A Broken Crow

I'm pale and shaking, listening to the screaming. The screaming. Screaming. Screaming in my head. It's in my head. It's filling my ears and stinging my eyes. Screaming. It's dripping down into my mouth and it's bitter. Sour. Rotten. Screaming. Screaming. Knuckles grinding eyes and hands clamped over ears. Still that horrible screaming. On the floor. Shuddering. Choking. Spitting. Heaving. Surrounded with only the screaming. Screaming. Screaming.

I woke up this morning with a smile plastered on my face, ear to fucking ear. 7am and I leaped out of bed, yelling James Brown-like interjections. Uh! Good God! OW! Yeah. I'm in such a good mood today. I got a ton of work done yesterday. I have more still, but I can see the end. I can see the end and you're standing there with a grin on your face and a pack on your back, tickets in hand. Oh baby. I'm almost there.

It's the last day of March. Tomorrow is April. Tomorrow is my month. The month of my birthday. Next month I'll be 21. 21? No. I can't be 21 next month. I JUST turned 20! And what's more, I haven't got anything to show for it. I've been here for over two decades. What have I done? Fifteen years of school in a row? How terribly boring. Yup. That's it. When did I start hating birthdays? I remember loving them. Waiting for them with ridiculous anticipation. My birthday used to just be a simple time to celebrate, now I always find myself self-analysing. It's my birthday soon? Fuck. Now I have to think about who I am. Fuck.

Two papers and a manifesto down, One short paper and one research paper to go. Whittling whittling always whittling. I feel like summer is trapped in a big block of ice and I have to chisel it out bit by bit, day by day with a spoon. Slow and steady. I'm getting there. Fuck you winter, you're time is up.

"I look at her and I see all this baggage. Still there from him."
"Did you ever stop to think that maybe you have baggage from him too?"
"No. No I haven't. I do. I guess I do."


An early phone call. Sounds of panic in the dark. Fumbling. Fumbling. Hello? Yes. Fine. Early is fine. Breakfast. Are you open yet? Can we wait inside like assholes? Thanks. No breakfast food huh? Kieche? Yeah, that's eggs. Eggs equal breakfast. Ooooh, smoked salmon for me. How decadent and silly. Excuse me but this coffee is cold. They are all cold. Broken? Yes, a gourmet coffee will be fine. Another? Please. I'll understand where you're coming from if you try to understand where I'm coming from. I'm defensive because you're suspicious right off the bat. You feel guilty but that wasn't your fault. You should know that. You can't bring baggage from that situation into your perception of my life. Me? Baggage? Yeah. You. Baggage. You said you wanted to be alone. To find yourself. I know you weren't lying but. Why? Because I'm nuts about him. Nuts. What really endears me towards your boyfriends hon is how they feel about you. I'll like him if he adores you. Well I think you're gonna like him then. Maybe you shouldn't read my blog. Maybe you shouldn't. I worry about your Ernest Hemingway lifestyle. My what? You're always drunk. No. I'm not. I'm surprisingly well behaved. Do you have to write about entwining limbs? Yes. It's not meant to be sexual. It's meant to be beautiful. Get yo mind outta the gutter Ma. More coffee? Sure. Off to the liquor store. None for me thanks. Me and my Ernest Hemingway lifestyle. Could be worse. Could be worse. How? Could be a Hunter Thompson lifestyle. Who? Nevermind. Grocery store. Big cart. I wish they still had the small ones. Not me. It wouldn't cut it today. Did you drink all your money away? Is that why you're starving? Yes. Yes. All on booze. That's what I did. Give me some fucking credit. Try the almond butter. You'll never eat peanut butter again. Really? That's quite a claim. This is going to be more than a hundred dollars. I know. Thanks. Thanks mom. I love you. Thanks.

But only next to your name. And not anywhere else. My name. My. Name. Written on the bare wood of the wall in the basement of Freshmart. I've been avoiding it. For two years I have stubbornly refused it and kept it to myself, a shiny jewel in my pocket, pressed between finger and thumb. Mine. Mine. No one else's. Mine. I read the wall every time I go down there, standing amidst the dirt and clutter and ancient garbage. I let my eyes sift through the names of others who have done what I do. Prissy. Were you a cashier too? Did you hate it as much as I hate it? Did you steal bananas for lunch like I do? Terry. Jerry. I know you were twins. Are twins. The name on the wall makes you cease to exist anywhere else but here? In the basement? Colin Macdonald. Scrawled in red marker sometime in the late eighties. He was in highschool and he's thirty-six now? If I go upstairs I will see him, still arranging apples, still talking about hockey, still quoting late night's episode of The Simpsons. I was afraid to. Afraid that my name on the wall would plant me here. Afraid that I was not signing a wall in a basement but a dust-covered, splintering contract. Unspoken. To be here forever. Or if not forever, long enough to make everything meaningless. I was afraid to give. No. No you can't have my name. That's mine. You already have too much. Too much. You can't have my name on top of it. That's all I have left. But then I saw YOUR name. Just your last. Scratched in blue pen in the upper corner of the doorway. I stopped and ran my fingertips across the letters, as if touching your name would be like touching you. You. You who is no longer here. You're gone but you left your name behind for me to touch. Decision. I went into the office and took a blue pen from the desk. I cut deep into the wood flesh, forcefully carving a place for myself. I didn't just want to leave a mark, I wanted to leave a scar. A pulsing, stinging wound on the wall in the basement of Freshmart. I wrote my name next to yours, almost touching. Ink over ink over dust over wood. I wrote my name next to yours. It's planted there and not anywhere else.

Another coffee with the obscure yet always entertaining Danny. Mysterious muffins and the beige couch by the window. Perfect. I showed him a piece of short prose I had written earlier, which I plan to write here in a bit.

"You're writing is really emotional"
"Yeah. I know."
"You try to capture a moment, but you constantly have to struggle with the fact that life is a series of passing moments..."

Yes..Yes that's it. Funny that it would be you to finally put it into words for me. Can I not capture them all? Can I at least try? Is there value in a series of captured moments? We talked about our various philosophies to art and music.

"When I play a song for someone, it's emotionally equivalent to stripping naked in front of them."
"Do you give them the choice between the two? I wouldn't be able to decide."
"Hahahaha. You know what I mean."

He told me that it was cool to actually know me, because I had existed in his mind just as "the pretty Freshmart girl" for months and months. That day? You asked me out in HMV last summer and I said no? I had a boyfriend at the time and I didn't even know your name. I said no and started home but then I turned back. I could tell that you were interesting and worth talking to. I went back but I couldn't find you. I'm glad I got another chance and I get to talk to you now.

Walking back to school. More stories. Late night ramblings and girl-related conquests. Funny stuff. One story about a night when he met a girl at a bar and was greatly successful at seducing her.

"Why Danny, I had know idea that you could be so aggressive."
"When there is no war, love will make us bold."

Why? Why can't I do this? My stress levels and my sense of fleeting time are telling me yes, but my brain and my eyes and my fingers are screaming nonononono. I keep staring at this one spot on my computer screen, with my terribly written essay glowing in stark black and white in front of me. All the words turn runny and smush together, dripping down into the corners and spilling out over my hands in torrents. I read and reread sentences I wrote just days ago and find them utterly meaningless and nonsensical. I said that? Those are my words? Apparently. Unless....unless some underhanded individual has been sneaking into my apartment while I sleep and adding strange, poorly written paragraphs to my incompleted work just to fuck with me. Yes. Yes that must be it. Obviously.

But enough of this. I really should work. Have to work. WORK DAMMIT! No... still no. I get started and within five minutes my mind had wandered into another place. Walked out of the room and shut the door. Sorry. Sorry. Kathryn's brain isn't here right now. Kathryn's brain went out to climb trees and roam dark alleys for a while. Try again later? Oh fuck it. I'll just watch a movie. You win brain. This time.

I want to know her better. I've been meaning to tell her this, but I worry that she won't know how sincere I am. I read her words and think, "yes. me too. me too! i understand. i want to tell you about...."

Everyday I wonder if another potentially great conversation with her went unrealized. Can we talk sometime? Over wine? Over tea? Over sushi? I think you'd really understand me. I'd like to understand you too. I want to talk to you about language and music and how when you love them both you can never ever choose between them. And how that always leaves you feeling like you don't have that special thing that you can call "your thing" because you can never choose. I totally get that. I want to talk to you about the disappointment and disallusionment of higher education, and the fact that most academic settings breed laziness and ignorance. I want to jam with you sometime. We can pick a song and do an acoustic guitar/synth cover which will break the scale of awesomeness. I said you were a queen in my deck. I mean that. I think you're fucking brilliant and totally fascinating and I want to know you better.

I woke up to the sound of crunching metal in my head. Ugh. Fun has consequences sometimes. If a hangover is another kind of victory dance, I'm doing a fucking salsa baby. We got up and had breakfast together, but then retreated back under the soft, comforting warmth of my bed. We layed there for over an hour, limbs entwined, breath mingling, slipping in and out of sleep, watching morning turn to afternoon in the streak of sunlight from the window across my blanket.

