Twice

Don't talk to the wood. The wood is carved and stained. It can't listen to you anymore no matter how much you want it to. It doesn't understand.

Don't talk to the universe. The universe says its too busy. It can't process you and entertain your meager thoughts when it has to process the stars, and light algorithms.

Your shelf left you three weeks ago. You can't put anything on it anymore because it decided it had its own stories to bind and carry between its rows.

Don't even approach the stone. You're still wiping the blood off your cheek from the last time you tried.

Talking to the grass might work, but only one out of every hundred talk back to you. Even then, the grass is busy and sways about in a way you'll never be able to.

The guitar never did listen when you said a thing to it. It threw notes and chords down your throat and couldn't grasp much after the letter G. It still thinks you're someone you're not.

You could talk to the courtyard. Occasionally the interested come by and leave powdered whispers in your ears. They pose and fix their hair too much to really empathize though.

You can talk to the box. The box listens and sometimes gives good advice back. But, it only opens once every two weeks. When it shuts its lid, its like it doesn't exist.

You should stop talking to binary code. It has a thousand other things to do than to answer your queries and entertain your thoughts. It's just as busy as you are. You should apologize to it for burdening it with so much.

What about the birds? The doves and the bluejay? They are around enough, but they have wings and you do not. You can't leave like they can. You aren't free like they are. You don't know what the wind feels like on your back above the trees.

You talk to lines the most. You feel safe even though you know its only arbitrary. You feel cozy and entrapped at the same time. No one really likes the lines even if they don't say it. You can guess that from the way they talk about them. Straight and curved. You talk and talk and talk to them even though its not good for you.

You make more lines with the lines and nobody likes lines so you try to build them into the cartoon version of your life. Make them have a purpose. Make them form your shapes on the storybook pages.

You're successful for the most part. Sometimes you will want to tell the universe, or the wood. You'll hint to the grass, the box, and birds. You might slip a word to the binary code, your shelf, and the courtyard. Never the guitar or stone. And you'll feel really lonely, except you'll have the lines. There can be as many of them as your like. They all tell you to get rid of the lines. The ones that know you two are friends. The lines are a bad influence. They aren't healthy and are deceptive and only make drawings visible when there's so much more behind the paper.

But how can you give them up? They are so clear. They listen. You know what they do. They will always have time for you. They will always be there to help you explain your world. You've never known of anything else.

Breathe.

Concert.

Heart.

Breathing. Breathing. Breathing.

Stop.

Breathing. Breathing. Breathing.

Outside.

Go.

Heart.

Chest.

Walk. Walk. Walk.

Walk. Walk. Walk.

Sit. Slump.

Ground. Wet.

Hug. Legs.

Numb.

Breathe. Shaky.

Stay?

Four days. Four days. Four days.

Healing. This is healing.

Feels like sickness.

How much longer?

Go.

Back.

Worry.

Say.

Sorry.

Shake.

Inside.

Breathe. Breathe, Breathe.

Inside.

Numb.

Quiet.

Over.

Walking.

People.

Silent.

Now what?

Good day

Friday was a good day.

That night I had a strange dream where I almost confessed my desires to a man in a church who was talking to me with a microphone while everyone else watched. I broke open a glass window between the desert world and the green grass, and I went in search of pink and blue plastic children's toys. My lanky, short-haired, androgynous companion and I got chased by armed guards. They were surrounding a bag scanning conveyor belt that was in the grass and lead nowhere. We were also chased by a crazy man with long hair who told us that he had been in our position before. As we ran up a big green grassy hill as the sun was setting and making everything golden, we saw the shadow of a large bird on the ground. The crazy man told us not to run. We didn't anymore, and we got picked up by these eagles and carried to the top of the hill safely.

The days after dreams are either unsettling or perfect.

I spoke in all of my classes. I was listening to Ani DiFranco the night before, and she said that silence fosters violence and oppression, and I realized that no matter how afraid I am of speaking in class, I have to make myself heard.

