where the nothing place begins

wow

whywait — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 02:29:00 -0700

wow

HEY JUDE. this one's for you.

whywait — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 23:45:09 -0800

today is march 6th, the day that my mother was born.

almost every person who has ever met me knows that I am obsessed with astrology. growing up, I learned primarily about my own sign (capricorn) and the signs of my family members, before branching out and memorizing uh, every single thing about every sign. my mother is a pisces.

I will forever know pisces as the most caring people in the entire universe. from what I’ve encountered they actually are. especially my mom.

recently we were sitting in a car together, mcdonald’s ice creams in hand, and she was sharing stories with me from her childhood. I teared up at something she described, and she teared up seeing me sad. I thought of other times like this, in the car, us both tearing up.

in grade 12, someone I look up to majorly told me that they could only hope to have their daughter grow up to be like me one day. we were both moved to tears.

as I sat with her recently, both of us feeling so much in the moment, I thought, there is nothing more beautiful than being able to share this moment with her. we are so a part of each other, it’s like we can feel things together on the same level. I know it all sounds cheesy, but I went through so much of my life trying to hide that I have emotions at all.

and my mother is so easily moved by the experiences of others (ultimately she is amazingly selfless), and I think that’s wonderful. I am, too. and I’ve told her before, that every good trait I see in myself I derive from being blessed by having her genetics. she is this crazy, kooky, giving, hilarious, adventurous, energetic, talkative, outgoing person who would never turn anyone away. I grew up with her embarrassing me on purpose sometimes, with her pushing me into situations where I would make friends… and when I look back now, I say thank you, mom. props. you understood who I was and who I’d become. ‘cause I’m becoming more and more like you every day, and I’ve told you that before, and I’ve told you that I couldn’t be more proud.

well I couldn’t. thank you for the friendships I have because you made me speak to someone on a trip. thank you for embarrassing me because it was honestly hilarious and humbled me even if I didn’t know it, thank you for all of the trips. thank you for saving up your money and time to help me experience everything that I got to experience, all the places that I got to go. thank you for mcdonalds ice creams, thank you for DANCE LESSONS because maybe I’d never know how free I can be when I dance like I have no skeleton and the world makes sense again, thank you for signing me up for soccer, for driving me to all those soccer games and cheering me on, thank you for letting me have friends over so often and making us all dinner, thank you for the trampoline and the sprinklers in the yard. thank you for josie. thank you for filming so much of my childhood so that I can constantly revisit who I was, watch us all on film like the most magical memory museum I could imagine. thank you for raising me, thank you for packed lunches, thank you for taking care of me, thank you for sitting by my bedside when I was five when I begged you to stay alive forever (because I couldn’t bare the thought of a day we wouldn’t be together), thank you for all the memories that we have together from my childhood,

and thank you for all the memories now. thank you for being my friend. thank you for your insane, twelve-hundred-part text messages with cheesy sayings. thank you for teaching me every single cliche ever invented and for letting me make fun of you or call you an LG every time you use one. thank you for phone calls where I can spill out all the negativity of my day like it was boiling up and out through my mouth and know that you will love me no matter what. thank you for the talks we have with rick in the kitchen with red wine and everything feels so easy like we could sit there forever, thank you for the unconditional love that you have showed me.

I don’t know what makes someone a “woman,” and through out my life I’ve been taught that being a woman can be used as an insult. but as I sat in that car with you recently, with our ice creams, heading back to the cabin, I thought, if women are supposed to be emotional, then this is it, right now. she is emotional in the most beautiful way. being a person that can take a moment and really feel it, right through their spine, like emotion could save us all and take us in its arms as we surrender, is amazing.. I thought, if this is being a woman, then my mother is once, twice, three times a lady to me.

and I’ll be thankful that I was raised by someone that amazing every. single. day.

so happy birthday mom. march 6th is a very special day to me, and it always will be.

“I don't exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.”

whywait — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:52:53 -0800

over the last little while people have asked me questions like “why haven’t you actually updated your blog?” or “how can I become just like you?” or “damn girl how did you get all of dat in dem jeans?!” (no one has actually asked me any of these questions).

I am my own worst enemy (aren’t we all? asks Oprah) with this stuff. I nag myself about my own incompetency, but this blog should not necessarily be at the top of that list. my other blog is like this comfortable home I update nearly every day, so I kept updating that. and then my computer needed repairing. yeah, that’s right, people readinggg!!!!! (mom), my computer was getting fixed for a long time. get over it (you aint even mad though)!!!!!!!! Obviously, it’s more just personal guilt. I promised I would work harder to make myself comfortable with sharing my writing, yet the efforts I made towards that goal were very weak.

all over tumblr, people get comfortable with themselves and their emotions through their writing. If you have tumblr you probably know that there is a large population pouring over their keyboards broadcasting to the tumblr community about all their “feels.”