"This is bliss."
"I know."

We layed there, snuggled into warm sheets, with a cold breeze playing across our cheeks. A simultaneous warm/cold embrace. We walked down to find some head medecine. The sun looked hot but felt cold. Our fingers locking together, warm palms and icy fingertips. A soft kiss. Warm breath against cold lips. Always this combination of cold and warm. I love it.

mmmmmm....soup is goooooood. Ha! I am so awesome! I finished my paper....and it's not due until wednesday!!! HAHAHAA!!!....Only two more papers, one manifesto and five exams to go...muhuhahahah.....oh wait. Fuck. Alcohol? Yes.

Why Yes! Yes I would like to work with an ex-con!! All by myself! At night! Probation you say? Assault you say? Savage, alcohol-induced beatings to a bloody fucking pulp you say? Yes please!!! Thank-you Freshmart! Thank-you so very fucking much!

Freshmart. The bane of my fucking existence. God how I hate that place. You destroyed two summers in a row. I can't ever have them back. You hire incompetent people, do a half-assed job training them and then wonder why the store falls to shit. You all secretly hate each other, gossiping when backs are turned. I'm the only one who does any work at all and you bitch about me when I'm legitimately sick. Remember that time? Yeah...I accidently ate shellfish. I threw up for hours. I wasn't "too drunk" for work. you, on the otherhand, are too stupid and ignorant for life itself. You are all slobs, faces stuffed with chips and greasy fingers smearing over everything. Everything. Everything in there is rotten and horrible. Ever notice the smell when you walk in the door? Mice corpses. Yes. Rotting flesh on dead animal...hundreds of them. In the ceiling. In the basement. On the fucking shelves. Yum yum. Eat up. Cold, moldy coffee cups strewn about and cigarette ash all over the floor. Do you know that everyone smokes inside? Oh yes. Against the law? Yes again. There are things in the produce and meat fridges that no longer fit into the confines of "food". They are entire, living, breathing organisms, plotting to destroy us all. We've got it coming. Admit it. There are chocolate bars they stopped making five years ago still lodged under shelves. There are exposed wires that give shocks big enough to throw someone's arm back. The scales don't always work because mice crawl up and piss in them. That's right. Urine all over the scales. Rodents. Urine. Mold. Rotting. Flesh. Decay. Dirt. Grime. Bitterness. Hatred. And now this? This? Fuck you. Fuck. You.

Sitting in the Paperchase, I feel like I'm in my fairytale tower, keeping watch over the nothing below.
Princess? Damsel? Not likely.

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!"
Yeah, well that Prince Charming is one heavy motherfucker and he ended up scalping that poor sad bitch.

All fairytales are gruesome underneath the pretty pictures and thick layer of sugared icing anyways.
Don't be fooled.

But I am in my tower, keeping watch over the nothing below.
The colorful, writhing nothing.
I am the goddess of nothing. Of obscurity.
But I'm still watching you from way up here on my gnarled perch.
And I see everything.
Despite the fact that there is really nothing.

During my walk this morning, I spotted my mother's car, parked in its usual place while she attends classes at NSCAD. I left her a note about the waterfront, where I'd been enjoying a glorious morning. The waterfront and the music and the poetry that lives and breathes in the harbour, that gets stirred up from the sleepy bottom when the big ships come into port. The waterfront, where the sun danced and grinned on my shoulders and my sneakers went hopscotching through garbage and seagull poop along the boardwalk. I wrote her a little note about my wonderful morning on a piece of paper, torn out of my journal. I left her with a question:

"Have you created something today?"

I didn't sign it and I left it tucked snugly under her driver's side wiper for her to discover later. I hope she thinks it's a ticket at first and yells something audibly profane. I hope she thinks it's from a mad-woman prophetess, stepping nimbly out of the shadows to reach out to her ambiguously. I didn't sign it, but I think she'll know it's from me.

I decided last night that this morning was going to kick ass. I was right. I got up early, had some breakfast and headed out the door armed with headphones and writing paper. I walked for hours all over the city, listening to mix tapes made for me by the wonderful and talented Katie. I let my feet be my vehicles and spent hours just wandering and watching. Sometimes, I get so accustomed to walking past homeless people and panhandlers, they almost become part of the scenery. I know that sounds horrible, and I don't mean for it to happen, but I just can't imagine Halifax without the pirate outside of the liquor store, or all the people holding the little signs along Spring Garden Road. The signs. I always read them. I have them memorized to the point where they are no longer words, just symbols that mean nothing. I was walking past the library when I saw a man holding a sign that I had never seen before. He was old and small, hunched down with a blanket spread over his lap to collect change in. His face was dirty and covered in bushy, white bristles, brown eyes gleaming through the fur. He held a sign against his chest and stared away from the passerbys. I glanced down and read his sign.

"Can you see me? I need help."

Triple-whammy sucker punch to my gut. I doubled over, gasping and feeling like I was going to be sick. I sat on the wall in front of the library for a few minutes, thinking abut the sign. I let the words roll over and over in my head and they continued to amaze me. I walked over to him and emptied the pathetic contents of my pockets into his lap. Three, maybe four dollars. I don't know. I didn't care. It could have been twenty bucks and I still would have given it to him. He looked up at me and smiled a wide, toothless grin. He muttered something incoherently, all the sounds mushing together like he chewed up the words before trying to say them. I think he said thank-you. I don't really know. I walked away, broke and feeling faintly nauseated.

"Mushrooms aren't drugs...they're just like a really wicked vegetable."

We run like beasts of prey
through hushed grass,
slick and oozing under our feet,
our feet bare and cool,
wet with summer,
sweating out her days.
We howl from our guts,
like savage animals,
shaking tree limbs from their snaking roots
and swallowing stars,
hot like embers,
but sliding down our throats like creamy scallops
to fire up our bellies.
Our charged beacon-centers.
Let's dance to the throbbing drum of the forest.
Let's tumble down hills,
tangling together like marionettes,
shrieking with laughter
like children possessed with our own importance.
Let's pull down the moon like a cup
and tip her sour whiskey pools
into our grinning, eager mouths.

Always these words words words wrapped around my tongue like coiled snakes. Spun like cotten candy, soft and billowy, but dissolving too fast to taste them.

I keep pulling it back out and turning it over and over in my hands, like I can't believe I actually have it. I close my eyes and run cold, guitar-calloused fingertips over the thick paper. I open the little card to see my name in bold, black print at the very top. Everything is being crystallized in my mind now. Everything is clear. All the questions and contradictions and apprehensions are boiling, floating to the top and being skimmed off for good. Are we completely crazy for doing this? Well, in a word, yes. Yes we sure are nuts. I love it.

I bought a magnetic, travel-sized chess game today at the dollar store. Somewhere between Toronto and Kamloops, when everyone else on the train is asleep, when we've already been threatened by the various attendant and security figures to keep our ridiculous antics to a dull roar, when mile after mile of moonlit prairie landscape has already blurred past our windows, we'll go up to the observation car and you can teach me how to play. I used to know how, but now I forget. We'll sit at the back table, surrounded by a dome of glass and inky sky. We'll be hungry and tired, our bodies tortured by nights spent attempting to sleep under train seats, or without sleep at all. We'll talk about the hot food we're going to seek out the minute we step off this cylinder-of-madness, hurtling us across the country all hours of day and night. We'll feel strange attachments to the clothing we've been wearing for days on end, with unbrushed hair and puffy eyes. We'll have miles of Canada behind us. We'll have miles of Canada in front of us. We'll have a tiny, magnetic chess board between us. I'll smile at you and you'll know how unbelievably special you are for being here with me. I'll smile at you and you'll know.

Guess what? Guess?!?!? GUESSSS!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I bought my Canrail Pass today! It's in my kitchen. It's on my counter. It's causing me to sing and dance and make bizarre animal noises out of sheer glee. It's my ticket to freedom baby. It's finally here. I'm so fucking going.

I sit in class and close my eyes to the sound. That sound. The sound of pens. Scraping and tearing. A thousand tiny fingernails clawing, digging a thousand tiny holes, relentlessly. Grating against the minute fibers and leaving trails of fresh, wet, inky blood in the form of dripping words. Writing is destructive. Writing is destruction. Can you feel it too? The words on paper being carved into my body one by one. Poetry scars along my ribcage. I'm novel-bruised and language-beaten. But I love that sound. It sounds like innumerable termites swarming, chewing through walls. It sounds like infestation. It sounds like writhing, threatening legions that exist only to devour and consume without thought. It's only pens. Pens scratching rhythmically. Pens infesting. Words swarming and threatening.

We sat down on the couches with our coffees. I wasn't sitting on the side of him that I usually sit on in class, so the first thing I noticed was the scar. Long, red and raised, running in a sharp, jagged line along his neck, just under his jaw bone. I inhaled slowly, trying to decide whether or not I knew him well enough to ask him about it.

