...i'm handi-capable too...

i) There was a brawny man of mans in my law class today, and he kept Katie and I entertained through the discussions of the Brodie case, and the Butler decision. Don't ask me what any of these means because I don't know -- I was being entertained by the man of mans instead of listening.

So he's eating Doritos, and then next thing I know he upturns the bag and starts pouring the chips into his mouth. Takes a huge gulp of coke from a can, and burps. At the break, stands and, with a blue cardigan draped over his shoulders, glances around the class flashing his pearly whites. He sees a friend in the back row and smiles broadly, winks and does the thing with the gun-finger.

We lose it at this point, can't even keep a rein on our laughter. I fall back against my chair, mocking a swooning faint and cry "take me" to Katie. His friend looks over and happens to catch on to our bemusement. He glares, which makes us laugh even harder.

I wanted to tell him not to bother with these law classes, to go back to his cave and draw on walls. Or something.

ii) I think I have to hold my tongue in certain debates. It's incredibly wearing to attempt debating with the emotionally invested -- pride has tinted shades, and all of that. They can't really see what's in front of them.

iii) Catching glimpses of the news as I'm working on my law essay, I see the news brief which talks about investigative journalists publishing a new report which says that Bush's war on terror is actually increasing extremism around the world and has and will inevitably give rise to further incidents of terroristic violence against the Western world.

If that isn't the most obvious piece of information ever, I don't know what is. I'm sorry, which of you brain-trusts in the American administration didn't see this coming?

I'm frustrated by inherent stupidity. I want to make a giant filter of stupid-catching and when I meet new people, I'll throw them in and if they survive, then I'll deal with them. But not before. And then I'll take all the left over stupid residue and throw it in Switzerland, because those jerks are all too smart for their own good. They need a dose of stupidity to bring them down to the level of the rest of the world.

iv) There is a lemur hanging from our lamp. It is cute. And huggable.

...too early in the morning for this...

Buying groceries in Kensington yesterday I decided to amuse myself by counting how many people were audibly talking to themselves. Even discounting the people talking on their headset cell-phones, the number was 7.

The other night I came home to the flashing lights of a police car, fire truck and ambulance two doors down - my roommates standing in front of our house, saying how they had heard a woman screaming.

This morning waking up to the sounds of a twitching, aging chinese man knocking on my window, who then proceeded to fall asleep on our porch. Called the police, what a lovely start to the day.

Pat on back. Congratulating myself on finding such an... eclectic... neighbourhood in which to make our home. I wonder how long I can deal with this before running high-tail back to Bay/Bloor. We go on, we go on.

...teach me about Ultimate Fighting Champions...

There's a half-foot step in front of the main doors to the law library, and you always forget it's there, so when you go to leave you step down hard, jostling, and putting undo pressure on your knee and hip. I am convinced that the step is there for the reason that when students leave after hours of absorbing mindnumbingly boring texts and case histories, their minds and bodies are congealed and need that jostle to be able to function later in the real world.

I hate the law library, incidentally. They have these leather and metal chairs whose comfort is a trick of the mind. It starts off comfortable and you think mmm this is nice, but then the leather starts edging into your legs and it's uncomfortable and bad and you realise it's probably because that little bit of discomfort will take your attention and keep you awake while reading really boring material, and then you think damn this faculty is crafty. And then you resent them a little bit. I am not impressed.

Except by the wierd rack things in the stacks downstairs, where you have to turn this crank to move the stacks because there is no room for them all. And you think where can all these books have come from? Have there really been this many law cases in the history of law to necessitate cranks?

This essay is going to be so interesting - the law part is more interesting than the morality bit, so many nice loop holes to figure out. But unfortunately he wants more philosophy and less technicality in the essay. I'm in the wrong course. I should be in law school already, I would have so much fun. Researching earlier, I kept getting distacted by the SCR volumes and reading all these old cases people probably don't remember anymore unless they are crazy lawyers and have them all memorized, and it was fun.

I went to Red Lobster and I feel fat. Fix me.

...no, I'm the jester of this courtyard...

I spent the first half of yesterday at a massive fundraiser for Free the Children hosted generously by Lone Star Cafe in Richmond Hill, in which we raised over $10,000.00 to build a school in Kenya in the name of Joe O., one of the best people I've ever known, I'm sorry if you never met him.

When I take the time to consider FTC's growth and think about the number of children we have affected, the number of schools and leadership centres we've built, the amount of school and health supplies we have shipped... it blows my mind. Just the most incredible organization, the most incredible people. People who share the belief that education is the only way to change the course of this world, and to start turning the tide against child poverty. One of my friends mentioned that it was annoying to realize that outside of our location are millions of people going about their days in Toronto not caring about the fundraiser, living out their selfish North American existances.

Which is horribly unfair of her to say, I think - everyone has their issue. Maybe child poverty isn't their current concern, maybe they spend hours and hours planning fundraising events for breast cancer awareness and curse those of us who aren't at that event.

Everyone's got their issue, as I said. Everyone has their opinions, and a right to them.

Except when it comes to culture and nationality of course, because at that point, don't even try taking another stance - take me for example, when keeping my opinion means... that I'm not Persian? Now how does that work? Well, apparently because I don't see a blatant insult pointed our way from the folks at National Geographic, I'm clearly not worthy of my own culture, and some can arbitrarily take it away from me. Obviously it makes perfect sense that the people like me who aren't itching to take up arms over this issue should be considered not Persian. Because clearly, this issue is the be all and end all to Persian idenity. To me, not only is this more offensive than the magazine's inclusion of an alternate name on a map (an inclusion that by no means replaces the correct name, I should mention), but dismissive and divisive attitudes like that are clearly more inherently dangerous to our culture.

This reminds me of when, in a moment of religious purity, my father told me I wasn't Muslim, didn't deserve to be. That's nice - clearly you are all very wise and mature. Thank god "this or bust" believers like that don't run the world. Wait, forgot about Bush... it's funny because just look at that example. That attitude is exactly how we found ourselves in these messes to begin with.

...you're the jester of this courtyard...

The smell of cigarettes on and around me is just a physical expression of my weakness.

The white rose on my book shelf, and the one who gave it to me are things I will never understand, and will always want to.

Do you know when you are learning someone, and you keep finding things that seem to not fall in line with what you thought of them, but once you know it, is even more impressive? You know the thrill that brings you? (Oh boy, I am so in like with you).

Awake for the past 23 hours, is depleting my energy reserves. At this point I can barely bring myself to move enough to change before crawling into bed with a sigh of relief. I read an article about this boy who calls himself Adam (I think from a biblical reference) and is a dreamhealer. I don't know what that means exactly except he cures people by rearranging energies and picturing their illness, and mentally attacking it. He's in Vancouver. I would like to meet him, and ask him to work with my energies to... increase them? And to cure the compromised immune system which keeps landing me in hot water. Back on Novahistex, as if I needed anything to make me more drowsy. Don't they know life already does that?

It's the end of November right now. If I can get through April without getting bronchitis once, I will be ecstatic. If I get it once, but not twice, I will still be better off than i was last year.

we strangers know each other now
as part of the whole design

...seeking someone to save my soul...

Canadian immigration officials are holding an Iranian-born Dutch Kurd in prison in Toronto on a seeming pretense of having misrepresented himself to authorities: he said he was coming to visit families, they say he was coming to marry his fiancee and find work here, to stay.

When he arrived, he had in his possession 30 copies of a book about a Kurdish-Iranian revolt against the Iranian regime back in the 80's. Don't you wonder if that had anything to do with his detainment?

Children. It was a book. Since when does Canada, a country that claims to protect civil liberties and freedoms of expression and thought, persecute someone for possessing books, whether they hold communist content or not. It is interesting to note that the book he had on him is widely published in Europe, and that neither of the two organizations he is suspected of being involved with, "Komala" and "Sorbedaran", are banned in Canada.

I am getting increasingly fed up with this country. Pierre Pettigrew pisses me off, Martin isn't impressing me much (and I will be watching very carefully what happens next week when Bush is here). Everything these days is frustrating me, and my inefficacy to create change and lack of knowledge of how considerably exacerbates these feelings.

...smile like you mean it...

So because I'm alternately self-destructive and undisciplined, my reaction when Nick rang to say "hey Sanam, let's go drinking" was "kay".

And so we went, Daniel and Nick and i to the wonderful land that is O'Grady's, where we chatted amicably and drank until the wee hours of the morn. Heading out back into the cold outside, who do I run into but Kavi. He introduces me to his Canadian friends and pronounces my name the Persian way, which is the only way he's ever known it. I introduce him to my friends as "Kavi" and his friends laugh because to them he is "Ka-Vay" and then I laugh because it is so silly, and they know nothing because he will always be Kavi and that is all there is to it. So he has been since we were "this" tall, and so he shall remain.

Then he spun a story about how we were once intense lovers but ended it for political reasons because I'm a Republican and he's a Democrat, and everyone laughed. Then he told me a bunch of things my mother has been telling his mother at parties, and everyone but me laughed. I laughed a little too, that's a lie. My mother is just funny that way.

At the moment it is 4am, and I have just finished typing notes on my fourth anthropology reading. I am pulling an all-nighter tonight, and seeing how many I will finish. And now i shall leave you, for some coffee and the sweet loving provided by my darling text book.

...do you suppose that i would come running (you know i would)...

Tonight Daniel and I went to the play to support the boy - seeing a really sweet amazing guy, in a really scary role with profane language and adult themes (interrogation scenes + homo-erotic insinuations) was definately not fun. It took all of Daniel's finesse to persuade me he's just a really good actor, and really isn't scary because I was definately wavering.

But it did lead to the two of us making a very interesting bet involving a salami sandwich - and I really hope he wins.

Two nights ago I had a disturbing dream with awkward implications - in it, the second actor (for it was a two-man show) was Steve. In the dream, I went to see the boy but left with Steve.