last night I found myself sucked into a vortex of blogs and reblogs, peeking into the lives of different individuals through their personal blogs. scattered throughout the different collection of posts, I’d see these many extremely emotional pieces being written — things that I wouldn’t let myself write — that would perfectly sum up a moment or a feeling that I’d had before. for a brief moments I would feel connections, through writing, with absolute strangers. I got a bit overwhelmed going through these blogs; it was like this small series of synonyms for sadness on each page. people were lonely, filled with regret, ashamed of something, heartbroken, missing someone, starving their souls with self-loathing,

parenthetically, I flipped back to facebook where it feels sometimes like everyone is trying to prove how happy they are. I understand that there is a lot more to expressing things on social media, but sometimes there is this weird underlying message like, LOOK HOW HAPPY I AM, I DO THINGS WITH FRIENDS AND HAVE HOBBIES AND LOOK AT ALL THIS PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE OF ME DOING THINGS WITH MY COOL FRIENDS (WE HAVE HOBBIES).

I get it, though. I’ve written about painful feelings (eMoTioNs~~~**) on my other blog with the comfort of knowing that barely anyone I know reads that blog. facebook is an incredible social media tool, but I find the intense reliance on and utilization of facebook to be sort of… neurotic. the creation of the social personality in dot com form is a bit exhausting. I will admit that I’d like to be seen as happy, because I am. but nobody is all of the time (I know guys, I AM aristotle).

listen, okay, you’re a genius and I’m a genius and I’m alone and you’re alone and you get really fucking sad sometimes (don’t lie to me. I know you do). we have disgusting habits, like falling in love, or labeling ourselves, or modeling our lives after the level of sentimentality we have been shown through tv. we police each other’s problems and exaggerate things for effect because that’s just what we “do,” isn’t it? god, if I hear anyone, including myself, say something out loud like, “well I’ve just never met anyone like this person before,” ONE MORE TIME, as if that entitles us to feeling something extra or something less, or WHATEVER, because they are lyke sooOo different, I’ma lose it. YOU DON’T GET IT YOU GUYS, THIS ONE WAS DIFFERENT (FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT WEEK ON DEGRASSI). well, everyone is different. in the best possible way. people are just this plethora of pieces and pieces and pieces and you get to unlock them the more you listen (and it’s incredible that I get to know people as well as I do with all the talktalktalking I do).

if we don’t normalize negative emotions, we’re going to trap ourselves under the weight of them. of course you should talk about it, even if that means sounding like an eyeliner-toting teen on an episode of one tree hill. we’ve still all gotta be there for each other as a human race racing towards our own happiness, chasing the sun, pacing towards our pursuit of pleasure. I’ve always had this dream of wanting to “be there” for everyone that has actually proved destructive in the past, but I just really want to reach people. I want to be there for you, but I really want to make you laugh a little, too. or a lot. we could talk about problems, you know we could talk and talk and talk about them like we are sinking our teeth so deep into all the problems of the universe that the shorelines of our lips go numb. but then we could shake it off and laugh at ourselves and get out of the house for the night.

seeing how much loneliness is out there on the worrrLd wide web, I can’t help but wonder how many of my friends don’t even talk about feeling alone or upset. I have this image of holding my arms open and wanting everyone I know inside them. and then I think of Holden Cauffield in The Catcher and the Rye (I don’t capitalize in this blog much, but that book deserves it/needs it/I’ll explain why I don’t capitalize later notthatyouaskedorthatanyonecareskparenthesisoverbye) when he is asked what he wants to be. he says that he would want to stand on the edge of “some crazy cliff” by a field, catching all the thousands of little kids if they try and start to go over the edge of the cliff. “I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them,” he says, “That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.”

that quote, that whole book, really planted itself a home inside my friggin’ soul. writing like that has changed my life, connecting me for eternity to a character, to an author, to a moment in time described on a page. and I know, if that’s how much other people’s writing has changed my life, especially their writing about hard times…. then I know I have to push through my fears and write about the painful stuff in order to get through to people. I want to write spaces for people to fall into. that’s what I’d do all day; I’d write paths and twists and black holes for people to read themselves into. that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. maybe one day I’ll actually feel like I’m doing that, like I’m reaching people. as for where I stand now, I constantly feel like everything I write is this big vomit of blahblahblah narcissism-and-nostalgia-andinsertabadjokehere. additionally, I constantly wonder, how do I even know that anyone is reading right now (and why does that matter to me)?

maybe I won’t know

or maybe I will connect this piece to facebook

and someone will hit ‘like’

without ever speaking to me about what I wrote

and that like will signify that they heard me, I hear you, I’m hearing you

and I don’t know if I’d call that the irony stuff, but I’d say that’s enough for me.

(or maybe I watch too much tv.)