Coffee was great. We sat side by side and talked into our mugs until the initial awkwardness subsided, which with Danny, is a whole hell of a lot of awkwardness. We talked about books and music and argued over the musical worth of later Our Lady Peace albums at great length. I still feel that they lost their edge and their substance halfway through "Happiness". You will not sway me. He made strange noises and stranger faces and then calmly asked me if my libido was raging for him. He's an odd duck. We talked about writing. He's writing a play and says he'll let me read it when it's finished. I asked him about the poem he wrote me...

"Really, it's an expression of affection in the face of the futile and the indescribable."

I'm still a little mystified, but I think that's the only explanation I'm going to get. We talked about happiness and sadness. I asked if he was sad. He told me he had been battling depression for almost a decade. He said he was an authority on attempted suicide. He said he was okay, he had medication and psychological help. I felt slightly relieved, but my eyes were continuously drawn to the scar, which now seemed to be glowing, slashed across his skin. He told me I made life more digestible. I told him he often left me with a good feeling of puzzlement. He took this as a compliment and seemed pleased.

"I want to take you on a date."

I tried to explain how things were. I told him about Mike. Then I told him that even if there was no Mike, I didn't have those kinds of feelings for him, but that I was flattered by the offer. He giggled as I explained. I asked him why he was laughing.

"Because life is funny."

He could tell I was confused and apprehensive to react. He told me I was sweet and that he knew the feelings were one way. He told me he liked being just friends with me too. Small relief. We made vague plans to smoke a joint sometime together and act like pretentious philosophy students, discussing the nature of reason and truth and "the nothing". He cocked his head to one side and looked at me, one blue eye winking through his hair.

"If things don't work out with Mike, you'll have to step up and give me a chance..."

He laughed first.
I mustered up some courage and some intrusive curiosity.

"Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"What's that scar from?"
"The big one on my neck?"
"Yeah..."
"I went through a window when I was four. I almost died."

Exhale.

I woke up this morning with one sentence recklessly careening around my mind.

"Tell my harrowing tale of misdeed."

What? What harrowing tale? Whose harrowing tale? What misdeed? I don't understand the way in which my own brain functions. Maybe it's a message from a telepathic being. That would be awesome.

Sometimes I get stuck on language. Little pieces, fragments. A word will lodge itself in my mind like a moth caught in a spiderweb, thrashing around uselessly, threatening to disrupt and shake up everything. When I went to visit my grandfather in the nursing home, I couldn't stop repeating the word "glossed". I muttered it under my breath so no one would hear it. "glossed, glossy, glossed, glossed" Everything in that place was glossed. Covered in a layer of hard, shiny finish, resistant to all stains and dirt. A place where nothing could be absorbed. Nothing could leave a mark. Glossed. The whole building was designed so that a human life could be reduced to a stain, wiped off a table. A fingerprint wiped off a wall. Someone could live and die there and all remnants and signs of them could be gloriously cleaned from every glossy surface. You wouldn't even know they were there. You wouldn't even know they existed. Glossed. Glossy. Glossed.

But that word has some association with where I was. I understand why it stuck in my head that day. So why did I wake up hearing only these words in my head: "Tell my harrowing tale of misdeed." ? The words are climbing the walls and making the foundations tremble. They mean business. They're serious about me telling the tale. Of what? Of who?

Ever feel stuck? Not in a time. Not in a place. In yourself. In a self-made box called identity. Yeah. Me too. Lately I've been wrestling with issues of identity. Not terribly uncommon for an angst-filled, embittered twenty-year-old. I've been thinking about the world and the place where I "fit". I've been scowering and searching and combing this city for a little Kathryn-shaped hole to settle into just so I can say, "There. That's better. This is me. Here. Now." But I haven't been able to find it. I think I've been looking at everything the wrong way. I've been picturing the world like a vast, spreading puzzle of perfectly interlocking pieces. I'm just a piece that hasn't found its place right? That place where all the colours and edges line up and I fall into a cohesive whole. The world isn't like that. There are pieces, but no puzzle. No guidelines, no pictures to follow, no goals, no end. There is no coherence and no Kathryn-shaped hole for my little puzzle piece. Eternally and inevitably fragmented. Yes, that's more accurate. So how do I define myself in a place with no boundaries, no edges, no all-uniting pattern? How do I fit into a world that has no context and no relevance? I'm not so sure. I used to define myself by my grades. To a certain extent I still do. If I don't have straight A's, do I cease to exist? Of course not. I can not be summed up in a transcript. I used to define myself by my music, but then I came to realize that I'm not a guitar player. Don't get me wrong, I can play a little, but underneath I'm really just a singer, butchering a few backup chords, making some noise to fill in the silence. I used to hate silence. Silence meant nothingness. Now, living alone, silence has become its own entity. It moves and breathes like me. I exist in a bubble of heaving, living, trembling silence. If I lay very still I can feel it swallow, licking its massive, dripping mouth around me. I'm not afraid of it. That would be awfully silly of me. It has become so tangible, I want to befriend it, but that only leads me to paradox. How do you befriend silence? Not with words, obviously. Then it would cease to exist and so would I. Ahhhhh....back to the identity problem once again. All circular, all the time.

I recognized your voice this time on the phone. You sounded far away, like you had the mouthpiece cradled under your chin. You sounded disappointed before I even had a chance to say hello. I hate the way you can't talk to me anymore without sounding sad. I hope to change that. I took the initiative. I made plans. Tomorrow. Coffee and Pie tomorrow. What's your favorite kind of pie? Do you prefer the fruit ones or the custardy-chocolatey ones? Cherry all the way for this girl. We have a lot to talk about. My mom called me today. She's worried about me, worrying about you. She's worried I'll try to shoulder everything. She asked me if I had anyway to contact your family if I needed to. I realized that I know nothing about your family. You mentioned a brother once, but aside from that...nothing. I don't even know where you grew up. Was it here? It could be anywhere. Why don't I know? We have so much we can talk about. If I can only make you laugh tomorrow, it will be a successful day. Please laugh.

I'm wary of beautiful, blank books for writing. Hard, shiny covers and thick, heavy, acid-free pages. Leather bound. Expensive. They say much about those who dare to write in them. What have they done to deserve such books for their irrelevant scratchings, musings, contemplations? I have had these books before, and I am always disappointed with what I write in them. They set a standard that I can rarely hope to attain. Usually, I get disgusted with my own lack of eloquence and ability and abandon these books for cheaper materials. I have better luck when money and exquisite craftsmanship aren't glaring me in the face. I write beautifully on looseleaf, old scraps, the backs of envelopes, receipts, and in the margins of my scribblers. Places with no expectations. Buying myself a nice book in which to pour out my thoughts is like cursing the potential clarity of my pen to sully, turn to mud and soil everything.

He's still asleep, sprawled across my bed, blankets twisted up in his legs. I'm up only because I have a fever and I can't sleep. Urg. This strept throat business is starting to annoy me. He came over last night after going to a house party on Hunter Street. He walked in with a drunken, sheepish, mischievous grin on his face that stayed there until we went to sleep. He told me energetic stories about his night and had us both in fits of giggles. He made some amusing additions to my msn conversation with Melissa (that poor girl is probably confused), and tried to wriggle his way under my mattress for some reason. What a goof. He's awesome. But now he's sleeping, unaware that every few seconds I swivel my chair around and look at him, smiling. Unaware that I'm describing him and smiling.

Our trip to the Village yesterday was excellent and much much fun. We went into Pets Unlimited first and looked at puppies because I'm a dork. We walked through the rows of fish tanks and I apologized to a bubble eyed goldfish for having to live an existence of pure hideousness. Now. Value Village. We parted ways at the door, with him grabbing a cart on his way. I picked through the garish colors and pilled fabrics in search of something that screamed me. I found a really great, pale turquoise, Old Navy turtle neck and a fuzzy, brown hat that I've decided looks adorable on me. I also found a little boy's red, Spiderman T-shirt, but it was a little to short and scandalous looking on me. Rats. I heart Spiderman. When I met up with Mike again, he had a cart full. Jeans, several pairs, some new work shirts (he ruined one yesterday with some cheesecake?), a "boot scootin' boogie" T-shirt which is hilarious, two jackets, photographs, a photoalbum, a wicked looking, painted bottle (present for me!), a blue corduroy hat, and a book that mostly contained pictures of windows (his room is windowless). I envied his haul of stuff. I made him try on a hat that had a big plush Santa sewn to it. Very sexy. I also contemplated buying the Bronski Beat tape I found (synth!), but I don't trust used tapes in my stereo. Oh well.

We met some colorful people at the bus stop (by colorful I mean slightly terrifying). One man kept laughing hysterically to himself, while facing the corner of the little bus shelter. Two older women realized that they used to work together, but one wouldn't tell the other her name, making her guess unsuccessfully for over ten minutes. Odd. We watched a small girl happily destroy her black, velvet dress shoes in a delicious pile of brown muck until the bus came. We came back to my apartment and I insisted, much to his chagrin, on a complete fashion show. What a fun day.

"I have to make the sadness stop."