Upon arriving at the theatre, and browsing through the program (which played the interesting trick of only showing the actors first names), we saw that the second actor's name was Steve. At this point, witness me flipping out. Thankfully, it didn't turn out to be Steve, but "a" Steve, which saved me from the awkward choice of correctness vs. temptation. This is good, because I have a horrible tendency to yield to temptation when the opportunity arises so it is best when the opportunity doesn't occur.

This naturally just showed me that I'm still disturbingly intrigued by Steve, that damn boy.

P.S. I hate actors - I really do. They are so dramatic, and wierd. I'm talking about all black clothes and strange modern movement in the pre-show, and some girl incorporating her hair into the act. It was all very... incomprehensible.

P.P.S. That is clearly a lie - I love actors, as my record will attest. I do hate the crush phase though, because it occupies your head a good deal. 'Night.

...heaven ain't close in a place like this...

I have to wonder how many of the people protesting the National Geographic have actually seen this hotly-disputed atlas?

The story as you may have heard it: Those demons at National Geographic (god rot their bellies) have slandered our blessed nation by labelling our Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf. How dare they? And such. We must do something about this incredibly important problem which has such bearing on the state of the world's other, obviously less serious, problems.

The atlas doesn't, in fact, label the body of water as the Arabian Gulf. It is labelled as the Persian Gulf, and Arabian Gulf is included beside it in parentheses. Which, to me, speaks that Persian Gulf is being recognized as the primary, correct name as acknowledge by the UN and other international body BUT that Arabian Gulf is included for the benefit of the many who consider and name the area "the Arabian Gulf", as do many nations in the Middle East.

What this tells me is that the National Geographic, instead of antagonizing one party or another, is trying to please all and acknowledge the interests of all. Three cheers for them.

I'm as nationalistic as most Iranians and take as much pride and love in my country - but to me, this argument and the effort to protest it smacks of "get over yourself".

...oh come on, oh come on, oh come on...

What do you want from me?

I want everyone to send me a list of what role they want me to play in their lives. I want a pidgeon hole and a user manual. I can't figure these things out on my own - you want friend, you want lover, you want love. You want teacher, you want caregiver, you want soundingboard. You want provider of gratuitous praise. You want attention to flatter your ego, or you want acceptance of imagined flaws, or you want a complacent coconspirator.

I can provide most of these things to most of you - but with so many requests to sort through, how can I find the right treatment for each person? When I'm honest, you run. When I'm not, you attack. What do you want?

There was a moment this afternoon where I almost started crying of frustration. I feel like I don't understand anything, no matter how much I watch to learn. In my head I am a small cartoon representation of me, and around me are mean caricatures of the people in my life - and you're all bigger, and stronger, and smarter and play off my naivete. And instead of aiming higher, or striving for self-improvement you wallow in your self-proclaimed imperfection, throwing it off as immovable, inherent.

People like your are everything that is wrong with the world. You justify your actions in a combination of logic and good intentions - I wonder if it means anything to you that your good intentions are null in void?? Because if you have "good intentions" for the purpose of having an excuse to fall back on, you have no good intentions; and I am convinced this is all you have.

I'm afraid of my own incompetences and immeasurable failings. Looking around at the multi-faceted brilliance (for better or for worse) of those around me, I constantly fall short. I get frustrated having pity arguments with people like Scott or Janet, because I think "shut up: you have no right to feel incompetent, because you are not". I'm scared because this inability to understand the world, and people is going to get me hurt - because I want everything to be right, and want to believe that you are all inherently good, and each time I find out you aren't my resolve in humanity's worth breaks a little more, a piece of me with it.

And I think, mathematically, this can't be sustainable because eventually there won't be anything of me left.

...i'm getting old and i need something to rely on...

The singer of the Ashes to Ashes cover I love is Danny Michel, a local Torontonian (no thanks to any of you by the way).

In brief, because I'm too tired for in depth:

- Rob made me a princess tiara out of a pink balloon and I wore it all night.
- Cash training after just 4 weeks, when the rules say 3 months (I think it means they like me)
- Which is good because I love them
- E.E. Cummings has a children's book called Fairy Tales, and I purchased it today.
- The more I read about Victor Yushchenko, the more I feel for him and hope he prevails.
- A new poet (opinion pending) - Sue Sinclair

More when not so exhausted (who knows when that will be) - Night lovelies.

...you follow me down with the sun in your eyes...

Should I take the sound of silence as an indication that I should have stayed silent? I won't apologize for having been honest, telling you what you already knew, anyway. My emotions are transparent, open to the world. Love it or hate it, it's how I am.

I am convinced that Keane did a cover of David Bowie's Ashes to Ashes - whoever can discover this for me gets a very special prize. It could possibly be someone other than Keane, but whoever it is has the same adult-contemp soft pop sound as Keane, and when they sing "I'm happy, hope you're happy too" it will make you melt. If it doesn't, there is something wrong with you.

Last night, writing my religion paper around 2am and I get a message from someone not on my contact list. "Go to bed" he says "why are you still up"? My first instinct is to question why he's messaging me at all, when I realize that even though I deleted him, I didn't block him and I am still on his list. My second instinct is to toss back "why do you care? You go to bed". But I didn't, I was civil I think. But apres-ca, I was distracted and the paper didn't happen after all. And this minute conversation led to a very disturbing dream which scared me when I woke, because my dream-reaction was probably how my real-reaction would ever be. And my dream-reaction saw me running away, away.

Today in the kids department -- I hope Morgan is feeling better and is at work, because we close together on Fridays and it makes me happy because I love him. My little teddy bear, this one. Came to visit me in Fiction last week when I was covering Sara, just to give me a hug because he missed me. You may all proceed to say awwwwww.

Tonight is the boy's opening night - we wish him luck, and a broken leg. We also wish to see him tonight, post-work. If any of the powers that be would like to conspire together and make it happen please?

Thank you.

...they should let people tell their own stories...

Margaret Atwood got it into her head that she wants to write children's stories - and so, this month's feature at my store is Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda. Now I should explain that I had trouble following this book - so how she expects a 5 year old to read, understand and enjoy it is beyond me. The entire book is written in alliteration - alternately with the letter B and D. How many 5 year olds do you know who know the words "doleful", "blathering", "delectible" and "barnacle". I didn't even know barnacle, except that it brought a visual reference of an old drunk sailor to my head (this is the fault of TinTin by the way - "blistering barnacles!") Some people shouldn't be allowed to write for children.

I think the only thing worse I've seen in the Kids section is those silly books by Madonna, which have absolutely no literary merit that I can discern.

In other news, there is nothing more amusing than a white Jew rapping to something written by a bespectacled Serb. Long live Slick Tatum, and the Alex.

Also, I make too much of small things. Very very much of very very small things. Well, okay they aren't that small, but still they aren't the end of the world. Unless, of course, they are. But even then it will have been a fun ride? Hmm... we shall think on this some more.

...this is lovely. really...

Six degrees of separation my FOOT. I hate this city, it is too fucking small. I want it to spontaneously combust when I am conveniently elsewhere.

I just saw something which made me go "huh". Then question the probability that person A knows person B. And came to the conclusion that considering a) similar program, b) nationalistic identity and c) the fact that the world HATES me, it is probably true that yes, indeed they know each other.

Which is rather less than swell. Not even the Blue House was far away, or sheltered, enough it seems.

I haven't wanted to be out of this city (read: world) so badly since Christian high-tailed his ass to the rock capital of the US of A and I wanted to follow. This is all your fault.

BELLOW

I'm sitting in Pratt Library wondering why I can't get any work done. I look around me and see the walls of glass, the black leather arm chairs, the wood and metal table tops, lots of white paint and cursive writing on the walls - that's when it hits me: this is a lounge, not a library! Why are they misleading people?

I love how Victoria College always has to be this avant-garde, pretentious, rich-bitch institution - where even their libraries are new and bright and drooling in money.

These are the people I ran into/saw from a distance this morning in Queen's Park and vicinity:

Lizzy
The boor
That girl from my economics class last year
Anneleen
Remy

As I was leaving Northrop Frye I ran into another friend of mine and he said that he almost didn't notice me, that I was disappearing. Afterwords I spent 15 minutes looking at myself in the bathroom mirror trying to see what he'd seen (or lack thereof) which led him to say that to me. I concluded that I am not, in fact, disappearing. I haven't even lost any significant weight recently so that can't be it. So now I'm wondering if maybe, just maybe, if you feel as if you're disappearing, and are so deep in your head that you aren't really participating in the world, maybe you stop being as visible to the world. Maybe I'm thinking too much these days, worrying too much, and the deeper I go into these endless, direction-less thoughts, the less I appear to exist in this tangible world external to me.

Then I thought, nah that's crazy talk.

...you've got your ball, you've got your chain...

To the ladies - doesn't it ever get tiring for you, juggling the (irrationally) wounded sensibilities of 5-year-olds? Within days of Lone Star Fundraiser #2, and I don't want to go. I don't want to deal with AM and his blatantly pathetic attempts to ignore me. Boys are so silly. The second they sense your attentions wavering, they start dancing jigs to get you to notice them. "Hey! I'm still here! Where are you going?" It would be funny if it wasn't so annoying... no. Wait. Still funny. Lordy.

We are now going to talk about two things:

i) My Bioethics exam, which I aced, and the paper on which I received a B (yes, this IS indeed the paper I wrote stoned). We are quite pleased. I'm going to start dancing my own jigs.

ii) The fact that I got the reality check of a fucking lifetime this morning - the kind of reality check which makes you high-tail it to the library for hours on end. This just in - we are now aiming for a 3.7 CGPA, which means I have a nice bit of catching up to do.

It finally snowed today - it's about time don't you think? It's almost December! Although if that wasn't the most pitiable excuse for snow I ever saw, I don't know what is. The wet kind that doesn't stick but soaks you cold. What kind of forts can I build with that? NONE. Losers.

