I closed my eyes and the water rose up over my shoulders and rushed into my ears

12:51am: There is a bet going on between my friends Karla and Thomas about whether I am: a) straight b)bisexual or c)gay.

Not that it matters to them especially, but I suppose it's something to pass the time, and I am not even offended that they would try to guess because I'm fairly confusing. I'm not even going to clarify for them.


In other news: There is no other news. We hung out with Karla, her girlfriend Emily, and their friend Justin. Went to the harbour where all the kids were for Canada day, but it was nothing special. I felt awkward, which is nothing new. Had too much crap food and feel sick now.

Oh! I know why I'm so exhausted! We went swimming today with Creg, and I haven't had such a workout in ages.My legs are tired and screaming at me.

I don't think that I can wear this dress anymore as it continues to unbutton at the chest and expose me to various passersby (not that that's so bad- my breasts are absolutly magnificent) It's quite indecent.

Oh! We've got ourselves a bike now!

I'm really too tired for this.

3:35pm: This remains a favorite amongst of all the photos I have ever taken.

2:16pm: I phoned about getting a health card yesterday, which will make my mum happy. Except now I feel like I'm begging for something bad to happen to me over the next few days until I have the card in my posession. It's just tempting fate a little too much. (And I spent awhile yesterday getting M to photocopy my birth certificate on the boss' fax machine so that I wouldn't have to pay money at staples.

Right now, I'm watching "Dawn of the Dead"; I've had zombie cravings for a couple of days now, and I really want to see "Land of the Dead" but I don't think I'm going to be able to convince anyone to go with me on Saturday...and I'm not going to see a zombie movie by myself. Nope.

I have a very large, very painful knot in my back and I'm not sure how well I'll be working tonight. Last night was hell. The new girl, Mary, and I served 42 customers over one hour, almost as much as at lunch. And they had four people over lunch. This lead to my being on the line for two hours and not getting to leave it to use the bathroom or take a drink. And someone stole our tips- just walked off with the tip cup. I have a suspiscion that it was dirty-talking boy, but no proof to back it up. After that, M somehow put an imaginary $238 into the computer and we couldn't serve customers. But that was alright, because we were very much out of bread by that time. I tried to stop M from having a panic attack and do the work that I hadn't been able to complete at the same time, while Mary did dishes and filled up the pp fridge because she had volounteered to stay an extra hour.

Ugh.

Oh hey, Weasel's home.

12:01pm: Isn't it funny how nothing ever happens?

Well, okay, that boy stopped by work as I was finishing with my 22nd customer in one hour. The boss fired my co-worker, with whom I got along quite well, leaving me alone for six hours. Anyway, the boy came into the place and I grinned at him and said hi, went back to my bread. After a moment, I realized that he had gone into the fridge and then out onto the line.

"What are you doing out there? " I asked, since technically he wans't supposed to be.

He was filling up the unit for me- replacing the empty cambros because I hadn't had time to.

Heh.

So besides that, nothing interesting. Lots of e-mailing. Big headache today, was woken up by M from work because we're planning our boss' birthday celebration thing, and I have to get the cake from Superstore. Luckily, subway will pay me in full for the cake, so I can spend money on getting his name on it and such.

Now I'm going to shower and make myself pasta.

Hopefully Weasel and D are doing alright at the hospital and working things out for him.

2:44pm:

9:42am: I realized yesterday that I've become the kind of person at work who is explained to new people in a sort of "that's just who she is" way.

I walked in, wearing my headphones as usual and, as usual, M said hello to me. I waved in reply. The new guy gives me a strange look and M explains "she never says hello, just waves. All of the time. It's just how she is."

The thing is, I don't see the point in saying hello. I'd imagine you want me to speak as little as possible because I'm going to talk your ear off once I'm ready. I open my mouth and don't stop- it must be hellishly annoying.

They mostly think I'm crazy anyway because I wear clothes that they think are odd and say things like "I don't see why we have boobs. I'd rather just feed my children through a garden hose."

This is one of the reasons I want to stay at subway- I've come significantly out of my shell and just act like my normal self around these people. I'm just another employee who's gone crazy.

The Boy e-mailed me. Hee.

It is about ten thirty in the morning and I have been up since eight. I'm in a significantly good mood, though, very silly. Oh man am I in a silly mood.