I then picked up a light kit and a camera and headed to My Dog Joe where I met John after he had lunch with his mother. It was busy there, and I caught glances of people I knew, and people I would like to know. In particular there was this breath stopping body that I couldn't stop staring at. I think I am very obvious in that way, or I feel obvious but am not really at all.

John's mom drove me to his apartment. I was very grateful because it was snowing and I had heavy things to carry. We got to his apartment, and we sat on his bed and talked and laughed. Then we took photos that I ended up liking. Photos for our number one english fan. We went outside and it was snowing, and I filmed him doing random things for the project of mine that he was in. We laughed, uploaded photos, and talked about little books, and how I was really good at mail.

I carried my heavy things down to the bus stop, and I didn't even mind. It was snowing in big beautiful clumps, and I always feel more beautiful when it snows. I didn't even care that my sleeve got soaked when I was trying to keep the snow from peeking into the light kit box. I got off of the bus, and met my mom and my aunt at a restaurant for dinner. It was a random chance that they would be there when I was coming home. We got salads and sandwiches and I showed them my favourite photos from the day.

I got home, and I got a beautiful package from Texas, and one from the UK. One from a friend, the other a moleskine journal round robin that I have to send out within the next week. You fill up 1/4 of the book and then pass it on. This is the first book I've gotten from someone, I feel like I sent mine ages ago, but I was glad to get this one.

Carly's luggage came today, and in the missing bag was a dress that she bought for me. It fits, but it shows off my chest in a way that I'm not really comfortable with. I kept making jokes and posing as the pin-up librarian for my aunt, sister and mum.

To Sobeys Carly and I went for some chic peas for the chili. I bought some food for work tomorrow, and some crispers for the hockey game. We talked to the cashier for about ten minutes. She seemed really nice, and was maybe glad for a chat with someone close to her age.

We went home and watched hockey and speed skating. I feel like an Olympic nerd, but I was emotionally invested in every second of the game and races tonight. It felt weird to be so emotionally invested in something. Then, I sat in my bed and looked through this girl's photos online from the beginning of her 365 project, and I fell in love a bit with them and her. The first person she fell in love with had the same name as mine, and she used to have a bike named Sadie B after Sadie Benning who I secretly want to find and interview and show her all my videos.

Now I am in bed and I am going to go to bed soon. I feel silly for writing such average things, but I want to remember today because it was the day I had no ghosts. The third day is usually the hardest day to get through, and it was great. Tomorrow will be day four, and we will see what happens. I can see that I am healing in small ways, and meaningful ones.

Tomorrow is dressing up, work, and reading. Lots of coffee. A show. Photos, people watching, and being passive aggressive. More coffee, and maybe a green couch. Who knows?

I feel genuinely good for the first time in months.

I only regret that I did not take any pictures of the snow, but the snow will still be here tomorrow.

Only a chance.

They say once you stop for good

You only have a chance of really stopping for good.

That no matter how many people you tell

No matter how much you spew and spew this all out,

It's only a chance.

Uncertainties.

I want to say I'll stop forever.

That I'll take something for this,

And it'll all be better.

"What are you doing?"

"She's sleeping"

"I'm writing"

Is that a valid thing to be doing at this hour? I don't know.

It's only just before 2:00am.

I want it all to be gone.

Over.

But how many words is it going to take?

How many words for a chance?

***

And I wonder why as of late I've been less careful with everything. Less careful in some regards of my life. It's like I don't care anymore about it. That I'm just going to tell everyone what this exists and what it means to me. I don't know. I do things that shock me, and then with a sentence I can pretend that it was about someone I should have gotten rid of a long time ago. Someone I should have never broken.

I understand that all of the things that I do are my things and my fault. My choices, my mistakes. Even right now in my living room in an open zipper are things that would have me out of this house tonight if they were met with eyes other than my own. I used to be so careful. I used to destroy it all, and pretend it never happened. Deny, deny, deny. This is so much bigger than it feels. Sometimes I like to think that its not really important. That it doesn't matter what I do because it's my body, not theirs.