Mwah - I'm going to class. (*gasp* She's going to class? What? The world is all askew).

...shut my eyes, can't fight the breaks...

Saw Jem on the street, almost made him crash his bike. Loves it. Why doesn't he just talk to me, I don't understand, instead of just following me with large eyes. Maybe I'll talk to him today, for once. Maybe I'll just go to class looking hot and talk to everyone in his line of vision... but not him. Because I'm mean that way. I should be shot.

Update: The boy loves Hafez. I'm sorry, but how many Italians do you know who know Persian poetry? As if I needed any more reasons to melt over him, he keeps a translation of one of the most beautiful of Hafez's verses in his wallet. I had a dream last night that he is superwonderfulamazing and knows it, and shook his head pityingly in my direction. Then found himself a hot Italian lover, male or female. Just any lover who isn't me. I'm done for, it's over for me. What, exactly, am I meant to do? I haven't wanted a guy to like me so bad in 8 months - that is a lot of stress. So I need to not think about this. I am going to think about creation vs. evolution, and about the rights to self-determination of life. I might also consider thinking about writing the new PiD constitution, but then again I might not think about that one just yet.

Do you know what else is a lot of stress? My on-the-horizon French test, which my prof decided would be a creative essay about a love affair between a man and a mannequin, in which we would have to incorporate as many as possible (no actual number given) of 63 "creative" sentences, like: "Son comportement etait-il aussi singulier que sa mise et son anatomie", "en passant en autobus devant la cour" and "Les grandes villes seules peuvent presenter a la spiritualite phenomenologique".

Have I mentioned that my teacher is slighty mentally unbalanced? Well, now you know.

Here - from Solmaz's site, even though she's behind the times (Sex and the City ended last year - *smile*)

You Are Most Like Charlotte! You are the ultimate romantic idealist You've been hurt before, but that hasn't caused you to give up on love. If anything, your resolve to fall in love is stronger than ever. And it's this feminine optimism that men find most appealing about you. Romantic prediction: That guy you are seeing (or crushing on)? Could be very serious - if you play your cards right! Which Sex and the City Vixen Are You Most Like? Take This Quiz Right Now! Find the Love of Your Life (and More Love Quizzes) at Your New Romance.

...tied to me tight tie me up again...

My heart is breaking for Dave Matthews - always, always the most essential quality of music for me is the ability to invoke emotion, for the words and melody to leave the realm of thought and cause a physical response, like the ache I feel, clench stomach when he sings "crash" for the first time in the song.

Sweet like candy to my soul
Sweet you rock and sweet you roll...
And you come crash into me, baby

My desk lies up against a bay window from where I see the people on the street, and the moment I recognize them as people with an infinite number of their own thoughts, knowing they each have a story - that brief occasional moment when I awake to the fact that they aren't just extras on my stage, is always interesting to me. Does that ever happen to anyone else? That designation of other people as backdrops in your own life, only to sometimes realize that for them, you're the backdrop, inconsequential?

I've been wearing a cross for some time now; I don't know why or from what motivation. But I like wearing it, and feel more peaceful. Morgan asked me if I was a Christian, because I wear it. I said, nooo... He asked if I'm Muslim, I said, nooo... not exactly. Then what exactly? Honey, I don't know.

I think I started wearing it after my father told me I wasn't a Muslim.

Morgan isn't the only one wondering - but I can't give him an answer that will satisfy. I only know the extent of my faith and what it means for me, knowing I don't want to put a name to it. The only explanation I can give for that is something Joe taught me, which is that to label something means it can be dismissed.

...drink the milk up, i want more...

Standing outside Pratt with Lizzy and Dee, talking about Monday night and running around the city to see our various crushes. The Rex for Dee's, Cameron for Lizzy's and I mention that we won't be running around to see mine. So it's decided the girls will come to the play on Saturday to see mine and then we will kidnap him and bring him around with us on Monday.

In the midst of this we hear a ploop and Dee flips out because a bird has just relieved himself on her head and hair. In the madness which follows, I'm reminded of another night, long ago and another Dee, who announced in front of all and sundry, including Mike the Waiter that she had been just shat on by a parrot.

Oh the memories...

Speaking with Paul Templin, manager of Hart House Theatre and asking him if he's heard mention of this play - he says that it's not one of theirs and so doesn't know much about it, but it does ring a bell... wait! Someone had emailed him about it. And so he reads the email where someone mentions they had just seen a dress rehearsal of it and it's incredible with committed, convincing performances, and is an edgy production bordering on controversial. So I am now horribly intimidated because it turns out that in addition to being incredible and sweet, the boy is also an amazing actor and talent, and I'm the blah. So, essentially, he's not going to be interested in dating me for real for real, and I will be crushed and grow old with my blah cats and potted plants.

What is it me with actors? This is number 3. It's interesting to me, these patterns -

I spent a minor amount of money at H & M today, but when I return later this week, it will be to spend a more obscene amount. That store is a danger with flashing lights and ringing bells. Or should be.

A wave of nausea has been settling uncomfortably around me the past two days, and I would like to know why or what I did to deserve these illnesses one after another after another. This is uncomfortable, and a little scary. Nausea is my worst-handled of symptoms, I cannot reconcile.

...maldito pescador...

Have you ever thought that you only know me from what I write in here?

And, since for obvious reasons (though I always speak candidly) I don't speak everything, it means that you really don't know me?

I wonder if that changes anything for anyone.

...enivrez-vous...

Il faut être toujours ivre.
Tout est là:
c'est l'unique question.
Pour ne pas sentir
l'horrible fardeau du Temps
qui brise vos épaules
et vous penche vers la terre,
il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.
Mais de quoi?
De vin, de poésie, ou de vertu, à votre guise.
Mais enivrez-vous.
Et si quelquefois,
sur les marches d'un palais,
sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé,
dans la solitude morne de votre chambre,
vous vous réveillez,
l'ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue,
demandez au vent,
à la vague,
à l'étoile,
à l'oiseau,
à l'horloge,
à tout ce qui fuit,
à tout ce qui gémit,
à tout ce qui roule,
à tout ce qui chante,
à tout ce qui parle,
demandez quelle heure il est;
et le vent,
la vague,
l'étoile,
l'oiseau,
l'horloge,
vous répondront:
"Il est l'heure de s'enivrer!
Pour n'être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps,
enivrez-vous;
enivrez-vous sans cesse!
De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise."

~ Charles Baudelaire

I'm only leaving this poem here because I'm too scared to show you my own. Ironic, because I should be "getting drunk" in the spirit of life, which includes sharing - but instead I hide away bits of myself to shield them from your thoughts, whether you express them truthfully or not.

Buried insecurites, forever and ever amen. Hidden under pink clothes and curly hair - that is not what bright features are for. Not to hide but to emphasize. Can't I ever get it right?

...bacterial meningitis: jackpot!...

Arabian Gulf -- Arabian Gulf -- Arabian Gulf

i) I don't understand this weather.10 degrees in the last week of November is sacrilege, or something nearly akin. I have this horrible premonition that we will become used to this weather, and when the weather all of a sudden turns REALLY cold, as I have every faith it will do, no one will know what to do and society will collapse.

ii) I think the fact that I am going to go 7 days without seeing the boy is a good thing, because it will be less of a distraction. Which is ridiculous because I'm thinking about him all the time anyway, so how's that for distraction?

iii) It is beyond belief to me that a reknowned reference source as the National Geographic atlas could make so large an error as to mislable the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf. correctionThey didn't make an error after all - I saw the map. It is labelled Persian Gulf, with Arabian Gulf in brackets on the large map. What is wrong with this, exactly?

iv) There is a sick sick addiction in me which is causing me to watch the video for Gwen Stefani's new single every possible minute, and sing it to myself when I am not watching it. I don't understand it, I don't want to understand it. I can only submit to it.

Arabian Gulf -- Arabian Gulf -- Arabian Gulf

...do you realise what you've done?...

For a period of maybe 43 minutes this blog was pink. The brightest, most painful shades of pink ever to be seen on a blog. Worthy of a "pink blog", which it has been determined that this blog is, in spirit. But not worthy of being seen by anyone not wearing protective eyewear.

Which is why it only lasted 43 minutes.

Now children, don't be chiding that I played with the template tonight, because I did manage to finish my essay. I'm not sure if it's any good - when Kristen wakes up, I will ask our home's resident anthropology expert for her most respected contribution.

Mmm... I feel pink. So pink in fact, that I will wear my soft pink angora sweater to work today, even though it is against dress code. I will wear it, but take it off when I'm on the floor and put it on again when I'm off. Thus evading the rules, and being pretty, concurrently (which means at the same time).

Aside: I don't want to be one of those people who writes blogs you need a dictionary to read. This one's for you Cali-boy. Tee hee.

This is me on no sleep. Do you see why it's something that can't happen often? For the good of ALL THAT IS HOLY I should be allowed, nay FORCED to sleep. My roommates dealt with an uberwired me tonight, and they are mighty accomodating to do so. I would have snapped at me. Or thrown me out a window.

This template is a little too white. I think I will be forced to add many images more often to brighten up the living space, add a splash of colour. You know what I'm saying? Images like this one:

...ugh - i couldn't sleep now if i wanted to...

...since I would have had to be up in three hours to shower and get ready for work.

But hey, check me out 1223 of 2500 words and still going strong. Who says I can't be Superwoman?

...better than siskel and ebert...

Kristen's incredibly discerning synopsis of Beauty and the Beast, which we are currently all watching to keep us awake in what will be an all-nighter to finish our respective essays: "This is essentially one long continuous story of a horse being right and no one listening to it".

...damn that cat...