What sadness? Danny? What sadness? What are you stopping? What do you mean by that? What am I supposed to think when curious eyes flicker down onto your page, only to discover that you've written that instead of neat little notes about the poignancy of Dylan's metaphors and symbolic language? Please tell me that you don't mean what I think you mean. Tell me that they're just words. Words. Meaningless words. Irrelevant scratchings on a white surface. Just something to fill in the blank space. Tell me you don't mean it and then say one of those things that leaves me speechless and slackjawed. Please. Do this because I can't can't can't can't go through it again. I'll be turned inside out and ripped in two. Promise me. Promise me. I've been noticing, you know? I've been noticing all the little changes. You didn't sit with me the other day. You look over my shoulder when you talk to me...possible escape route? I don't know. Do I have some blame in this? I should have talked to you about that poem by now. I should have. I'm sorry. But what good is this even going to do? My feverish spilling out of dread and worry and morbid speculation into this great indeterminable void of space. My pleading will be read by many people, but not you. You don't know about this. Should I tell you? I think I need to tell you a lot of things. I owe you that much as a friend. Let's go out and get that slice of pie together, okay? We'll talk. Everything will be fine. I promise. But only if you promise. Promise me. Promise me.

Mike is a scavenger. I like this about him. Whenever we walk anywhere, his eyes are always roving around, searching and spotting things that no one else seems to notice. Yesterday, as we were walking from his place to the Mart, I heard a small exclamation of delight and intrigue escape his lips as we passed the Salvation Army. There. In the parking lot. An old old suitcase abandoned in the snow. He ran over and quickly salvaged it. Smiling, pleased. Treasure. It's green and warped and waterlogged. It's covered with pictures and clippings. It looks like someone took many hours to decorate it. The clasps that hold it shut are bent and rusted and tricky to open. We decided to wait until he got to work to try, we could always jimmy them there with a produce knife. All the way to work, we speculated upon what the mysterious suitcase might contain. Murder weapons. Treasure maps. The possibilities were endless. When he finally pryed it open, this is what it contained:

A dark green army shirt, spattered with various colours of paint (Mike will wear this)
A gray, knitted sweater, that would have been lovely if it were not full of holes and safety pins....oh well.
A girl's winter coat, perfect condition...although ugly and awkwardly shaped.
A black, canvas bag...conveniently sized. (I may commandeer this)
A dirty plastic bracelet
A hairpin
A plastic lizard
A watery, illegible, handwritten note
thirty or so shimmering, loose, purple marbles.

What a marvelous find. Wouldn't you say?

My first real St. Patty's day went remarkably well. As usual, the only girl with a slew of drunken boys. Capers, Prospecters...a lethal mix. I sampled many different types of beverages: draft, vodka, tequila, Jagermeister (spelling?)....have I mentioned that I am invincible? Well I am. I quoted The Warriors far too much, threatening to "rain on" anyone who came too close to me. After much rocking out, I became a little sleepy and unresponsive. What? Putting my head down on the beer-soaked table is a bad idea? Who knew? Home again, we found the weird alley where I fell a few weeks back. I'll get you next time. *shakes fist*. Hummus and flatbread and slurred story-telling. I passed out in my clothes yet again. Go me. What a fun night.

oh yeah....Curtis. Don't hit me. I mean it. It wasn't funny the first time. It hurt and I told you that it did. It was really really uncool the second time. That one hurt more. Seriously. Don't fucking hit me. It's not a joke. It's not a game. I'm not smiling. Don't. Fucking. Hit. Me.

I called Via Rail yesterday to confirm everything. It's a go. It's real. It's all happening. In less than two months, we'll be sitting across from each other, watching Canada stretch out behind us through train windows. We'll wake up to sunsets and mountains together. We'll take turns pointing out the sketchiest people on the train, guess where they're going and what they're doing, dare each other to go talk to them. We'll dig our claws into the cities and unearth the fun, the mystery, the secrets. I'll watch him sleep when his snoring wakes me up. He'll listen to me try to learn slide guitar. We will become scrabble experts, traveling the country with pockets full of triple-word-score vocabulary. We will be perfect and I will writewritewritewrite.

I'm going out with him and his friends tonight and I can't wait. Green beer? Perhaps. It is some sort of tradition after all. I plan to drink to the small part of me that actually is Irish. Murphy blood. Yeah...it's in there. That's where the green eyes come from.

I want to introduce him to everyone. Even strangers. At the party last weekend, I wanted gather up my highschool friends excitedly, jump up and down like a little kid on Christmas morning and squeal.

"Isn't he fun? Isn't he nice? Isn't he awesome? Aren't I the luckiest girl ever?"

He is. I am.
He makes me laugh until my sides hurt.
He makes me smile at school, work, home, just by thinking about him.
He makes me want to sing. Dance. Write bad, sappy poetry.

Not that anyone cares except myself, but I flushed Wesley today. I came home from the gym around lunchtime (lunch?) and found him, as usual, lying on his side at the bottom of his bowl, slowly being covered in a white, mossy substance. I stared at him for about ten minutes straight. Nothing. "Finally!" I said to myself. "Bout time that fucker kicked it." Just as the words left my lips, a big, fat, spiteful bubble escaped Wesley's little decaying mouth. Fucker. Fucker! Still alive! I didn't care. I had had enough of this twisted, morbid little performance. I committed myself to flushing him. Aided suicide....whether he likes it or not. I realized then that I never purchased one of those dippy nets to get him out. Curses. I was tempted to fork him out, but suppressed my irritation and went for a spoon instead. This proved to be tricky. Almost-dead Wesley decided to use to last fragment of life in a vain attempt to avoid my spoon. I think he knew the jig was up. He tried to swim, but it really just looked like he was having a minor seizure. I almost laughed. I got him onto the spoon, but I ended up squashing him a little against his rock. This was quickly becoming very disturbing. I carried him into the bathroom, but being the caffeine junky that I am, my hands perpetually shake and he fell off the spoon, smacked against the toilet seat and slid.....slowly, into the bowl without struggle. Flush. Goodbye. So long buddy. Now then....what's for lunch? Oh....right......fuck.

I was supposed to get paid today. I didn't. To spite my lazy boss, I went to freshmart and stole two apples and a banana for supper. He brought it on himself. I ate them in perfect view of the cameras. Hahaha. Take that. You and your rules. I've become sadder than most fictional characters in my food supply. I ran out of mustard, Jam, Peanut Butter. No condiments at all. Even Otto had mustard, even if he was unaware of it. For a while today, all I had in my fridge was an onion. One tiny onion that I couldn't bring myself to eat on its own. At suppertime (supper?), the girls across the hall came over and asked me if they could borrow an onion for a recipe. How fucking ironic. I gave it to them, secretly pleased that they couldn't see the contents (or lack there of) of my fridge. She probably wouldn't have taken it. I could smell their food through the door. It was driving me crazy so I went to Freshmart and mooched my supper. Mike gave me some Crispers (thankyou) and Rob had left behind some dried apricots that he didn't want (mine!). Ahhhhh. Sustenance. How deliciously sad. I better get paid tomorrow....if not, I'll steal bigger things and do it even more blatantly.

I looked out the window today and the sun winked at me through the trees, knowingly. Yes, today will be good. Today will be a day for power walking to eighties tunes and smiling at strangers. I always smile at strangers...only about ten percent of them smile back.

"If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't feel
'cause I've never felt completeness
like being here.
Wrapped in the warmth of you.
Loving every breath of you.
Still my heart this moment
or it might burst.
I wanna stay right here
'till the end of time
'till the earth stops turning.
I wanna love you 'till
the seas run dry
'cause I've found the one
I've waited for.
The one I've waited for."

Two years we had together and now I have to watch you lying on your side, struggling to breathe. I remember arguing about your name in the car, going through the selection of names found in The Princess Bride. We decided on Wesley. Perfect. For two years I have fed you and watched you swim in little circles. For a while you lived on top of the psychedelic trunk...but we moved you when the colors made you crazy. For two years you tried to bite me when I fed you. Everyday. Without fail. You little prick. That's why I liked you after all...you had spunk. For months now your energy has been waning. Everyday you swam a little slower, got a little dumber when I tried to feed you. Just this last month, you barely moved at all. I think you're trying to spite me. You look horrible and pathetic and disgusting but you refuse to fully die. Your scales are growing white mold and yet you still keep breathing, slowly, unevenly. Mike told me you were decomposing while you were still alive. That's gross. I think you're drawing out your suffering on purpose. I want to flush you because I don't want to watch anymore...but you're not dead. So I can't. Fuck. Fish are stupid. Don't ever get them for pets. Maybe I'm the stupid one. I should just flush him alive. No. No I can't do that. Yup. I'm definitely the stupid one.

Last night we told each other stories. Some funny, some not funny at all. We opened our hearts and showed each other our deepest, most horrible scars. We described the cataclysmic, life altering events of our teenage years. We pinpointed the moments when innocence was strangled, murdered and buried forever. We explained how it is that we came to be the way we are. We shared and we held onto each other.