I can't write in here when I'm this off. More later than.

1:52pm: Oh, naughty Zoot.
I feel very detached from everything else, everyone. Including Weasel, which makes me sad, and confuses me.

I think it happens every once in awhile to me, and that it's just something psychological which goes hand in hand with the self-esteem issues.

Weasel gave my e-mail to the Boy (she calls him Blips. I'll explain that later), but he hasn't done anything with it. I just feel stupid- at first I was elated because I was terrified to say anything and Weasel helped me out. And now I'm just stupidly upset about it because he probably doesn't care much. Things never happen the way that I want them to.

Which makes me sound about five years old, doesn't it?

what I'm more upset about is Weasel. I'm worried about her (you, since you'll see this) I'm trying very hard to get past my own clingyness so that I don't crowd her. At this moment, she is lying across the street on the grass, basking in the sun. And I'd like to talk to her, but she would be annoyed. And I understand that she's trying to put herself in a good state of mind for when her family arrives this evening, so I won't until she talks to me.

Which she has just done, walking back inside. I wonder if she's cleared her head or just given herself more to think about.

I wonder what is wrong with me today.

I've been feeling very self-conscious all week, mostly about my chest. Maybe it's summer, maybe it's just a particular peroide in my life, but I'm not loving how I look these days, and boobs used to be the one part of me that I liked. I'm just feeling huge all over and icky. Just...maybe I can't really explain it at all. None of my clothes feel right and my hair is very heavy. I feel unattractive and weird.

I really, really hate summer.

3:11am: "My daughter in law is in the hospital with two dead babies inside her."

Sometimes I forget that in a maternity ward, not everyone is happy. And that when you make people food they want to tell you their problems. This happens a lot and it's very odd-I've never had people do this to me, just start talking about their problems. But these days everyone seems to. At work, people come by and tell you what's happening to their children and how they were hurt and it makes you really never want to procreate. I started thinking about the daughter-in-law after and how she might be feeling. It's odd to think that somwhere close by someone is desperetly sad, and really think about it.
( Though for every sad one, there are at least three men who come in to tell me that they are fathers, or excited new grandparents who want to talk about their new grandchild's weight and how much hair they have.)

I can't think of anything else to write because I'm exhausted. And Weasel is not here again. And I can't stop imagining how it must feel to have two dead babies inside of you and still have to give birth to them.

3:33am: I am sad today, without really knowing why. and excited, again, without knowing why.

A friend at work told me about his girlfriend being attacked by a mutual friend of theirs. Attacked in the sense that he tried to molest her and she got away before he could. I listened and tried to think of the best way to tell him that they should report it, despite her living in a small town and everyone knowing everyone's business. It's hard to know what to say, though, and he was incredibly angry in a very calm way. Very calm anger is more frightening than lashing out anger because you can sense the anger- it's almost palpable. I really wish I could have helped him, but you can't. Sometimes just listening to someone's problems helps, and maybe it did. Hopefully.

I picked up a book called "Louder Than Bombs" today from Outside the Lines on Quinpool. Its a series of interviews conducted over the past few years with artist, journalists, writers, and activists with left wing views. At first, I wasn't sure if I'd done the right thing buying it. I thought maybe it was too impulsive and too much of an attempt to be intelligent when maybe I'm not. But I really am enjoying the book, it's so interesting to hear what people have to say about the state of the world. I had a small epiphany while reading it that I don't care to discuss, but just so you know, I had one.

The severe social paranoia is starting to build up again and is annoying the hell out of Weasel, who doesn't understand it. I can't get comfortable in my skin these days, and it worries me because I know there's a point to get past, one where I sometimes teter and step over into being fine with people. I'd like to just cross it permenantly, that's all. But I can't shake the feeling that I'm always doing something stupid or I look bad or say the wrong things. It's very scary and weird.

You read it here. I'm doing something about the Boy (the crush). Next time I see him, dammit, this has gone on long enough.

And finally, dirty-talker boy came back to work today. He came in yesterday and I couldn't hear him over the toaster oven but my co-worker friend, who was stocking the fridge, told me later that everytime I asked him a question he answered it in a very dirty way. When he came back today he was positivly leering and I passed him on to some else (my co-worker friend again) immediatly, because he was making me uncomfortable- I'm okay with talking dirty (Weasel and I can't go five minutes without mentioning something innapropriate) but this guy made the whole thing really icky. There was just something about him that threw me off.