Alright Javod, this one is for you. Asad and myself have just spent fully the last 40 minutes trying to discern where you live. Don't ask us why we did this, we don't know ourselves. But among the many theories that were spun, you were alternately a surfer in California, a student in Oklahoma or doing something or other in Texas? Explain yourself, this instant please. Or, as Asad says, he will appoint himself the PI that goes digging through your trash.

We both must have been procrastinating heavy things, like anthropology for me, because this occupied us for some times. And the savvy internet detectives that we are, we couldn't figure out.

But that is still nothing to the difficulty in placing the frustratingly anonymous Webgard, who I personally am very curious about. All we know is he is in NYC. But so is half the free world, so that leaves us pretty much at the beginning. My interest in Webgard (should he read this) is purely professionally - I won't even be diplomatic about it, but say flat out that he is and always has been my favorite of the net writers. I think he writes incredibly and is very smart, and it is a shame he doesn't write more.

I'm going back to my essay. Asad isn't, for he has a more arduous task ahead of him. And that is to find me a nickname. Oui?

...the tormenting structure of that silence...

The skin on my hands and on my thighs is becoming transparent. I don't know what that could mean - I was never one of those little white girls whose veins showed blue underneath their skin. Except that now suddenly I caught a glimpse of the back of my hand, and my breath caught because they don't look like my hands.

0/2500 words. I know it seems daunting now, but I just started. I had been doing the readings all day. Here we go children, in for a long night?

Yeah, me neither. Well we'll see how it goes.

...like a cat in heat stuck in a moving car...

I want to see Closer

not because it looks hot
or because Clive Owen looks hot
or because Jude Law does too
or because hot like Natalie Portman is what I used to want to be

but because Damien Rice sings on the trailer, and Blower's Daughter is still the most love-inducing, melt-causing song I have ever heard.

...take a chance you stupid ho - (oh!)...

Hang your wind chimes. Strategically place a mirror. Check your compass before sleeping. Follow your feng shui or any other plan designed to bring harmony. Just remember to leave the past behind and to embrace the future.

Look at me, whee! Even the Toronto Star is with me on this one, so you know it MUST be good.

Have a wonderful day children, enjoy the brightly shining sun and the sharp sensation in the air which tells you you're alive. Do something wonderful and fun, and think of me sitting in my lonely room working on an essay I can't find words for because I have other sorts of words in my head. Use all the powers of your ESP (or you know, your emails) to send me hope and well wishes and... anything you know about the gender politics of the Hindukush.

Mwah :)

...ridiculous and unbelievably arithmetic...

"Take some pictures, Monsieur Lamarre. Don't be shy. They'll like it. Every time someone takes pictures or movies of them, a little hope of help to come is born. Anyway, they'll die before they realize that no capital city in the world cares about them".

From A Sunday At The Pool in Kigali, which I have recommended to so many people and only one of whom has read it that I know of; which I am reading again tonight; which makes me cry; which leaves me blank and numb with the matter of fact descriptions of a slaughter we were involved in and shared a responsibility for by virtue of our passive neglect and ignorance.

The assistant chief prosecutor received them out of respect for Valcourt, the citizen of a donor country and above all a neutral country like Canada, a country that asked no questions and gave with its eyes closed, a perfect country in short.

Take a good look at what we are, Canada - the perfect country. We pat ourselves on the back because we are generous and give, but we keep our eyes closed in doing so; too timid to do anything, or to act on what we choose not to see.

...climbed a mountain, and turned around...

There's nothing to parallel the agonizing and unavoidable inconvenience that occurs when you embark on a journey of introspection and regeneration and re-emergence into the waking life -- on the night you have 120 more pages to read for the anthropology paper which is suddenly due and you don't know when it crept up on you.

Among the other things that creep on you: little boys who want to be Minister of Culture to your Queen of the World; and the realization that you are finally in the place where you can lay old concerns to rest and let the future happen how it will.

When a dinner-time conversation left me feeling depressed, a 180 degree turn-around from the giddy excitement I had been feeling just a few minutes before, I knew that I couldn't wait for time to do its trick as they all said it would do. If I was going to move forward and start this new... something... untainted, I was going to have to be the one to cleanse and break through past hang-ups. Nothing passive in my hot self, but all the proactivity of the willful and charming.

I dug out my Pumpkins CD and listened to Landslide. So, so strong of me I thought as I was searching, telling myself I would listen to the entire song if it killed me. When a smile was starting to show itself on my face after the first 30 seconds, I knew that blatantly in the face of my objections, time had done something after all because the song was nowhere near to killing me. It was in the beginning of the second verse that I realized that the same song which had once articulated one of the most painful times of my life was now giving voice to my making peace with it.

Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

I've been afraid of changing cuz I'd built my life around you.
Time makes you older, even children get older
I'm getting older too.

At 1:34 into the song, and the instrumental section begins - where it used to sound vulnerable from being depressing, it now expressed the vulnerability of opening yourself again, with a tinge of optimism that the story unfold differently this time. Knowing that now the opportunity was there for the story to unfold differently this time.

I know, I know so well what my friends will say, some of them - that the opportunity has been there for months. I realize that, but I also know that I wasn't ready to let that opportunity exist, which is where Rachel's psychoanalysis kicks in to tell me that this is probably why for the months of June-October inclusive, I consistently went after a) the useless non-commitals, b) the unavailable ones, or c) the ones who could NOT be.

Hidden somewhere is a piece of information that could make a world of difference to the outcome of a very important story in your life. So, where should you seek and what should you look for? This weekend, some powerful cosmic indicators will make that obvious

Says the Toronto Star - I wonder if Billy Corgon can be considered a "powerful cosmic indicator"? He's certainly deep and... enigmatic?... like a cosmic indicator. It's silly because I took 23 minutes of my life to write this. But I am so happy I did, and that I am feeling so much freer now. Except of course for the fact that now I want to run to St. George and Dupont, and ignore my piles of homework to see a (temporarily) bearded Italian man. Who came to my house last night after walking me home, and met my roommates. Who, I think, enjoyed him. This is good? Do we agree? And if this time it doesn't work, it won't be for me not trying, or for me being non-commital as I have been these months. Take it as an anthem if you will, but here I am, saying I'm in it to give 100%, no flinching, no fearing. Que sera, sera, et tout ca.

...soundtrax...

A musical survey from Sandy, because he is cooler than me. And actually, I think he stole it from someone even cooler.

Opening song: "We're Gonna Play" - Matthew Barber
Waking up: "Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" - Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Bill Frissel
First date: "Lala" Ashlee Simpson
First kiss: "What a Diff'rence A Day Made" - Dinah Washington
Falling in love: "Breathe In" - Frou Frou
Seeing an old love: "Arabesque No. 1 in E" - Claude Debussy
Heartbreak: "Landslide" - The Smashing Pumpkins
Driving fast: "Deceptacon" - Le Tigre
Getting ready to go out: "Toxic" - Britney Spears
Dancing at a club: "Tainted Love" - Soft Cell
Flirting: "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" - Lauryn Hill
Feeling sexy: "Fast Love" - George Michael
Walking alone in the rain: "La Nuit" - Bruknahm Project
Running away from it all: "Mr. Brownstone" - Guns N Roses
Fight with lover: "Stay" - Lisa Loeb
Missing someone: "Do You Suppose I'd Come Running" - John Mayer w/ Dispatch
Playing in the ocean: "Sing Sing Sing" - Benny Goodman
Summer vacation: "Semi-Charmed Life" - Third Eye Blind
Being angry: "Revolutinoary Etude" - Chopin
Losing it: "In my Head" - No Doubt
Acting goofy with friends: "Crabbuckit" - K-OS
Thinking back: "Too Sober to Sleep" - Justin Rutledge
Feeling depressed: "Lover I Don't Have to Love" - Coner Oberst
Life's okay: "Let's Go Fly A Kite" - Julie Andrews
Falling asleep: "Caramel" - Suzanne Vega
Closing song: "Do You Sleep" - Lisa Loeb

...gender and ethnicity in the hindukash...

Early morning adventures in the Blue house: over breakfast, we were talking about the words we mispronounced when we were young. I always had trouble with "uncomfortable" and I still have trouble with "melancholy" (I blame Billy Corgan for that by the way). Janet's word was epitome, and we mentioned hyperbole as another tough one. Then Daniel mentioned that he read the entire Narnia series thinking Lucy was pronounced "Lucky".

In the ensuing burst of laughter, Kristen spat her cereal (correction: water) almost clear across the living room.

...andaluuuccciiiaa...

Oh, but that was nice. i would say more, but I have lost the ability to speak... or think... or, seemingly, function.

...my baby don't care for shoes...

At this point I have so many butterflys in my stomach all the time that I am surprised they all don't just come flying out when I open my mouth.

I teased Janet the other day about moving slowly, slowly but I am snailing along so much more slowly than she is, because as excited and cloud-9-y as I am, I am so nervous and giddy and completely distracted, which is not going to be a good thing for my anthropology paper.

I think I also have to write less often in here, because all I will talk about is this boy and his sweetness, which you have already heard discussed and which my friends are sick to death of hearing about. So I will just mention two more things before I move on. The first is that coming up behind me, he grabs my hand and whispers "here you have to keep this until I get back", sliding a rubber band into my palm. Which has now become a rubber band bracelet. Dorky I know, but it was nice. The second is that he's growing a beard (good lord, a beard). I'm going to become one of those girls. The girls who want to kiss boys with beards.

Oh I'm crushing. Stupid boy with your stupid timing.

Right. Moving on. Carolyn Parrish, fired by Paul Martin. Surprised it didn't happen sooner, but personally I commend her for having balls and speaking up what most of us are thinking. Funny how they fired her 10 days before Bush comes to town...

That's all folks, have a good night. Weekend. You know.

...liz turner is not his style...

Soundtrack: The Number 1 Jazz Album from Verve records.

