Verified Rule #11: I will always need my mommy.

I’ve been reading far too much unrelated material lately. About Cheryl Strayed coming out as Dear Sugar. Her essays. Her essays about grief (oh god), about motherhood. About Chris Brown at the Grammy’s and about justification of violence in our society. About feminism, about hypocrisy, about men.

And I’m just full of headstuff. All this reading has really impacted me. Some things just force you to think. Because when you get into battles of the mind on the internet, you need to know your shit. Wikipedia just isn’t going to help you out when you need to prove someone that geno and phenotypes are not proper reasons for racism. There is no “sub” species.

Ultimately, I know that it’s pointless to argue on the internet. Or maybe I’ve just been telling myself that to stop myself from caring. Maybe I’ve been sheltering my mind from effort by saying that everyone on the internet is stupid and thus, I can not even try to voice my opinion. But maybe this is why I have such a hard time voicing my opinion when I even want to – because it hasn’t been test-driven. Because I haven’t worked out the kinks, or argued with an idiot and a philosopher and a critic and haven’t gotten any feedback or flak or a fucking headache. I used to thrive on debate in high school. But English degrees are not big on debates. English degrees are all, “how ludicrous can I make my thesis while still convincing my prof I read that book?”

There is no fury in that.

I miss fury. I miss rages. I miss getting worked up about something fundamental. Even if it’s from a stupid Youtube video, the internet has been my classroom for at least a decade by now (UNGH), and it’s time I stop looking the other way when I, my ideas, or my thoughts are challenged. I need to look my computer in the face, and start rationally dissecting irrational arguments of people I will never see, and blogging about it.

Easier said than done, I’m sure, because I haven’t been blogging in a while thanks to my mountains of work. But. This isn’t a month-long goal. This is a mentality shift. This is a reordering of my priorities that focuses on my own mental growth (or the evolution of my patience into an absolute patience-steed).

Where my mother comes into this, is simple. I’ve been feeling like shit lately. For the past couple of weeks. Whether this is due to my body chemistry, my unmanageable stress due to my unmanageable workload, or just writer’s/winter ennui is irrelevant. I have been seriously sad.

At home, with my family, at 21.

Don’t get me wrong: my family is absolutely lovely. They want to buy a farm. They want to grow organic food. They hate when I fight with my sister. When I fight. In many ways, they are lovely. But they are not social. When they know I need to cocoon and work, they assume that I actually cocoon and work, instead of what I actually do, which is surf the web until I can’t put things off any longer and then pull an all-nighter. This immense(ly misplaced) respect for my self-control leads them into semi-abandoning all serious/loving communication with me in the fear that I will poke out their eyeballs with my sharpened nails if they ruin my train of thought as I am ambling to the bathroom, muttering things to myself. While I have been known to be snarky if interrupted, I most certainly would welcome an occasional, “Hey! Not decomposing yet, are ye?”

Although, to be painfully honest, when they do do that, I sometimes put on my grumpy-pants and don’t even look up, while saying, “Busy. Working.” BUT ALL THOSE TIMES THAT I LOOK UP AND SAY, “HEY,” with that pleading look in my eyes, like, “SAVE ME FROM THIS” - they still go away, saying, “I should let you work.”

NO.

No, you should not let me work. You should force-feed me Rocky Road while gently patting my back until I am able to function as a human being, is what you should do. YOU SHOULD NOT LEAVE.

And the contrast to this is my boyf’s lovely mama. They go out for tea, for dinner, for shopping together. It’s a cultural thing, I’m told, but I think that’s just some sort of excuse for all their love. In contrast, my relationship with my mama resembles those camps they set up in Siberia about 50 years ago or so, with all the cold, and the communism, and the death. You know those, right?

Ok. That’s a little harsh. (A lot harsh.) (Unbelievably harsh, now that I read it over.)

BUT. The point here, I think, is that I will always love my momma. And need her. And never want her to leave, especially when I am panicking and stressed and unbelievably confused. Probably more so when I’m 30 and still living in her basement.

Oh, ye, oh ye — a writer’s life for me.

-A

Verified Rule #7: autumn ≠ blank pages.

If I really thought about it, I’m sure I could come up with a few words for the feelings I have for blank pages. But the only thing I can really think of is thick warm socks and Prairies.

