There's no use in alluding anymore. This world wants names, wants facts wants intricate details--its not enough to blanket experiences under the guise of the storyteller and the stories he told. No longer can I moonlight simultaneously as the teller, the doer and the ones it was done too. Perhaps the point has been reached where I either develop an alter-ego or pour out this heart into cookie shaped pieces of life; each one fashioned into a poem. Each one baring just a little too much.
Or so that's what she told me.
I play safe. I will admit. Because its a little too scary to tell you exactly what I mean. Isn't it easier to give you an opportunity to think...of what I'm trying to say without blitzkrieg-ing you with answers.
What ever happened to mystery? I wonder..apparently it doesn't fare so well in words.
The world wants names. Wants facts--and what if I don't know how to give those? What if those names and facts--changed as they might be--don't want to be given?
What if the world isn't ready for the things I have to say; the things that will undoubtedly, eventually come to the surface--
despite all the fight that's left
in me.
Raw words don't want to be read. We want to be buried under molehills of imagery--of nothing.
We want to suffocate just so you can pretend that nothing. Really. Happened.
Raw words want to dilute themselves with baking soda and trips to the pharmacy; to wash off the filth that shows them for what they really are.
Raw words...like carrots in a vegetable patch. They are what they are, nobody would dare to question that. Nobody, though, would eat them either.
There is a battle coming on. It looms closer every time I pick up a pen, and fades a little when I refuse to write the words that wander through my mind.
The battle will rage and in the end one side will die;
my pen will be silent, or I will.

I've done you. I could say--I've seen what you have to offer.

And that would be all. Because to her it would sound so final--there's nothing like words to slash you so violently and leave so little behind. Words whip--

not cream. But flesh. Flesh you can't see until you close your eyes at night and try too hard to fall asleep. Flesh that reverberates in your dreams and claws its way into your nightmares.

But save that for another day. Because it wasn't what--

he meant to say.

He meant to choose a little more carefully. He meant to tell her he wanted to care..

but she forgot to tell him she didn't.

There wasn't any use in denying it. Like the storyteller who forgot to warn the man who lost his soul, she'd sat there with a smile and pretended there wasn't anything to forewarn--

about.

Ten days and two tickets to Paris--she'd watched as it all fell so smoothly around her...everything was smooth indeed. Save. For. Her.

I've done you, I could say. I've seen what you have to offer.

He repeated himself, then he crawled out of bed with a smile and went to fetch--

a glass of water.

Would you believe me if I told you these wings won't make you fly?
Where am I? I have to know. Is it far away in some other lifetime? Am I existing somewhere else too? It would make sense, I believe. I feel these things are happening to me but nobody here is responsible. Experiences and lessons--new ideas form behind my facade but I can't discover where they have come from. They appear from nothing and give me no answers--seemingly sporadic yet tied to some archaic source. Existentialism doesn't even know where to start, and neither do I.

I feel her blink and my eyes shut for a second.
I feel her breath enter my chest and leave--I swear I didn't open my mouth.
I feel her claws grasp on a memory as she struggles
not to let it go--
but I don't know what she's thinking.
Her thoughts flicker and I can feel her emotion--
her reactions to what ever they told her that she'd forgotten.
I know she exists,
but I've never seen her before.
She walks down gravel paths,
kicking pebbles before they fall under her toes.
She likes the sun--
a little too much.
She reads from time to time..
I think she's smarter than me.
But I wouldn't know,
we've never met.
I know she knows I'm here.
I know she feels my pain
when the world fades back to black.
She whispers to me sometimes but her words get lost on the journey--
from thousands of worlds away.

We are one in the same--
her name is mine as well.
The name of millions of miles of separation,
but not a particle of difference.
Two souls born from the same star--
we split just once
and landed infinite planets apart.
Her world is not my own,
and yet I know her inside and out.
In the mirror every morning
her face looks me in the eye.
She sees my breasts when she undresses at night.