3:15am: I'm very worried about myself these days in a way that wouldn't worry anyone else but me. I'm not depressed or doing drugs or drinking too much.

I'm very infatuated. Isn't that silly? But I am, and I don't know that I like it.

It feels sort of stupid, to be infatuated with a boy I never see anymore. But damn it, I am.

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

Aha, this is sort of pathetic.

12:41am: I felt wonderful all afternoon. I did some grocery shopping and came home, wrote a little and worked on brilliant teeth. talked to my parents extensively on the phone. (The land developpers want our property, 50ft of it or more, and I think my parents will end up selling everything. It's already breaking my heart that the trees are going, and I don't understand how this can be allowed. I mean, I really don't. These are trees, this is a beautiful property and smallish forest and it was as much my home as the house. It's sort of like watching someone fell all of my imaginary friends- some knight or something slaying the Dinosaur Family and Caitlin so that he can use them to fertilize his vegetables. It kills me. I don't care so much about the house, but the trees are alive and they've been there for me most of my life.)

The evening grew worse when Weasel didn't come back after work. I can't really express how this makes me feel because I knew she was with D, and it pissed me off. I don't like the way he treats her, but I'm starting to wonder if I have a fucked up sense of how a relationship should work. I thought it was all about equal give and take, about being kind if you can. And it seems to me that Weasel is doing all the giving and kindness. But what do I know about relationships, really? I'm naive and still a child and etc... and maybe this is normal. I know Weasel gets angry when I say how I dislike D, but I can't help it. I tried hard to like him- harder than she thinks, maybe not in actions but mentally, I tried really really hard. And he just seems selfish, really. And Weasel, she just gives and gives, to everyone. She can't help but give because she's a really good person, and I don't want her to be shattered.

I hate seeing nice people screwed over. But I was completly tactless when I told Weasel what I though, making this asshole moment number three for me.

I'm listening to Iron & Wine because it makes me feel calmer. Actually, all of my music is mellow at the moment- Iron & Wine, Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Camera Obscura. There are people outside playing rap from their truck and if I had a slingshot and careful aim, I'm pretty sure I could take out the speakers.

11:50am: "Knock, knock"

"What are you doing?"

"Knock, knock."

"Oh right, the joke. Who's there?"

"The doorbell repairman."

"The doorbell repairman who?"

"No, that's as far as it goes."




The cat is hawny (with the accent, see, it would be horny except she's horny plus, so hawny) and annoying. Won't shut up.

"Then get her fixed." the critics say.

But we believe in the right to be horny, thanksverymuch. Even though perhaps she's reached new heights vocally and keeps trying to get with our ankles.

Today is my second day off in a row and, predictably, someone calls me and asks if I'd like to work. Whenever people do this, it's early in the morning and I am in bed. I sit up and try to be cheerful, in case it's my mum, but it's some guy from Robie and Russel. He sounds pissed when I tell him, in a voice of obviously fake regret, that I "...just can't today." When he gets angry, I want to ask him if he gets two days off a week, because this is a first for me in many months. My boss would laugh at me if I told him that I'd gone to work today instead of taking time off because I never get two days in a row- I work six days a week and over nine hours a night. It just makes sense for me to keep my days off to myself.

By the way, why are all of you people so messy? Didn't your parents teach you decent manners? I can understand if you're an orphan, or your parents couldn't speak or write or make hand gestures. But this city is not populated by orphans or children whose parents had unfourtunate communication problems. So pick up after yourselves. Don't leave your half-full drinks everywhere, your crumbly dry donuts under your chairs, your slopped tomatoes on the floor where they dry and won't come up. Just don't do it.

Seriously now.

3:50pm: January 4th, 2005

Kit Beach- rocks hard under my back. I can feel the little knobbly chaos of sand beneath me, my friend's bodies on either side a warm reassurance. Above us the sky stretches into black-blue mystery, and the waves crash quietly at our feet. I rest my head on the camera bag and try to memorize their elbows covering my arms, pressing the warmth underneath my jacket. Above us, pieces of light flash heavenly trails, eliciting cries of ecstacy, and Kate explains how we are all made of stars. I imagine what breathing in stardust must look like- clouds of brilliant yellow-white bubbling from our lips.

