the metablog

It's happened: I've begun dreaming about my blog. 

Isn't that one of the cues for the postmodern apocalypse? 

I'm blogging about my dreams, and dreaming about my blogs, and blogging about my dreams in the blog I have in my dreams. Dreamblog, blogdream. Metablog, metadream. Metablogdream (yeah, that's a word, I have the authority to say so).

Last night in my nocturnal, unconscious reality, a friend of mine called me from another province while I was in the library. She offered me a virtual reality book deal, as in, I would write a book based on my blog (sounds riveting!) that would be distributed directly to the Canadian population's collective unconscious. 

Then I dreamed that I bought a male friend of mine an outfit from ML. I boxed it up nicely and everything. Some nice khakis, a black miniskirt to layer over top of the khakis, and one item that we actually sell at the store: an extremely stretchy textured black and white floral short-sleeved turtleneck. I thought it would give his wardrobe some variety. I guessed that his pant size was 34x34, but later in the day when I was sneakily snuggling with him I peaked at the size of the pants he was wearing (a size that was displayed, obviously, inside the neck of his polo shirt) and discovered that they were 40x40. I started to rue the fashion industry and how it destroys men's self-esteem. Then I told all the loud people in the library to stop being assholes and wrote a blog about my social courage. 

Would you rather I gift you with a boxed set of women's clothing, or with my never-ending self-conscious inner narrative? 

iPod, aka dreamcatcher

I've been having trouble sleeping. No surprise there, it's all in a day's work.

So I've been trying out a new sleep-inducing tactic of letting Imogen- my nano- spin her sweet melodies into my receptive ears. Last night, sleep, my errant lover, welcomed me into his arms after several hours of listening to Broken Social Scene and Stars reminded me of why I became friends with these bands oh so many years ago.

But what really matters is that I enjoyed my dreams last night, however much they caused me to wake up even more exhausted than I had been before I tumbled into sleep.

Dreamscape the first: One of my university friends was preparing for graduation, even though she's only in second year. I'll call her Lucy. Lucy's freshmen friends, a gaggle of mouse-haired shortstops, corralled Lucy's respectable and respected older male friend- whom I will call Grant MacPherson- to ask him what Lucy should wear to the grad banquet. He replied, "Something satiny and tight to show off her stellar rack. Sweetheart neckline would be most flattering."

Dreamscape the second: I'm working at Melanie Lyne, which is really a video store that sells designer knock-offs under the table, but my bosses never tell me so. I keep trying to sneak away from work in order to save the world, but my assistant store manager is starting to catch on, so the next time I sneak away I put a mannequin behind the till in my stead. I am hunting down the scary scaly monsters from the videos I rented out that morning. They look like Puff the Magic Dragon but on steroids, with rabies.

The rest is private. Stop prying!

hear me roar

I'm a woman. I hope I've made that relatively clear to everyone implicated in my life, slash everyone navigating the interwebs.
I'm also all for the existence of women due to their intrinsic awesomeness. I love the hell out of womankind. I think we deserve all the respect we can get- actually, no, more respect than that.
So, I think it follows that if I'm not feeling respected, it's a sign that there's something grievously wrong with the world.

I don't remember signing up to be some man's mental plaything. I don't remember saying that I'm happy to surrender my life to the whims of a man, whether he be handsome and talented or ugly and psycho. Feel free to remind me if you remember something I don't, friendships. Really.

I never used to, but within the last few months I've become deeply disturbed by the human tendency to feel deserving of attention. Yes, I think I'm pretty great when I'm honest with myself. Yes, I get that we all have intrinsic worth. But we all don't deserve everything that's out there. We all don't deserve everything we want. What I really mean is: your wanting me doesn't grant you the right to deserve me. And your deserving me doesn't make my wanting you a definite eventuality. So where did this idea come from? and I wonder, is this disturbed thinking present somewhere other than in cheap love songs and schizophrenic men's heads? Is it really something that we all feel, a feeling I've repressed so deeply as to forget ever having? Worrisome thought. 

I really do think that the search for love is a legitimate search. I just don't think it can ever qualify as love if the search for it was motivated by a sense of entitlement. Romantic love is a gift, and it's not the kind of gift we all die having received. And as much as the language surrounding romantic love can evoke a sense of destiny and determinism, I still believe that free will is at the heart of "true" love. Choosing to love someone or choosing to accept someone's love is a big deal.  And in a relationship that's worthy of the name, both partners have to choose from both sides. I think that's a given.

So, Mr. Brownhat, subject of my every nightmare and vomit-inducing thought, please clue in. My will is not negligible. I will never reach a divine realization that will cause me to make a choice that treats you with romantic favour. Your life is not a Clay Aiken song. I would rather die by Chinese water torture than look at your face. 

Yeah, that's all. 

do english majors dream of eclectic sheep?

I'm a literature student. I'm a composer. I'm one of them creative types.

I am in Computer Programming.

I signed up for this class because a) I needed another science to graduate, and b) the professor looks like a Russian hobbit and has a rad accent. Upon reflection, I don't think those were good enough reasons. 