It is only our own memories--
the ones we've made since we fell from from the sky--
that wrench us apart and define us.
Memories of places the other would never recognise--
memories of people the other wouldn't know.
Memories of ourselves that don't match,
like we do.
We carve our own and in this we are inherently separate.
Two beings cut from the same stitch in time--
dispersed like sand scatters in a storm.
We exist in our entirety
exempt from the pain of knowing another
so similar.
We exist in different spaces--
allow time to pull apart two pieces
that once were intertwined.

....Spell-binding....

Creativity return--
Seep back into my fingers,
Run hot whispers up my veins;
Pull tendons into shapes--
Make them write your different names.

--My anchor in the deep keeps me still amongst the swells,
If the chain were to break--
I'd drift and sink below to hell...

There isn't a second in time that passes without thought. The mind is never still--if it were a person, we might call it a fidget. It's not, though. It's a wheel that rolls over continents in a day, circles the globe many times in a lifetime.
The mind is your weapon. Bare it with grace, nurture with care. Acknowledge that some will misuse it, make sure you aren't one of them. Don't be fooled by tricks of the imagination--your mind gets bored too, every once in a while.

Every once, in a while.

ephemeral thought. If all I want is to go back, then why am I still moving forward?
Why keep going in the direction in which the memories stop making you smile. Go back. Take me there.
Take me to skies laced with clouds, soaring high on a mountain's breeze. Or further back to a lonely day on Hallows Eve where we climbed towers in Berching and drank wine by candle light as it snowed so we might make new footprints.
Or back even more, to a time when so much was uncertain that it seemed set in stone. To days when the only thing that we knew was that everything would eventually change. And it did.
I miss that feeling I had when we slammed the doors on the jeep and drove south with a car full of life, and I cried because right there was the end of something. Because it was real.
And what is real anymore. Because some days are so numb.
I miss sitting on the bench looking out over the river valley. Ell's bench with a pocket full of sad-song-cds, a pen and a piece of paper. Writing of one, but thinking of the other.
So many. ephemeral. moments I can never take back, never get back. I used to hold my breath for a new day to come, and when I realised time passes slower when you hold your breath I tried my hardest to never let it out.
I don't always see future, past doesn't always remember me.
"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." [the beatles]
We'll see about that.

The unabashed idiocy that surrounds the Western world, and Eastern and Middle for that matter, never ceases to astound me. For god's sakes [and I use this term rather arbitrarily because I don't believe in "God" at least not as [he] translates onto paper] isn't it about time we stop thinking with our pathetically undeveloped noggins and start understanding what's really going on?
In this two thousand and eighth year of history [according to the bible, Jesus, and of course God] we still stutter and trip over ourselves trying to defend things we don't understand. Want specifics? How about the ridiculous divide that exists between pro Palestine and pro Israel. How about the people that come out with absurdities supporting or trashing one side or the other.. people that read two cents on a wall post and decided it's time to give theirs without bothering to find out what they are arguing about?
The older I get [again, using term lightly because I'm not quite archaic] the more I realise that people really are stupid. Ignorant. Combative yet uneducated. And even worse than all of that, unwilling to become educated.
So here is where I blame somebody. Here is where I tell you that the government has fucked us all and we'd better get ready for Armageddon, though not the kind you hear about in Aerosmith songs, except I'm not going to. Because the truth of it all is that we are all each and individually responsible for our ignorance. There isn't another you can blame than yourself for refusing, avoiding and wandering past information. It's out there surrounding us, begging to be caught, yet nobody seems to be able to get a story straight. Obviously some people are a little bit more implicatable than others.. but at the end of it all, we are indefinitely responsible for ourselves, no matter the cards we are dealt in the beginning.
I don't really know what to say, because I am exhausted by trying. I am done trying to educate and inform and have intelligible arguments with people who refuse to learn. I'm not claiming to be perfect. Far from it. But in my favour I don't fight fights that I don't understand. I don't scream that you're wrong, without making damn sure that I know who is right. And I don't even forget to understand the other side, because there always is one, and there always will be.

