hey now, remember Aurora

one of my roommates moved back into our house. as result, the house is giggly and loud and full of people, something i normally love, but my energy is so zapped from working on frosh that everything is annoying me.

there's someone i want to see tomorrow, and i want to tell him that i missed him. i want to be sweet to him, and i want him to see me, no walls, no defences, no hiding or avoiding or evading. i just want him to see me, if i'm brave enough to show it.

and you've never met anyone..

you see everything, you see every part,
you see all my light, and you love my dark.

love has been on my mind lately. almost everyone i know has been undertaking some kind of change in their lives in that area. there's been people cheating on each other; people hurting each other; people growing away from each other; people becoming better, or worse, or simply different people.

it's made me have a negative view of love. i forget about real love, and how it is in real life, until it slaps me in the face. my friends and family remind me how real love should be: messy, funny, and gentle. kind. passionate. painful. everything i know about love comes from my parents, the way they are with each other, but also the way they love me. through fights and screaming matches, tears and hysterics, and the times where i burp at the dinner table and my dad gives me his patented glare; whenever i look back at any memory with my parents, i can see how much they love me.

my dad is the worst joker i know. he's always put time aside for me whenever i asked. he's the smartest person i know. he buys me things he knows i don't need, but that i want. he drives two hours to montreal to pick me up during the holidays. every saturday in the winter, when i was little, he'd build a fire, put on the beatles, and read in the living room. he taught me how to ride a bike. he taught me how to drive. he'd switch beds when i had nightmares so i could sleep with my mom. he picked me up from school every day when i had extracurricular activities. he pushes me to do my best, even when it makes me angry. he rips articles out of newspapers that he thinks i'd enjoy. he smells like old, worn in t-shirts and cologne. he tells me what movies to see. he taught me to play chess but never just let me win. he went to get me videos when i got my wisdom teeth out. he'd leave my door open to check on me if i was sick.

my mom has a quick temper, but quick laughter as well. she hates when i make fun of her accent. she wears different perfumes every day but somehow always smells like herself. she let me stay up late to watch bad romantic comedies with her. she let me wear make-up whenever i wanted to. she hates when i wear sweatpants. she wants to make sure i can cook and clean and do laundry properly. she makes me stand up straight. she makes me laugh harder than anyone i know. she likes slapstick comedies. she's the driving force of my family. she loves when i stand behind her in the mirror so we can see how we look alike. she's never tired or sick, but if she is, she lets me take care of her. she loves the chipmunk that comes to our back door. she knows exactly when i need my head stroked or my back rubbed. she has a million freckles. she secretly borrow my clothes and never has more than two drinks. she never gets her hair wet when swimming. she can tell my exact mood by just looking at me. she remembers everything about me as a baby.

my best friends are the constant force in my life. i can not talk to them for days, or weeks, but when i do it's like we talked yesterday. they know me inside out, no secrets, no holds barred. they're my family. there's a list a mile long of the jokes, and the memories, and the love. they understand when i need time alone and when i need to be forced to go out. they've seen me cry with sadness and cry with laughter. they've seen me barf. they understand that sometimes i'm crusty and grouchy. they know exactly what to say to make me laugh. they know that it's okay to have silence sometimes. they never pry, but are there whenever i need to talk. they get annoyed with me and forget about it ten, twenty, thirty minutes later. they know that i get annoyed sometimes too, and it's okay. they take my side no matter what, but tell me when i'm being stupid. they tell me what i want to hear.

and that's when i know what kind of love i want: the kind of love i already have. i want to feel safe, and loved, and free to be myself. and that's what i want for love. and when i remember these things, i remember to never settle for anything less. because everyone deserves that kind of love in their life, and everyone should remember where they get it from.

you dig everything, of which i'm ashamed
there's not anything to which you can't relate
and you're still here.

(lyrics by Alanis Morissette)

it's just past eight and i'm feeling young and reckless

things i love right now:
Veronica Mars
the pool at my gym
my Jack Daniels trucker hat
theweathernetwork.com
my cell phone
Diet Coke
Fall Out Boy & Motion City Soundtrack
e-mail
sarongs
liquid Lip Smackers in Vanilla
American Apparel racerback tank tops
plain shrunken hoodies
Lubriderm Shea Butter & Cocoa body lotion
blank CDs
the MUS office, freshly painted
my friendly, neighbourhood Blockbuster
oatmeal
pizza with hot sauce
my imitation Pucci scarf
big sunglasses
new flipflops
silver bangles
the possibilities of a new day

truffle pigs

don't fail me now, don't you even fucking think it
we're dead somehow, but somehow we're still breathing...

