A Broken Crow

perhaps andy should read what amanda has to say, since he's so keen to write things about her...

so i'm home now.

only two days after surgery so i'm still swollen, sore and unable to really eat much of anything. i plan to spend the day relaxing in bed, watching movies and recovering.

last night my feelings were hurt exceptionally. (why it is that you feel i owe you something that others don't remains a mystery to me...)i'm really sad over this. i plan to spend the day in bed, by myself, listening to hayden and recovering.

(also) my grandmother gave me some blueberry coffee cake that i really can't eat yet...any takers?

i want to crawl into a dark, dirty hole. wrap my arms around my head. shut out the light. shut out this. shut out you. shut out me. i want to crawl into a dark, dirty hole. scream into my own flesh. bite down. pretend that everything worked out a little differently. curl up and wait until it does. know that it won't. bite down. shut out you. shut out me.

what the hell is happening here?
everything i touch is crumbling.
sandcastles baked in the sun. a hard outer shell that splits and cracks under the slightest pressure and lets the innards spill out frantically.
things are not how i thought they were.
people don't think very highly of me, or so i am learning.
i am not a person. i am a character.
i am a catch phrase. a nickname.
i am only as worthwhile as the alcohol i have recently consumed.
i am frowned upon, avoided...tolerated at best.
you have never fully forgiven me. we were never back at square one.
perhaps it was foolish to think we ever would be.
don't do me any favours, andy.
if you don't like me...just tell me to fuck off and i will.

so yesterday morning they pulled four massive teeth out of my head.
I got up at five-thirty am, couldn't eat breakfast or even have a sip of water before leaving.
it wasn't so bad until mom made me hold her steaming, delicious, aromatic coffee for her in the car....the coffee i couldn't even taste....i could have killed her.
at the hospital, they made me change into the thin little "jonny shirt" and stupid paper booties over an hour before my operation...not cool. i was fucking cold.
on the plus side. i got to watch a Bravo video countdown, which included a french song called "mange ton ame" (eat your soul??)I think so....
They lead me into the operating room. Not so bad, except the surgeon was listening to death metal while I was going under. I kid you not. There was some loud, crazy, virtuosic shit going on in that room while some stranger yanked out my teeth.
I heart anesthetic. I really really do. I think it's so very fun.
I woke up what felt like seconds later, but was actually about an hour later, feeling cold and disoriented and in pain. It sucked so bad. I wanted to go home.
They got me some hot blankets and I felt a little better.
"Would you like a shot of Demerol?"
....do you have to ask? Yes. Yes I would.
I mean...how often am I going to be offered intervenous narcotics with it being totally legal and safe?
not often.
I -heart- Demerol. What a laugh. I wanted to stay there all day, but they eventually made me get dressed and wheeled me out to the car.
I was swollen and frozen, unable to talk and drooling big bubbles of blood for a while, but all in all I think I got off easy.
Mike came over to babysit me after surgery, and I sooked about and made him watch Harry Potter and soap operas. teeheeheehee. He was very sweet and made sure my ice pack was cold and I had lots to sip on. I -heart- him even more than Demerol.
I also get to experience the joys of Codiene. Mike is jealous that I get to take so much Codiene. He'll have his turn soon enough though.

So now, I'm home in prospect. Healing. Healing. BORED! There is no cable, and I can't figure out how to get the sound working when I play a DVD, because it's hooked into the surround sound. In short, Ben set this up and I'm too technologically inept to work it without him showing me. Fuck. I'm going to go lie in the jacuzzi and pretend I'm drunk.

byeeeeee....

i sat on the floor of my shower for what felt like hours. i sat there, letting steaming hot water pour down over my head and naked back while i hugged my knees and cried. it's been a long time since i really cried. everytime, it's like i forget how awful it feels. like everything is being emptied out in hot streams, spinning rhythmically down down down...away from you. away from me. stay away from me. you seem so eager to fix this with everyone but me. when did i become discardible? when did i earn the potential to be a casualty in your actions? today i found out that you said your friendship with Mike was more tangible than your friendship with me. what friendship with Mike? you've spoken twice in three months. remember when we said we'd never not be friends? i thought you meant that. i'm mad at you. really mad. but i've never once said that i hated you or didn't want to be your friend. so it really hurts to hear that i've been placed below a relationship that's little more than another figment of your imagination. i was never planning to write you off. i'm sad that you've already done so for me.