It's only bad because somebody somewhere decided what normal was and wasn't. I don't like that word normal, but let's say socially acceptable. Sure. I agree with myself on that one. Not that it matters if anyone else does. I'll leave that one to the ghosts. They decided that A and B and C and D were right proper things to do. E and F were dandy if done in moderation. G and H and I and J weren't terrible, but good people didn't do those things. Somewhere, when they skipped to exhibit me, they picked the thing that I happened to fall for and told me it wasn't right in the first place.

It's wrong. It's immoral. It's something I should be ashamed of. I know that being caught, really caught, is like being hung. I think I would have to leave here, and go away for a bit, possibly forever. Really, nothing would change, but everyone would become the truer versions of themselves. I really have to grab my bag from the room.

***

I have these moments of intense passion, intense self-direction, care, and planning. It's like in that moment I know what I'm going to do, how this is all going to end up, and its always better. It's always something better than where I am now.

Then there comes these terrible instances of the exact opposite. I feel like I'm swallowing water until my lungs are so full of it all that I want to do is stop breathing even if just for a second because I know I'm only breathing water. It's some sick cycle that you watch yourself repeat over and over and over again. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

There's the in between that I'm least fond of. Neither here nor there, up or down. Middleness. Sameness. Nothingness. The undercurrents of sadness and blank. And I guess everyone experiences all of these things in different intensities. We're happy, sad, and inbetween. I feel like I fall out of what I should feel. I don't think its a big deal though. Then again, maybe its a bigger deal than I think.

I can't think anymore.

Goodnight ghosts.

365 days of narcissism

Another new project.

I can't seem to stop them from coming.

I need them. I need their arbitrary rules.

A photo a day of me,

Taken in photobooth.

Must be in black and white.

Must write one thing I love about myself.

A photo a day of things.

A note dropped every day.

The brown box project.

Take them all! Photo project.

The week that I... project.

I always want to rope someone in.

To make them try on a crazy idea with me.

But I always only rope in myself.

I love my eyes.

I love my hair.

I love my ability to write.

I love my shoulders.

I love my sense of humor.

I love?

It's been five days and I'm already running out of things to love.

Self-perception is bizzarre.

I was looking through the photos that I took when I went away. I have a select number that I've put online, gotten printed, and kept. I stumbled across the ones that didn't make the cut, and I was shocked. These were the ones that I didn't like. The ones that were "bad".

I can't.

I started talking to myself. I started telling myself that I can do this. I can do this thing. This hard thing. This real thing. I can do this. I'm already trying to determine wins and losses and its been the first day. I know I shouldn't care so much because its only the first day.

I saw the stuffing come out of the hole on her thigh. Except she was not a doll, she was a human so it was human things, not doll things coming out. And its incredibly sad when someone thinks that is ok.

And I think of all the things that I think are ok and aren't. I become quiet. I know that if people were to see the stuffing coming out of me, they would think the same thing, and maybe not bite their lips and move onto the next thing. They would try to fix my thing, and I like my thing sometimes, even though I'm trying to fix it too.

I just have to get through this next day and a half. This next day and a half. Day and a half. And there has been no time to stop and breathe. I've been wandering the streets past midnight singing songs into the black foggy sky. I feel so sick. Is this what healing is supposed to be like? Is this what I'm supposed to feel like when one suddenly decides to change everything?

I was sitting on the bus after living like I had no home for three days. Going home. I thought about the most random things, but mostly it bothered me that nobody wanted to sit next to me on the bus. People would stand and stand and stand. There was a woman with a red coat and short brown hair with green rimmed glasses who was going to sit next to me. Then the girl in front of me moved her bag, and she looked relieved and sat down beside her.

And I'm not a terrible person, and maybe they just didn't notice there was an empty seat beside me. But I often wonder if my life is like that. All the times that no one sits next to me, all the times that I'm unapproachable.