But do you really know? Do you really understand what that did to me three years ago? I'd like to make a few things clear right off the bat. I'm not angry about this. I'm not hurt about this anymore. I never cry and will never cry over that situation again. That's all finished. I forgive you. But. But. It's just not that easy. I can't just come over and see your apartment and laugh at the fistful of irony that keeps hitting us in the face and pretend that everything is back to the way it was. I can't just hug you for the first time in three years and not think about why. Why. Why it is that we didn't really speak, hug, hangout for three years. That's a long fucking time and it was no accident. I don't want to yell at you and I don't want to hurt you...I just need you to know. I need to say all the things that I never got to say when you were forcibly ripped out of my life. I need you to answer the questions that I wasn't allowed to ask you back then. I need you to know. I need you to understand what that did to me. I need you to see that your choices and your actions had a serious and negative effect on my life for a very long time. I need you to know all the things you didn't see were happening.

I'm going to sit you down some time in the near future. We'll get extra large coffees and I'll explain the end of grade twelve as it happened from my perspective. I'm going to tell you how badly it hurt to be deserted by a good friend. I'm going to tell you about needing to talk to you so so much and not being able to even look at you. I need you to know that you were my rock and you abandoned me. I need you to know that I felt like garbage, unwanted and discarded on the side of the road. I need you to know that every time you looked through me instead of at me, it felt like an icy knife to my heart. I need you to know what I was doing when you had that party. I need you to know about the beer and the screaming and the burning of that letter. I need you to know that I went days without eating or sleeping. I need you to know that I spent a few hours, face down in my driveway, in pouring rain, crying so hard that I couldn't get up. I need you to know that I felt isolated, tormented and completely insane for months. I need you about the breakdowns and the reasons why I hated prom and why I didn't even go to Hatfield Farms after graduation. I need you to know about the songs...about everything.

Then we'll hug again and it will be real. We will be friends. I just need you to acknowledge how life altering that situation was for me. I need you to see how HUGE it is that we can even talk, laugh, share a smoke and hug without pretending. I need you to know.

Oh my god. The crazies were in full force today. I think there must be a convention going on or something.

Jim came in as usual. He's a regular and he's awesome. I don't know why I haven't written about him before. He has a light brown, bushy fro of hair and perpetually loopy, drug-induced grin on his face. He smokes pounds of the stuff. Everyday. I mean it. Pounds. His school bag is a liquor bad with a shoulder strap made from old rope. He wears his pants so low that his belt actually rests UNDER his ass. He has to waddle slowly so they don't fall down. Gravity defying pants. I love it. I don't think Jim even knows where he is most of the time.

She was pale all over. Pale blond hair, pale white skin, eyes the palest possible blue. Almost white. She wore only pale colors. Lavender, yellow, cream, white. She spoke in a pale voice and handed me pale pale money from a pale wallet from a pale purse. I kept trying to look through her. No luck.

They obviously hate each other. Old and crabby, arguing up and down the aisles in loud screeching voices. The physical embodiments of the word 'crotchety'.
"We don't need potatoes!"
"Yes we do!"
"You don't know anything!"
"I'm paying for it!"
"I don't want your money!"
"Don't tell me what you want!!"

Ack. I couldn't stop laughing until twenty minutes after they left.....with the potatoes.

He was standing behind a shy looking boy who was buying a small bouquet of flowers. He had a strange accent and kept trying to convince the boy to give the flowers to me for some reason.
"geeve them to her heeare"
The shy boy was embarrassed. I was highly amused. Shy boy left and strange man continued to talk to me about himself. About how strange I probably thought he was. Which I did.
"You haf boyfreeend? I bet you go home and haf story to tell heem yes? You tell heem that old guy come een and is crazy yes? I know what he will say. He will say 'Son of a beetch!'"

But none of them compare and none of them matter because today was the day of the triumphant and flamboyant return of Greg. My favorite drunk in the whole wide world. He was so drunk today, he not only forgot my real name, but he also forgot the name he usually resorts to when that happens (Chrissy). Today he called me Connie. Again, I did not bother to correct him. He was so excited to see me, he leapt up and twirled himself around until he fell into the popsicle freezer. He made me try on his purple sunglasses and look out the window at the sky.

"You've gotta try purple haze Connie! You've just gotta see the purple haze!"

He knew every person who came into the store in the next few minutes, giving out hugs and drunken exclamations freely. By the time John, the bread guy from Staff of Life bakeries came through the doors, Greg grabbed him in a tight embrace and just said "OH MY GOD!" They had never met before. I think John is frightened. He told me, like always, how brilliant I am.

"Oh wow Connie. I think you're just so smart! I mean you're gorgeous too, but it's the intellect that really turns the guys on and you've got it Con, you've got it."

Greg continued to chat me up long after he made his purchases. He told me that his father had suffered a third heart attack, and then proceeded to tell me that his father had invented FM radio and had also written with Alfred Hitchcock. My calm demeanor was now becoming a problem, and a smirk was fighting its way onto my face. He told me, slurringly, that he had just written his 175th paper and it was something that no one has ever thought before.

"It's totally new. They can't believe it."
"I'm a postmodern, egalitarian, feminist male, you know Connie..."
"It'll take them a decade to totally work it out!"
"I'm considered one of the best writers in the country you know..."
"They asked me to stay and do more school over them summer, but I just thought...no. you know what? I'll just give them what I've done, I'll give it to them and let them teach from it and I'll go sand a boat. Yeah, I'm gonna sand a boat."

Sometimes I can't believe that this guy even exists.

The world's heaviest weight was lifted from my shoulders by one good hug.

"I think we're having a historic moment"
"yeah. we definately are."

Matt Murphy and I stopped being friends in grade twelve under the ugliest and most brutal of circumstances. The story is well known and told often so I won't repeat it here. After "it" happened, we didn't speak at all. We didn't look at each other. We pretended not to know each other for months. It was horrible. When he and Ian moved in together in first year, I knew we couldn't keep ignoring each other that way, so Matt and I adopted a nice, phony, friendly small-talk routine to smooth everything over and keep the blood shed at a minimum. We never acted like the friends we used to be, but we got pretty good at pretending that nothing had happened between us. He would come home, I'd be on his couch watching TV, he'd say hello, I'd ask how his day was...all the regular bullshit you might expect from people who don't know each other very well. Except that we do know each other. Extremely well. He knows me as well if not better than most people. For that I still resent him a little. Oh well.

After first year, I saw Matt often in Coburg, where he works and in Freshmart, where I work. Again, more small talk and making nice. Our conversations almost never lasted beyond a few sentences. But we were polite and adult about the whole situation. This has continued over the past three years. It become part of my routine to talk to Matt as though we are friends, but not the way we were before. We still never hang out or anything, it's all just pretense. It's so weird when I stop to think about it.

Lately, he's been stopping in at the Mart on Friday nights when I work and has started bringing me coffee. Our little phony small talk has grown into half hour, even hour long conversations about everything that's going on in our lives. Sometimes, when we're talking, I forget that things are different between us now. That we aren't really friends if anyone is around to see. I forget about everything and I relapse into having long chats with someone who used to be one of my best friends. It's only when he leaves that I feel how empty it all is.

Except now he's broken up with her. Is that supposed to mean something to me? Are things going to be different now? I don't know. He came in tonight and we talked for a while about break ups and benders and school work and stuff. He said he was having a party and that I was invited. Does he realize that that's a huge deal? Does he realize that we haven't hung out in over three years? That he hasn't "invited" me to anything since he met her? Does he expect everything to just go back to how it was before? Because it can't. At least I don't think it can. Don't get me wrong, I'm not still angry over this. I don't want to yell at him or make him hurt the way he made me hurt years ago. That's just silly. But I'm different now. Things are different and I don't think they can ever be changed back. I'm not sure if I would even want them to be changed back if they could be. What would it be like to just pick up where we left off three years ago? Would we shyly reminisce about the good times, nervously draining beer bottles until we ended up hugging each other tightly, screaming apologies at the top of our lungs? No. I'm sure that will never happen. Would pretending to be okay with everything upset me? Would I cry? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I wouldn't even care.

All I know is that in those few conversations when I was able to forget about what happened. I really missed having him as a friend.

Today, in my history tutorial, my T.A. told my class a story of her youth. She went to a catholic school and utterly despised it. One year, in her English class, everyone had to recite a poem in front of the class. She informed her teacher she would be reciting passages from Milton's "Paradise Lost". When the day came, she got up in front of thirty uniformed Catholics and a nun and recited Alan Ginsberg's "Howl" loud and clear. She put particular emphasis on the swear words and images that pertained to drug use, insanity, anti-establishment ideas and graphic sexuality. She was given detention for a month and a half. I think this is so fucking awesome. I would never have pegged her as a rebel child. She surprised me. It makes me wonder how other people might have me pegged. Do I ever surprise them? I think I need to do something surprising......hmmmm.....

Now that I have an Eastlink bill to deal with every month, my usual "slightly pathetic" grocery orders have become "desperately pathetic" grocery orders. I never have food in my fridge anymore. Ever. Today I found myself rationing the rest of my loaf of bread to last until I got my next paycheck. It will work out if I skip breakfast on Tuesday. Oh, this is so sad. I have to cut down on some things or I'm gonna starve. Seriously. Yesterday I remembered that I still hadn't used my full Subway card. I was so excited I nearly fell over. Today, my supper consisted of the tail ends of shriveling vegetables, cut up in slices and some tea so my stomach would fuck off for a while. I suppose I can call myself a "starving artist" now. How romantic. No wait...no. It sucks.