I had forgotten all about that evening, though I'm glad that nosing through my old journals revealed it again. It was one of the most pleasant experiences of my life.

Speaking of that trip home over Christmas, I talked to X today. My heart still starts to go a little faster. He's planning to touch down in various Canadian locations and I'd like him to visit Halifax, see me. I know he won't, though. He's just a person like that, and I know I won't see him, maybe won't talk to him again, for a very long time. another six months? A year? Ever?

Suddenly I'm left with the urge to cry, but I'm sick of doing that over boys, and it feels very weak of me. That is in my past, my grades 10-through-12-and-the-following-year past. I just wish I could convince myself of this fact.

3:13am: You have days where you are not important. I hate playing the third and I always end up doing it, and it bothers me that it bothers me.
It bothers me that I am so worn out by work I can't recognize myself unless I take a deep breath and go to my place. This place is not an actual physical location, mind. Nothing can be "mine" in this city, because it is always someone else's first. The place is some calm that I've tapped into deep inside myself, some cool lake that I've found with my thirsty roots. I was never able to do this before, calm down so completly that all panic vanishes, think rationally and soundly in the midst of confusion and mess. But, probably out of pure need, I have begun to stop the world from turning. It's nice to do that sometimes, especially considering I don't make it turn anyway. My mantra has always been "this too shall pass," though I didn't realize that until recently. Ever since I was a child, when doing something unpleasant I would just imagine myself in an hour, and how happy I would be after it was done.

"I'll think about this an hour from now, and I'll just shake my head."

This too shall pass.

But I think I do it too much, sometimes. As in, I look at life and think "This too shall pass" and let it slip away, not happen. I look at my infatuation with this boy and thnk "this too shall pass" knowing full well it will take a very long time and that I am not even over X enough to try talking to him. I do it because I'm terrified of taking any sort of chance- breaking the law in a silly way or asking him out for coffee. I don't like to put myself on the line because I'm all that I have, and if I lose me (to rejection, to danger) then what's left? Of course it has occured to me that I might be losing "me" by not doing anything as well, of course it has. But I'm hard-pressed to figure out how to keep me and not let everything pass on by.

I feel a grasping, sobbing need to know how I do this, but no one has given me any pointers thus far, probably because I have to just do it.

Which is, by the way, easier said than done.

6:21pm: I got home last night to find Weasel was still up. After sitting around for awhile drinking bear and getting giggly, I suggested that we stay up all night/morning, going to the citadel to watch the sun rise and then downtown for coffee/farmer's market. To my surprise she agreed, and so we spent the next little while hanging around the apartment, laughing and talking about nonesense things. At five we started out, climbing up the citadel as the wet grass made our feet slip around in our sandles. There, we flew Weasel's kite (it is a giant butterfly, and Weasel has put little blinking lights on it) and then walked around to the other side which overlooks the city, the harbour, the large EMERA building.
I sat down in the grass, and Weasel got her kite up in the air again. We waited there for the sun to rise, watching her butterfly dip and dive in the wind. It was wonderful to feel the light morning wind on my bare legs and the back of my neck. While we were flying the kite, a couple of boys came around the side of the citadel and sat down a few feet from us, watching Weasel lift the kite up to make it fly. I'm very used to boys watching my best friend and she looked absolutly beautiful, which she generally does. Of course they came over to talk to Weasel after awhile. I didn't say anything to them except introduce myself and maybe offer up a couple of words; I knew they wanted to talk to her. And they did- I flew the kite and hoped that they would leave so that we could get on with the adventure sans intrusive boys. It's not that I don't like meeting people, but I don't think I can do it anymore, I'm not very good at it. One of them was shaking my hand and stopped to ask Weasel a question, still holding onto me. All I could think was that it would be rude if I pulled my hand away but really really wanted to, hated touching someone who I didn't want to be touching. I love touching people, but it has to be the right people; my body has very high standards.