That might just be because I’m reading Truth & Bright Water by Thomas King for my Contemporary Canadian Lit class, but it might also be because blank pages are kind of strange. They are full of promise, but also of expectation.

As a writer, I feel both in a very unsettling mixture at the back of my neck every time I click “New” on Microsoft Word (for mac!) Yes, I can write anything. Can I write anything? No.

Generally, I have a purpose. It is either editing a piece for Hippocampus, typing out an assignment, or starting the beginning drafts of research for an article. It is bucket-full of foreboding events: sickness, laziness, inability to concentrate, distraction, stress, cloudy thoughts, tangled theses, and all sorts of other fun things that can possibly muck up a perfectly good document. A misplaced period. An apostrophe where a possessive doesn’t make sense. A fail of a fact-check.

It is also the idea that I could have opened 15 documents where I only created 2 that makes me kind of nauseous about my writerly future. Anything that I (or anyone else) has ever read about writing and writers states, very specifically, that “you need to write every day.” And yet do I? I just complain about not being able to do it every day, every day. I don’t think that’s the same thing as really flexing your creative mentality. It’s definitely not the same thing as the sparks of a story written in a few lines. It’s not the same as a rhythmic pulse to the words on the page, that run away with you and turn into poetry.

So sometimes I wonder if I was cut out for this. I wonder more than I actually write.

And the advice from people who don’t write, who don’t understand that fire, is to write – to forget about your career, and write while you can. But I can’t. I am too anal. I am an awkward blend (as much as anyone) of flighty and realistic. I used to be a romantic, a dreamer, and with my aging, I’ve become very focused on tangible things. Money. Rent. Food. I have all but near given up my imagination.

When I have the opportunity to write something creative for school, I almost cry of joy. But I don’t. What I am learning is how to be concise. That is not writing as much as it is. I keep convincing myself that this is an important lesson that I can take to my writing, but have I ever? Do I even deserve the name?

Lately, all I see in a blank page is expectation. My mind holds promise, I know, but it’s been getting more difficult to translate it to words. I need more practice. But I can’t let go of everything I’m trying to accomplish as “a real human being” who wants to “succeed in the writing/editing/publishing” industry. It’s hard to let that go because I’m trying to work hard now so I can buy myself time later to write in my free time without filling up all of my free time with extra work.

Is that what young people do these days or am I just absolutely mental?

I feel like that’s what everyone around me is doing, to a degree, as well, and so I feel good in that relation to them, but not necessarily about our parallel paths.

I think that there is a work-life balance that I haven’t worked out yet because all I do is work for free. When I can turn my passion into work, then maybe I can settle that balance. When I don’t have to tutor or serve beer or put away art supplies (which in themselves are wonderful jobs and I am lucky to do them as opposed to all the other jobs I could be doing), then maybe my balance will settle, I’ll stop striving to be the youngest, the one with most on her plate, the one ahead of the pack. That’s a mentality that has seemingly settled into my subconscious through my dad (I remember him telling me that being first is important), but I don’t, if I sit down and think it through, agree with. Others are okay being themselves, but that, at the same time, means that they are happy with settling for something, for their boring jobs or careers. I want to be the one that is more than just what I’ve been given – I want to be what I have worked for and achieved. But if I don’t have time for people, how is that more? Or maybe I’m being smart in trying to find a career where I will be happy. I’ve always believed in achieving and picking something that is right for you. That is what I want for myself, as well – but what does that mean in the meantime?

This post should have been titled “Oy Vey” and I could have just posted a GIF of a person hitting their head against a wall and called it a night. But I had to get all philosophical on yo’ asses.

I’m not sure how well I did with that, but I know that October is the time to start evaluating your year. Start looking at what went right and wrong, and where there is an exit and where there is a door.

VERIFIED.

-A

Verified Rule #6: Sometimes “off a cliff” is the only direction.

truth by alexis mire

This week – back in Markham, back at life – has been slightly varied in its consequences. I flipped out on my dad Tuesday night because I was tired of holding back my thoughts. It was one of those moments where I just couldn’t keep in all of the frustration anymore and just let it go, and cried and cried like I was grieving. Being so angry made me think about moving out (I’m still quite an emotional teenager at heart, it seems) and call my boyfriend, who is on the opposite side of the world and received my call at an alarmingly early hour only to hear unintelligible sobbing and sniffling on my end. However, he is an angel, and went out to buy an extra phone card so I wouldn’t fully panic and dye my hair purple for rebellion, and calmed me down.