do me a favour. tell me you hate me. call me a spiteful bitch. spit in my face. let's make this final huh? then leave me alone. i don't want to play this game with you anymore. it's too hard and i'm really not up to it. you win.

tonight was my first waitressing shift by myself. i worked from three until close and served every table in those hours. at one point i had six tables and a take out all at once. all went well. the man who came in after coming out of the porn store gave me the biggest tip of all....ew. i love my job.

thanks to mike and amanda for coming in during the slow hours and giving me something to do. love you guys.

yesterday was the first day i really felt like i was home. i didn't have to do anything or be anywhere. i just had to open my eyes and watch the day pass while doing whatever i wanted.

waking up beside him. laughing at his morning hair. pestering him out of bed. eating the breakfast he cooked for me. loving scrambled eggs more than ever. meeting jaime for coffee at the coburg. seeing matty come in for work and distracting him. talking through what's been happening in calm voices. listening to jaime because she's rational and knows me too well. strolling downtown for the first time in three weeks. watching my feet zigzag over the wet sidewalk. feeling my sneakers getting slowly wetter and wetter. knowing i need new shoes. knowing that i'm too far in debt for shoes any time soon. going back to the coburg for lunch. lunch? realizing it's five pm. laughing at my lazy day. letting matty construct a gargantuan sandwich. trying peanut soup. sharing my first smoke in days. feeling a familiar headrush. making plans. slipping on the wet wood ramp and muddying the knee of my jeans. smirking at myself. walking home with a smile plastered on my face. mentally giving the finger to freshmart and all those inside. being captivated by the innumerable buds that dropped down to the ground, too heavy laden with dew. crushing them under my soggy-sneakered feet. running through the tunnels. dragging my fingers along the textured walls. wondering who my new neighbors are. do you hear my music? do you hate it? do i care? finally finishing that book. loving it. loving him. calling him. meeting up with matty later. getting rained on again. ranting and drinking beer. eating apple crisp. pointing out just how much matty is like martha stewart. having conversations that were three years in the making. leaving in the wee hours. having the wet black streets to myself entirely. relishing in them. singing my way home. sleeping. i'm glad to be back. i'm glad to be home again.

you frustrate me. you know just how to get under my skin and i know just how to let you. i can't believe you thought this would all work. i can't believe you thought you could manipulate me of all people. me, who knows you better than anyone. i can't believe you would lead me to think those things that i thought. i can't believe you would bring her into it like this. i can't believe you would try to taint the most sacred bond i have in my life. i can't believe you, but at the same time i can. i can believe that you are capable of this. it just makes me so very sad and frustrated.

a little longer....a lot crazier.

almost $70 in tips!! YOWZA!

I heart breakfast.

STATS:

-one forgotten tea
-many forgotten dishes with single-serve jam and ketchup
-no spills
-no broken dishes
-no food mishaps
-no irate customers
-one snooty couple
-one debit mishap (quickly and happily fixed)
-innumerable plates of eggs, meats, toast, hashbrowns
-countless coffee refills
-one constant, cheerful smile
-two hours
-twenty dollars in tips

I say not too shabby for my first time at it.

chapped fingertips typing madly in the dark and him sleeping soundly behind me, blankets covering everything but his soft, brown hair. Last night was Mike's birthday and we celebrated with fervor. With gusto. With alcohol. I couldn't drink much, because I have my first real waitressing shift today. My first time carrying trays of food. I need to be on my toes and NOT hungover. Mike started drinking during dinner at Rogue's Roost. He ordered a pitcher and I nursed a glass like a fifteen year old. What has become of me? We went to his apartment and joined all the boys. Once there, Gillis was promptly into a case of beer and a bottle of Jaegermeister (spelling?). Things only got messier. At one point, he was in the kitchen and took a nasty spill onto some boxes of empty beer bottles. His back is bruised and cut and all fucked up. We spent some time boozing at The Idiot, but the band there sucked so much ass, we had to leave not long after we arrived. I decided to part ways with the party crew there, go home and get some sleep before work. Gillis didn't like the idea of me walking home by myself, but in the end, he joined the others. Off to the Dome! It was his birthday after all. At 2am I woke up to someone knocking on my window beside my bed. Yup. Gillis. Drunk Gillis. How adorable. I let him in through my fire escape and he immediately crawled in bed beside me, telling me how much he fretted about me walking home alone and how he couldn't stop thinking about it.

"i had to find out if you were home. i had to know."

he planned on taking off, but I guess the bouncers ejected him from the bar anyways. Just as well. He's here now. His head pounding and his back twisted and grated like cheese. I walked to the store to get him some tylenol, but I think he's going to end up spending most of the day recovering in my bed. Silly Caper.