The sun never did rise in the fashion I had expected- me, the silly small-town girl, hoping for the blaze of colour I used to witness when getting up for yoga at 6 am. But it did get very bright and, eventually (after the boys had left) we went down to Perks on the waterfront and had coffe, chocolate milk, and bagles with creamcheese. There is that certain feeling of early morning that I love, a body-waking-up, fresh new day feeling. I love the morning and late night more than any other time of day, which makes me a very conflicted person.

If you want a really good account of the day, you'd do well to visit Weasel's journal (star_laughter) because she is a real journal writer.

4:50am: I take a taxi every night- not because I don't like walking (I walk everywhere. See a girl with long blonde hair and a blue book bag around? That's me) but because it's dangerous to walk home alone at 3 am. The place at which I am currently employed used to pay for each employee's full taxi fare, but decided to stop that a few months ago because it was too costly. This lead to a lot of walking, making everyone anxious as to my safety until my boss spoke to his boss and got me a five dollar pay out each night for my taxi. This isn't bad- I either make up the extra two dollars needed from tips (or I used to, except now all of our tips are going to pay off money some idiot either misplaced or stole) or from my own pocket.

Yesterday's driver seemed normal enough- a nice, older man, called me dear and took Spring Garden instead of Robie, which seems to be the favoured route. As we're driving up South Park to get to Spring Garden, I look away for a second and when I look up, we are about to run into another taxi, which blares its horn angrily at us as it swerves out of the way nearly going off the road and into that little park (I forget the name at the moment)

"He's not supposed to be here" the taxi driver explains, as I look at him wide-eyed. "He's from Dartmouth. He's just lucky I had you in the car, or I would have rammed right into him."

I offer up a snorty chuckle, heart still racing.



Besides this, the past two days have been really awful. The night before last I composed a two-week notice and today Thomas and I angrily discussed the situation at work. M had forgotten to put any coin in the cash box again, and so I had to call our boss and get him to come in. When he arrived, we discussed the loss of my second day off again this week and although I am angry about it (Weasel and I were going to see Star Wars) I agreed that it is necessairy. The new closer is not trained enough yet to do anything by herself. The boss gives me a key to his office (which is scary, since money keeps going missing and I don't want to get blamed for it at all) and I suppose this is something of a power thing, since none of the other employees get one.

Thomas phoned to tell me he couldn't come back at midnight like he said he would, which I understood because he has a huge test today and I'd told him not to do it if it would hurt his grade. He mentioned that Brook was there and said hello, asked if I drink beer. I'm not sure where this was leading because I had to leave quickly as my customer was shooting me dirty looks, but hopefully some hanging out with two boys whose company I enjoy (in a perfectly friendly way) will ensue.

I didn't get a break because I didn't have time for one (I do spend the three minutes before I lock up and begin cleaning drinking coffee and reading the Savage Love coloum in this week's Coast, but that's it. And mostly only because my coffee and muffin were free again tonight and it felt wrong to waste them.) And it took me two and a half hours to clean the place up- it was chaotic. The order had come in late and no one had put anything away. None of the dishes were done. There was stuff all over the floor, which was so grimey it looked like a sidewalk. I worked harder than I have in ages and by the end it looked like the finished product on a decorating show. I could hardly believe I'd managed to get rid of the mess and I sort of wish that I had taken "before" and "after" photos.

Despite the fact that to have done a truly excellent job, I would have to have taken another hour to clean and organize the shipment, I did bake some fantastic bread this evening. Shouldn't have had that coffee, though.

4:11am: thoughts while cleaning the store tonight
That night. Things that should be vivid aren't. So there are flashes between finding the suicide note and phoning people rapidly that don't connect with what I know: vanilla icecream melting on the computer desk, a scream that is mine but doesn't seem to be coming from my mouth, because I thought it was closed. Flash, flash, flashes of conversations with Angela, of my mother telling me to breathe. I think someone handing me a paper bag.
The yellow raincoat I wore to school the next day (it wasn't raining) how there was a mouldy bus schedule from 1999 in the left-hand pocket, and the exact texture of the lining. Sobbing without control, losing my composure. How Angela's dad took her home first and then offered me a ride, but brought me to Tim Hortons and bought me hot chocolate and an onion bagle and didn't say anything, which helped. We just sat at a table.
The fight Angela and I had when going to visit Mel in the hospital. Throwing her car keys in the ditch.