"human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece."

whywait — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:54:00 -0700

It is early 2009. I am sitting in my English class as a grade 12, staring at a page in Vladmir Nabakov’s Pale Fire. This is our last class to work on our assignment which will evidence all that we have learned about the book since it was assigned by the two English teachers, Mr. Moorhead and Mr. Wait. I haven’t exactly told anyone that I have yet to compile my scrawled notes and all that is in my reading journal to form even a first draft of the assignment. I can do this, I tell myself; I often leave things to the last minute and still get A’s. Go, me. I actively suppress the thoughts that want to compete for my attention, telling me that I could be so much better than this. Shut up, brain box! I mean, hello, I am in grade 12. I have other classes, like History with Mr. Powell and English Lit with Mr. Moorhead, and I am in Lit AP during some lunch hours, and I have a part-time JOB, and I am in sports, and clubs, and I have friends and like, a boyfriend and parties to go to and texts to read and Bright Eyes songs to have existential crisises to, you know? I haven’t even counted how many calories are in this granola bar and mandarin orange I am eating yet! I am like, so busy. Does Mr. Wait honestly expect me to just have the time to magically do this huge assignment? Because I DON’T. He just doesn’t understand me! No one understands me (except maybe Conor Oberst)!!!

I hate this book, I decide. Yes, that’s it. It is the first book to really challenge me and make me question design versus art and the meaning of… meaning. I am angry at Mr. Wait for assigning this book. I am angry that he gave me my first 5/6 on an essay earlier this semester. I am angry that he doesn’t compliment my writing or give me eleven-out-of-ten’s like past teachers have, and then I am angry at myself for being so pathetically honest in my own head that that could drive me to even be angry at someone. I am angry that I can’t tell whether or not I have even earned his respect at all. Why does he have to be so reserved and aloof all the time?

I end up reserving a long stretch of hours to compile everything into a document the night before the assignment is due. When I get it back in class, I have received 90 percent on it. Yeah, Mr. Wait would give me almost-perfect. When will I ever be good enough? I ask myself, why does he HATE me?

It is 2010. I am finishing my first semester of my second year of at the University of Victoria. While surfing the web and typing my monthly e-mail to my friend Charlotte who is at UBC, I find an old essay on my laptop. It is the essay that I got my first 5/6 on. I think fondly upon the days where less than 100 percent made me upset. I have barely received any “perfect” grades during my time at uni. Yet, I was immediately grateful for the curriculum which Mr. Wait and Moorhead had put so much of themselves into. They prepared me better than anything could have. In my university English classes, I am finding that I have already learned so much of what is being re-taught to me, from them. Reading the essay back, I start becoming very angry at my teenage self. This essay is horrible. It is pretentious, awful, stupid, and I didn’t put my heart into it. I didn’t even deserve a 5. I find my Pale Fire document. Now that I think of it, I’m not proud of any work that I produced in that class, despite coming out with an A.

Charlotte had been in my English 12, and I start telling her how I feel in the e-mail.

I can’t stop thinking about Pale Fire, and how I left it to the last minute. I was so worried and yet so completely careless. When I got it back with 9 out of 10 on it, my blood boiled. Who was he to give me 9?

I read my pale fire questions back today and it was a terrible assignment.
I wrote it in one night.

I didn’t deserve an A.

I feel like Mr. Wait saw potential in me and had wanted me to challenge and surprise myself and be better, but I threw it away by being cocky, stubborn and presumptuous. so I guess it’s something I feel like almost apologizing to him for in this weird way. I don’t know why and I know he doesn’t care but it’s been on my mind lately, mainly because I can’t decide whether or not to let go of being an English Major altogether.

I was up til 4am last night just thinking. and reading. and for the first time in a really long time I considered being an English teacher again. I don’t know why.
I was reading Virginia Woolf’s life story and what she wrote to her husband in her suicide note had me bawling my eyes out.

“I feel certain I am going mad again. if anyone could have saved me it would have been you… I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.”

she walked to into a river near the cottage they owned together with stones weighting her down in her pockets. her words created a whole world in my mind where I could see her, could see it, could feel it all, and I remembered what it was like to read literature like that, and feel it. remembered what it’s like to bleed yourself onto a piece of paper - to write - and to hope that people can feel it.

just as thousands of people can push their voice out to form pleasant-sounding melodies, thousands of people can twist their words like limbs to create visions, build worlds, create lives, shape meaning. thousands of people can brandish their words like weapons, their language ripping holes in people, their limits nonexistent as their minds explode across the paper like cannons torching through the sky…I just grew really scared of trying anymore — grew more and more fearful of being mediocre.
maybe I’ll try.

I sent the e-mail thinking that I would start to truly push myself to be better — finally.

…However, I ended up taking some Political Science classes the next semester and realized that just because I loved English, and needed to push myself, didn’t mean that I had to be an English Major. I switched my Major to Poli Sci. Regardless, I constantly preached to others how wonderful our English program at DSS was. I think of how purely devoted all the teachers I had in grade 12 were, including Mr. Wait, and I am so thankful for everything that they have done for me.