What does it all mean? It made her wonder. And she sat down with a packet of cigarettes and a bottle of water.
Not whiskey anymore.
The thoughts she pondered while she was awake were the same thoughts that haunted her while she slept. Lucid nightmares crafted to look nothing like the things they might represent.
Interpretations.
She paused to light another cigarette and stared at the empty world below her. The vacuous space she'd so easily filled with late night trips to lala land. A place she wouldn't describe now, even to her deepest fears.
Where had she been all those years? Between the days sat reading in a dimly lit hallway while twelve year old toes two-stepped their way around her cocoon, and the nights she'd spent howling at the moon. Caught in a world that meant nothing to her and the people she'd surrounded herself with--until now.
Where was she now? Suspended in a limbo, between a place that had seemed so full while she was filling it yet so empty in retrospect, and a place that held all the possibilities in the world. Literally. If she know what they all were.
Which direction could this world take her if only she would let it?
Ash fell from the cigarette she'd hardly smoked. It burned a hole in the corner of her notebook. 200 pages, half of them written on, but how many held real meaning?
Answers. The solution to every problem, to every inkling of a question is an answer. Or is it?
Is an answer all we really need, she wondered, to be satisfied? Does an answer quell our drive, our thirst for the recognition of a problem? Or is an answer empty as well? Because with every answer comes an end. If answers to everything came about, then wouldn't we--everything--be at an end?
The existentialist tripper, they called her, when she wasn't fighting for air. In the days she let herself drift, covering landscapes in a footprint and welding the trees to let herself pass. The earth was her canvas but she didn't paint pretty pictures. She stamped seals on lakes and turned mountains upside down. Somebody else had made this, she didn't need to do that now.
The places her dreams could take her...she often wondered if they were real.
How powerful is the mind, she needed to know, does it make or is it sown?
The cigarette went out as it burnt her fingertips. The last light of day turned to ash. The night could take over, leave day for the memory like so many other things that have come to pass. A distant taste of a breeze that brought life and vitality to the things that it nourished, and yet was so overlooked that until it disappeared nobody knew it was there.
She wasn't any closer. Hours stretched before her like waterless weeks on the Saharan plateau. No clues crept toward her, nothing yelled out its aid. She was truly alone in a world that held no mercy.
Not even for the dead.
And yet she kept searching, digging, delving for clues to the age old question that had plagued so many before. She didn't think to ask why none of them had ever figured it out. This was her battle. The journey she'd been given.
All those nights suspended between delirium and poetry, aided by whiskey and cocaine in a vile. Sometimes she'd thought she'd found the answer four days into an existentialist's nightmare. Only to wake up and see daylight, hear birds chirping, saluting a new day; only to wonder anew--
What does it all mean?

This twist of your mind leaves me.. far behind beneath the... light of some day that isn't to-day, or even yester-day, but some time long gone by when we had. Peace of mind.

Peace of mind.

That feeling behind your eyes that sits with-out compromise. And waits. For you to decide the rest, of your lives... without a sigh or a trace of goodbye. You stand and say your lines and leave the rest of us..
Behind.

Leave the, rest of us. Behind.

Now go do something productive. X.

