about artists and new age stress

I’m sick to my head thinking about all of the opportunities that a white, middle-class, North American girl has in her life. I know that’s self-indulgent and I’m sure it invokes some sort of -ism, but choices are hard. I talked to my parents tonight about this movie (It’s Kind of a Funny Story) starring Zach Galifianakis (from The Hangover) and it’s like – in the Soviet Union you had “security.” You didn’t worry about economic instability when you were 16. You’re still brainwashed in school here, though: “You can be anything you want to be. Go to university and everything will fall in front of your feet.”  You have to work for things still, but not only that, you probably have to make the bricks before you find out what a yellow brick road ever looks like. I think some young people think this is difficult, but you have to work for things in life – I guess it was just never as stressful as it is now.

I also have a hard time coming to agreement with myself about the fantasy of “be what you wanna be” versus the pragmatic “find a job and do good things on the side” that my dad so strongly advocates for. I’m not a writer by blood – certainly not – I’m a writer by passion. My parents are engineers-cum-technicians, as are their parents, so the artsy-fartsy-don’t-give-a-fuck-about-payday mentality that I tried on in highschool didn’t fly with my dad. I mean, yes, it’s not realistic. But there are still “artists” – be they painters, writers, singers or dancers. These people can still make a living doing what they love, can’t they?

I’m not sure. I even know that asking that question is pointless because all the big, flashing lights point to no. You can’t be an artist anymore without working as an artist in some form.

Paya and I went to the Art Gallery of Ontario yesterday to bounce around some thoughts, and we saw this exhibition by David Blackwood, who created these stunning prints about Newfoundland. I read about the process of making a print (an ‘etching’) and it’s incredibly long-winded: first, you have to coat a metal piece with wax, then scratch out your picture, then dip the metal shield in acid, then scrape off all the wax, fill it all in with proper colours, wipe off the colours, add details, put a paper on top and put it through an incredibly intense press. Then colour correction starts, and all of this happens AFTER the countless sketches it takes to get the picture to the etching stage.

Who has time for that these days, especially after holding down a job? You’re too tired for this shit, even if you’re motivated. You’re tired. You’re worried. You’re stressed.

I’m not depressed or anything – just thoughtful, I guess. And I hate being blonde. It doesn’t suit me, and I don’t know why I was so drawn to the “summer-y” feeling of blond hair; it’s kind of bullshit. I just see roots. Maybe that says something about me but our downstairs bathroom smells like shit all of the time because my senile grandfather doesn’t know how to flush properly and he pees everywhere and how the fuck am I supposed to be a writer when I hate everything I write that isn’t written with complete and utter spontaneity? When I actually try to convey feelings or points, I constantly read over my work and think, well, an orangutan probably could have written this.

And even when I read about jobs (all I think about are jobs jobs jobs) that might be fascinating for me to do, like copywriting or editing (even when it sounds like me), I’m not at all able to convince myself that I’ll ever teach myself all the necessary skills to become good at these jobs. When I used to draw in highschool my most despised part of my drawings were the details. I can’t do it. I do art in broad strokes. I do scenes in my writing – I can’t imagine writing anything longer than a page or two without it seeming trite and obvious. I sketch. I don’t pin points.

In my writing – which is both my “useless” craft (ie. not pragmatic), my craft that I’m not sure will ever mean anything to anyone, and also something I’m sure is more important to people now than it ever was – I don’t use punctuation. I have a hard time explaining punctuation to my tutorees because I use it instinctively and yet I want to be an English teacher.

You know what I want? I want to write. I want to drink wine and write like those fucking authors did “back in the day.” I want to mingle with a society of artists in Paris and fuck and see bullfights and go to war. I want to visit insane asylums because they seem more sane.

I want to be the Old Woman and the Sea in a world with CNN, Obama/sama, American Idol, housing crises, economic downturn, environmental disaster and universities that only teach disillusionment.

But how does a girl go about becoming that?

A.

gradually, then suddenly

When I was about 12 (or, nay, younger) I used to go on online chatrooms and pretend I was older.  Sometimes I had people convinced I was a college student in Canada.  At 12.  I loved the sneakiness the internet allowed me – I loved being someone I was meant to be in real life – someone who didn’t fit into her body or life, but was destined to be some Latina in South America going to class to be something flamboyant and wearing thong bikinis on the beach and swimming with her friends.