Because he was such a sweetheart, (“I will support whatever decision you make/you are always welcome here/consider us a 2nd family”) the duality of my past post really came alive for me. As The Clash sang so many years ago, “should I stay or should I go?“

I’ve wanted to move out of my house for a while now, and had a logically thought-out plan in place for a year to leave by August 2012. I am loading up on courses this year so I can work more the year after (if the need arises) in order to be able to pitch in and do my share of the “together” part. I made plans; I mentally painted our bedroom and picked out cutesy IKEA furniture and vintagey plates and cutlery. I decided on the flavour (smell?) of our soap. I had a sleeping plan prepared (he sleeps late, I prefer earlier) and a backup plan (ear-plugs with a vibrating alarm).

Getting angry made me almost forget all of these plans. And I am a planner by nature (and by sanity), so this was pretty serious of a hiccup in my mental state.

However, in recent days (ahem, 2, if you want to be specific) I have been overwhelmed by joy. The fight blew over as quickly as a tree in a hurricane and everybody understood what had transpired without having to be told (a little past bitterness, a lot of misunderstanding, and no bad intentions). This made moving on easier. I still have moving vans on my mind, but my friends (Ri, and Fer) are – and I am very spare with my use of this word – god sent, and helped me mull over an issue so big in a few days time. I don’t think these ideas will leave my mind anytime soon, mostly because I have a goal, but they are not at the forefront of my brain. Right now, at least. Talk to me in a week and I might be packing a suitcase, with my temperament.

This joy that I’ve been indulging in is really just a bit of perspective. I am a busy girl with so many wonderful plans. Varley (Art Gallery Summer Camps) really helps me see that. I saw it at the beginning of my work term in July, when the morning literally lit up my days, and I see it now, when I lay in the grass with a bunch of 10-year-olds, playing Pig and giggling at all their jokes that don’t make sense. I see this new calmness in the way I act at work, the simplicity of just letting children be whoever it is that they are, as long as they’re within the boundaries of safety. It was a load off to practice the psycho bit with my dad; to scream out all the angry energy that had built up, tight as a coil, in my belly.

I am now looking towards the horizon instead of navel-gazing. That is a big change, and I think it has to happen often in order for me to keep walking on the path best suited.

I have wonderful friends, and a busy life that helps me treasure the time spent with them. I got an A in my dreadful summer course and an editing opportunity that I am thrilled about (but will announce later). I have travel plans and school plans and writing plans and I have ways and means to get all these plans fulfilled. I have a boyfriend that is unlike anyone I have ever met. I have friends that literally make my life an already-determined experiment in happiness and kindness. I have a family that is gung-ho about whoever it is that I am. And I am pretty gung-ho about me too, even if it takes a little breakdown for me to see that.

Sometimes, off the cliff isn’t the worst place to go – it’s the only place. Thelma & Louise can attest to that, I think – and those ladies are not bad role models to have.

-A

Verified Rule #5: ZzzZzzZzzZzzZzz’s

Sleeping still matters. Sometimes more than work, play, school, or family.

Catching Zzz’s sometimes proves harder than mud-wrestling with a seal covered in oil. Not only is it slippery, it is also sad, because the seal (which is unbearably cute) is crying due to the environmental damage of oil spills.

I can’t even tell you how I feel today. I know people around me (my boyfriend included) can survive as a blatantly simple human on <4 hours/sleep during the day and sometimes for weeks. I am most certainly not one of those people, but I am the people who think those people are bat-shit crazy.

I got about… (processing) 4 1/2 hours of sleep last night, went to work at 7, to school at 2, and I get out at 6. Right now it’s 5 pm and I feel like I’ve looked in Medusa’s eyes sometime recently (see: turned to stone, come on myth-nerds!). My neck feels like I’ve been having some sort of sordid, kinky sex (I haven’t), and my back feels like a flower curling in on itself at nightfall. Except it’s not night and I’m not a fucking flower.

I solemnly swear that I will get more sleep especially because of my new work schedule (7 am- 1pm) …

hopefully.