I cross one knee above the other, perching on a cloud. I glance down to see your feet break waves that have no colour. You stare up at me. Watching. Until the last ripple takes your mouth. Nose. Eyes. Until you disappear beneath the windswept seascape. I don't laugh anymore.
Did you ever ?
My eyes peel layers from the surface, and I watch you dwindle slowly downwards. Still staring up at me. No questions in your eyes anymore. you know why you are here.
you remember why the mountains weren't yours to climb.
You pushed another off of them.
Why the storm wasn't yours to weather.
You drowned another to save yourself.
You left your soul tied to the anchor shaft when you pulled yourself back--
to life.
It's your soul now, that pleads for your return. Calling you ever downwards. Pulling your toes back to where it strangles in the blue-black dark. You kick.
Suddenly.
You realise, just where you might be going. This darkness has a face now. Many faces. You know the others that are to come.
Each one glows pale. Effervescent in the blackness. Each face, has a story to tell. To which only you know the ending.
Each face wants a piece of your soul. A piece of your life, to take back what should have been theirs. What would have been theirs, had you never come along.
Regret seeps into your eyes as you realise the consequences of the little things, so many years ago. But never remorse. Sadness enters my heart as I understand that you will never be free. Not every story has a happy ending. Not even mine.
But I, the storyteller, know only the story that I see in front of me.
I tell the tales as they happen before my own eyes. And in that I have no power, but the power to weave the fable as a quilt that is meant to be undone.
I leave my knots a little looser. I hold my breath too long. And I hope that one day you will exist to untie the knots you have tightened all these years. To unravel the thick threads of a destiny that no one would ever wish upon another.

Storyteller: I fade into the shadows as they consume your ship skyward. This world isn't yours anymore. My world waits for me now.
The faults you played so hard, fell flat below the ears of the ones you never let listen. Their cries might echo in your dreams, but you'll never hear the words they say. It's your hell to suffer, the fate you chose. To leave behind the things you never loved. Because it's easier now, for them, to love at last. Without you. Isn't hell, to be forgotten ? To be lost beyond all that existed before you. That will exist after.
It isn't me who decides. These things that will happen. You sowed your life many years before today. You thought for so long, these things you did would never take their place. But here they are and now I leave you half way between sky and sea. Where I go up to watch this story, you sink to the depths of a world you never really knew.

So now which way does the puzzle play. Which way does the dial turn and send me sailing off...in new directions. No twist of your imagination. No twist of mine. Sail straight in guidelines.. don't leave the parameters. You can never get back in.
Go back ? You might ask. And why would I want to do that ? You may not. But those are doors you can't afford to close. And I. Am the story teller. So sit back because you still can and listen to my words. they'll dog you down the valley floor as you sail your ship past swaying seas, but never on them. Non. Watch those mountains float past your window and be thankful they aren't yours to climb. Anymore.
Were they once ? You want to ask, but that is not mine to tell you. It is not yours to know, if you don't already.
New clouds sprinkle the sky with their thoughts. One at a time, popping, they flicker like candles in the wind. But they never go out. Instead they build, with each gust of a breeze they grow stronger and more omniscient until you think they might pop on your ship. But they wait. Because this is not your weather to endure, better things will come to you and like the mountains they are not yours.
There is no sun on your horizon. Bleak shadows encroach on your ship. But fear doesn't strike you because there isn't anything to fear. You believe, like the others, that this too isn't your battle to wage.
You are wrong.
You sit with a smile, one leg bent, your knee to the sky. your foot falling on deaf ground. No one is here to whisper your name, to pull you back from the depths of hell that so certainly you will face. No one is here because you left them all behind. You stepped away from the only ones who loved you and now you will suffer this alone. No mountain was yours to climb, no storm yours to endure, because what comes to you now is far worse than any nightmare you might face in your dreams. But this is no dream and I am just the storyteller. This is where we part.
This, is where I bid you farewell.