I saw that guy in the coffee shop that I've seen now a hundred times. We keep moving in the same circles. The same places, the same people. And I said nothing to him. I don't think he would have sat next to me on the bus, but this was before I got on the bus. Everything feels like its out of order and I can't really concentrate on the now.

And I've been told that all of this is good for me. All of this thinking about things is good especially if you knew what was in my pocket right now. All of this is good things, but it doesn't help me write my paper any better, or read the hundreds of things I was supposed to read but didn't. Not to mention all of the living I haven't done this week. But this is better than that. This is better than my stuffing. It's better than breaking down into my molecules that can't function.

I remember reading a Douglas Coupland book called Life After God, and he said that you don't really feel things as intensely when you grow up. So all of this might not come out as easily as it does when I grow up and get old. When I get wrinkles, and never want to go outside. Evidently I've chosen to grow up. I've chosen this path over the one I had three days ago which was stuck in the forever of now like a photograph is stuck in the same place even though the things around it changed. I wanted to be a photograph, and now I want to be a movie. I want to be a story that changes. A trilogy. But I'm not sure about growing up. I don't know what its going to mean about anything. What it's going to mean to me.

I have great expectations for these next ten years. The last ten years weren't so fantastic. I mean I can't complain. I wasn't dying of AIDs. I didn't get pregnant at sixteen. I didn't have my roof blown off, bugs crawling in my eyes, and I wasn't shaking in fear at night of some big man coming to rape me, kill me, and steal me from my family. It wasn't one of those decades that make you sigh, and smile as a joyful tear rolls down your cheek.

Douglas says that we're supposed to feel intensely when we're young. It's part of being young. It's something that we'll miss when we're thirty-five, forty-seven, fifty-nine, and who knows how much longer people live these days. As silly as this sounds, I don't think I want to be so infinite as that. I don't think that I want to be remembered as this wasting body, this wasting mind. Inevitably if one's aware of the fact, they won't change in the way that they don't want to change.

Yet, I think of all the times that I've wanted to do something, or not wanted to do something. I remember the time I drew a line, build a wall, and told myself that I would never do that because its disgraceful, terrible and morally morally morally wrong. We crumble in seconds when it comes down to it. I did it. I still do it. I still want to do it. And I will do it again. It's like there was nothing there.

I watch the half hours disappear. I think to myself, I will do this at two thirty. Then when its two twenty nine, I say that I will do it at three. Then three thirty. Until it's midnight pushing two am, and I've still not done what I'm supposed to do. I'm afraid that if I actually do it, I might dissolve into nothing. I'll tremble and push and push and push my lungs to breathe normally.

Now I'm just writing so that I don't do something I'll regret, while regretting this because I can't do the thing that I'm supposed to. Seriously. This is no better than talking to myself except that when I do this no one actually hears it. I've long given up on the fact that people read the things I write. I used to care, and tiptoe around with my hand rested on my chin and wonder what to say, and what they think, or what he thinks or she thinks.

You live with the fact that you are nobody. That you are talking to yourself, and that you have been and will be for most of your life. I could make this palatable. I could chop it down to less than five hundred words, and gush over something pretty that I found in an online store. It's just not who I am, and I really don't care in the long run. I don't want to give things away. I don't want to present tidy opinions and feature articles about other blogs and interesting people I have found.

I want to spill the thoughts out of my head as they happen to me because if I don't get rid of them they will make me worse in the ways one doesn't want to be worse. Does one ever want to be worse in any way? Sometimes I go to come here and say something, and I can't say a single thing. I can't write down anything at all, and I wonder why. I wonder why I can't think of what to say, or say it in the way that I want. I hit delete, delete, delete, and send it to the place where things that were never meant to be go.

Since I am thinking about everything right now, I guess I could think about love. I often do think about it. I have these strange dreams at night. I forget them in the morning. I often think that dreaming is like what being in love would be like. You're enchanted, then you wake up and forget why you were so pulled into someone. Because they really suck compared to this person that you had built up in your head.