I think it will make me live longer, or something.

In other news: this article by Kai Nagata is incredible and inspiring.

And I worked at the Eddy on Saturday, made some $$, and might go back every other Saturday or so, to make some extra cash.

-A

(This is all I can manage for a post today, sorry guys!)

dusk on the naberezhnaya

I’m back from Russia (for 2 days already, today is the day Real Life starts again, but not really because I have no pressing need to venture outside) and I’m in a strange state. Happy of course, but still learning that I only need one space after a period, so that’s bumming me out a little bit.

As I lounge around my house like I did before I left, catching up on old TV shows before I realize I’ve been wilfully procrastinating ergo making life more difficult for myself ergo bumming myself out on purpose, I realize that there is something missing.

All of the cued posts that I had lined up in Google Reader I end up skimming over – the ones that look long, saving for later (always later) – and don’t bother with looking, in a frantic thirsty manner, for more photographs, pictures, things that tell me a story in .2 seconds. I don’t want to read anything unless it’s new, and that happens because I read a lot and I get overwhelmed sometimes, but it’s different because I’ve come back from a 2 week-long hiatus from thinking, so to speak, except that it didn’t really feel like a vacation, but a kind of strange alternate universe that I wasn’t really sure I was really living in, but at the same time was convinced with because I had all these tasks lined up in the back of my head for when I came back which made it real but unreal because I didn’t want to come back to a whole brain-load full of work.

I’m not sure that sentence made sense, but I feel so rushed, even in breathing, that I don’t want to go and read it over – I don’t even want to delete any words or look over to see if anything makes sense because that takes time, that takes editing and thought and I am kind of tired of thinking, kind of tired of rushing my breath. I want to hibernate.

In short, because I will forget everything later even though I kept a diary, it was quiet. No clubs, no strange European excursions and (thank Universal Forces) no churches – although they were everywhere and beautiful. I wanted to go to spend some time with my grandparents, and I don’t think I even did enough of that for the 2 weeks I was there. My stomach didn’t agree with me and that made the first week very house-ridden and TV-watching. That’s okay, I heard Gilmore Girls in Russian though, so that was exciting.

I bought some things – not a lot because my concept of money has changed in a 180 degrees sort of manner since I was a teenager (more on this later!) – but nice things. Tall black suede winter boots with a delicious feminine ad comfortable heel, and a long and gauzy brick-coloured skirt that I am positively in love with. I also stole lots of things from my grandmother, it was like vintage shopping for free, and also my favourite part. A few sweaters, jewellery, a bag whose identical replica I saw in a store for $100.  Just so I remember (although it doesn’t matter). I came back with scarves, black and white pictures and souvenirs for my friends.

I came back knowing 3 stations of the Moscow subway (Lyubianka, Kitai’ Gorod, and Taganka) and a belly full of Azeri food. I realized that the same great-uncle that used to whisper me stories during afternoon siestas in the hammock at my great grandmothers cottage, now doesn’t know how to act around me. I realized I hate people who flaunt money but personally love fur coats (they look so elegant when the whole town is adorned with them!)

I realized that I love tea and discussions surrounding the process like pillow-forts of thought. I don’t like smoking, handed from a second or otherwise.

I decided that I need to write more – for the past 6 months I’ve been on a strange run of not writing, and I can’t be okay with that anymore. It’s eating its way out from inside, and I’m not a masochist. Apart from that, I was spoiled rotten by my boyfriend for our 3rd anniversary (which I missed!) when I got back. With THIS. Oh baby. I smell it all the time and sometimes rub it against my face while whispering really dirty things.

I’m a lucky girl in many ways – but I have to keep remembering that I need to do only as much as I’m capable of at a time. I don’t need my future laid out in my palm at every second of every day just so I can take a step forward. I need to take steps forward regardless, time has taken care of that for me.

Speaking of which, my internship at TalentEgg ended abruptly – due to company reforms and as sad as I am about it (I loved working there, and everything I was learning was incredible and I love the company itself) I know that they’re doing what’s best and that’s great. And I’m happy for them and so so glad that I’m on good terms with them.

But I’ve been procrastinating for a good many hours and now it’s about time I bid you “dasveedanya” and begin… things.

March will not be pleasant but it is only 30 31 days.

A