You and her. Her and you. Her. My. Best. Friend.(?) That is just fucked. Everytime I try to think about it "rationally", it's like someone takes a fork and scrambles my brain like an egg. It is fucked fucked fucked and I don't care what kind of a person it makes me if I say it outloud. FUCKED.

May 4th

we had a wonderful today, walking all over the downtown until our feet were sore. We got up early, like the uber-tourists we are and went straight to the CN Tower. It was barely 9am when we arrived, giving us the entire lookout to ourselves. We stood there together, on a glass floor, 113 stories up, talking about regular things.

"This is one of the seven wonders of the world. People come to see it from all over the world and here I am, sitting in it, looking across miles of this huge city, passing gass." (Mike)

...we found a Warriors poster today. when we return to Halifax with it, we will be gods.

(also) The Bay is expensive and therefore sucks.
(also) I am poor and therefore suck.

May 5th

You always find the most amazing things in places you never thought you'd be. Last night, our dance plans went rapidly down the shitter. Pending rain eliminated long walks to and from far away bars. Dwindling funds eliminated the possibility of cabbing for the night. What's left? "Up"? Retro music? I'm so down. Only one problem..."Up" does not seem to exist and walking around in the rain to find it had turned my shoes into suede-lined swimming pools. We decided to go back to Jerimiah's for more food and make a new plan. Our waitress was drunk. She did Tequila shots with the customers and broke a bunch of dishes. Good for her. We decided to simply walk into the closest bar to where we were. "The Rex" was it and what a fucking find. What a stroke of luck. Earthy, groovy jazz. Vocals in multiple languages. Bleating trumpets and grunting sax solos. The air was thick with music, throbbing rhythmically in our throats. Everyone was intent on the groove. So focused. Emotions were at a fever pitch. A trembling bead of sweat, sliding down an eyelash. A man jumped out of the audience and grabbed the mic. He closed his eyes, lunged his body back and forth to the pulsing beat and began to scat. He hissed and growled like a wild beast. He hooted and screeched like a monkey. He grunted and groaned and scat-scat-scatted over the tight jazz sound, filling the room with his passionate vibe. The music coursed through my bloodstream like ribbons of electricity. I kept closing my eyes to my surroundings, focusing only on the smorgasboard of sounds pouring into my ears. I left stunned.

(4:15pm)
it's moments like this, gillis, that make me wish i could draw. you're curled up like a cashew on the couch across from me in our dimly lit hostel common room. you're curled up and you're sleeping soundly, face pressed into the cushion, ankles crossed and arms hugging your belly. every so often, you wake up, look around, look at me and grin. you settle back in and fall asleep for a few more minutes before doing it all over again. you look so beautiful. when you smile, i have to hold myself back from attacking you with my warm, messy affection. affection like an open-faced sandwich. i could sit here for hours, just watching your chest slowly rise and fall....

May 6th

...walking down Queen street, I saw a woman who had lost her mind. she was pacing the sidewalk in front of a line of street vendors. she was clutching a bundle of soiled rags and yelling nonsensical things, her head rolling around in all directions like a limp-necked baby. i wondered if she was ever different. beautiful. i wondered if she came to toronto like i did. i wondered if one thing happened that shattered her, like a pin prick to a water balloon, or if her mental decay slowly creeped up on her. vines climbing the side of a building until they choke it out entirely. i wondered.

it's fucking wicked! admit it you bastard!!!!!!

ALRIGHT. SO WE'RE DRUNK. and it's early. fuck off. ben LOVES the cock! he tols me so.

more journal entries.

May 3rd:

(9:40 am)
The Via Rail person is showing Mike the emergency exits. I don't think he understands that he's putting the safety of others in the hands of a bleary-eyed, borderline psychotic Cape Breton Lush. God save us all. We're now on the second train. Last night the brownies took over our minds and bodies, rendering us useless giggling children, speaking in fragmented, bastardized languages. We drew pictures of each other. I drew a picture of a surfing bunny with a speech bubble that read "ZONK!". Mike drew "sketchbeard" the pirate. It was not a terribly productive night. I did, however, manage to sleep for a solid eight hours. Ha.
We stepped off into the Montreal train station, looking tired and dirty....simply because we were. I peered around my surroundings through a fading but still prominent drug haze and scoped out a coffee shop. Good. GOOOOD. I was amazed to watch everyone around us chain smoke inside the station.I contemplated lighting up one of my own, but I'm not quite ready to be out of character. I'm still me. I'm still thinking about Halifax, where the morning fog would still be draped like a heavy grey wool over the down town. Where the air is thick with a pungeant salt smell. Where I feel like I know everything.
Maybe that's the problem. I need to be somewhere where I know nothing. no one. I need to be the outsider. The visitor. The tourist. I want to be a fly on the wall in a stranger's life. I want to put my ear to the ground of a random street and write down everything I hear.
I keep looking out the window towards the direction we're travelling. The sky is filled with looming, dark clouds, the colour of smoke. The horizon looks ominous, as though Toronto knows we're coming and is trying to put up an intimidating front.