What the fuck is wrong with me?
I don't mean this in a self destructive type of way. I mean this in the most realistic of senses, and I'm asking--What the fuck is wrong with me? Because something is, and I am over it. I don't want to be this anymore. I have had enough. I want to find out what is wrong so I can get rid of it. I want to destroy the part of me that is set out to destroy my entire being.
Because this is what it feels like. When I procrastinate. When I don't work hard enough and I fuck up each chance that comes to me. When I lie in bed until noon. When I watch television. When I act like a sloth and a glutton and gnaw away at the part of me (I believe still remains) that is fundamentally good.
When I wait until the last minute to apply to the school that I have dreamed of going to for three years. To the program that I want to be in more than anything. When I am so shocked at being accepted--because, I'll be honest, I don't deserve this. Somebody else does--that I party myself into a coma for three months instead of applying for entrance bursaries and scholarships and student loans and working to make sure that I can GO.
One thing gets accomplished, so I inadvertently throw another hurdle into the mix, just to make it that much more complicated.
Why am I so terrified of success? What is it about good things happening in my life that makes me want to scream and give up and RUN away? Is there anybody else in this world that is so self deprecating? I don't know that there is. And everybody else hates this too. It isn't just me, it is everyone around me that I affect and I drive away--for some fear of just living. Of just breathing. Of just accomplishing goals and actually doing something positive with my life.
Why do I feel less deserving than every other person on this planet? And why wouldn't I be less deserving than every other person? What the hell have I done to make this world a better place? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Who the fuck cares about this? About me? Nobody!
Because who really cares about anybody else? Every one's main priority is themselves. That is why we are all fucked. That is why we all die in the end--it's like the ultimate punishment for our greed as human beings. Fatality. This knowledge, throughout our entire lives, that no matter what we do, no matter whose asses we kiss, we are all going to die.
This death sentence hangs above our heads, day and night and we fight so hard to forget about it. To carve out our own niche in a world that no matter how hard we try to change it, will undoubtedly forget about us.
We overachieve (not I), we drink too much, we snort uppers and downers and smoke things that were never meant to be smoked. We eat too much, we eat too little. We exercise to condition our bodies...we employ every method known to man to avoid this unbearable realization, that no matter who we are, we are all going to die. We make films and paintings, take photos, send postcards and write down every fucked up emotion and feeling we ever had, in this redundant effort not to be left behind. Not to be just another person.
It's a sad irony that we cannot escape. The harder we try, the more disappointed we will be in the end. The harder we will fall.
So is it any surprise, then, that I don't fucking try? That I give myself no credit for these bullshit achievements that really, truly, mean NOTHING.
All these wonderful things people do. All these fabulous things I could be doing and should be doing in order to make my life better...they are all arbitrary. They are all fucking pointless. Because no matter what; I too, like billions before me, will die and I too,
will be forgotten.

What do you call this--crazy dancer.
What do you call this twist in the wind.
Who are you, snide turn-falls.
Who are you--
this moment, this place in the sands.

Tie me--without a rope.
Haul me--back from the dead.
Bind me--with words.
Your afflictions burn like polka-dots painted--
under this umbrella of stars.

What's this? You ask without wanting--
to know.
Nothing--
I tell you without daring--
to answer.

We dance through verses sidestepping to avoid collision.
Two thousand worlds apart.
Sitting beside each other--
on the floor.

Nobody knows what this means. I don't think. Nobody cares to find out. Would you? Don't strain yourself--honey. It will all be fine in the morning--she said. But now I want to know:
who is she?
Words twist like carnivorous ribbons fighting their way through the lives we design. Words cut through our frontiers--facades, if you prefer. They destroy our own notions of ourselves. In lieu of the truth. And then one must ask: but what is truth? Where does truth begin and so end the fable? Who does lie? Who does know the difference?
I'll tell you what I know, and what I know, I know to be right. That makes it the truth--
to me.
I'll tell you that nobody tells the truth, as it is. And nobody lies, if they might get caught. We all tame our words to do our own bidding and tell others the things that we wish them to know. And tell others not of the things we wish to keep to ourselves. Such is human nature. And such will human nature continue to be until the end of time. Or beyond.
Everybody. Yes everybody, does it. And everybody, yes everybody, knows it. And nobody, not anybody, will admit to it. Because an accusation is so final and devastating that if we admit to its truth, then we have nothing left to protect ourselves from the sanctimonious hypocrisy that envelops the pathway of life.

P.S--STOP FUCKING UP MY PLANET!