It is 2011 and I am in my third year at UVic. I hear the news, and instantly I know that it isn’t true. I would never want to accuse someone of making up something so serious, but… I just know. I know that he would never…

Global BC’s Facebook page has a status reading, “Charges have been laid against 43-year-old Delta Secondary teacher Robin Wait. He has been charged with two counts of sexual interference of a person under 16, and two counts of sexual assault, from two incidents on November 4th and in May 2011.”

He is arrested, and suspended from his job without pay. I wonder who will coach basketball now. Who will teach in his place? I hear things, like that he isn’t allowed to be with his family. I hear lots of things, because Ladner is a small-town, and what we have right here is a small-town scandal just waiting to be blown up and shrieked through the sky like fireworks.

It is October, 2012 and I am finally writing this. I have wanted to for a long time, especially before the charges were dropped, like they were in August 2012. Despite the charges being dropped, there was still an investigation into the alleged second incident.

Finally, as far as I know, Mr. Wait has been exonerated after what I imagine was the hardest year of his life. I cannot even begin to try and picture what he went through, what his family went through…

Justice has not been “served” just because the charges have been dropped — if they, in fact, fully have been. This should have never had to happen to him. He will carry the memories of this negative experience with him. He should have never had to suffer through the judgment and the pain of watching his life as a coach and teacher at DSS unravel.

Honestly, Mr. Wait belongs at DSS. I want the students in Ladner to experience the curriculum the way it was meant to be experienced. I want them to have the chance. They deserve that, and he deserves to have his life back.

I think of him teaching us about Dionysus and Apollo, from Greek Mythology. Apollo is the god of reason, while Dionysus represents wine, ecstasy and intoxication. In stories we read, a clear Dionysian theme of destruction being a form of creation was exemplified.

If destruction can be a form of creation, then the destruction caused in Mr. Wait’s life better serve as a catalyst for some form of creation in the future. I really hope that something good comes of this somehow.

Out of all the alleged incidents and claims made against him, I can tell you something he did to me: he made a difference my life.

‘Allegedly,’ he was one of the best teachers any of us could have. He didn’t hand anything to us, but wanted us to be the best versions of ourselves. He impacted us whether we knew it at the time, or it took us a little longer to figure it out. Now we wait to see what happens. I am waiting for good news. I am waiting for it to be shrieked across the sky

like fireworks.

“for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word.” -Pale Fire

Photo

whywait — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 15:55:11 -0700

Photo

whywait — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 07:32:00 -0700

ABOUT THAT.

whywait — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 23:26:50 -0700

ever start a blog and have really high hopes for it and then fail at updating it, because despite the fact that you told yourself you could write for a larger audience and pumped yourself up, ultimately nothing changed?

oh, you never have? umm..

it’s ironic that I generally don’t care if I look like a flailing joke half the time in public and don’t think twice about being randomly obnoxious or suffering from the very real foot-permanently-in-my-mouth syndrome thing (many examples to come)…..and yet, I get super self-conscious when I think about who could possibly be reading my writing (and let’s face it, the truth is probably that NO ONE is reading JK hi mom)

let me tell you something: I am writing every day, all the time, and if my co-workers knew how many times I started writing little things on pieces of paper at work they’d probably be at least a little shocked (but would they even? they see~~too~~ many sides of me because I’m basically at work every day), and if anyone were to ruffle through my room they would be like, get me out of here this gal’s brainzzzz are leaking out everywhere scrawled all over everything..

interjection!:

things I scribbled on to pieces of paper at work today (and if you can believe it, I actually was getting lots of real work done):

nostalgia kind of just overwhelms me. sometimes my ipod is like this dark reminder twisting my insides up. even thinking about the song “yesterday’s gone” drops my centre to the floor, removes me from my surroundings, and life is like a sliding scene rolling off the screen from the butterfly effect.

high school is this very interesting and beautiful and dangerous place in time. we move

I want to write like it’s oozing out of the tops of my fingers and my fingers are these electric cities doing their own version of the electric slide, dancing and flying and last night it’s like they were out of control. my writing is starting to get so loose and open that it scares me. actually.

the world is this fast floating puff of air, each breath and stare and flake of being lately seems like it’s moving so fast. I should stand straight, install a position, but in stead I’m just jelly and I’m going and going, no skeleton at all

I don’t mind

ask lachelle if she can switch shifts with me for tuesday

WHAT EVER happened to my “blog” that I was gonna actually let people read? fuck sakes. why haven’t I been updating it AT ALL?

I know exactly why I haven’t been. there is a very powerful divide between my writing and me. I can admit things to myself on paper that I can’t even fully tell myself with a little movie-voice-over tone in my brain box. my writing gets raw and reckless when I know that no one’s reading, or when I think that only strangers are reading. I get carried away. when I write a personal piece for strangers, I think “well, maybe someone will connect with that.” when I write something where I can visualize someone I actually know reading it, I feel like I’m giving a part of myself away that I can never take back. maybe that sounds weird. but you know what? I’m going to start using the crap out of this blog. because I already know what my next like seven posts are going to be about and I have a lot to say.

a LOT. to say.

confesh sesh: I love ladner.

whywait — Thu, 24 May 2012 23:47:00 -0700

oh hello, neglected blog of mine. this post was written two days ago then left on my screen. laze hard or die tryin’

right now I’m in my hometown in ladner, bc, visiting home.

