves on the ocean, trees blown over, landscapes eroded over time. She laughed to herself at that thought. Air held sway, of a sort, over all the elements of the ancient world. Fire mocks and destroys while water seduces and smothers, but lowly, invisible air has power unparalleled.

She held her arms out on either side, embracing the world. Her feet seemed ready to float off the ground. Flying would be easy, she thought. All you had to do was let go. Freedom was something to be attained, a conscious choice to leave everything behind, a sense of peace with oneself and with the world. Freedom was a blind man who opened his eyes for the very first time, and was speechless with wonder.

I am, she whispered. I am here.

Upon rereading....

Sorry about the ranting, guys. I want to make clear that I think my life is awesome. It's just time I did something worthwhile instead of sitting around and mooching off my parents. I'm not an emoblogger, right?

I know it's beside the sea.

I've been privileged enough to have a wonderful, supportive family, an idyllic childhood, fantastic friends, and a constant supply of life's essentials such as food, water, and music. I have laughed and I have made it through darker times. I have been shunned and praised, I have known death and birth (although death, like most other negative aspects of a person's life, has not affected me as much as it has others around me. For this as well I am fortunate).

Haven't I been happy the past two-point-something years of high school? I would have been happier at no other school and with no other friends. And one summer after the next have I spent sitting on the ledge outside Mini-Cout, idly watching people pass me by, content with the world.

I have so many memories. I'm lucky, extremely lucky.

I want out.

It's time I left. I don't belong here any more, if I ever did. I love Montreal West and I love my family, but I have to go. If we all, at some point, have an instinctive urge to leave the next, I've been suppressing mine for a long time. The world is so big that it makes very little sense to me why anyone would be happier living a sedentary life. Youth in its entirety, the way I see it, is a time for jumping from place to place with limited finances -- I'm not talking about overpriced cruises -- and no direction in mind.

I suppose my nomadic tendencies could be pretty easily explained. Point to my mother's last name, then open the encyclopedia to the entry on pastoral nomadism in Asia. See? It's historical, it's cultural, it's the fault of genetics! Yet another thing to blame on ancestry, yippee. (Missed the last one?)

Let's make something clear, though. I'm not necessarily planning on moving around forever. That doesn't appeal to me either. There's so much to see, but I know that I only have to find the perfect place...absolutely the perfect place...to give up globetrotting and (a shudder rips through my body as I type these two words) settle down.

So where's the perfect place? I don't even know whether it exists. If it does, who's to say whether it can be found on this world? There are a lot of places in the world, but there are a lot of people too, and I somehow doubt the presence of a perfect place for everyone who has ever lived and ever will.

Am I setting myself up for a disappointment? Maybe. Settling down is very distant at this moment, my first priority being leaving. I'm going to finish high school and decide what the fuck to do about piano. (Not a very portable instrument, but I don't want to give it up. Bit of a problem.) Then...who can say? But I'm young, and I'm abnormal, and I want to see the world, and I want to find my place.

I want my freedom.

Now, if only I could travel in time....

Pretentious? Never.

The Part of You That No One Sees

You are aloof, mysterious, and distant. People feel like they really don't know the true you... Yet they're still drawn to you, almost by magnetic force. Underneath it all, you don't even really feel like you know yourself. It's easier to put on a front than really think about your life's purpose. You tend to seem pretentious, but it's just a mechanism you use to push people away.

Sorry for no posts again.

To put it bluntly, we're hooked.

How long is it before copies of The Old Man and the Sea include a definition for marlin?

Well, I don't really have time/motivation to write a proper post, so I'll just continue posting links. Check out a life-size blue whale: http://www.stopbloodywhaling.org/media/flash/whalebanner/content_en.html

I, uh, like whales.

Turn off all the lights.

I've had a very soft spot for these birds ever since my mother thought she saw one several years ago. Wikipedia seems hopeful that they're still around, and so does this site.

This public speaking business has made me crazy. A little longer and I'll be charting whale species again.

Durrr.

Merry Anniversary, RFS.

I'm a little late...my first post was April 3rd, 2006. It's hard to believe, really....

Why no blogs?

Well, it's definetly not because I've been too busy reading articles about the life expectancy of ipods. It's also not because I've been thinking about my public speaking (I finally picked a topic, and if you've read a certain notorious RFS post you won't be surprised).

Seriously, though, I hope to be back soon.

It'll be so much better on the other side.

Kahverengi

I like coffee. And why not? After all, the Turks like coffee so much that the word for brown translates literally as coffee-coloured.

Gotta go. Dinner.

My father's favourite line of all time.

- And will this wind be so mighty as to lay low the mountains of the earth?
- No, it will not be quite as mighty as that. That is why we have come up on the mountain, you stupid nit.

...with lots of love from Beyond the Fringe.

The Happiest Time of Year, and What are the Odds?

...I ran into Ariel and Kelsey on the metro today. Same train, same car.

Now I shall read to you from my notebook.

O, loathsome March.

It begins innocently enough, with a slight lifting of temperatures and an odd quality to the air that can only be described as a different smell. The smell of spring. It rains a little, once or twice. The sun beats down on us with greater force. We do not often realize exactly what is upon us until about ten days in.

Then, the slush hits.

The slush hits -- a horrible grey mass, squelching as we stumble onto the street. The sky, seeking to parallel the dismal world below, fades to a putrid blankness, a cloud cover so constant it seems solid. The remaining snow, found tucked away in pockets in backyards and driveways, turns black and rots away, leaving behind last year's waste -- the squalor once shielded from us by the purity of winter. The tulips are found venturing boldly above the surface of the earth, as they have done for fifteen years, and the squirrels are found biting their flowers off, as they have done for fifteen years.

In April, there are rainstorms and snowstorms, and much of the foulness left after the snow is washed away. Then, at least, we begin to sight summer on the horizon -- one last breath, one last gasp of air before we are hurled into the abyss of grade ten.

It snowed today, too.

And I know I'll get there, because I will not be defeated.

A small selection of Neil's bad music jokes

What's the difference between a violin and a trampoline?

...You take your shoes off before you jump on the trampoline.

What's the definition of a minor third?

...Two violas playing in unison.

How do you get a guitarist to shut up?

...Put some music in front of them.