This experience shook me more than any other, so I have to accept it as part of my foundation. I know this. And I have mostly, it's mostly at the end of the dropoff, close to the deep waters, so that when I toe the line there now, I don't feel it start to crumble away. It used to crumble.

I don't know what anyone else's philosophy is, but mine's acceptance. Eventually, you accept. You might obsess over it (I did, for three years) and it might crush you (it did, it still does) But I stopped being angry as soon as I could accept that it had happened, and that she had picked me as a catalyst. I stopped hating her for sending me the suicide note and putting her life in my hands and making everyone say "You're an Angel, you saved her life." (I never kept the flowers her mother gave me in my room, though. They were a huge basket of fake flowers- I have a theory on fake flowers and death, but it's still being developped. And fake flowers frighten me, in some strange way.)

I haven't gotten over Jim's death yet, and I know it takes time, which is why I know I'll be better about it. Eventually, I will accept it because that is all there is left to do.

But tonight I just missed him suddenly and still couldn't get past the block in my mind that surrounds his death. Actually, I couldn't get the image out of my mind of him crying when we had acted particularly well. Like when someone in the play died and it got to him.

And accepting it is going to come sometime, and you have to remember, on occasion, that someone you cared about is gone. But oh dear, how terrible I am with tears.

1:32pm: I am sick. No, I'm worse than sick- I'm whiney and sick. Perhaps deservedly whiney, but I'm sure those around me must find it incredibly annoying. When I get sick I am five years old again- I want to be hugged, fussed over, kissed, read-to, and given gingerale.

Instead I worked nine hours (or 9.46 hours, as I did yesterday) slept badly, was not kissed, hugged, fussed over, read-to, or given gingerale. Though I did read to myself- a well written though somewhat gut-throbbing book called "Five Quarters of an Orange" by Joanne Harris, which my mum sent me yesterday in one of her care packages.

You see, my mum and I have always read the same books- or, some of the same books. At first I suppose it was mimicry- I cut my adult-novel teeth on what she was reading way back when I was eleven and she didn't want me to read about Mary Beth Tinning because it would give me a rather grim outlook on other human beings. And she was right, of course. I was suspiscious of all new mothers for ages after that. But besides that one book, the rest of her choices are really very good. We both share a bi-polar taste for good literature and mystery novels, though only well written ones. In fact, I have two books that I am waiting to send her ("Between Mountains" by Maggie Helwig, and "Dogs of Babel" by Carolyn Pankhurst.) Though I'm hesitant to send the second because there is a suicide in it and a very good friend (good man, good person) committed suicide recently enough (I sound very plat¹ here about this, but you have to understand that if I let the emotion surrounding it bleed into my entry, this will become a very heavy journal) and the book centers on a death that looks like suicide. I'm strangely protective of my mum, you see, and I wouldn't want to cause her grief over this, though the book is very good and very much the sort of thing she would read because of its strangeness.

Also in the care package was fair trade coffee from Vancouver Island (my home!) which, I'm sorry to say in case I offend, is about five times better than the fair trade coffee here. There is just something about the stuff we get in B.C. that makes Nova Scotia coffee pale in comparison. When I told this to Graeme, he called me a snob. But I'm not- I like Halifax a good deal most of the time, only I have been in love with Vancouver Island most of my life. It's a long standing affair, and Halifax is sort of like my secret affair or second marriage- I haven't gotten over my first lover yet. I could wax poetic about my island (my trees! my rivers! my ocean! my animals! my stars! my fort! my room! my house! my etc!) but I probably could not put it into words (though I have, on rare occasions when I've just created something wonderful, called myself a writer.) Instead I will say that you never know what you've got till it's gone and that you will never appreciate it as much as you should have.

And now I have to run up to Superstore, even though it is awful outside and the weather is having an absolute tantrum all over the place. I need to buy some food, and cough drops and cough medicine and milk so that I can have my usual three cups of tea today before I go to work and try not to, you know, tear someone's throat out with my dry, hacking wit.



¹ "Plat" is a French word that I have been using to describe this particular emotion for years (fourteen years of french immersion will do this to a person- we called it Franglais, or Fringlish, for those of you who don't speak French) Anyway, it means something like boring, dull, uncaring. It might just be a word my class invented to use, I don't know. But many of us still throw it into regular conversation.