I’ve always had an odd relationship with this town. in many ways, ladner was my scapegoat. wasn’t that the cool thing to do in high school? blame your problems on the fact that you come from a small town? I think I thought I was indie or something by constantly hating on the fact that there was nothing much to do here for fun, or maybe it was the fact that you couldn’t leave the house without seeing multiple people that you knew.

I couldn’t wait to get out of this place. like a poorly-scripted teen-angst ridden fictional character, I thought that getting out of my small town was The Solution to my happiness and to leading the life that I had always dreamed of.

moving away obviously changed my life in many positive ways. however, now that I’ve been living in victoria for a few years, coming home has often highlighted the absolutely amazing things about this town for me.

I saw a friend of mine the other night, and when I wasn’t busy spilling my words all over him in the way that I do when I tell stories, we reflected on how lucky we were to attend a high school like ours. our grade didn’t have a clique problem. generally speaking, people actually got along by the end of it. moreover, by being in the right place at the right time for five years of my life, I got to make friends with someone like him (one of the most genuine people I know), along with so many others that are still so important to me now.

tonight I biked next to my (wonderfulbeautifulfantasticamazing) friend as she walked home from visiting me; as I made my way home, biking through the streets of ladner at night, I was overwhelmed with the absolute beauty of this place.

being out in ladner at night, I can’t help but feel safe. there is something so peaceful about the quiet streets and sailing through them, knowing that every road will eventually lead you home. I am always reminded of how the air is magic, and when I bike ride I feel like I can fly through it, like the whole universe is rushing right through me.

tonight I felt like the sky was flirting with me, and I was starry-eyed, spinning with a slippery smile, floating in my mind. I felt truly high on nature, and for a second I told myself that this was probably one of the happiest moments of my whole life. and you know, it probably was.

I smiled openly to myself, biking down the middle of the road, tilting my head back to watch the sky generate countless stars that infected the sky with contagious luminosity. the streets were empty, and it was just me and the universe with its fundamentally friendly force flowing.

I know that I’m supposed to be scared about the world being a scary, dark and dangerous place at night. I’m aware that I should be conscious of that. but sailing through these streets I know that there’s just something about this town that doesn’t naturally make me feel that way.

this place was what shaped me. this house. teachers and coaches and families and parents. my friends. somehow in a town with nothing to do but flirt with the idea of getting into trouble, I found friends with good heads on their shoulders. and I think I just may have turned out okay. getting out changed me, but there’s really no geographical Solution to happiness. happiness is right where you are, all the time, and everything you need is always with you. and it took riding through the empty streets under a sky littered with stars in the same town I swore I’d always hate to fully realize that.

tonight is one of those nights where reality is simple, and I am so thankful for every opportunity that I have had, the good and the bad.

and I don’t know if I have ever fully admitted it: I love this place.

the bachelor part II

whywait — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:38:00 -0700

what pisses me off the most about this show, is that even if we watch critically, it could send us messages that we might even subconsciously believe on some level. and the message that it is sending us, whether we think we are listening or not, is not a good one.

if you don’t want to end up alone, and you want that one perfect partner to spend the rest of your life with, I am not judging you. I’m not going to give you some crap about how society is the reason you think that way and that’s not what you really want/not really what is natural, or something like that.

all I know is that this show reinforces a message that encompasses contemporary society: that we are somehow illegitimate humans if we ‘end up’ single.

watching this “bachelor” show made me think, well, I would literally rather be alone forever than be with someone who was shamelessly self-promoting while vying for my “love” over the course of however many weeks the bachelor runs for.

but then, do we see why what I just said was problematic? I framed the issue as “I’d rather be alone than…” as if I were saying “I’d rather EAT DIRT and be a dirty pirate with a peg leg and NO TEETH than…” and I cannot stress this enough: there’s nothing wrong with being alone.

let’s talk about ~~sex baby~~ you:

you are the best gift to yourself. Oscar Wilde once said that “to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” you are your own forever, so you better appreciate that. you may try to navigate the map of life by attempting to find yourself in other people, but if you never look inward and worship the hot mess that you are, you’re just gonna stay lost without real direction.

so let’s talk about me now:

I don’t mean to sound like a narcissist when I say that I like hanging out with me. I don’t judge me when I wanna dance around by myself or laugh way too hard and loud at episodes of modern family at five in the morning. I laugh out loud at the jokes in my head, not because I’m some hilarious comedian but because who could ever get my humour better than me? if the rest of my life means that I am my own ‘partner’ then I guess.. I will promise me right now to always call myself back the next day and tell myself that I don’t actually look fat in these new jeans.