(10:35am)
I like the way he writes. I like the way he thinks. I like the way he looks out the window, pen poised. Ready. Vigilant. Waiting. I like how we sit across from each other, translating felt experience into words. We make eye contact and he smirks at me, scrunching up his nose like always.

"did you put on deoderant in the train station Macdonalds?? You're a classy lady."

(12:22 pm)
the kid across from us has a handheld video game. It makes loud bleeping-whirring-crunching-exploding noises. It's unspeakably irritating. Everytime he plays with it, I have to sit on my hands lest they find themselves around his little throat. I am soulless. His parents are obviously morons. Obviously.

I just got home yesterday evening and now I'm up, getting ready to start my new job at The Greek House. Yeesh. This is intense.

So here's the general breakdown: 1 day on the train. 3 days in Toronto. 3 days on the train. 3 days in Kamloops. 4 days on the train. 3 days in Montreal. 1 day on the train. Home.

I wrote in a journal the whole time I was gone, so I'm gonna post a few of those entries for everyone's amusement. Enjoy.

May 2nd:

(12:45 pm)
so here i am...waiting to leave. waiting for this beast to move. he's sitting across the way from me, feet up on the chair next to me. we managed to snag one of the four seaters, but we may be forced to move is a family of three or four gets on. i hope they don't. i'm comfy here. families can eat it.

(4:10pm)
when you sit in the observation car, the sunlight wraps around you like a soft yellow blanket, pouring in from all sides. it drapes in layers and folds of light, constantly bouncing and dancing over your arms and cheeks. we sat up there for over an hour, playing travel scrabble, embraced by sunny arms. we decided that if the word was dirty in any way, you got two extra points. Aha! A challenge! By the end of the game, the entire board was a criss-crossing labyrinth of lettered smut. Good for us. There were people sleeping all around us in the pools of sunlight that dripped steadily through the glass. He was so vibrant, sitting across from me that they all looked dead in comparison. Peaceful, but dead. I told him we were in the Corpse-Car. He laughed and made up a story about Via Rail murders. We sat for a long time in silence, watching the top of the train snake over the tracks ahead. we watched the green, hilly sceery of rolling Nova Scotia level out as we crossed the border in New Brunswick. New Brunswick, as always, threatens to melt my brain with boredom. Where the tracks pass through, it's only flatness. Flatness, fields, bogs and mud for miles. For hours. Mike stares out longingly at the mud flats, like a child looking at a puppy through a store window. He wants to roll around and play in the mud, free and uninhibited.

"...if i were a hobo or a hermit or something, I'd have a shack on those mud flats...and I'd eat mud skippers for breakfast!"

what's a skipper?

hello again trees. hello again streets. hello again salty-fresh air. hello again much-missed bed. oh man. bed. i have a new appreciation for my bed.

i'm back.
i'm home. home? well....we'll see.

i'll post a lot in the next few days about my trip. all the stories from both ends of the sketchtrum. i'll tell you about Saint Iago and the tree planters and the mushrooms and the mean lady in the sink. i'll tell you about Cam on the train and starving to death and the mountains closing in around us when we were stuck. i'll tell you about being scared and happy and flying all at once, climbing up one mountain to see the view of the city lights against another mountain. i'll tell you everything, but not tonight. tonight, i'm sleeping. sleeping. sleeping next to him in my comfy, non-moving, non-train seat bed.

good. night.

well well well kiddies.
I'm sure you're all surprised that I'm still alive.....well I am too.
Toronto is amazing. Every street is lined with interesting boutiques and shops and clubs.
I only have thirty minutes on this badboy computer,so I'll fill you in on a few interesting points since we left Halifax.

-once again, pot brownies prevail as the very best way to pass time on a long train ride. I broke mike's brain. it was funny.