It's a sad day in the medical community. Though it seemed we had an amicable (read: violent), symbiotic relationship, my sweet self and Student Health Service and ATR labs have ended our relationship. Having received the clearence that all systems are go and tests are clear and normal, I promptly left the building. Buh bye bitch, don't need ya cold cold heart no more. Until, of course, the next time my body pulls a coup-de-grace.

But for now, whee because I'm outta there.

I love my jobs, both of them. I love my bookstore job and my charity job, and the people in both of them. I love finding books for people. I love that today someone came in asking for a book by my favorite kid's author, and we had only one copy and she didn't want to buy it because it was the last one and what if someone else wanted to buy it, and I convinced her it was okay we'll get in more copies.

The author is Barbara Helen Berger, by the way.

Ooooh child, if you could only see me tomorrow. My outfit is so classy and gorgeous, so worthy of the audience. I know you wish you were there. I'd invite you all if I could.

All except Janet because she bailed on me tonight. Already it's starting, she gets a new boy and starts ditching plans with her girlfriends. Note to her: girlfriends are ALWAYS more important. Because we're the ones that last, yo. Boo. I had to watch Devdas alone. *sigh*

...as i reclined on the velvet floor...

It all comes back to you, in the end. But look, I'm not alone, see? Despite the apparent perfectness of D, my girl admits she goes back too. Go back, go back, this is tired.

I want to be the investigative journalist into your heart. Like Christiane Amanpour, conduct the interviews, get the answers. I'll even go straight to the source, if I have to. Travel to far away lands, to figure you out and convince, convince, convince. I want the WHY's, the WHY NOT's. Like in the article I laughed at yesterday, but haha the jokes on me because the last three paragraphs? That was me, my emotional vomit. I really did that?

I really did.

"...an artist who smoked alone in a corner. Although my car was leaving in half an hour, the driver would have to wait."

...Wayne's Social Movement Series...

It's funny that most of my movies will be returned without me ever having watched them. What a throw away of money. The explanation is simple really and understandable. I cracked and watched Devdas. And fell in love with it, so I'm just going to watch this one movie every night until they have to be returned. Oh my, so beautiful...

Maybe Sheida was right, maybe LIDHTL was my song after all - except not in the way she meant it. Originally it was because I was the girl who was too sad to give a fuck, but lately I'm not sad anymore and I give a fuck, and I grew up and out which is why now I read the lyrics and see them as a past existence. I don't think the written words are so pretty anymore, or that life is a storybook. But neither do I see it as an excuse to get hurt. Because if you think about it, it's when you see life as a storybook that you open yourself to the opportunity of being hurt. I mean, even in real life you outgrew story books way back when - so I'm out of the way-back-when, all the way-back-whens. Vous me comprenez bien?

oh my patient prisoner
you waited for this day
and finally...

Just relax, Jack - this has no bearing on your cool factor. You still da man, and all that. Just not to me.

What so you replaced him with an Italian?

No, nuh uh. The Italian is a sweet boy, mais c'est tout. I replaced him with a life -- and sadly, he's yet to find one. So sad, too bad ('member Inna?).

-- Earlier tonight i read an article in Now paper, the Love and Sex column. And it made me laugh. Then, I read it to Janet in comic, meaning-laden tones, and she laughed because she knew after the first paragraph, exactly what I was thinking and why. I love friends like that, who GET IT. It, you know?

...i got my mind set on you...

Right-o. Didn't make it to class tonight after all, but it's okay because I slept instead and these days that's more pressing. Besides I'm not behind in anthropology at all, so it's cool. Also, sleep was my reward for raping my bioethics exam this morning. Oh yes, indeed I did rape it. It's still crying, shivering, afraid. (Is it over? Is she done?)

Something possessed me to rent a million movie tonight. By "something" I mean the knowledge that I had $22 burning a hole in my pocket, and so I rented $22 worth of French movies + Devdas. For the life of me I can't explain why most of the movies I rented were Catherine Breillat ones, I am not a fan of her work. I am and I am not - I can appreciate her talent as a director, she really is very good, but she is so disturbing. I should have rented Jean de Florette and Indochine.

You know who I'm seeing on Friday? Yeah, you know who I'm seeing on Friday. Oh but he is sweet. Sshh don't move, you'll break it.

...so i can dance...

The true evidence that I never grew up? I'm playing the same games. Was slighted, now I'm slighting. And he's so sweet and ever-present, easy peasy to take advantage of. I should be shot. Like reverse Karma, I'm committing those acts done against me. See what you've started?

i can't even tell you how disappointed I am, the spell is broken, no longer magical. I want my blinders back, before I start looking at the rest of the world. Worried they'll disappoint me too.

16 minutes until my bioethics test. This is probably the moment I should shut down the computer and start heading towards class. Probably should have studied more. Ah well, too late now. This apathy is worrisome. I think I'll skip class tonig -- no, no I won't, I WILL go to class. I can run away on Friday like a good little girl.

...wouldn't you want to say it so (wouldn't you want to glow)?...

Aren't you children lucky? You get to be the test-subjects for my religion essay. The topic? Creationist theory vs. evolutionary theory. The essay will include the breakdowns of both, and evidence for validity of both (don't goff, creationists can make a solid case for themselves which does NOT have to be falsified by evolution, but can survive independently of it).

The part we will discuss here and now though is which should be taught in schools, should one be taught over the other, etc.

Personally, I think that both should be taught in school curriculums, both private and public. Now before you jump down my throat, hear me out. When I say that creation theory should be taught in all schools, I do not mean as a dogma. I'm not proposing that public school students be taught creation theory as irrefutable fact but as an alternate theory to evolution. I would throw in other creation theories for kicks. Naturally I would expect that evolution theory would likely be taught more extensively in the public school system, which likes to draw a tangible line between science and religion.

Similarly, I would expect that in a private Catholic school, creation theory will have more time and attention devoted to it. But even in a religious school, I don't believe creation should be taught as fact. It should be taught as a theory, with evolution as an alternate but not-competing theory (because the two can co-exist, according to some theologians who separate the obligations and fields of religion and science).

Though I do not put much credence in religious thought, there are far too many inconsistencies and coincidences and elements of design in nature to seriously lead me to doubt all of religious thought on the origins of life and man. Some of the new theological theories put forth by thinkers such as Allen Utke or Barbara E. Bowe are really interesting, and make you seriously think about a lot of thinks.

I'm not saying that it makes me believe in God, I still don't. But that doesn't mean I don't believe in some higher incomprehensible design. I think my "religious" (more spiritual) beliefs are in line more with Spinoza, who sees design and spirituality in nature enough to appreciate the higher element, but won't recognize it as "God" necessarily.

...Ttracker performance...

I feel it in the air or in my bones, but today is not going to be a great day. In fact, in the scale of days between 1-23, this is probably a 9. Not horrible, but definately in the lower spheres.

It appears more and more likely that Margaret Hassan was murdered in Iraq. Every single one of those rebels involved in that should be shot.

So there is a religion essay that needs to be done for three weeks - it involves the relationship between religion and science. Your purpose right now is to help me decide on a topic, and tell me how to go about researching said topic because the amount of things I know about religion and science can fit into a thimble.

The topics:

- Lutheran beliefs on science and cosmology with relation to religion
- whether creationist or evolutionary should be taught in schools equally, even in a private Catholic school
- whether the discover of this new human species should negate our belief in God

Just wrote the religion test, it was nice and painful. Tomorrow's bioethics test will be the same. I want to quit school or take a year off next year, I hate this place. Get me out of here (please).

I want to go to a class looking like a bum, not wasting an hour getting ready for the petty horrible reason that I want to make some other chick feel low low. Because inevitably it backfires and I feel low low.

C'est tout.

...showing transformational symmetry...

Sitting in the Buttery, shaking my head. Shake, shake, shake, oh I was a silly little girl. Playing grown-up is exactly what it is, I'm still impressionable me at the core, still learning, still yearning for the things I read about in teen fiction romance novels. Except that it suddenly disappeared.

Not the concept, but the illusion, and the hold it had on me. The clouds lifted and I saw you for what you are, and as soon as I was able to do that...

Isn't that funny?

I think it's a little funny.

...ick...

Art can eat itself.

...you make me wanna la la (in the kitchen, on the floor)...

Congratulations to the men of the planet: many of your sins have been redeemed today by the actions of two individuals, namely "the boy" and Rene.

The boy sent a customer down to kids today, who was looking for some books for her grandkids. He told her "go downstairs to kids, and there's a beautiful woman with long dark hair and she'll help you find anything you need". At first I had no idea who she was talking about, and I said "did they hire someone new in kids? Why didn't they tell me?", and she laughed and said it was me he had been talking about and even described my earrings to her. So... then I melted. I kinda want him. Like, really really bad. And the leather jacket, and the near-dirty Italian name, and the motorcycle-gang hand grabs, and all of he.

THEN, walking home from work I passed by Rene's school and he saw me from the window and suddenly I hear all these pounding noises, and I look over, and he and his third-graders are all standing there banging on the glass, waving like idiots. For an ex, he's definately a sweetheart. Why couldn't the rest of them have been like him?

So, hatred of boys today: slim to none, but not quite none, because Janet's friend's boyfriend turned into a shmuck and should be shot.

Also, nothing reflects more on the disintegration of civilized society more than the state of our public bathrooms. Shudder.

Also, Condi? Swell.

...emergency exit only (alarm will ring)...

Do you believe in signs? This doesn't relate to anything else in this post, except I saw something random and it seemed too apt to be coincidence and I chose to take it as an omen. Maybe, could be.

Walking with Janet towards Robarts, our perpetual haunt, and after having exhausted all the Disney songs we know, we were singing John Mayer. "Wheel", it was, au moment ou l'on parle. Then discussing our favorite lines from his music. Her's: "There's fog inside the glass of my summer heart". Mine: "I'll never let your head hit the bed without my hand behind it".

Me: I love John Mayer. He has such a way of writing that is true to life, and really resonates with...
Janet: ...little emo girls?