Could it ever make sense to just cut your ties and move on? Would you lose the people that you've been trying to keep, or could everybody just move on with you?
I'm cleansing my life.
But who does that mean I should keep, and who should I throw away? And are the people I am throwing away worth tossing, or should I give them another chance to continue the journey and move forward? And really, what is forward? If we are constantly moving ahead and forging onward, then isn't every friendship one that we should be trying to move on from? Shouldn't everybody get left behind? What if I want to leave everyone I know, and try something new? Is that discriminatory, or sane? Who decides what is fair and what isn't?
I've done you. I could say. I've seen what you have to offer.
But is that fair? If somebody said that to me, would I accept it? Or would I protest, because you never feel as if anyone has seen all that you've got to offer. If I cut you loose, who am I to judge? Who am I to say that you have given all that you have to give? Who am I to ask these questions that you can't even ask yourself?
Who are you to question me? Who are you to wonder whether my judgement has been misplaced. If you haven't risen to the occasion, then are you any better than the rest? I ask you these questions; you refuse to answer. And so, in that refusal, I dredge my answers and learn the things I never wanted to learn. You aren't ready to move forward with me. I am not ready to take you. Exist in your existence. I'll exist in mine. We'll see each other another day, and maybe then, we will be ready to exist together as we do so separately in these times.
The world evolves in curious ways. Who is to say what is right and what is wrong? I don't know up from down, let alone right from wrong. Nobody is in a place to tell me. I am not in a place to listen. Watch me grow and watch me learn and watch me watch you with every twist and tumble and move...Take care, friend.
I'll see you another day.

In an effort to write profoundly, she closed her eyes and dove headfirst into the swashbuckling glamour dissolving her toes. She never thought of coming up for air as whirlpools sucked her deeper into empty chasms. Which turned out not to be so empty, but full of dancing fireflies. They beckoned to her and she followed. They revealed the mystères of her mind, unfolding each moment in time, they played out to her--the things she should know. Does know. Will know. Each unveiled and moved her forward until at last the fireflies went out and she was alone.
Grasping there in the dark for a light switch, all that met her fingers were icicles of stone. Sharper than swords they cut the air into jagged teeth of open space, she would have been frightened, had she been given the choice....

New York City. The city that never sleeps. And doesn't that ring true at 4am, curled in a fetal position under two layers of blankets, one hand over each ear and eyes squeezed tightly shut while car alarms blare through the night. Easily forgiven with the discovery of a red-eye in the morning. Red-eye: a "coffee" that consists of a shot of espresso, filled to the top with coffee. Unbelievably strong, potent, and necessary after a night of little sleep; it's a rough transition from the Sooke hills in B.C, where the only night time sound might be a dog barking down the street. At least dogs tire of barking. Car alarms, however, have a surprisingly long battery life.
Enough of that though.
New York! What a crazy town this is. Since getting over my fear of looking like a tourist, I've been taking pictures non-stop! There are so many layers to this city, two blocks in any direction takes you to an entirely new facet of Manhattan life. From where my mum has her little apartment in Greenwich Village, it's an easy walk to SoHo, NoHo (ha ha ha), East Village, West Village, Union Square, Avenue of the Americas....it goes on. The first day here we hopped on the subway down to Pier 17 which is right next to the Brooklyn Bridge, and also not far from the site of the World Trade Centre. I have to say, it was bizarre visiting St. Paul's Cathedral, which is the church very near the World Trade Centre, where there was a large civilian effort to aid the 9/11 aftermath. It should be a memorial area with shrines and dedications and reminders of the day, however when we went it was packed wall-to-wall with tourists and people taking flash photography. There is no easier way to ruin the sanctity of such a place than to pack it with people who don't understand the significance of the peace it represents.
Yesterday we headed down to SoHo to Mulberry street where there is an up-and-coming designers market on Saturdays and Sundays. There was a mix of vintage and new, edgy and alternative clothing and accessories. I restricted myself to a bracelet and a necklace but could have bought a lot more. From SoHo we jumped on the subway to Grand Central Station to meet Tommy, Francoise, Ines and Scott (our friends from Paris who happened to be in NYC for the long weekend) at the Oyster bar. The Oyster Bar, which is inexplicably closed on Sundays...so, like any writer would, my mum suggested we try the Algonquin Hotel for lunch--a famous hotel where many writers and poets, like John Steinbeck, have spent hours funneling creative energy into bottles of scotch. Unfortunately the Algonquin seemed a little too posh for our lively company so we decided instead to find mum's "Russian"place. Six blocks turned into ten blocks, turned into sixteen blocks...and two and a half miles later, after circling four blocks two times, we arrived at Uncle Vanya's. Needless to say, Uncle Vanya's looked as dilapidated from the outside as any novel by Chekhov might imply. Inside was very small, though not quite cosy, and completely empty. They actually brew their own vodka there, which we didn't try because mum insisted it is far too lethal for daytime. They had five flavours though--cranberry, lemon, chili pepper, garlic and horseradish...another time. The food was actually quite good and we came to the conclusion that the place is probably owned by some branch of the mafia because of their lack of concern over whether or not they have customers.
My foot is now a unique blend of purple, black and blue, very puffy and very inflexible. I went for a swim this morning which didn't help much...but in the persistence of new-found optimism, I am positive that it is getting better.
One last question before I venture out into the rainy day. Why is there a condom dispenser in the toilets in the duty-free zone of Victoria airport? Is this to encourage safe sex while joining the mile-high club?
Answers please.