I'm sitting at my computer. Hair damp from rain. Wearing his sweater, blue, stars down the sleeves and skull and crossbones on the chest. It's awesome and I'm keeping it! Yesterday I transformed from Kathryn: sulking creature of winter, to Kathryn: kickass strumpet of springtime. That's right. The wool coat is put away for the season. Not even another snow storm will make me wear it again until next year. Last night, as I was getting ready to leave, I unburied my beloved sneakers from the shoe pile in my porch. Blue Gravis kicks. Old, warped, salt-ravaged and wearing through the backs. I put them on and my feet smile. If my toes could sing, they would. But what song? Walkin' On Sunshine perhaps? Sure. Why not. I pulled my beautiful, vintage, long leather coat from it's hanger and slid it up over my shoulders. Aaaaahhhhhh. Yes. So much better. Now everything is awesome. I am awesome. That's right. You heard me. AWESOME.

As much as I hate the setup of the Killam Library...I love the way it smells. That thick, pungent stench of old leather and canvas that invades your nostrils the second you push the doors open. It's the smell of pens feverishly scratching, late into the night. It's the smell of thick, old paper, brittle and yellowed with age. It's the smell of a trunk filled with old books, left for decades in a dusty attic and forgotten until now. I love walking down the rows upon rows of books, the labyrinth of shelves with little to no organizational pattern, and running my fingers along the spines of each volume. I do this with my eyes closed, walking slowly, and when I feel my breath quicken and my chest tighten, I know I'm close. I'll stop, eyes still shut and pull a random book from the shelf, in hopes that it was fated that it should fall into my hands. In hopes that it has something remarkable and life altering to tell me. Sometimes it does. I love scanning a section of titles, and pulling the one book with nothing distinguishing at all on the outside. An all black, unblemished cover. I always assume that the inside must make up for it. Sometimes it does. I love finding the older books and hearing them crack and groan as I force them open, paper guts spilling out over my feet and scattering along the floor. I love carefully bundling them back together and returning them to their resting place.

You know how in "That 70's show", Eric Foreman's basement is like the central meeting and hangout place? I think that would have been my basement had we all lived closer together. Still, there were good times down there.

Do you remember that New Years party in grade nine, when the boys built the fort and wouldn't let Jason Hamer into it?

Do you remember filming our telejournal down there? Matt wearing that wig all day? The tomato? Ben dressing up like a dog not once but twice? Bentos? Cafe John A?

Do you remember getting Ian drunk for the first time and him continuously dropping his pants? Him bellycrawling around my basement floor, singing?

Do you remember all the new ways to play pool? Base-pong? Hiding the darts from the boys?

Do you remember the death swing? The unfortunate fates of Jaime and Calem and the rest of us who just laughed at them?

Do you remember finding my mom down there, listening to blues, drinking beer and smashing mirrors, telling us she was "creating art"?

Kerri's surprise party? That bizarre game of strip poker when we used buttons for currency?

Do you remember ALL THE PARTIES? Getting loaded on Good Friday three years in a row? Coming straight from church to my house of heathanism? Drinking cooking sherry by mistake? Playing "drink-go-fish" with Matt while sitting on the pingpong table? Who stole my dad's moonshine that time? Setting up the amps and guitars? Matt 'the vegetarian' Murphy, flipping a rack of ribs on the grill with his bare hands? All the dope? The ridiculous mound of it on the kitchen table? Campbellvich? Truisms? The mushroom bowl? Trevor Oickle just showing up every time? Kerri drinking Rockaberry cooler in bed the next morning? Katie and the puke throne? Breaking the towel rack? Drinking toilet water cause she thought I'd be mad? Matt getting so so so sick? Me sitting next to him for an hour, pulling vomit out of his mouth so he didn't choke and die? Pancakes the next day? Jaime's morning face? The "pukey" crown?

wow. i'm feeling nostalgic.

Every now and then, I'll be walking down town and I'll think that I see her. Her. Tiffany. Tiffany Busk. I'll catch short blond hair and rainbow clothes out of the corner of my eye, my heart will catapult into my mouth and I'll have to bite down on it hard to keep from screaming out her name. It happened today. I spotted a tiffany up ahead of me on Quinpool on my walk home. My legs wanted to sprint after her, grab her by the shoulders and hold on to her as tight as I could. I forced myself to look away. I stared at the intricate textures of the wall of a building until I knew she would be out of sight. The whole time, these words were running high-speed through my mind..."it isn't her. it's isn't her. it can't be her. you know this. you know it can't ever be her again because she's dead. she's dead. she's been dead for two years so it isn't her. "

Now memories or Tiffany Busk are flooding my brain. I'm drowning in a sea of her smiling, laughing face. I remember knowing for three days that someone who had gone to John A. had hung themself. I knew this. I let it enter my mind and then exit again because there was no name, so it wasn't real and it couldn't touch me. Three days I knew this and then Jaime called me. Her voice was soft and sympathetic on the other line. I didn't understand why at first.

"Kathryn. That girl was Tiffany. That girl who hung herself was Tiffany Busk. I know you two were friends..."

I don't remember how that conversation ended. I know that when I hung up the phone I just stood there. Still. Silent. Brow furrowed in concentration like somehow if I said and did nothing I could make it go away. Later that day I crawled into my tiny tunnel closet behind my door, turned off the light, curled up in a ball and cried. I cried for hours. I cried until I was cold and shaking and throwing up. One hideous word punching the walls of my brain. "why? WHY?" Later that night, when my body refused all forms of rest, I ransacked my room to find what I had left. What did I have to remind me of her? What pieces and scraps of her existence did I have pressed into books and photo albums, pushed under my bed to gather dust. This is what I found:

A tape of a tea party album she made me in junior high, the songs scrawled sloppily in a blunt pencil.
A Birthday card she made me with the heads of the Hanson brothers taped on supermodel bodies.
Two pictures, only one of which she is clearly visible.

That's it? That's all? I had never been more angry with myself. How could this be all I have left? How will I remember, years from now, that it was Tiffany who sat on top of snowbanks, singing at the top of her lungs. Tiffany who came with me to Value Village and filled a cart with ridiculous things to try on. Tiffany who openly admitted to loving Hanson and didn't mind when we teased her. Tiffany who hugged so tightly that it hurt. Tiffany who cut off all her hair just so she wouldn't have to comb it for a while. Tiffany whose chemistry test I did for her in the John A. library, the one she got 100 on and her teacher was baffled. Tiffany who wore a shirt that had funny little houses all over it. We all chose a house on the shirt and claimed it as our own. I remember telling her that my house was the little blue one below her left shoulder blade. I remember giggling on the bus, making plans for the day when we would make a mass exodus out of Prospect and move into the Utopia of Tiffany's shirt.

Except I have nothing to commemorate any of those things. Only snatched fragments, rolling loose and recklessly inside my head.

After I found out she was dead, I spent days in a cloud of hatred towards everyone and everything. I cursed the sun for continuing to shine when I felt like the world was so dark. I scorned every smiling stranger and any laughter I heard, filled my ears like a vile poison.

A few weeks later, I focused my hatred on her. How could she? How could she be so wonderful, so full of laughter and bubbling with life and then do that? How dare she come into my life with her unfathomable beauty and hopelessly infectious smile only to rob me of her later? How dare she.

Really though, it was myself that I despised. How could I not know? Why wasn't I around to do something? Just because. There is no reason. I hated and continue to hate this fact. A few months after her death, I tried to write her a song. Something to express what I felt about who she was. I couldn't do it. I scrapped a dozen attempts and accepted the fact that someone like her breaks the boundaries of a little song. It has always bothered me that I couldn't write it though. Maybe now, after pouring out all of this, I'll feel a little better about it.

I love mornings. I love getting up and moving while the sun is still struggling to peek over her horizon bed. I love how the air is always still and crisp, night-cooled and calm. I love watching the colors of the sky change by the minute, icy yellow, salmon pink, tangerine. On Saturdays, I walk to work at 7:45 am. I walk down the center of the street, searching the dark windows for signs that there are others sharing this world with me, but I rarely find anything. I like that. I never bring my walkman, because I want to listen to the morning. I want to hear all the sounds that drown in car engines and screeching tires and trudging feet and jabbering mouths. When it's that early, I can hear an abandoned can get picked up by the wind and scraped across the pavement over a block away. The wheels of shopping carts pushed by the homeless are almost deafening to my ears. I walk the streets alone and I feel small and insignificant. Buildings loom impressively against the shifting, stained-glass window sky and trees stretch up and out in infinite, gnarled abandon. Sometimes I think that not another living soul has seen the city like this. That when someone else gets up early and ventures out in a cold and murky dawn, everything is different for them. They can't see my city. No one can.