Well... yes, if you put it that way.

Earlier, she's talking about a good friend of hers whose boyfriend just left her and immediately got together with someone new. She was so angry, Janet, telling me about it. I said: "Yeah, it sucks doesn't it. Guys like that should be shot". Yes, she agreed, they should. Well, we know this has always been my philosphy. Cheers to me.

...it comes on forever and ever...

Last night in the city, it wasn't my city. Couldn't have been, because suddenly you looked up and we had stars. Toronto doesn't usually, but last night we did; you looked up and it was so clear and gorgeous outside, you could count all the stars, and Orion was there, and his belt. They twinkled, too.

I finished reading the Alchemist. It was Joe's favorite book, and as I was reading it I imagined how many times he must have read it, and you could see the many ways he was influenced by this book. The importance of following your Personal Legend, the faith that the universe will conspire with you, that love is the Language of the World. I didn't cry, I think that would have been an insult. I just sighed, wished him well. Missed him for two seconds, yelled at him for three (because, in the end, I'm selfish and he did leave us, after all), then went to bed.

Further, Billy Corgan and I are clearly meant to be. His poems are a search for music. Also, he likes the work of Edna St. Vincent Millay, and says other poets hate him for it (you're not supposed to like her poems). I love her poems. For the record.

...clearly.

...the stage was set...

It appears that one can be direct and clear and forthcoming and beautiful and melty in an email - that it doesn't all have to be games and innuendo, a sinuous web that just gets thicker, replete with nuance and false humility. Words don't have to immerse you in confusion and anxiety, but can be so sweet in their clarity, and you see that's what you're waiting for, that's what you wanted in the first place.

It wasn't my email, just so you know.

But I read it, and I wanted it. I wanted to juxtapose someone else's name on that signature and pretend it was mine, that someone was crazy about me, that I made them weak in the knees with my laugh, that they wanted to get to know me better.

And it was so easy, it came so easily and without effort, and I think, maybe, that's how it should be.

I'm sitting in Robarts, and I had been trying to study. Really though, I was composing an email. Then I heard my name, and she told me to read the email on her computer. I almost didn't need to though, the way her face was lit up almost told me everything the email contained, wordlessly. But I read it, and I hugged her. Then I closed my email drafter and opened my text book.

Sometimes you just have to know when to call it quits.

And when to open the emergency brownie envelopped in saran-wrap in your purse.

...oh van gogh, what did you write...

My head hurts - an hour and a half of debate over the merited/unmerited death of Theo van Gogh in Holland. In a statement which astounded me, and left me irate and argumentative for quite long, my father said that he should have known better, and was asking for it, by virtue of having made a movie he knew would offend.

Which begs the question of where lines should be drawn in life and in art - do we stop sharing our opinions, creating art, saying things, being who we are out of fear that we may be killed by others who are offended by our view?

No individual who holds liberty or democracy or the right to freedom of expression as a value has any moral standing to commit an action the way it was done against this director. I don't care if you are offended - express it. Stand up and say "you pissed me off, I'm angry at your film". There is absolutely no justification for the assassination of an artist or anyone else in this way.

My dad then spoke of responsible art, and says that he had a duty to create something that wouldn't offend people's sensibilities. So, are we all to act in a way so as not to offend someone's sensibilities because otherwise it's our fault if we are killed? Does this mean Pim Fortuyn was asking for it by being a homosexual politician? If Jay Leno is murdered for his jokes about Yasser Arafat, will that be justified? (He says that he wasn't surprised about Fortuyn's death, and wouldn't be surprised if Leno faced the same).

Interestingly, my usually tame and liberal aunt (who is apparently a closet devout Muslim) was just as vocal with my religious-advocate father in this regard. It led to an interesting argument - my mother and I against my aunt and father; Shahin and Nazaneen speaking intermittently but fence-sitting.

I'm angry still, but mostly disappointed. After about 20 minutes, my father had lost any semblance of logical argument, and conclusions were not even following from premises faulty to begin with. For someone who has always held her dad in such high regard intellectually, this was a let down.

Maybe I'll just be glib and say "you can't teach an old dog new tricks", but really, I'm not impressed.

And still angry.

...play it again! (bis!)...

And the blue house has a piano.

Or nearly one, at any rate. It's a Roland keyboard which is completely touch-sensitive, 88 keys, with a pedal and music stand (that is static no less, so the pages stick to it and don't fall off) and sounds so nearly like a piano that it makes me excited just to look at it from across the room.

Because in the most insane weeks of my life, this is *exactly* the kind of distraction that I need.

Oooh child it is pretty. Loves it.

...damn it santa bear, just believe...

Because my friends are brilliant, I want you to watch THIS. It is the preview for The Holy Bob, the Vic sketch comedy review, featuring my buddies Dave (who actually made the video) and Rachel among others.

It is actually a masterpiece, a diamond in the roth, and such.

Cheers.

...you suffered for your sanity...

The thing about working in Indigo is that you are constantly faced with great books from authors like Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, who was born in the same year as me, making her 20 years old with half a dozen published novels. And they are good.

So essentially i feel useless and unaccomplished with a sense of doom hanging over me. Really, what have I ever done? What *will* I do? Ugh... I feel deplorable. And utterly pitiable, which is NOT me.

The thing about adorable Italian boys in leather jackets who are sweet and funny, and did the "motorcycle-gang" handshake with me earlier is that I love them... and damn this is such an inconvenient time. Oh, but you are a sweet.

Other things:

i) I hate hospitals. I hate hospitals. I hate hospitals. And also, Russian lab technicians who yelled at me, and were mean, and hurt. I'M the sick one, you jerk. Be nice.

ii) Chipped a tooth on something hard in my sandwich, then had to throw it out because there shouldn't have been anything hard in my sandwich, and so I was scared. This will teach me to buy sandwiches from that sketchy place in the Cumberland Terrace mall, under the subway.

iii) I TKO'd the Teen Fiction section at work. Had two dozen books to shelve, and they said it couldn't be done. Said there wasn't any room. Well, this girl got it done. Then, later, Morgan told me that I'm doing really well here and he's pleased. Which made me pleased. But honestly (and I'm only a teeeeny bit tooting my own horn here) I knew I was on the right track because I was talking to Manda earlier and she has been here two months and is still being shuffled around w/o a permanent posting, and I asked and was granted kids last week, in my second week. Also, all the managers and most of the staff already know my name. Also, the head manager and one of the others learned, and remembered, and asks about the charity that I also work for. All good signs. Yay me.

iv) There is a book called "Tony and Me" by Georg Bush (and yes, it's spelled that way), as told to Dr. Parsons (fictional name, I believe). It's hilarious. And obviously not by George Bush, but oh lord, do you guys have to read it, or what.

...what's right is right, but you ain't been right yet...

There is a really beautiful song in my head, and I want to share it with you. Ordinarily I would put the lyrics here, and you would find the song, and see what it means, and love it's beauty. But this song has no words, and it would be useless for me to go "da dadada da DA da da" because it would mean nothing to you. Which is a shame. Also, I don't know the title so that, too, is a shame.

If it wasn't for my work dresscode, I could wear my ballerina skirt today.

I dreamt of Nancy Sinatra last night. And of other things.

Because i can't give you the beautiful song, I will leave you with this:

These boots are made for walking
And that's just what they'll do
And one of these days
These boot will walk all over you

...real life. not funny...

I'm so fucking antisocial. I couldn't even hang out with my friends at a chill bar for an hour. Not even the presence of all my favorite people could make me get over this tired funk that just wanted me to crawl home, eat a salami sandwich, and go to bed.

I have an excuse though, I need my rest. Tomorrow is a long day seeing me working from 5pm to midnight. As if that wasn't enough, tomorrow is the all important Hospital Day. There's a party in my kidneys and we're all invited. Yay medical imaging!

This just in - Rob is 30. What the fuck? He looks 24! This is not going to be a good thing. By which I mean this will be no thing, because it isn't as if I have the time anyway. So I will say to him, depart little boy, except nicer. Because he is nice. I kinda want to set him up with one of my single friends who don't work so much and actually are able to have a social life. But I'm really the only one I know who's so flex about age. Shame, he's cute.

I'm watching a show where they are renovating a mansion, and there is a foreman, and then the foreman can decide to keep the mansion, or keep the money from the budget, or divide it with his team. And I don't understand the concept, or why anyone would join the team, because if I was the foreman, I would keep the money. And I'm sure everyone else would too.

What you were expecting something different? Humans are weak, and essentially horrible. Deal with it. Better yet, go cry about it.

...with exception of bottled water...

The dreams of war/violence/world ending are coming with increasing frequency. I never used to dream about these things. I dreamt of the hot guy down the hall last year, or turning into a teacup, or being back in elementary school but it was inside a mall.

Since August, I have had 4 post apocalyptic dreams, two in-the-middle of a war dreams, a nuclear bomb dream, and last night, a dream where I was in some kind of rebel group fighting North Korean communists. As a history student, we spend a lot of time discussing the causes of certain wars, why the decisions were made. The typical causes always pop up - nationalism, failure to communicate, search for resources. Then they make it sound as if the steps leading to war were all diligently calculated, and war was a known outcome. Do you seriously think anyone wanted or expected or planned for WWI to turn out the way it did, as violent and as long and as deadly? No, events spiralled out of control, one bad decision led to another, and suddenly it's four years later and millions of people are dead.

Imagine that kind of thing happening today, with all the advanced weapons and technology at our disposal.

The other night I dreamt that Bush got impatient and dropped a nuclear bomb on Tehran. And it started from there, and poof we were all dead.

I seriously think someone needs to break things down for world leaders (cough cough... Bush) who are going around this way and that starting wars at a whim. You start wars, and someone is going to fight back a little more than you thought they would and poof. Maybe if we use small words like that it'll sink in...