One of the things I thought about on the bus was that I would try to make my life more of an experiment than it had been. Yesterday when I was listening to people talk and talk and talk about all those things, one of them talked about how his life was an experience of living. He would pick something to do, and then live his life through that lense, through that framework. He spent a month not lying to anyone. Radical honesty. I really like the word radical. I've heard it used as an adjective before. Radical self-love. It sounds interesting, and immediately cooler than words on almost equal footing like intense, extreme, or even revolutionary. Although, I do like the word revolutionary.

I thought that I could try being radical with something for a week, and see how it goes. I made a little list in my head of things I could try, but I'm not sure if I ever will. Maybe its part of my new life changing moment. That sounds so cliche they way I said it. Like it was something that Oprah would say on one of her shows and the audience would clap for it. I would say turning points, but then it would sound like some sporting event. I don't much care for sports anyways.

I'm having a really hard time with being here right now. Being here in the moment as well as actually being here being here. Radical, radical. Be radically different. I just can't concentrate on this stupid paper. And I don't know why I can't. I really don't know why. I just have to get the feelings out I thought.

Just write them out as they happen and then once they're all gone I can figure it all out. But there's no way to write them all out, because there's so much of it. All of the things that I never tell anyone, I couldn't possibly write them out here. I think that my hands would fall off and my joints would need surgery before I got a tenth of it out here. Do I feel better in writing all of this? I don't know. I'm watching the time pass, and all I can think of is how stupid I've been in not doing my assignments.

Ok. I can't write anymore. I'm just going to lie and stare at the ceiling and be too melodramatic for words.

It is

There are parts of myself that I have given too much to over these past few days. Parts of myself that I have entertained. The things and stories that you don't tell anyone because of how they would be perceived.

I talked to the woman today, and we talked about a lot of things. We talked about family, about how much I do what I shouldn't. About moving out, moving on. I didn't tell her about my secret though. Not the secret that some people know, but the secret that nobody knows. I told her that I had something I wanted to tell her, but I was too afraid to. And then I went back into the room on the second floor and dipped into my secret. I wrote it into existence. I felt awful, terrible, and sick. I could feel my stomach churning into itself and the shallow breaths wanting to come to my throat.

I wrote it for fifteen pages of yellow lined legal paper. Fifteen pages. Then I sat there with my pen in my hand, and felt numb. I traced in my head the feelings and where they came from. I couldn't let this continue. Deep down, I knew I couldn't keep this secret. My rational part of my head kept getting tainted with the irrational one. They were becoming mixed in the way that children mix their blood when they are younger and become bonded to each other. Like that, but potentially irreversible.

I tried to talk to the empty room. I spoke words that went unanswered. Then, I sought out my confidant after two failed attempts and told them everything. They argued with me as I knew they would. That's why I wanted to find them because I knew they would change my mind. They wouldn't accept this from me, and urge me not to accept it from myself.

There's three times all of the things you've ever known or ever felt or ever wanted out there. There's three times all of this out there, and you have to find it and not worry so much about all these things that you are worrying about.

I grabbed the papers in my hand and ripped them and ripped them up. It took me two hours to do this because I didn't want to destroy the thing I had worked so hard for even if it was killing me. I listened to people talk about things. About creativity, photography. About their life experiments. How they just decided for a year to do something that would dramatically change their life.

And I know ripping up pieces of paper doesn't really change anything. I'm still who I was before. My body has the same things on it and in it and carved out of it. I'm still the same girl I was, and the same girl I wasn't. I watched the little pieces flutter into the garbage bin, and I grabbed a sheet of white paper.

I wrote something empowering, something life changing that I am going to make as my own little life experiment.

I mean I don't feel suddenly happier. Suddenly brimming with energy and bustling with excitement at the possibilities this big old world holds for me.

I do feel hope. This profound feeling that I haven't felt in awhile. Perhaps its always been there, and I haven't noticed it before now. Not hope in a religious, I've been born again, I love God and Jesus and Mary too. Just hope. I hope that things will get better, and I can hope that things will change in my life. Not change because of another person or some deity.