I know that it’s not that simple. some people really feel this sense of lonely that probably could be resolved in one single companion. some people crave intimacy like ke$ha craves autotune machines. some people need attention (for which I find karaoke works quite well), sometimes valuing it more when it comes concentrated from one person.

some people truly believe that they need to fill this gap in themself through somebody else, like there’s a piece waiting to be filled and a person with the filling.

my mother found my stepdad late in life, and I think anyone who knows me knows how much I absolutely adore my mother. she is the absolute spine of my universe, she’s radiant, she’s everything. she was already a complete human being without him; she didn’t have a void in herself that needed filling.

but at the same time, if he hadn’t came into her life — and mine — there would be a hole in our universe that we would never even know existed had he not. he has expanded our lives so much in so many positive ways, and I am thankful for the absolute unconditional love he has shown my mother, my brother, and me every day. their relationship has made a cynical person like me believe in that kind of magical monogamous type of love.

but it’s not for everyone, and maybe it’s rare. if I’m alone the rest of my life because I didn’t find someone that I could consistently vibe with for years/remain happy with, I’d be okay. I know that (and it’s a good thing I freakin’ rock at karaoke).

now back to you:

you are a gem and not a stone. so if someone treats you like anything less than shinin’ like a skin-slicin’ diamond… tell them to F off and go be alone. becausebetter than nothing will never make you happy.

but no, you tell me, you like someone right now and you won’t stop until you get them, even though they don’t appear to appreciate you and you’re kinda chasing them like you’re poking them with a stick saying “helloo, please notice my positive traits that I am oh-so-subtly trying to throw in your face.” why do you do it? because they’re you’re “one.”

okay, so right now they are your ‘one,’ but there will be other ‘ones,’ if that’s what you’re into. ones who probably wanna like, shout your name out into the open and endless sky, or some shit, whatever lovers do…all..lover-like..and such.

whether or not you believe that you need one person, one day, forever, or that there is simply just one person crafted by the hands of the universe just for you, you gotta agree with me on one thing:

chances are, you aren’t going to find them on a freakin’ reality tv show where they had to market themselves in the cheesiest of scenarios with roses everywhere and some cheeseball host saying cheeseball things, all cheesball-like.

I am no expert on love, but I am an enthusiast of critical consumption of media. if you watch the bachelor, I don’t judge you. really, I don’t. and hey, maybe I haven’t given it a fair enough chance; I am aware of the validity of that accusation as well.

but if you start at me about how this Courtney person who just received the ultimate-awesome-win of a prize — a ROSE and MARRIAGE from this awful hair guy — doesn’t DeSeRvE~~ his luv…I’ll probably just playing Poison’s “every rose has its thorn” in my head and nod and smile while I pretend to listen respectfully. dun h8

the bachelor part I

whywait — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:37:31 -0700

so maybe I’m a bit late on this, but I’m pretty sure the last episode of “the bachelor” aired last week, or so the twittersphere and ‘news’ blogs have told me.

I have only really seen a couple episodes of this ‘reality’ television show “the bachelor,” and while my eyes consumed this strange wonderland of primped and primed mammals, I genuinely wondered if it was meant to be some self-satirical joke. alas, I was then forced to face actual reality: the show is serious, which means that if it is on the air, there are probably some poor souls who are taking it seriously.

let me get this straight:

you’re an attractive male, and you have decided that you want to find yourself a little lady — or you’re a pretty woman~ looking for “Mr. Right,” not just “Mr. Right Now,” WINK (I’m cringing). you want a partner, and hey, isn’t that just inherent in our humanity, according to our heteronormative, monogamy-obsessed society? and god damnit all, you are already in your LATE TWENTIES and you are still without a mate — the horror!

I mean, OBVIOUSLY the best option for you now is to try as hard as you can to be skilfully chosen — based first and foremost on your appearance — to STAR in a weird, structured experiment that will be filmed.

25 strangers are predetermined by a group of CASTING directors for you to choose from (cool, power dynamics too? this show has it all). you are filmed in what is framed as some microcosmic vision of the world. I mean, DUH twentyfive primped out people who MARKETED themself to AUDITION for your attention are representative of the dynamic pool of people you could be choosing from in ‘real life’ to fall truly, madly, deeply in love with!!

so then from what I gather you’ll parade around on dates and hand roses to people, there’s crying and confession booth-ing and a general aura of negative, jealous, competitive energy… and then before you know it, you have to choose between two lucky lovers!

you look at one. they’re so hot. you look at the other. ugh, they’re so hot too!!! what do you do? you’ve just spent weeks being filmed saying things like, “I could spend the rest of my life with [insert name of one contestant]” and “I really think I’m falling for [different contestant],” and “this is so hard, because I could really see myself with [yet another contestant] for the rest of my life” and “they’re all just really, really good kissers.”

but alas, you must cut one, and as they run for the hills, ashamed that you didn’t hand them a symbolic rose, you propose (but only if you’re the man, of course!! we can’t fuck with tradition!) to the object of your decided desire.