1:18pm: "I want a tiger because you can cuddle them. Dinosaurs feel like leather. Ew." -Weasel
I had a slight shock yesterday when I learned that the man whom I've assumed lives below us actually does not.

So I've been wishing that the wrong guy's stupid green hair dye would melt into his ears and deafen him, and for that I'd like to apologize and send my fondest wishes that it hasn't happened yet.

Because the guy who lives downstairs is big. Almost Cro-Maganon (I learned that word when I was eleven, from a book called "Moonkid and Liberty." It went sorely overused for the rest of my adolesence.) He could probably kill me with a single slap to the face (it would snap my neck.) And he loves his car. People who love their cars piss me off- why would you love a piece of metal which pollutes and is adding to the destruction of our planet? (This is where some of my friends with lisences point and say "Lookit the hippy who refuses to drive!")

Of course, I've had some pretty tender feelings towards my laptop...but it's light blue and very kind. It was christened Kazzizlewatt the Mighty on the day I purchased it, and has been very good to me despite its irratic mouse and tendency to freeze when faced with large problems. But don't we all act like that?

Today it is not sunny. It is not warm. But somehow I still woke up at seven am boiling hot.

"I'm too hot." I whined to Weasel.

"I'm hot too" she whined back. And then she stood up, grabbed Suke (our cat) off the divider between our beds, and left the room.

I rolled over and looked at the clock. It was too early- I'd only had four hours of sleep. Weasel came back and crawled into her bed and I went to get a long piece of wet towel, fondly remembering the summer when it was so hot I simply stuck my bedsheet under the faucet and slept wrapped in a beautifully cold coccoon of wet blankets.
It took me a very long time to fall asleep again because the room was bright. We'd taken the huge heavy red blanket off the window in the naive spirit of welcoming the sun, and the sun really does like to be welcomed. This does not help the fact that, due to my night-shifts, I sleep in till around lunch.

The point of this long, useless tangent is that it isn't hot today afterall, but it ought to have been, if only to justify my unkind awakening.

Every time I have a day off, I go back into work with positive feelings for everyone there. And it never lasts.

I had a strange dream involving that boy from work (who subsequently does not work there anymore.) We were introduced by a mutual friend, but I think we'd already met. Despite this, I shook his hand and made eye contact, held on too long and gave his hand an extra squeeze. That was it. My dreams are very odd and I used to tell them to my friends constantly. every morning before school we would meet behind yellow house stairs (for those of you not familiar, my school was divided into houses which all had their own sets of bleacher-like carpeted stairs where house assemblies were held) and the first thing that came out of my mouth after hello would be

"I had this dream last night..."

This was back when I believed that everyone wanted to hear about my dreams, and that they meant as much to other people as they did to me.

2:21pm: Weasel and I are sitting here, eating sitr-fry (vegetarian for me, meaty for her) and drinking beer. It's 2 pm, and we're hot. Every window in the apartment is open and the curtains are blowing outside, my long hair feels like a huge cat sitting on my shoulders but I'm too vain to tie it up.


"It's someone else's moment. They caught the moment. They own it."

This is Weasel debating on whether or not it would be wrong to sketch feathers from someone else's photograph. You see, she has embarked on a project to sketch 1000 feathers and is up to number 6 at the moment. She's collaborating with another livejournal person who is planning to write poetry for her feathers.

This is all quite creative and leaves me wishing I had some project, but I don't. Except the novel, which is stagnating nicely. I just can't care enough about the characters, which makes it impossible to write and, I wager, boring to read.

I need inspiration.

J'ai bessoin d'inspiration!

4:47pm: Somehow, I can't remember why I was happy to see the sun three days ago. It's hot. I wake up with my skin feeling like I've been int he microwave- hot to the touch. It just puts a bad feeling on the day when I know that if I leave the house, I'm going to end up dying in the sun.

The situation at work has been getting worse. Our operations manager came in and decided that because sales have been low, we only need one person (me) all night. This is ridiculous, as we have never had just one person all night. We have had one person after 10pm, and after 12 am, but never from 8 pm onward. Funny thing is that they fired the other closer, and I'm working 50+ hours this week with only one day off (Saturday) when the manager (not the operations manager, the regular one) is covering my shift. And Saturday I'm working a 10 hour shift.