Ack - I want a solution. I want this post to have been boom boom boom, 1, 2, 3, this is how we are going to fix the world, and I am frustrated because I don't know how. Instead, it's just laying it out there: I do worry about these things, war is a reality and an inevitability, and poof, we will all be dead. Charming, huh?

...vocea!...

The only reason I justify taking an hour and a half break from studying bioethics tonight is because

the melding of colours
spirals
crosses
random images and
bright unfoldings
on a wooden canvas

instilled in me a sensation of freedom and calm which cleared my mind and amounted to a much needed reprieve.

Art is therapy children.

Also, I need more paint.

...now in paperback for the first time...

i) I spend a lot of time walking these days - between classes, to work, to friends places, to the library. When I walk, I think. When I think, I plan. This week I have a lot to plan. Among other things, planning of a fundraiser, my personal attempt. Collectively, we have around 9 months to raise $300,000, and I have never been more motivated to do something in my life.

My personal fundraiser is going to take the form of a vow of silence, significant for two reasons. Important because it was like Joe's thing, you know? The vow of silences. Important also because as a fairly... vocal person, it will be interesting for me to do two weeks of silence. That's right, I mean silence. This will also mean no blogging during that time, as that is a form of communication as well.

I am going to be speaking to my work manager as well, to see if there is anyway they can support me in this. I will be asking them for one of two things: to either donate one day's profit to this fundraiser, or to match what I raise in pledges.

This will all be going to the legacy, by the way, which is the scholarship fund for youth who want to travel and do development work and cannot afford to do so.

ii) We had an argument just now in my house about the Cat in the Hat of all things. About whether it is indeed a cat, or not. Daniel says not, and asks "Is the Jack in the Box always a Jack? Maybe it's a Fred". Ashley says yes, otherwise it wouldn't be a Cat in the hat, but a something-else. Somehow, the final conclusion before the resting of the defense was that Dr. Seuss intended with the Cat in the Hat to teach us not to make arbitrary designations because doing so leads to communism.

It's okay, I was confused too.

iii) My life is one big game of Broken Telephone, but eventually I got the message that Alex wanted to talk, and so I tried to find his number and couldn't, and then tried to email him and I hope he gets it, and otherwise I will show up at lower houses tomorrow, and that will be that. Because I too want to talk, and chill, but don't want to be back in the office because that's too much of the same and I need small doses. But Alex will be just lovely.

iv) The War-Child concert is on Saturday, and I will finish studying before then and I will be there. For War Child, and for Matthew, and for me. Oui?

...nothing of consequence...

People tell you exactly what they are, it's up to you to believe them

Written by Maya Angelou, brought to my attention by Farnam, I've been thinking about this today.

The reason I think so many women have trouble believing the guys who admit to being slime, is because in our (perverse) sense of logic, it seems completely irrational for someone to admit coldly to being a jerk, accepting this of themselves. I would think you would want to better yourself, I would think you'd want to project the best possible image of yourself.

What we need to understand, I think, is that men are just inherently lazy, and just don't want to put in that effort. I mean, if you can find someone who's going to accept you like you are, and not ask any more from you, and not expect anything more from you, then what have you got to make the effort for? And you can try to explain WHY they should make the effort, how anything less would be so unsatisfying, but really when has a man EVER listened to a woman anyways?

This comes out of JK of course, and the fact that she somehow entered my thoughts today, and I remember someone explaining the attraction to me once, saying how she's square and low maintenance, and that's good because he doesn't have to do anything. And then I thought of three other guys and their ditto girls, and it made me shake my head because they are all dumb, and so am I.

Doesn't that depress you? Knowing guys are like that? See but that brings me to women's second mistake (the first being denial) - we think that all guys are like that, which is why we don't even bat an eyelash at guys like that. We consistently fall into the same trap, but it so completely doesn't have to be that way.

And if that wasn't enough, let's talk about how completely irrational it is that a guy will show up and, over the period of say 4 months, will be consistently trying to impress you, and trying to date you, and you keep brushing him off. And really you don't have a logical explanation, or really any explanation, for it but you keep doing it. So essentially, most women are dumb in so many ways. And by most I mean... me.

...i'm not your bitch...

Last night, I bought dinner off a truck. Chicken fried rice outside of Sid Smith Hall, yeah baby. I got it into my head that since it was out of a truck, it must be swimming in bacteria, so to counteract that, I doused it in soy sauce, figuring the salt would kill any germs around. It tasted like shit, but hey, I'm alive this morning so maybe my theory worked.

It occurs to me that with my currently insane schedule which keeps me out of the house from 9am to around midnight or 1am every day, this sort of haphazard meal will become more frequent. Oh, joy.

In my schedule, under December 17 (the day after my last exam): Out of trees with Rachel.

Someone asked me yesterday why I'm so anti-boyfriend, and dealing with all the non-commits, and brushing off the want-to-stick-arounds - because darlings, this is not the year of the boyfriend, it is the year of the sloot (which I am adopting from Meliss, because really it's hers). Relationships are more trouble than they're worth. I mean honestly, non-relationships are more trouble than they're worth, so, you know?

But naturally, if the fellow with the "interesting footwear", as Swig referred to him, were suddenly to show up on my doorstep available and with a red bow, then we would throw away all this non-commit business, because, yes. He is special. And even his best friend, who is also mine, wants us to get together (her exact words: you should run away together!) so that's gotta mean something.

Guess where I am? Robarts baby. Me and Robarts Library, we're going to have a very close and personal relationship for the next few weeks. We'll be like *this*. BFFAEAEAE :)

...you have to be kidding me...

Next week: two midterms and an entire submission of coursework
The week after that: a term paper and an oral presentation
The week after that: one midterm and compulsive cramming for Hell Week
Hell Week (Dec. 5): two term papers, two midterms, and one oral presentation. Within the first three days of the week (Mon-Wed).

Would you mind if I just took a moment to kill myself right about now? Pretty please?

HOW I ask you, HOW will this get done. I want to cry.

...it's about that time, eh chaps?...

From an article on the BBC news website - Colombian president Uribe "pledged to bring the guerrilla groups to the peace table at gun-point or defeat them altogether".

Because *that* isn't the most paradoxical statement I have ever heard. Like those idiots who talk about going to war to bring peace.

Right-o, you guys definately have the right idea (so much dripping of sarcasm).

...life goes easy on me...

There was a scientific study which studied the toxicity of certain substances by feeding them to spiders and then drawing conclusions based on the appearance of their webs. The substances studied included nicotine, alcohol, caffeine, marijuana, LSD, and speed.

The spiders fed caffeine had webs with abstract images and no determinable pattern of any kind, scattered, frighteningly so. The spiders who consumed marijuana had relatively normal webs, but it appeared that they had lost interest half way through.

So, theoretically, if you are going to make a projection onto my life based on the results of this study, I will conduct myself in an abstract manner with no discernable pattern, and never get anything done.

Really, nothing I didn't already know.

...this stands to reason...

i) Being upset that the boy brought the girl to the celebration is really rather petty. Completely justified (strangers do NOT belong in family events, and Joe's memorial is not a time to "socialize", as the girl said), but still petty.

ii) The past week I spent a lot of time watching Jordan. Just watching, thinking. Do you understand that I have seen him more in the past two weeks than in the past two years? If he thinks he's slipping away again, he has another thing coming. I'm in that place right now where none of my people gets away, for any reason. I'm hanging on to all of you for a good while yet, please and thank you.

iii) I'm pulling the avoidance shtick. The same "you're making me uncomfortable/feel like an idiot/staying away now" avoidance shtick that I called AM on. And now I'm doing it. But damn, I can see now why he did it, it just makes everything so much EASIER.

iv) Really don't know why I'm still sitting at my computer, I have to get to work. And, also - to coffee, which is across the street from work. Mmmmm heaven.

v) There are some poets, I think, who are just determined to break my heart.

a false reality
where i loved and was loved
i woke up crying

...i was learning art from a blind man...

As the hardest week of my life draws to a close, I want to have one last post reminiscing Joe before I start living in his example and tangibly maintaining his legacy in that way. For this post, I am going to share with you excerpts from two different emails from him, and the lessons I personally take from them.

There will be a stranger that passes you and does something... it will catch your attention... what they do will not be what sets them apart, but rather how they do every one of their somethings. Please figure out what that is so you can share it with me. I am trying to learn something.

I'm waiting for your stories,
Peace,
Love,
Joe.

For the most part, people in this world are very similar. We live the same, love the same, have many of the same values and goals and intentions - the difference lies in how we conduct ourselves, the small differences that make us unique, the strength with which we stick to our guns. Joe talked about strangers in his email, but this uniqueness of action and motivation is something I see in all of my friends, everyday. In Martha, who never backs down from her philosophies, for Kristen who is advanced beyond her time, Meliss who is so tough tough tough you can't mess with her but so sweet you're afraid someone will, Tara who is beautiful by the small touches and originality she employs instead of name-brand sheeping.

I feel so grateful and blessed for my beautiful friends, from whose small distinctions I can learn and grow. You are all so special to me.

Being alive is being surrounded by people you love. Being alive is getting caught up in the rain and dancing outside, not moping and waiting for it to end. Being alive is being miserable but appreciating that you feel. Being alive is being curious, and not worrying about that damn cat. Being alive is not labelling things because what can be labelled can be dismissed. Being alive is being cliche sometimes.

To live is to suffer - an eastern philosophy precept.
To suffer brings learning - a common realization.
To learn is to grow - this stands to reason.
To grow is to be filled with life - this also stands to reason.
To be filled with life is to love - at least, this is what many people say.
To love is to live - I can't prove it, I've only felt it.

I love you all.

I am determined to be alive. For me, being alive will entail not settling for second best; not regretting that someone else will choose to do so; being alive will mean squeezing every last drop out of every moment, believing that love and hope do exist and are worth aspiring to, that they are not myths; being alive will mean being true, and more importantly, acting true.