Primarily, here procures a new problem: predominant pessimism. Procrastination? But we'll talk about that later.
Every action leads to another. So a sigh--to a dim outlook. Could this be true? Shall I resort to constraining my actions solely to those that lead to positive enhancements? What do you do with a pessimist who so desperately wants to be an optimist? Is that level of desperation for a new outlook an act of pessimism in itself? How far will you let me take this... What defines a pessimist? Or an optimist for that matter. Is it childhood experience? What a cliche. C'est ne pas vrai! Non. It's that space in your mind that you control. That nobody else has access to. It is there that an optimist or a pessimist chooses their path. In that tiny space that occupies less than the nail on your fuck-you finger. That was premeditatedly pessimistic. Is there a connection between outlook on life and the purported overuse of unneccessary grammatical devices? Perhaps.
But back to the original concept, which is my question: Why are some people optimists while others dredge in the dark, constrained to their pessimistic ventures. If it was as simple as a choice, wouldn't we all be optimists?

This is the edge. Right? One step forward, it's down. Or up. And we say over and over how life is a series of undulations, some good, many bad. But always coming in cycles--the peaks and the lows. We say it, but when we step back and look at it, the pattern is still uncanny. So many great things are happening, so many bad have just happened: are coming. So do we step back and ride the waves, let life hit us, standing our ground like tiny pebbles on the beach or do we hit back, ride hard, and take control. And is this really taking control? Or is it the illusion of having control, but actually losing it. How much is acceptable to let happen and how much must we force, or at least strongly encourage.
"Take the first steps--"
"--Let fate deal with it."
What contradictions! If a person dares to say one, another undoubtedly will preach the other. So it goes, that for every piece of advice, there is one more to contradict it. Always. I say always, to you who tell me: never say never, don't say always, could you ever know if always lasts forever? It will now. I've said it. This lasts--
Always.
You tell me don't say: everybody. How could you know everybody? I don't, but I know people. We aren't who we say we are, we don't think like we say we think. Our motives are internal; do we ever really tell the truth? Because there is always another layer, another motivation, another stipulation...another reason to go ahead and do another selfless task, that has everything to do with Me. You want me to know that you don't work this way. But you do. There are no exceptions to these rules. These are rules engrained in us from life's beginning. No: yours, ours, his, hers, mine. No theirs. We don't control the rules, we play within them. They govern us; we don't even know. You don't even know. So maybe you won't admit: always, but you think it too. You won't admit: never, but it bleeds into your mind, every once in a while. You promise you don't hate, or judge: I don't believe it. You think you're a better liar than everybody else...we think we're better liars than you too. I say: never say always, or never, or forever. But I play my games trapped by these rules too. We'll just keep not saying, all the things we really mean.