I guess I should note that life changing moments seem to only happen when you are incredibly behind on work and things like that. They do not decide to wait for the day you've submitted your last god awful assignment over the break and can cry and lie in bed until three and eat plain cookies and cups of tea for hours without so much as a late penalty or disapproving professor.

They come to you after days of sleeplessness and horrible dreams like where you meet your lost childhood friends and they do not forgive you for the wrongs you've committed. They shove themselves through the doorway of your cranium and protest and protest and protest until something clicks and you realize that they've been there for hours. This moment has been there for hours and you just made space for it now. There is no space on your desk for chords and post-it notes and rations of water and teacups. Pens and hilighters are abandoned. Pages of books are folded over in the corner, and lay closed and forgotten. Word processing documents stare at you void of the black pixels that make up times new roman font. The kind that you need about five pages of.

That's all ok though. You can e-mail your professor and accept the penalty. You can chalk it up as experience and vow to change the next time around. This all had to happen now. Procrastination led you to this, and you are going to lead procrastination away from you for awhile because of this. You owe this to yourself. To the pen that sits on the desk. You owe this to the empty room, and to everyone who's ever been afraid of empty rooms.

I'm not going to dip this all in honey and say that its some kind of revolution. And its exciting and perfect and wonderful. What does perfect and wonderful mean anyways? They are empty adjectives like empty calories in those greasy pieces of pizza from the restaurants that run like factories. It's not going to be something that I'm going to allow myself to forget so easily. Here today, then gone tomorrow.

No. No. No.

This has to be real. So real that if you neglect it, it will cry. I have to really do this. I need this to all work out, and work out as best that it can work out. So off I will go to complete this paper, this project, and be forever changed.

Not terrible

Yesterday was Valentines, and it wasn't as terrible as I thought. I wrote some notecards, and then had some coffee at Biker Tim Hortons. I watched all the boys watch all the 16 year old girls who were dressed up enough to be mistaken as hookers. See-through white dresses that were milimeters from being too short. Backless dresses and shirts. White and gold high heels. Some of them were at least three years younger than me if not more. Others were probably 5 years younger with men who were about my age or older. Things make you wonder why.

When I was walking I found a dirt smudged piece of pink cardstock that was plastered with heart stickers. Printed in big shaky writing was a name and some letters I couldn't recognize. It said Happy Valentines day on a square you know the teacher photocopied and cut up so that there would be something legible to read. If I have a Valentine next year I will give it to them and tell them the story of how I got it.

Heart Day

Couples will walk along James Street North tomorrow night.

And I will wonder if I will ever be like that.

Like them.

Will someone ever

Love me?

Love me not?

Love me?

Love me not?

Love me?

I no longer pick the petals off daisies.

It's too cruel because there's never an answer that I like.

I pick over the thoughts in my mind and save the flowers.

I want someone to make cards for,

Heart shaped paper cut-outs,

Or something the shape of pineapples.

Fuzzy desires.

Myself, I wonder.

Will I ever get to that point?

Sip a cup of tea, and read a book instead.

Dream of lovers instead of having any.

Write versions of myself into romantic tales.

And think of you,

Wherever you are.

The you that I write into all of these songs, and have never met yet.

Fairy Tales are Interesting (Things I Learned at School 1)

[One of my professors last year told me that you remember 10% or less of what you learn in university 10 to 20 years later. I forget the exact number. I don't think doctors fall into this category, but myself as a liberal arts student probably does. So I think that I'm going to do a little rambling here and there when I learn something that I find interesting, so that I can go back and try to remember what I was doing if I need to for whatever reason.]



I'm taking a course on fairy tales, and we've recently finished reading Cinderella. We read a few different versions of the story, but the two that I decided to write my (very late) paper on are Cinderella by Charles Perrault, and When the Clock Strikes by Tanith Lee.