I met this Venezuelan guy on there that ended up becoming one of my closest friends over the years.  He was a few years older than me in actuality, but our ages fluctuated by the day back then.  Being impressionable and excited that someone thought me interesting and (gasp!) fascinating, I fell in love with the dude.  Now, “love” is a subjective term in this story.  I was infatuated with everything he was, and all the interest he was showing in me (that I didn’t receive from the 13 y.o. boys in class… uhh hello, obviously not).  He sent me a song called “Obsession” by Aventura (IGNORE video, just listen and imagine your own story to the song) and to this day I’ve loved the band. I can’t help it.  If Lothario is the term for the omnipresent SuperMale, then my Lothario was wearing loose cotton pants (no shirt, duh), lightly tanned with dark hair and brooding eyes, and hands that felt like feathers and bone combined (ie. NOT guidos).  I wanted to hear Spanish whispered in my ears as we danced a party away into the night on the beach, I wanted siestas in hammocks and delicious “oh.oh. OHhh-hhhhhh” sex (I was an early bloomer).

I wanted “Si, Papi” and “te amo” and “mi corazoncito”.  I loved Spanish and I loved who I thought Spanish (Latin American) men were.

This was a fantasy that was hard to give up for me.  Writing about these scenarios helps me dispel these.. these stereotypes I have embedded in my brain.  They help me realize that people are the same everywhere, even though lives aren’t.

To be honest, working at a bar has helped my communication and ease with people – and while sometimes I just don’t want to talk, which is an obligatory aspect of my personality, a lot of the time I just take people as they are without being upset one way or tugged into manipulations of them in my mind that simply aren’t true.

A guy from Venezuela came into the bar today and I simply loved his accent.  My god.  I will always have a soft spot in my heart (read: loins) for Spanish. I want to learn it and whisper it in my lover’s ear (are you listening, P? Russian isn’t that sexy, I know you know this to be true), I want to scribble notes to friends on pages and I want to know the short forms for “que” is just “q” or laugh with “j”s (jajaja)…. I want the sunshine to turn my skin to a soft leather and read Neruda as I feel the strings of a hammock press into my thighs and create notes on my muscle.

Finally, my “Obsession” is with the language and it is with my fantasy of the lifestyle – no longer with the men.

-Arina

suburban problems

Today was the first day of 3rd year (!), and I was starved on the 13th (yesterday), but today, I was famished in that kind of “Oh, I only get to eat a rubber boot today?” sort of way, like maybe not eating is better than getting de-starved.

My first class was called “A Writer’s Guide to Research”, and well, my bus ran late and I was late to my first class of 3rd year.  That should tell you something, if me running in to the class panting off my tomato face and sweating like a warthog didn’t tip you off.

The second class (3 tedious hours putting stickers in my ‘big girl agenda’ later) was my social science class, that, if I don’t change, will consume my entire year with “this building on Toronto’s east end is totally middle-class housing, but from a Victorian style, perhaps suggesting that the people living here were pompous assholes.”  Instead, I want to be reading lit-rature!

I missed the ‘e’ on purpose, I say.

Speaking of which, I finally finished “The Sun Also Rises” by Hemingway and boy oh boy, if my description of social science above didn’t paint a clear enough picture of you of Hemingway’s bullfighting (how could it not?), well here’s one.

“Pompous snooty rich-gone-broke Englishpeople go to the bull races and are strangely undisturbed by blood and gore and instead sexually re-awakened into sluttery, while getting bloody shit faced and acting like they’re better than the Germans AND the Jews.”

But I mean, it’s a classic, so whatever.

Also, my moms was upset tonight, because well, her and my sister don’t talk, and, as per usual, I came and fixed everything.  Seriously, in times of a family fraught with child-rearing decisions I am all a-gumbo with helpful tidbits of advice procured from “Today’s Parent” or random blogs on the internet claiming they’re “Psychology PhD Candidates” or WHATEVER.

A candidate for lunacy, perhaps? Anyone?

I feel pretty good about myself today, but seeing that I have to see a counsellor tomorrow (the very arch-enemy of an advice loader-uponer like myself, who can figure out any life issue given it’s not critically valuable or life-changing) predicts my happiness forecast as “hazy, with a chance of strangulation”.

The university better co-operate with all MY prerequisites because if not, then I’ll drop out of it and disable the university from functioning with my single payment of fees per year and become homeless and live on the street and walk around discouraging other youngsters from going to York by screaming “YORK KILLS ZEBRA BABIES” in Kensington Market.

HAH. Take that, life.

Or option B: tomorrow I am sticking my fishing pole (hot ass) in the metaphorical pool of grand-daddy bigpockets (profs? investors? presidents?) and seeing what shit-dwelling bottom feeder I can suck up from the dredges of lake lastditchattempt.

I’ve got it aaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllll figured out.

-Arina

Oh! Hold my hand.

I haven’t quite had the time to figure out how this piece of fantastic machinery works, (ie. pages, ie. where to put my poetry and prose versus everyday ramblings), but I will soon, and mark my words, once I figure it out it will be fucking epic.