meanwhile, the producers are already chasing after the contestant that ran away with mascara tears swallowing their beautiful cheekbones saying “WHY DUZN HE LUV ME” asking “wait, will you star on our next season of the bachelorette?” …so the casting becomes cyclic. from what I can tell, the outcome of this is that casting is racially discriminative, manipulative and ..just stupid? yeah. are they are trying to get us attached to these rejected contestants so that we validate the fact that people are dying for a spot on a show to compete for their attention?

what I wonder about the contestants is if they know their own worth. or, alternatively, are they all too aware of it? I say this because though some of them have skin that reminds me of glazed donuts and teeth so white they might be teeth implants or something, they are human beings (I think). thus, they probably have a lot to them, and could find like a million souls out there who would probably wanna stalk them just by looking at their face, or after finding one of their weird quirks endearing or something. so why are they throwing themselves at one person who is deemed superior or ultimate? then, on the flip side, are they just competing for this person to inflate their ego by being proclaimed the best luva rather than attain the love of the individual the show is centred around?

from the couple episodes I saw, the women on the latest season of the bachelor were all so head over heels for this “ben” dude with awful hair (not that that matters) and his apparent greatness. they’re all “I AM FALLING FOR HIM, I WANT MARRIAGE AND BABIEZ N STUFF, YAY!” k, not a direct quote, but they may as well have been saying that.

in one episode I watched, one contestant, named Lindzi (yep, with a Z), goes “Ben is like Prince Charming…because he just is a Prince Charming.”

and I can’t remember which contestant says it (don’t make me go back and watch it), but it may have been her: one goes, “I love being with Ben, I just wish he didn’t have six other girlfriends [right now]!!” … uhh. and don’t forget about the ones who “aren’t here to make friends.” right, okay, good I was concerned that for a second you’d expand your thought process beyond obsessing over one person!

so, this super cool-hair guy gets through all these juust wonderful and articulate ladies and then he’s down to the last two, and from what I’ve gathered, viewers often assess the contestants’ motives for marriage like it’s actually interesting or something. and the best is when they base their judgements over who should be with the bachelor(ette) by who they think “deserves” him or her.

right, because if you are the most well-behaved person in a house where you are forced to stay with your competitors, and are the most likeable to the audience, and work hard in the name of love, you’re the one that should marry the star.

can we talk about chemistry for just a second here?

I guess I think that if your instincts tell you that something feels right, it probably is. it doesn’t matter how much of a “catch” someone is; ultimately there will be an unexplainable chemistry between two people that does in fact draw them together. I am no scientist, but..I am writing an obnoxious blog post about my opinion so…

okay, SO if you’re not in a coma from boredom (do I ever shut up? that’s not rhetorical, the answer is no, no I don’t), read part II/the next post(!!!). otherwise, thanks for reading for as long as you did. you’re a champ!

reconstructing reality.

whywait — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:58:44 -0800

You don’t look back along time, but down through it, like water

-Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye.

I give in to nostalgia every single day. looking back at life is like looking down through liquid; memories float to the surface of consciousness without the convenience of chronology. we fill in the blurred blanks on our own, like we’re holding a magic marker that can trace the truth with subtle substitutes. you could find yourself injecting green into a memory like you experienced it firsthand, when really you were staring at a barren wasteland.

I don’t know what my brain may have embellished. all I know is that when I invite the past to occupy my mind it takes me on a ride that shifts in and out of linear time. one minute I’m the kid lying in my blue bunkbed with a salty sea of tears swallowing my face like a miniature tsunami, because my mom won’t lie to me when I ask her if she will please promise me that she will never, ever die. then, I’m 16 lying to her about where I’m going on a friday night, after having pilfered ounces of vodka from the liquor cabinet and replacing it with water (real stealth, 16 year old self).

…I’m the chubby, bossy, carefree 7 year old jumping on our old trampoline (I was so obese, I am so sorry to all humans in possession of a pair of functioning eyes in the 90s that had to witness this); I’m 20 looking at the backyard with my brother wishing we still had that damn thing to bounce on.

…I’m 6 hiding from teachers in the coat racks at Port Guichon Elementary with my new rebellious friend Samantha; I’m 17 and she’s with me climbing on bails of hay at my family reunion in Saskatchewan, because she’s become like family.

…I’m 8 sitting on the swings having my first real conversation with Janall about my mom’s lazer eye surgery, and cake (yep, 8 year old me WOULD be talking about cake); I’m 18 and her and I are sitting on my roof with a bucket of ice cream and two spoons, watching the sky melt pink.

I know that my first crush was in kindergarden on Jamie Malanfant; I went to the colouring station and all that was left was the black crayon. “Here,” Jamie said, handing me a crayon, “you can take my purple one.”

here was this cute boy offering me the last good stick of vibrant colour? that’s when I ~~decided~~ knew that I really liked him.

throughout my participation in the progress of existence, all I really do is live by punctuating my being with breathing… and suddenly I’m 21. how am I supposed to feel by now? I’m somewhere in between child and adult in the weirdest way (and no, this isn’t some oldschool Britney moment of like ♫ i’M nAt a GRRL, nAt yEt a WoMiN ~~~)

I’m still like a child, with impulsive curiosity ruling my mind, my mouth, my hands.