Perrault's Cinderella is the typical story that everyone knows. It's the one that they basically copied into Disney. It didn't have toes being cut off, and no ones eyes were gouged out by birds. It was pretty sanitized compared to the Grimm or Lee's version. I won't recount all the details of the story, because everyone knows that version. It's such a typical fairytale where everything ends up happy in the end. Something that I found interesting were the morals at the end. It said that 1. Woman need more than beauty to be successful. They need charm and grace. 2. No matter how talented you are, you need someone like a fairy godmother to help you succeed and form connections in the world.

Lee's version is much darker, and instead of Cinderella being this helpless girl who is helped by everyone around her, she's a witch, casts spells, and uses her sexuality to push the prince into madness. It's an excellent story, and it appears to be more feminist thinking than the older version. Even when I was reading feminist literature about fairy tales, there didn't seem to be much about anyone who didn't conform to typical gender roles.

There was an article at the back of this anthology that talked about "women" and "women learned to be more submissive and expectant" and "women identify with her romantic ideals" and "women this" and "woman that". Are all "women" really looking for a prince charming?

I keep thinking a lot about queerness and gender theory lately. I feel like I'm becoming a one-track record, but its just what I'm thinking about, so therefore I have to write about it. I've learned too often that if I think about something, and don't do it no matter how crazy it seems, or how difficult it is, it makes me feel worse. I feel guilty, and I can tell that it actually hurts me. I think that's part of the reason why I feel compelled to write so much all the time. Even if its bad and unpolished writing straight from my fingers and head (much like this is).

I think I'm eventually going to write myself out of this topic, and when that day comes, I'll gladly take a different lense to view everything with. I can see myself saying, "What are the environmental themes in this story?"

I've also been reading up lately on gender neutral pronouns. Someone I follow on flickr opts to use them over he/she. I wikipedia'd it, and I couldn't quite make out which definition I like the best, or which is the most commonly used "z" pronoun set. There's ze/zir/zhe and a couple of others. I don't think I'd ever use "zhe" in writing even though I'd imagine there's no difference in pronunciation between "ze" "zi" and "zhe". I'm not a hundred percent sure if these are the actual pronouns, I'm just going from memory.

I don't know if I would choose to tell people to call me gender neutral pronouns. I'm pretty "she" most of the time, and even if I wasn't, I don't know if I would care enough to use different pronouns. Maybe I'll think differently about this all in three years.

So, back to fairy tales, I was thinking about ze on flickr, and I was wondering what a fairytale about ze look like. What would zir fairtale say? What would a non-heteronormative tale look like? I don't know. There's probably been authors who've written gender alternative fairytales, but they're hard to find because I've looked for them. Maybe I'll look again, because I'm positive that they exist.

Anyways, I think that's enough rambling on for now.

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I have decided that for a year I am going to try to fall in love with the world through my camera. I tried to do this last year, but I only made it 250 days in. Those last 100 or so days were just bad for that kind of thing.

I think one of the craziest things anyone can do is stick with something and complete it. To set a goal that seems insurmountable, and actually achieve it. I've always wanted to do this project with someone, but I can't seem to rope anyone else into it. Even just someone to remind me to take photos everyday, and to show me their own take on the world by doing it at the same time.

Someday maybe. But for the next three hundred and something days, I'll go out into the world and listen to the bray of my own heart.

"You can't drop two bombs on the same city"

I told my sister that I was queer. I had to tell her because it was making me sick, and I couldn't keep it in anymore. I've been having panic attacks and shaky hands all week.

I first went into the basement and told her I was thinking of moving out. She said,

"Are you a lesbian, because that's what mom's going to think."

"No.. but would there be any problem if I was one?"

"So what are you saying?"

It went back and forth like that for awhile. And she'd already asked me a few times if I was a lesbian. There was a little bit of quivering in my voice when I actually told her. We talked about the word "lesbian" and what it meant to her, and what it meant to me. Why I didn't like it, but she did.

Telling my mom I want to move out, is like asking to be shot. I know she's not going to like it, and that's being nice. The walls will shake with her voice. She's not going to make it easy. There's no turning back. It's the "We're renting your room," kind of deal. "If you want to move out, why don't you just pack up and leave now?"