-we have a "sketch list" that we've been adding to and scratching off. So far we've seen the religious fanatics (full costume), a full-fledged cowboy and a dude with a ZZ Top beard. The last one was in the men's washroom...he called Mike "brother".

-Ever see the movie "Ghost World"? Well, yesterday we found the equivalent to "wowsville" and ate there for lunch. The hostess asked us if we've like a TV or not before we sat down...I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. Mike said sure, so she led us to a sparkly booth with a little tv on the wall that we could control. We watched Save by the Bell, but then turned it off because it became way too distracting. On the wall behind us, there were enormous paintings of the Doors, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. So awesome.

-We did the touristy CN tower thing. We got there so early yesterday that we had the lookout to ourselves. It was beautiful. We sat there for a long time, at the Horizon Cafe, looking out at the morning sun twinkling over the buildings and water.

-yesterday we woke up to find some sketchy dude watching us sleep. When I opened my eye, he immediately started making conversation with me. He asked my name, birthday, spelling of my name, where i went to school....he had on a lime green tracksuit and spoke with the voice of a child. He told me he had to take pills everyday and kept fiddlling with the wad of bloody toilet paper stuffed up his nostril. A bleeder? weird. He was seriously sketchy, but he was leaving the hostel that morning. Mike told me later that he saw him earlier, clutching a pair of shit-filled underwear. Oh the fun of meeting people in hostels.

-we are staying in a room with a very nice young man whose name neither of us can remember. Sagi? Saki? We started referring to him as squeegee and now we can't stop. We are bad people. Very bad.

-Last night we wandered around in search of a non-existant club, we got fed up and stumbled into "The Rex". A jazz club. We saw the best live jazz I've ever seen in my entire life. It was incredible. It was all I could do to keep from jumping out of my seat and shaking my ass all over the place. wicked dance tunes. Near the end of the set, a bearded fellow jumped up from a table and grabbed the mic. He started scatting, and I mean really really scatting. he threw his whole body into it, falling down on his knees James Brown style. By the end of it he was just shreiking and making monkey noises. We left stunned and happy.

okay...enough updates for now. We're hungry and my computer time is depleting. I'll try to drop a line in Kamloops. Sketch you all later.

BAH!

And so my journey to the other side of the country and back begins....well...in a few hours. By this time tomorrow, I will be somewhere in New Brunswick, hurtling towards adventures unknown. I will be eating bagels and apples from my bag and waiting for night to come before breaking out my very special brownies. I will be looking at him, looking out the window and squinting like he does when he's thinking. the skin between his eyebrows will crinkle and I'll want to kiss it until it's smooth again. Just like I always do. I'll be on my way to Toronto and city lights that hum with city stories through the darkness. I'll be on my way to Kamloops and mountain scenery that surrounds and swallows you whole with its breathtaking majesty. I'll be on my way to Montreal and wonderful friends who are letting us borrow some floor. I'll be on my way to me. I'll be on my way to me, with you.

I don't know yet whether I'll get a chance to blog enroute as of yet. If so...I'll keep you all updated on our current sketch level (surely to be rising by the day). If not...I'll see you all in a few weeks.

later kiddies,
wish me luck.

how is this possible? how did this happen? when? where? why? my stomach is knotted and pinched and my brain throbs like it's been pummeled by a thousand angry fists. somewhere in between paying my eastlink bill and shoe shopping the world was split open like an egg. now everything is shattered. only shards and fragments left and all of them sharp. when? why? why? why? i hadn't thought of him in months, but now...now. a decade of memories have flooded my brain and i'm drowning in a sea of his face. his laugh. him. him. him. zack warden.

not zack warden.
please.
please.
not zack warden.
who once buried me up to my neck in snow.
who went trick or treating with me.
who showed me the best places to hide in the woods when we played hide and seek.
who loved pogo sticks with mustard.
he couldn't eat ketchup.
he was allergic to red dye... and milk...and lots of other things.
please.
not zack warden.
who perpetually had a broken arm or leg.
who really got into that pog craze.
who played bagpipes.
who religiously wore a 'fighting irish' jacket for years.
no.
no.
no.
not zack warden.
because he can't.
because he's been constant since i was five.
since elementary, junior high, highschool.
he can't be.
he can't be gone.
not zack warden.
my neighbor.
my busmate.
my playmate.
my water fight opponent.
my childhood best friend's brother.
not zack warden.
he can't be dead.
he can't be.
he can't.
he.
dead.