I’m still like an angsty teenager, with my love for dark music and thought regression obsessions that come up when I’m giving into my brain’s anxiety sessions.

BUT aren’t I a ‘young woman’ who has learned so much from who I used to be?

sometimes I feel like I’m 5 again, developing crushes over purple crayons, ‘cause last week I’m sitting here at 21 with jellified legs watching a ~~certain~~ boy walk by in a purple shirt. then, in an instant, I’m 80 years old already, looking back and telling myself not to take silly little crushes seriously, because I’m just so young, and these are the good old days.

I give so much of myself to the past, and then to the future in little imaginary blueprint plans. there are pieces of me everywhere, leaking out around the spaces and locations that time occupies. and there’s this mysterious symmetry in all of it, the way memories can compile themselves like awful movie montages and haunt you at all the ~~wrong~~ right moments.

time is the most unconventional map to knowing ourselves. we learn from the past, but we can also manipulate moments and memories with our minds. we have that power, to paint the past and present with our perception… so ifff you wanna, go splatter green on the wastelands of yesterday; fill in the focus lines in the vacant spaces of what was and is and will be one day. mental creativity can be the engine of favorable fate.

do you have any idea how powerful your imagination is? let it run wild like a disney star turning 18.

so here I am.

whywait — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 02:25:00 -0800

here’s what I’m going to tell you about me and then I’m going to tell you something about you (I know right, who do I think I am?):

I’m pretty scared right now! I already have a blog with like a bajillion posts that I started two years ago. that blog is mainly read by strangers, and random people from all over the world have interacted with me through it. I have learned lots about my writing and even myself this way. however, I have never wanted to share my writing with a larger audience for the following reasons:

a) seriously, how pretentious am I? do I actually assume that people I know want to take time out of their day to read the ramblings produced by my brain? I mean, do I think I’m spewing out Socratic wisdom or something? as if I need to ~*bless the world~*~*~ with my words?

b) what if my writing produces negative thoughts in the minds of others? it’s bad enough that I’m always talking in real life and probably offending like three people per minute with my awful method of talking BEFORE I think; why do I need to piss more people off and annoy them with my opinions?

c) I hate conflict. I hate admitting that I hate conflict. but I do. so why am I opening myself up to the possibility of countering opinions and thus conflict?

…so now that I’ve read that back…. those are awful reasons not to share writing. that’s COWARDLY. and STUPID.

no, I don’t think I’m the next Aristotle, nor do I flatter myself in thinking that people are on the edge of their seat going “OMG WHAT DOES KATHLEEN THINK ABOUT LIFE RIGHT NOW, I REALLY NEED TO KNOW?!?!?!”

maybe one day something I post is going to offend people, yes. but I promise to always try and keep an open mind. and just like my constant word-vomit in real life, I may offend and annoy people without realizing it sometimes, but I more often just constantly embarrass myself. and honestly, I sometimes find embarrassment to be… kind of fun. it’s a reminder that I’m alive and I can’t control situations, and that’s sort of exciting, isn’t it?

finally, fearing conflict is something that I find a little unacceptable about my personality, and I need to work on it.

so guess what? I’m gonna share this blog with people — with whoever wants to read it. and if people hate it, take issue with it, and/or want to argue with me about it for whatever reason, I’m gonna face that like a grown human being.

I’m 21, so I’m still growing and learning about how to be a better person in this universe. I’m going to use that word a lot — universe. I’m kind of in love with the universe. it’s just fascinating to me that we each just slip into this dimension as an individual combination of particles that will likely never be repeated. I truly just want to be someone who is a constant expression of ecstatic gratitude, amazed by the fact that I get to occupy a space in the world where I can dance and talk and fall in love with life every day and laugh at myself.

I know I probably kind of sound like I’m on drugs, but the only hard drug I’m using is LIFE (oh my god, why do I have friends?!!?!! sometimes I srsly wonder)

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME:

dear reader: no matter who you are, I know that you are a radiant force of energy and deserve to have your thoughts shared with the world. how do I know? I just do. just like I know you’re probably amazingly attractive and wildly witty, too. did I mention you’re also pleasantly patient (you DID just make it through this WHOLE blog post somehow…are you taking focus drugs or something because this shit is probably so boring it’s coma-inducing amIright?) ? as long as you know that you’re keeping an open mind, don’t ever doubt yourself for a second when it comes to sharing your opinion with the world. I think that in life we are meant to be part of a constantly expanding support system, building the present with our intertwining thoughts. open yourself up and then speak your mind til you can’t speak anymore.

YOU are a combination of particles that will never be repeated. who you are will never.ever.happen.again. sooo take a minute today (or several, or like a bajillion!!!) to admit to yourself that you are pretty fucking special.