This class occurs three times a week at 8:15 in the morning. I spend the entire time on style.com and The Sartorialist and various online shopping locales. The only time I utilize my brain during these classes is to laugh at the hilarious misspellings on the screen and accidentally inappropriate terms the prof implements. Example: n_word and c_word as programming names. I create my own private hilarities, like d_bag as the designator for all dialog boxes. 

Somehow this isn't enough for me.

No creative output or input in my life is making my dreams scarily vivid and long. 

Last night I dreamed that I was a Chinese delivery girl addicted to watching William Shatner-narrated documentaries in hotel rooms with various men. Somehow these little night time adventures were also interpreted by my brain as youth group evangelism opportunities. I delivered ramen noodles in steel briefcases. One day I found a client dead in the shower, covered in blood. He was a friend of mine, but no one took me seriously when I said he was dead. There was no investigation. At an Ambrose chapel service, we were passing the peace when I saw him standing with his friend. No one believed that he had even faked his death; he kept me from saying so by giving me gifts that his mother had made. Pictures of frogs and my campers from KBK. Group photos of the day I found him dead, all of us smiling. All I wanted to do was punch someone or watch more Shatner dvds. 

I wish I could fall asleep and press record. I would re-watch my dreams in this God-forsaken class.

Nelson Mandela is a pinko terrorist!

Today I met Rob Anders.

Scratch that.

Today, I had the opportunity to meet Rob Anders (named the most useless MP in the history of Canadian parliament) but decided that eating carrots would be a better use of my precious time. I was also approached about joining a student Conservative club. I don't think I've ever had to try so hard to withhold laughter in my life.

I wish situations like this could just make me laugh retroactively, but they make me extremely sad. As in, when will people get a clue and realize that some world views simply possess no internal logic and therefore do not merit support by anyone? When will people realize that a person who cannot formulate a sentence probably shouldn't make decisions on anyone's behalf? 

Hanky panky hanky panky pork mobile Tbird supreme! 

I haven't been so disappointed in humanity and Christian culture since people started wearing Crocs in public.  

the comedy of distance

Tonight I went to bed earlier than usual due to a sudden splitting headache that made it hard to stand. I waited a few extra minutes until mom and Adam got home from the airport with our dear old friends the Badleys, and then I collapsed into my tiny little bed which is slowly accumulating so many pillows that accommodating my body has become a low priority. Once in bed, I tried to blur the sounds of my mom, Ken, and Jo talking in the kitchen below my room, but out of the fog in my mind a few sentences came through. It wasn't the words that got to me, so it must have been the sound of the voices; I was struck by a beautiful wave of familiarity.

I then found myself in one of my increasingly-less-rare weeping spells. The ones that creep up on you before you know what's even happening in your heart. The ones that feel like hormonal tears, but aren't. 

As the air caught in my chest and the mucous gathered flatteringly in my nostrils, I realized that there is something about my life right now that is completely new: I can no longer run to my people.  I don't mean this in a metaphorical way whatsoever.  I mean I cannot wake in a panic in the middle of the night and run to Maddie or Mary or Lauryn anymore. At some point in my life, I have been within walking distance of the people who remind me of what I am. I have even lived with them and slept beside them. When I feel myself drifting away into the world at the back of my head that is mine alone, I cannot reach out to them to stop it. I cannot take a walk that has any kind of promising destination, just an arrival at my own front door. 

I have been separated from these girls in one way or another for a good many years now, but there is a permanence to it at this stage that is unfamiliar to me. Lauryn isn't coming home for summers anymore, but is actually living in Montreal. Mary is making a name and a home for herself in Ontario. Maddie is getting married, and if she comes back here when she plans to, I may not be here. I am entering what could well be the turning point of my life, and my heart as I know it is nowhere to be seen. It is hard to accept the permanence of this lack of familiarity in my own country, and as much as these incredible women remind me of why I am choosing to try for a new life in Los Angeles, my love for them is making it hard for me to imagine anything in my future other than a happy reunion with my people. 

"Why must love play games with geography?"

I guess it's all just training for the real journey.

at the weekend

The August long weekend was devoted to my lifelong best friend's bridal shower, but despite that fact we managed to mostly avoid talk of weddings and marriage and even fleeting singleness. Seven girls including myself fled the city and took refuge at Lisa's cabin outside the town of Sundre. We were all excited to relax and drink and tan and swim in the river without worrying about the male gaze. Some of our number became quickly comfortable and relapsed into a state of partial nudity without a backward glance. Others, myself included, were spiritually willing but fleshfully reticent to join the trend.

I spent a lot of time analysing my reticence, even after I finally gave in. I was not surrounded by perfectly groomed, manicured, and polished supermodels, but normal girls with whom I shared laughter and interests. For the whole weekend we saw no trace of male humans, so I couldn't attribute my discomfort to them, either. I couldn't shake the sense that I was being judged, appraised, categorized. And I couldn't stop acknowledging that I have always attributed that sense, however indirectly, to the male gaze. My situation forced me to reconsider.

I have come to the conclusion that I was frightened for these women to understand my secret. Not some hidden mole or skin condition or hairy growth or third nipple. I mean the reason behind my failures, the one thing I've never been able to grasp myself. I thought, however fleetingly, that they would be able to see why I have managed to remain unloved, and that the answer would be written on their faces. 

I can't decide whether I'm relieved or aggravated that no such answer was written anywhere by the time we drove away Monday afternoon.