I'm not sure if I'll tell my mother I'm not straight. If she asks me, I'm not going to lie about it. But at the same time, I can't drop two bombs on the same city. I know just moving out might result in a night or two on someone's couch.

I can't gauge how she'll react because she takes everything as personally offensive. She has a selective understanding.

"So he's your boyfriend?"

"No, he's gay."

"Are you sure?"

"He has a boyfriend."

And its probably not going to be as big a deal as I think, but no one knows my mother. All of this might seem really stereotypical, and kind of naive. But, I know she's not going to be ok with it. None of it. Which is why I won't tell her unless she asks.

So if I call you at 2:00am, and slip into your apartment and sleep on your floor, I just wanted to let you know why.

Four days

I always feel like I get told I don't try hard enough to fix this part of me. Well I'm trying, and it got me four days. I just feel like I can't really say what I need to, or what I mean. If I could, I wouldn't be here counting days. I would just say it all, and have no secrets.

Four days has won me shaky legs. A mind that wanders too much. A caffeine and gum addiction. Is this any better? I check my cellphone every two seconds for people who don't exist to text me. I can barely write this without the twitching in my shoulders making me stop.

See I have things to do, and I can't do them. Whoever said before I was interfering with my the normal functioning of my life, doesn't see me know. Letters don't make sense when I try to read them.

I don't think I can make it another day. I really can't. An hour like this and you would do the same thing. It's not as bad a thing as other people's things. I really believe that.

Missing

Dear universe,

Please bring my lover back to me. I left her somewhere rather clumsily, and I can't bear to be apart from her. The thing is, she knows all my secrets. She knows who I've loved, and who I've wanted. She knows the story about the french women, and all my nightmares.

She's going to tell everyone, and she can't help it. All they have to do is put their hand on her back, lay her down, and run their fingers across her body. I always try to keep her with me, or at least have a mental note of where she is. That way I'm not always worried about this happening. The one day that I'm so busy that I take her for granted, she scurries out from under my arm.

Even if she does come back, I don't think I'll feel the same about her. To know that she told the first person she could find everything. And I won't know what they found out unless they tell me. They very well could know it all, and when I come to pick her up they'll say, "Have a good one!" and let me leave with her. No questions. Maybe a smile and a wave.

Then later a heartfelt sympathetic e-mail from a stranger who wants to let me know that I can change my life if I want to. All I have to do is want to, and the world will explode in ponies and flowers. It's not that easy.

I probably shouldn't keep such loose company. But she was the only one that I had. Please come back. I won't be angry. I will forgive you.

With love,

A.L.

Proposal to the Ethics Board

I spent hours of my life on you in the past two days.

When I could have been creating something beautiful

Thinking about someone beautiful.

You made me write down everything.

Everything.

Every thought that I had about the issue.

The movie I would have made before this is gone.

Because of all this its going to be different.

It already feels different.

I love it a little less than I used to.

I had to love it to do this, but now I love it a little less.

I was supposed to feel more confident than this.

I like making movies because they make me feel confident.

I have an idea, then I grab the pieces of it together.

I plan, I direct.

I tell people how to sit.

What to wear.

Then I take everything, and piece it all together.

I decide my footage. I decide the final product.

I choose what you see, how you see it, and when you see it.

Now I just feel weak.

Tired.

Raped.

Twelve pages shoved between my legs.

And I had to take it.

What are you going to do?

Tell the institution

That you don't want to be fucked by the system?

That this is different from those other student projects

Because you're not trying to quantify anything?

They would say

"Sorry, we can pass your project"

Even now

After I did what they wanted

They still get to decide if I get to express myself

Or make something about flowers.

Some art version of adult pop contemporary.

Because I don't think I could have it in me

To make something meaningful for awhile.

I'm going to go in there tomorrow

And shove their fucking papers in their face

I'm going to be as angry as I'd be allowed to be.

But it doesn't erase this feeling.

I don't know why I'm trying to explain it.

You don't know what its like until it happens to you.