Tonight I feel as if I finally said goodbye to Joe. As the chants and boom chicka booms and "what's LEV3L" raps were going on, I was sitting in a corner of the quiet room, candles and incense lit around me, reading his lyrics and words, going through the scrapbook and the last 4 years. Totally oblivious to the noise coming over from the other end of the hall, I sat and read and remembered and promised. I felt at peace, and I felt calm.

There were so many things I wanted to say to Joe:

I'm sorry we fought that one time.
I wish I had talked to you more about faith.
I love your devotion to your family.
You are my brother.

After spending that quiet time with myself, I felt more secure in that somehow (maybe because he's just smart and perceptive like that), Joe would know all this. I'm sure he does. And when he sees all of us moving from this day, willing ourselves to live his message and his passion through our actions and promising to do so because it matters more than anything else we've ever done, I'm sure he'll start laughing his ass off thinking "suckers, I'm still getting you to do things my way".

"Remember setting the turtle free?
I love you, be well."

...my shaving razor's cold, and it stings...

Once upon a time Farnam promised me ground troops and a military strike and angry East Coast froshers. I curtailed her at the time, tempered her with my diplomatic finesse, and the like. But tonight I'm calling congress into session and petitioning a full-scale operation, with me as chief commanding officer. Don't I look menacing in my pj's y'all?

My roommate is angry. She's generally a calm sort of girl, my Janet, but tonight she is angry on my behalf and that is nice because I'm not angry, really so much as, I don't know. Something else. And, actually, the timing is impeccably convenient because the house is full of liberal Americans tonight with enough pent-up anger over the election to fight battles in my honour, and yada, and yada. I should let them have at it. Mm hmm.

Also, it's the middle of the night and I'm losing coherence.

Also, this whole concept is ridiculous. There will be no military strike, no fallout. It's as completely asinine as Vanuatu taking offense at Survivor corrupting their island, getting angry and waging war on the USA. Like that's ever going to happen. Seriously now. First off, Vanuatu should have known better, and really has no one to blame. More likely, Vanuatu will sit around shouting rote angry words in pidgin English and not really doing anything about it, because really what could they do? See what I mean? The best I can do is eat a copious amount of chocolate covered raspberries and tally another mark, file under "mistakes made/things learned", and forget it long enough to get through a tomorrow filled with 600 grieving kids.

What are the chances of me getting any sleep tonight, do you think? With the noise and the cooking and the people and the lights and the thoughts in this place right now?

Ssshhhh... don't tell Lloyd it turns out he was right. I'll never be able to deal with the ego. You can only take so many "I told you so's" and I already have, let's see, three huge ones coming at me from Farnam, Janet and Rachel respectively. Lizzy won't say "I told you so". She knows better. She'll just get me drunk and let me run rampant with an as-yet-undetermined musician type. You know the kind - "use once, never call" just for kicks walker types. Much healthier, I think. 'Specially the drunk part.

Yeah, you're right. Sleep tonight is probably a not-happening. Might as well shower now and get pretty, get everything ready for tomorrow and finish "The Alchemist". Because when it comes down to it, shit still has to get done.

(ps: "shit has to get done" = the story of my life. burnout is going to hit me in the biggest way, good lord)

...in the corner, out of the grip...

Everyone had the same bewildering thought after yesterday - you are never again going to experience a more beautiful, more touching, more unique funeral than the one we had for Joe yesterday morning. We sang, and we laughed, and we cried, and we rapped, and we chanted, and we loved.

The reception following was held in the most fitting yet most ironic of places - on the 53rd floor of the TD building, in a sparse, simple room with a 360 degree view overlooking the city... right in the heart of corporate Toronto.

It was a draining but necessary experience. I was so empty and exhausted afterwords that I just wanted to sleep and sleep. Instead, I went back to the office, and we all went out to dinner and it was a brilliantly fun night, full of memories and laughter. Bridget showed up (almost as if by magic!) and I was so happy to see her Halifax self, that I could have cried had I not cried everything else out of me that past few days. Jordan and Alex conversed back and forth in suburban south-east American accents and had us all laughing on the floor. Late night, Cheryl and I headed to a Caribbean restaurant with Lloyd where there was more talking, life lessons and the like. And I was the coolest kid on the block all night in Russ's huge coat (Robin had taken mine you see), and really, it was hot.

This is all you'll hear from me until Monday I believe - tonight I am being invaded by Yanks. Abby came this morning from NY, and before the end of the night I will have my Kerry, Colleen and Kelly-O. And all of them staying here in the playboy mansion :)

To all the friends and family I have neglected this past week - I love you and I'm sorry. You will all get phone calls/emails/visits today or tomorrow or the next, and I will tell you how much I love you, and you will say "you dumb suck... we love you too". And then I will be happy. Er.

...i think they think i must be out of touch...

I'm sitting in Janet's room staring at her music stand which currently holds a picture of Bob Marley. Nogah's here on this bed, and it's odd because she is here but oh, I'm so glad to see her. I feel like I've been rewinded back two years to a time when we were all together.

As we speak, Janet is reading us emails written to her this week by someone who is increasing in importance to her; there's something about her emails that ring familiar with me, and I am hoping this turns out well for her. Which naturally just means that I want it to work well for me too, mifami chi migam?

Lightning Crashes, by Live. Today's soundtrack.

I have this image in my head of the rest of the world running around fast, fast in quick-time, and I'm still, bewildered in the center. Inside I am so angry, not only because of this, but because I can't understand why I seem to be the only one who understands how significant this is. I wake up in the morning and think maybe I can go to class today, and I get there and everyone is immersed in their work and their notes and their lives, and they don't have a clue. And so I leave, and so... I leave.

I'm having a lot of trouble getting back into my head and into the swing of things. It's very frustrating, and very debilitating, and I am not sure exactly how to proceed. I feel so selfish. I want to do as Craig says, as Russ says - that he's having a ball, that he's thinking we're all idiots for being so lost, but I concentrate only on how empty things are now, and having all these completely unproductive thoughts that I can't stop.

For what it's worth,
It was worth all the while.

It's something unpredictable
That in the end was right
I hope you had the time of your life...

Now we're talking of the old hands, of updates on everyone, filling Nogah in.

"And guess what", Janet said, "Jason is graduating this year!"
"No he's not, Jason's 12", tossed back Nogah.

Oh boy, time goes by so fast. Look how much we've grown up, how much time has gone.

...can you handle this?...

When Joe would travel, he would email us updates and stories from where he was, the people he was meeting, what he was doing, what more he wished he could do, and what he was feeling. The following is from an email he sent out last Christmas when he was volunteering in India.

The question: “Can you handle this?”

It was an honest question, not a challenge.

A German doctor named Andy ran around. One of the patients had soiled himself. Another patient wet the bed. People served food. People emptied bed pans. The plastic gloves were missing.

“I only have 10 hands, can somebody take this?” Andy handed someone a blanket. Who knows why it needed to go to the laundry.

An American named John oriented me to Mother Theresa’s Home for the Destitute and Dying in Calcutta. He warned me in passing: “By the way, the word for ‘crap’ here is ‘shit’. It’s not because people are swearing, they just say ‘shit’. That’s the word: ‘shit’. And there’s a lot of ‘shit’ here.” He poured water on a soiled toilet seat as he said this. He continued, “When I got here, I was shocked when I heard the nuns say ‘shit’. So don’t be surprised if you hear them – they say it the most here.”

Just a few minutes later John helped change one of the patients.

Hans, an elderly German volunteer told me to put on gloves and get a pair for him.

This was all going on ER room style. I didn’t have time to think.

As I handed him the gloves he asked me to pull out the sheet from under the patient that John was holding up.

I did and stared to bunch it to make it easier to carry.

As my hand grabbed more of the sheet my hand felt heat. I froze.

Hans looked up at me, shocked and worried. He asked the question: “Oh… Can you handle this?”

I looked down at the now reeking, stained sheet. I could hardly bear the sight of my hand.

Part of me actually wanted to lie. Part of me wanted to say ‘no’.

In that moment I searched the room with my eyes.

I looked at Andy, who had come to India to volunteer for 3 months. He had forgotten to leave. There he was, 14 years later, still going strong. James, a volunteer from Scotland, who was 24 years-old came to India at age 21 and did not leave. He continues to help in the ward to this day. John, the American, had brought a group of friends to volunteer. He stood there, casually waiting for me to respond as he looked to see what his friends were doing.

Hans had this genuine look of concern on his face. He later told me that it took him 3 months to muster up the courage to change a soiled sheet. He glanced around the room to anticipate who would need attention next.

Volunteers from all over the world, and India, had come to help in any way they could.

I looked at the man who John was still holding up. He had been in an accident. A car had hit him. He also had TB. He looked me in eyes and smiled. He was not ashamed. His face was one lending support. No one is to blame for all the help that we need. We all need help.

I nodded.

I smiled.

I grabbed the rest of the sheets and walked to the laundry.

With a slight sense of urgency I patiently searched for a sink in which to wash my gloved hands. As the soap and water did its job, I laughed at myself.

“We” are all in this together. We are not above helping anyone. We simply cannot afford to be.

But for there to be a ‘We’ in this, the ‘Me’ in all of us must commit. We must come together.

There are many more stains to wash off this tapestry we call humanity. So much need.

There is so much comfort and joy that can come from us moving from Me to We.

Peace,
Love,
Joe

...i don't know how i would live with myself...

I know your name
I know your skin
I know how these things begin...

I can't sleep. Someone either fix this, or take advantage of it. You know?

The thing with the election is that it disappointed me. But it did not surprise me. The Americans want someone I think who can take care of them, and Dubya gives that impression. But his way of taking care of them, is essentially "taking care" of the rest of us.

Democracy is a joke. They should make me queen. I promise, I would make everything better.