It's early in the morning, most everyone is still asleep and yet I feel like I have the strength of an army. Ten Kathryns plus two. I'm going to the gym. I'll put on my head phones, blasting the tape he made me and full out sprint to Blondie and Modey Lemon. Wicked. This will be good.

My stomach lunges like I'm falling when I think about it. Sometimes I'll be sitting in class, looking out the window and all of a sudden I feel myself blush. My face gets hot and I have to look at my shoes until I can get the silly grin off my face. I walk to school with sunshine on my face and soft clouds under my feet. At this very moment, I'm desperately fighting the urge to dance.

I feel like I'm perpetually on the verge. On the verge of what? I'm not always sure. I'm in a halfway place and I'm looking left to right, trying to decide. I'm up on the roof of a building, standing on the edge, teetering like a drunken hobo in an alley. Bare toes curl around a crumbling frame, wind snatches at my clothes like tiny childrens' fists. My hair is damp, dirty, tangled, lashing my cheeks mercilessly. I can't just stay up here forever...can I?

I look to the roof. My perfect hedge maze of neat corners and right angles and a clear goal, smack dab in the center. My winding path of books and papers and academics and an endless gushing stream of meaningless numbers and letters with which I am to define myself. The more time I spend there, the more I realize that the routine and organization is driving me mad. I'm not sure when I stopped caring. Is it only recently that I trudge to school with weights shackled to my heels and sit in class like a zombie? Or have I been doing this for months and just refused to admit it to myself? I don't know how much longer I can force myself to do work I take no joy or pride in. I keep thinking about other options. What if I just stopped? What if I ran off to some other world where human worth is measured by what's in your head and your heart, not what's written down on record?

Is this degree even worth my time? Maybe. But the longer I work towards it, the longer I peer over the ledge I'm standing on. What's down there? I want to know. I want to see and feel and touch it. I used to think that I was peering down into chaos. I would look down into the swirling colors and motions and think "yikes. glad I'm up on the roof where everything is stable and organized into neat little time slots...where life and all those in it are categorized for efficiency..." Now I'm peering down and realizing...it's not chaos. It's chance. Beautiful, wonderful chance, trembling like plump petals in a storm. It's always shifting and changing. A neverending kaleidoscope of possibilities. I've been dipping my toes into it and now I've got a thirst for more, but I don't just want to fall off the edge...I want to take a running leap and plunge head first. I want to dive into a luminous pool of chance and create a tidal wave out of my own life. I want the risk and the destruction and the suffering that inevitably comes with a life outside my safe routine. I want it all because with it comes beauty.

I want beauty...and beauty is rarely derived out of caution.

Blessed Marquee...you're not so different. You're not so changed. I'm happy for it. I'm happy for me.

Last night. Night of revelry, debauchery, fun and insanity. Sitting in The Fireside. Drinking in laughter, good company and red wine. Listening to Patrick sing the theme song to 'Rescue Rangers'. Losing everything under the table. "Melissa, meet me at Kathryn's legs..." Showing Melissa my pirate thong in the washroom. Planning the "Melissa is hot Blog". Walking too fast for the slowpokes. Marveling at the shiny card they give you when you check a bag. They have lettered cupboards? Crazy. Breathing in paint fumes and anxiety. Breathing out relief and celebration. Discovering the shooter bar in the new smoking room. Letting Jeff be a bad influence on me. Smoking like the hardcore badass strumpet that I am. Drinking vodka crans. My vice. Ordering slippery nipples because Melissa can't without blushing and giggling. Stealing kisses when no one was looking. Stealing kisses when anyone was looking. Pushing to the front of the crowd. Singing along to every song. Going completely insane. Rocking out. Leaning back with eyes closed, smiling, enraptured by booze and music and perfect company. Entwining hot sweaty fingers. Seeing him laugh at how drunk and happy and crazy I am. Dancing to Nirvana and Blind Melon and White Stripes when the band was done. Reveling in the soundtrack to my teenage years. Frightening all those who were too sober and too close to us. Taking off and telling no one. Laughing and yelling in the streets. Wondering if I should. Telling stories. Leaning on one another as we weaved our way home. Taking the longest route possible. Falling in a dark icy alley. Laughing at myself. Confessing under the stars. Feeling electricity shiver through my body. Falling on his couch. Disturbing Graeme's movie with our debauchery. Sorry Fish. Smoking joints. Seeing haze. Slipping into ecstasy. Sleeping in my clothes. Needing coffee like oxygen. Returning to the Med to be saved and rejuvenated.

But what will i wear?!?!?!?!?!

i DISGUST myself.

It's too early in the day to be feeling so nervous and excited. I can't help it. I haven't hung out with Melissa in weeks and I miss her. We get so crazy together. I'm nervous about this whole "double-date" business. Not because I think it will go badly or that it won't be fun, infact I know it's gonna be fun, but I'm nervous about what it implies. Maybe it's all in my head.

Tonight. The Marquee. Finally. I fucking love that place and living a month and a half without it has not been easy. I wish this date was timed differently, but no one is to blame for that but myself. He said he's going tonight. I hope he's going because he wants to hear the band and not for other reasons. I hope I don't spend the entire night wondering if he's watching me.

Tonight I will laugh, definitely...with those boys? It's inevitable.

Tonight I will dress to be noticed when deep down I want to be able to fade into the crowd.

Tonight I will drink out of celebration, lament and awkwardness all at the same time.

Tonight I will feel guilt and try to drown it. I hope it works.

Tonight I will have a blast.

Tonight I will worry...what if? What if they go to the bar at the same time? What if? Will they just ignore each other? I hope so...

Tonight I will force myself to stop being so fucking selfish and I will focus on making sure Melissa is having a good time. This is her night, not mine.

Every Friday night when we close the store together, I sing to him while he mops the floor. I sing soft Stan Rogers ballads, sweet Hawksley melodies, sometimes a little Hank Williams....

Tonight, I finished counting down the till when he was only half done the floor. I sat up on the counter and sang my heart out. I let soft ribbons of music float up from my throat to the ceiling and listened to them echo, bouncing back off the shelves and walls...musical pinball. I filled the store with my voice and watched him move around, leaving a trail of clean, shiny floor behind him.

"you can make the most menial task wonderful..."

I just had a dream that I was on Vernon Street, dressed in an All pink clown suit, being chased by Gene Simmon driving a bus over people's lawns. Wow. Fucked.

Gee, who's standing at the end of my bed, in my dark apartment, crumpling paper loudly??

A frightening question when you live in a Bachelor.

I woke up at five, asking myself this question. I tried to peer through the darkness but my eyes were hazy, sleep-blurred and useless. I contemplated ignoring it and going back to sleep but it was a little bit creepy. I sat up silently, stole across the room to the light switch, snapped it on, heart pounding out of my chest...

Nothing.

I felt courage gather inside me like storm clouds. I walked over to the wall by the dresser. Yes, I could still hear it, that crumpling, so loud, so blatant. I pressed my ear against the wall and only then was I able to distinguish that it was not crumpling, but chewing that I had been hearing. Chewing. Mice. Mice chewing. Mice chewing away at the walls of my apartment. I cursed under my breath and thumped the wall a few times, hoping to scare it off. Now I hear nothing. I have to go back to sleep but I can't. I can't sleep right now, knowing that I'm living in a little box, underground that's being slowly, but audibly eaten.

We were walking towards Spring Garden, cutting across the lawn of the library. Wet, brown grass was peeking out to greet us after a long sleep under heavy drifts. I was in observer mode, trying to take it all in. Trying to absorb every sound and smell and passing face into my memory. I saw an old, bearded homeless man sitting on the concrete ledge that runs along the sidewalk. He was smoking a cigarette and languidly kicking his feet against the low wall. He wore green jeans and his skin was tanned and leathery. I remember wondering about how it might feel to touch it. I was so busy creating this little character sketch in my mind, that I almost didn't notice Mike waving to the old man and leading us over to talk to him.

"Hey, it's Bill! What's goin' on Bill?"

They talked for a few minutes about the new hotdog vendors and Bud the Spud and people they mutually knew. I was told about Bill who used to go get Mike coffee when he ran the hotdog stand. Bill who's birthday is in the summer. Bill who took Mike to the Copacabana one night and got him drunk. Bill...the person I was ready to write about without knowing a thing about him.

He said goodbye. We walked away, squinting through blinding and much-missed sunshine. I felt a small nibble of guilt in my stomach for seeing someone as art before first seeing him as a human being.

I'm such a fucking scaredy cat most of the time. Right now, a million things float around my mind that terrify me. I try to weight them down but they resist, so I'm going to list them instead.

sharks/shark attacks
bats
scarecrows
meaninglessness
obscurity
lies
pretense (from myself and others)
truthfulness (from myself and others)
Acting upon what I feel in my heart
Ignoring what I feel in my heart
Settling
Giving up
Fighting with you
Loving you

Today the sunshine was so intense it warmed my soul. I felt it prenetrate my thick wool coat as I walked, dodging puddles and soft mud and various other runny remains of the storm. We walked down to get tickets for Saturday, tons of them, tickets for all. We longingly thumbed cds that neither of us could afford now...but someday. Next week? No, probably not. I found an old Aretha Franklin blues album for seven dollars...seven dollars I don't have to spend on music. Minor heartbreak. Such is life.