I made it alright, though. After I had securely closed and locked the gates, I put on my headphones and rocked out to Smash Mouth. You see, I love to dance, but can't do it at home because of the asshole downstairs who hates us. So dancing in an empty Subway is perfect, despite the fact that the security guards can see me on all of the cameras. I had a great time, to be honest, even though I was there until three in the morning. I'd forgotten how wonderful dancing is, you know.

11:15pm: I closed my eyes and the water rose up over my shoulders and rushed into my ears.
I think that we have a new, inexperienced letter carrier, since he or she has put two pieces of mail into our box that don't belong to us. I'm not sure what the procedure is in a city for other people's mail- in our small town, you just walked down the street and handed it over. I'll probably do that, or slip it into a mail box. But one of them is a postcard, so of course I read it. Of course, it's right there. Nothing personal because who (besides me, and only that one time) writes personal things on a postcard?

I am getting sick, I can feel it. I blame Weasel for this, and I also know that if I get really sick I can't take time off unless I'm throwing up. I have never taken time off work in the almost six months I've worked there, even though I had a bad cold once and was very sick another time. This might be one of the reasons I was employee of the month. Or it may be that I have no spine.

I am miffed at Weasel because she said we couldn't go out for coffee tonight since she was too sick, but she seems to have gone out with David (her ex-boyfriend, or whatever he is.) I really needed to get out and do something with her, and here I am, home alone again. This is why days off seem so pointless to me.

This is from a collection of poetry I wrote over my first year in Halifax. It is obviously still very rough, as is all of my poetry...

Solar Powered


When I lie on my back
My stomach goes flat
I put a cold hand on the concave indent
below my breasts between my ribs
And press down until I feel the outlined bones on either side,
the empty pocket that’s somewhere near my stomach.
When I was little I imagined a cosmos deep inside me,
my own internal star system
(I wish that I could remember the
Different constellations
The way each pinpoint connected to form something whole.)

But instead I’m just sitting here without a start chart
Trying to cruise my way through a tangle of bright lights
Which might be the city that I’ve swallowed
(The best part of my magic act
Where I try to make it seem like I love
this place and take it in my mouth
balancing it on my tongue like a horse pill
before swallowing it to polite applause)

4:25am: I walked home in the early morning, brandishing my camera and my wits. It was foggy, everything hidden and sweet-smelling after the rain. Mist really does sparkle into gold. The trees are extra-green. The streetlights are huge and loveable and kind. I stopped to take pictures of dandelions and trees, let the rain-grass soak through the knees of my skirt so that I could get a good shot.

But the film could not turn out, and that would be alright.

4:53pm: I woke up wanting to write.

Things are very rushed these days, and I enjoy certain moments of slowness.

The kettle boils but instead of hurrying I walk carefully, take the tea bag out of its orange wrapper, and lower it gently into the mug. The steam draws up the smell, and the burner's heat is comforting below my hands. I like this, tea feels very spiritual to me in a way I can't explain. If I said it out loud, Weasel would give me a strange look, but it's very true. I like the kindness of tea and how forgiving it is.

Weasel and I are not fighting anymore, we are...just normal. Ourselves. We talked this morning for a few hours, her in her bed, me in mine, the cat jumping from one to the other. This is why I like sharing a room, because we can wake up and just talk. Eventually, we'll have to get seperate rooms. Mostly because she will meet someone- after her present relationship bitterness- and she will want to be alone with them. I guess I might meet someone but I very much doubt it, and Weasel is much more open than me about things. By that I mean I'm crazy-shy, and she's not.

4:14pm: I am in the worst kind of mood today, as all I have done is clean and argue with Weasel. r.

I'm more hurt by this than I should be.

And I only got seven or so hours of sleep last night, so I'm in a very stupid, weepy mood. But at least the kitchen, bathroom, and living room are all clean. I did all of them- I took a half hour break around 2 pm to get butter and milk from the convenience store, but besides that, I have been cleaning ever since I woke up. That kitchen was awful.

No, this is too frustrating. I'm not going to pollute this journal today.

And I had planned to write all hour, about Rachel and Derek and their coffee.