i can't sleep lately. for someone who usually generates 8-12 hours of sleep per day, this is an anomaly. it's making me wander around in a fog. i get distracted. i space out. usually the problem is solved in a few days, but this time i'm not sure what to do about the problem. for the very first time in my life, i have no idea about what i'm doing.

the secret's out, but it's too loud to think it
whatever drowns the counting machines out that drive you to eat shit
damn i'll bring them to their knees, damn i'll bring them to their knees
damn i'll bring them to their knees...

nothing works. i get distracted from distracting myself. i get halfway through a book, or television show and lose interest. i walk from the living room to my bedroom back to the living room, back to the bedroom trying to decide what to do.

don't leave me now, don't you even fucking think it
i'm not myself, but somehow i'm still being him..
the secret's out, but it's too loud to think it
whatever drowns the truffle pigs out that drive you to eat shit..

today i stared at my ceiling for three hours in the afternoon. i'd be worried about myself if there was a general apathy about life, but there isn't. i still laugh, i still enjoy going out and seeing my friends, love the little parts in my life that seem to fill up the moment and make me forget everything else. it's in the stillness, the minutes when i'm alone that take me by surprise when my mind drifts away and everything stops for the thought that's in my head. maybe i should be worried. but i'm not. it doesn't interfere with my life, at least not yet.

damn i'll bring them to their knees, damn i'll bring them to their knees
damn i'll bring them to their knees, damn i'll bring them to their knees
damn i'll bring them to their knees, damn i'll bring them to their knees
damn i'll bring them to thier knees, jenn i'll bring them to their knees

hey, hey now, to their knees......
oh....look out.

(truffle pigs by matt good.)

i need you so much closer/so c'mon, c'mon

choices are weird things if you reflect upon them.

for me, making choices have always been a snap decision, something that i listen to my gut feeling for. the only thing that takes time is the justification of my choice, but i pretty much immediately know what path i'll undertake. but it's recently come to my attention how much the little choices affect our lives.

the big choices are obvious: when i picked where'd i'd go to university, when i entered into relationships, when i picked a place to live and a roommate to go along with it, when i chose to stop playing piano after ten years; these choices are some of the few which stand out.

then there's the others: how i choose what to eat for breakfast (whatever is in the fridge), what i choose to wear that day (a combination of what the weather is like and the mood i'm in that day), what movie i'll rent (a three step system consisting of narrowing down choices and then weighing the pros and cons of each before ultimately selecting a winner). these are the little choices that sometimes result in being more important than they should have, like when i get food poisoning from bad eggs, or when a movie really affects me on a personal level, as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind did.

and then there's the medium choices: should i accept an invitation from this person to go out? should i tell this person how i really feel about them? should i open myself up, or close myself off to this new friend? should i trust someone? these are the tricky choices; the ones that could potentially be inconsequential, but could also be huge, momentous, life-changing events. the little shifts in personality, in thinking, in the fundamentals of yourself. these are the hardest ones for me to make, since i hate surprises. i like being able to weigh the possibilities and pick when i'm reasonably sure of the outcome. mostly, i hate second guessing myself and these are the choices that make me do that the most.

this one choice though, is too important to let go of. and i already know what i'm going to do, i just need to get a sign, an indication of when.

"if you don't have to wait for something you want, how do you know it's worth wanting?"

ooh, we can begin again/shed our skin, let the sun shine in

i've always been hesitant about blogging. it always starts off as being a personal thing, and yet last time i soon felt i was writing for who was reading, instead of for myself. so my blog addresses got passed around to my friends and soon i was feeling like i was producing for an audience.

my entire life, i've kept journals. the ones from when i was ten, eleven, twelve had been thrown out in a fit of adolescence embarassment, but i kept the ones from grade nine onwards even though, of course, i'm embarassed by those now. however, i learned somewhere along the way that just because i'm embarassed about the way i was then doesn't invalidate those thoughts, feelings, want. instead of looking at it as a reflection of who i was then, i now look at those journals as evidence of the steps i went through to get where i am. that girl is somewhere still deep in there, as changed and mutated as she may be.

nevertheless, writing has always been a joyful part of my life. as the years progressed though, i always assumed that the words would be there when i needed them. in the past few years, i've been writing less and less; the fiction and short stories disappeared first, then the poetry, then the journal entries, and lastly the letters vanished. soon, not even the words were there, and it felt like such a gaping hole in my life, a fundamental piece of myself missing. this is why this blog appeared. i needed somewhere for just me again, for thoughts and ideas and notes to just flow. for inspiration. for hope. and soon again, for the pure joy of it.

somewhere only we know

flirting with the idea of this blog again....