We sat in the Med and had conversation, cradling mugs of steaming coffee. I pressed cold palms against hot ceramic and felt the warmth slide up each fingertip like I was settling into a hot bath. We chose the table by the window so we could observe the city moving past us while we were still and contemplative. Trent walked by. I have never met Trent, but his name was written in huge letters across his jacket. He was old, trembled a little when he walked. He had a sharp beak nose and watery blue eyes. He wore a white polar fleece hat, gigantic, decorated with little purple paw prints and covered in dirt. It towered above his head like a chef's hat and made me smile. He caught me smiling at him through the window and made a face back. It could've been a smile or a snarl...it was hard to tell.

He completely understands the way I love the Med even when the service sucks, even when your order is wrong and your food is bad, even though the washrooms are sketchy at best.

"It doesn't matter, cause it's the Med."
"Yeah, the food is hit and miss, and they're always understaffed..."
"But it's the Med."
"Yeah."

I fucking love that place.

Yes, but have you actually ever read any of his stories? He's known as the story guy, the crazy guy, a peddler of fairytales, an unraveller of yarns...but have you ever read one? I know you've seen him on cold, blustery days. I know you've walked by him, neck buried deep into coat collar, looking carefully down at shoes and muttering hurriedly.
"Not today."
Sorry. Not today."

He wears faded, old jogging pants and multi-colored wind breakers. He is never seen without his ballcap on, mesh-backed, dingy, with the brim bent and warping with age. His voice comes out over the air roughly, like it's been beaten down by the weather. It's strained and scratching but it's hopeful.

"Short stories for a dollar! Only one dollar! Get them while they last! Get them while they're hot!"

If you make eye contact with him, he will lurch forward to talk to you, offering tales and fables of many wondrous things. The day I bought a story from him, he gave me three more out of appreciation. I pressed another twoonie into his palm and his eyes lit up. He smiled and his face crinkled like a molasses cookie. He told me why he sold stories on the street. He used to work for "Street Feat" You know, "voice of the poor". A publication dedicated to bring awareness and help to the homeless of Halifax. He used to peddle their wares, until the day they caught him selling his own stories at the same time.

"They canned me!"
I listened in silence, not knowing exactly how to respond.
"Can you believe it?!? The one group of people who're supposed to be helping people like me and they go and fire me when I try to make an honest living!"

Disturbing irony isn't it?

I bought him a coffee and an oatcake. I thanked him for the stories and walked home, clutching them against my chest like they were full of secrets meant only for my eyes. They all had titles like "My life as a cat", "May life as a broom" or the slightly more ominous "my life as a sex addict"
The stories weren't half bad. They often went off on tangents, but overall they were well written, humorous and definitely worth the dollar he charges for them. I really feel for this guy. I think it's because if I were ever homeless...I'd be the next one to stand on a cold street corner in ragged clothes, offering fanciful tales for spare change.

Apparently, in the American Civil War, medical practice was not exactly up to today's standards...who knew? If you were wounded seriously in the leg or arm...amputation was extremely likely. If you had to have a leg amputated, they would use what really was just a special kind of saw. They didn't have anything to put you to sleep, so all they could do to "ease the pain" was booze you up real nice and give you a bullet to bite down on.....yup. That's it. I'm sorry sir, that leg's gonna have to come off....now, while I'm dragging these jagged metal teeth through your flesh and bones....just bite down on this little metal cylinder and everything will be just fine! Hence the expression: "Bite the bullet".

One more valuable tidbit learned during my misadventures as a Dalhousie arts student. Go me.

cold hands, cold feet and a microwaved potato.
drafty windows, a dying fish, Bob Dylan
my abandoned essay, the allure of television
the desire to talk to Katie for hours on end
everyone's questions that seem genuine and nice but may not actually be genuine and nice
the art of tact
my mother's allusiveness
financial woes
the desire to smoke cigarettes so i can look extra dramatic and brooding
taking comfort in being dramatic and brooding
not getting dressed
not eating properly
not feeling guilty behind my smile
smiling
daydreaming and waiting...

This morning I got up and took a pill with my breakfast. I've been doing this for almost a week now, one pill, four times daily. Penicillin. I don't like having my day divided into four time slots by the medicine I have to swallow. I don't like remembering to take it or thinking that I need it. I don't ever want pills to be part of a daily routine for me.

I remember my mother doing a photo study of my grandfather one day and her taking these incredible pictures of his 'breakfast pills'. They were in their own labeled container, shining and catching the sunlight through the window like little, sparkling bath beads. There were blues pills, red pill, brown pills and a few black pills. Probably a dozen of them at least. And all just for breakfast. I remember looking at them on the windowsill and thinking how beautiful and ominous they were. They were like jewels and I wanted to touch them, watch them roll around inside my cupped hands, catching sunlight and throwing rainbows over the kitchen walls. I wonder how many years of my grandfather's life could be measured out and organised by the pills he swallowed at allotted times. I wonder if he understood what taking that many pills meant after he was so far gone in Alzheimer's. He became so childlike, giggling and making funny faces and voices. I wonder if he began to think they were just candy. I hope so.

I wonder what small objects could be used to measure out my own life in perfect little time slots.
coffee spoons
lense solution
batteries for my walkman
guitar strings

hmmm....funny.

Last night I considered giving this up. This blogging business. I thought about writing a final farewell post. Fuck That. I wouldn't even write a farewell post. I would just stop. Disappear. Slowly fade off everyone's list like a friend growing distant. I would give no warning at all.

But I don't really want that. I like this blogging business. I like coming home and having a reason to sit down and write. I like knowing that even just a handful of people read what I write everyday. That's both hugely comforting and hugely exciting to me. Sometimes I pretend that this is a serious publication. That I'm a serious writer and not some girl sitting at her computer in a bathrobe, typing about her doubts and feelings. I'd like someday to be taken seriously about my writing. I want my books to be underlined and scribbled in, with dog-eared pages and water stains. I want my words to read by flashlight, soft pages held tightly by smudgy fingers. I want to find, decades from now, my books in used book stores, yellowed, faded from the sun, smelling of basements and attics. I want a stranger to write me a letter and tell me that one of my characters is just like her. That would be amazing.

Before I started this blogging business, that dream was slippery, far away, intangible. I was thinking rationally and safely. Now I don't feel the need to ever be rational or safe. Now I feel like writing everyday and writing honestly. No anonymous little fucker is going to dissuade me.

I like comments. I don't mind negative or critical comments as long as I know who they are coming from. I hate anonymous criticism. I'm disgruntled and scowling and waiting for an answer. You want to tell me I'm cruel? Okay. That's seriously okay. But do it with a face and a name. I'm working through some serious feelings right now and i'm trying the honesty route. I'm aware that honesty usually offends people. I feel guilty for hurting and offending people, but I would feel worse if I wasn't honest.

why am I trying to justify myself to someone who wouldn't even leave a name?

i wish i could draw
i would draw the most beautiful picture of you
i would capture you in a series of lines and shading
dark on light
it would be perfect
except i can't draw
let me draw you in words
let me sculpt you in language
using words as my clay
turning hot and soft in my hands
bending and molding to my purpose and desire
let me stretch words over you like a sheet
crisp, full of sunlight
i'll draw you in poetry
dripping richly from my pen and tongue in fat, shining beads
i'll use full, lush words to draw your mouth
smooth words to fill in your skin
bright words for your eyes
i want to cover you in soft poetic murmurs
a simile scrawled on the small of your back
metaphors encircling your wrists like vines
i'll compose a Limerick on the back on your knee
the humour will be watching you try to read it
i'll write a haiku
and plant it behind your left ear with a kiss
Can you feel it there?

I began my first day back by sleeping through my first class. Good job Kathryn. Way to be studious and punctual. Fiction was strange. Sitting next to him. Small talk and awkwardness abounding. If he's as comfortable as he seems then that boy deserves a fucking medal. I spent most of the class staring out the window. My peephole out of my shoebox where I'm forcefed education at an alarming price. I feel like no matter where I am, I'm always looking for that peephole. The window that nobody else seems to notice. I crane my neck to find the alternatives and press my nose longingly against dirty glass. Why is no one else looking out the window? Why won't it open? Bastards.

Romantic class caused time to slow to a life-threatening crawl. Mouths gaping and drooling, eyelids flickering with warm thoughts of sleep. Yes, yes. Keats and Shelley both died at tragically young ages...tragic. Had they lived.......who cares. They didn't. At one point, my prof was trying to make a point about the myth influenced and nature influenced cycles used in Romantic Poetry. He was describing the desolate, cold barrenness that is Winter. Suddenly, he raised his arms, fists clenched in feverish excitement. His eyes flashed with energy and glee, face reddening and mouth frothing. He leapt up and shrieked, his voice overflowing with burning passion...

"Aren't you ready for spring?!"
"YOU BELIEVE IN SPRING DON'T YOU?!?!?"

I nearly fell off my chair.