Other than my general lack of any technological know-how, life continues on ever so swiftly.  Last night I got home from work at a later hour than usual, but it was a goooooood Wednesday!  I’ve been thinking of keeping a tip vs. paycheck journal, but so far haven’t found a smart place for it.  Now I’m thinking to make an excel spreadsheet about it… do some comparisons at the end of a 3 month-ish period and see how much money I actually earn.  But, like I said, last night was fantastic.  It was reminiscent of some of the first nights I worked at King Eddies, with more than 100$ in tips coming my way at the end of it, despite me begging for mercy.  The thing is, if you’re busy – you’re happy.  No waitress is going to be happy sitting with the same customers for the entire night – you’re just going to get frustrated even if the person(s) is(are) your best friend(s).  But if you have a legit stream of newcomers that you semi-know and can entertain the fuck out of? You are your own best friend.  You are the queen of the butterflies, flitting from table to table with your gorgeous smile and anticipating beers and presenting wines from behind your back like magician’s tricks, much to the awe and congratulations of the patrons (ie. audience).  You are everywhere at once, you are working the room and you know you are damn good at it.  Everybody loves you, and the table at the back from Alberta, full of hockey players and moms, that is getting rowdy singing Rasputin at the top of their arms?  They give you hugs every time they see you with another rye and coke, or rye and diet or vodka water lime (mostly because you remember each person’s specific drinks, and partly because you’re russian and they’re hockey players).   They sing, they laugh, the ask you whether your nipples are pierced, and then they leave in a giant flurry of stumbling tall men, in cabs too small to their hotel across the street.  You are now satisfied – they are happily drunk, they are coming back for more, and they tip like madmen!

What’s better then that?  A close second would be getting more than 8 hours of sleep for me, since these guys kept me at work till about 2:15 last night, and I wake up at 7 on Thursdays.  But it was worth it – I’ll sleep on the bus and dream about dancing 20$ bills on the way to my retardedly early English class.

I hear the best writers lived in bars… except the thing is I don’t think they worked there, but .. er… drank there.. so really the best writers should be my regular customers… except they’re not.  But I will be from listening to all of their ridiculous drunk stories time and time again.  I will be.

Time to go dry my hair.  And eat something.

Ciao. Arina.

I guess I’ll try in the decline

Sometimes watching tv shows makes me happier and sometimes it just makes me low.  I mean, I really love this tv show called Californication though, there’s a lot more rawness in it than say, Gossip Girl.  In fact, after being away from my computer for so long and being forced to not watch this shit, I feel like I don’t even want to anymore.  Maybe I will do catch up sessions during the winter break whilst studying for exams?  I believe so.  Currently, I am only relying upon: Grey’s Anatomy, Californication, The Office, and How I Met Your Mother (3 of which are just half hour episodes, so that like, barely counts).  Also maybe 90210, maybe.

I wonder why writing this  is so much easier than writing essays.  I’m writing one about an inter-chapter in Hemingway’s In Our Time.  The writing itself is fantastic, it’s just finding the meaning behind it that can be a little bit tricky.

I’m going to type it out here for your reading pleasure, because I think it’s gorgeous and unconventional and so so strong.

Chapter V:

“They shot the six cabinet ministers at half-past six in the morning against the wall of a hospital.  There were pools of water in the courtyard.  There were wet dead leaves on the paving of the courtyard.  It rained hard.  All the shutters of the hospital were nailed shut.  One of the ministers was sick with typhoid.  Two soldiers carried him downstairs and out into the rain.  They tried to hold him up against the wall but he sat down in a puddle of water.  The other five stood very quietly against the wall.  Finally the officer told the soldiers it was no good trying to make him stand up.  When they fired the first volley he was sitting down in the water with his head on his knees.”


Isn’t that stunning?  I just wish I knew what it meant.  Maybe there’s something there about the water, about typhoid.  The biggest thing I got was the duality of things: ministers vs. hostages, hospitals vs. execution grounds, soldiers vs. supporters.  Then there’s an obvious softening in tone.  And also the repetition of the courtyard – the fenced in-ness of it all.  The rain?  Sitting in it?  All of the things we can’t escape from in war.  Some of us can handle it, and some of us revert to our other personas.  It’s all very hard to trace into a single point.

Anyway, I also read about Olenka & the Autumn Lovers on blogTO and myspaced them – just up my alley! Very Beirut-y with Eastern European influences + folkness.  I enjoy. (Also the guitar here is great!)  [Which reminds me, my guitar teacher quit the school I was at and I am at a loss of what to do since I don't like any other people there.  Do I leave the school? I would love to take private lessons with him.  I feel bad for my parents but it's really the school the pulled the rug out from under me.  Kind of gay if you ask me, but more on this next time.]

And now, off to trace all of this to a single point.

Ciao. Ak.