Hold back? What's the point. Afraid of offending someone? Never. Not anymore. Not If you stop caring. Once you stop, you're done. So fuck you. Why? Because you're wasting your time. So am I. What good are a few hundred words typed launching into the world? None. What good are you doing by reading them? None. Let me waste my own time, don't let me waste yours. You do enough of that without my help. Watching television? What sadistic irony. The development of household televisions brought such hope to a generation; they thought they could educate people inside their homes. Well they reached the people, but it's the opposite to education. Brainwashing? Too much credit. Garbage. It's like the penny disintegrating in the bottom of a glass of Coca-Cola, except that penny is your mind: rotting at the bottom of a jar full of shit. How else can you waste your time? Go buy something. Anything. Of your own free will? Hardly. Somebody, somewhere, sometime told you to buy that. And you did. Pathetic, aren't you? Aren't we? Who's in charge now? I'd say think, but we all know how much of our thoughts are really our own. Don't you? You think you do. But who told you to think that. Are you confused? Is the web spinning faster than the spider in the middle? Do you care? Should you. Should any of us? What is blissful ignorance; ignorant bliss. Nice isn't it. Or are you aware? Too ignorant to be aware? It's nice, isn't it. Wasting time? Open your mouth. That's a waste. But we all think we've got something important to say. Who decided what was important and what was benign? How did it develop? Who cares? Nobody. So fuck off.

Part of me doesn't even want to write this. I think because I don't know what to write. I've been putting off this entry for a while now, not from a total lack of things to say, but rather too many things to say about too many different things. There's been a less than ideal atmosphere surrounding this town, many of the people in it, and indeed much of the outside world as well. For fear of sounding once again like the absolute cynic I am deigned to be, I have busied myself with benign tasks ever avoiding the specific responsibliity of writing what I think.
But, no matter, I haven't ever seen a successful (or even existent) blog from somebody who was afraid to write in it.
Perhaps it would be easier to avoid specific matters and speak of the world in general, but then does that do any good in drawing attention to those matters we feel need attention?
So where am I?
How precariously is someone of my generation meant to balance between what is societally accepted and what is condemned? When should we scream for justice and when are we meant to keep our mouths shut? Is it when the elite deign it to be? Should we rant to them about Global Warming but still have hummers and limosines waiting for them afterward? How hypocritical is a society that emphasizes environmental preservation, yet is unwilling to forgo any of its comforts? If someone older, wiser and more powerful tells me to keep my mouth shut or risk losing it all, should I? I certainly hope not. I would like to think that we are not so influencible. That scare tactics, threats and fist shaking would do nothing save ignite a further passion for the cause; however I don't believe this is true. I don't think enough people even care in the first place. I don't think many are willing to continue any sort of fight for justice or equality, or even a cleaner living space if they are incapable of doing it from their own couch, or computer.
I suppose I am just tired of waiting. Tired of caring so passionately about too many things, yet always waiting for something to happen. Some sort of fight to ignite, people to stir, to realise the world is sliding from beneath their feet, that it won't always sit placidly, awaiting decisions. The world is taking flight, is going directions that will leave us, t.v remote in hand, squinting in the dust as we realise its suddenly too late to take up the fight we're always putting off until tomorrow.
Paix. Amour.

A cacophony of random thoughts mingle in my mind. It seems that they are the same thoughts every day, but in varying degrees. Some days one series of ideas will be most prevalent, and other days an entirely different set will take over; often filling me with doubt at the thoughts I had before.
To-Day: It was dark out. The sky was clear, cobalt blue nearing black and stars pin-prick-popped their way into sight the farther I got from the city lights. Each time I drove to the top of a hill I glanced in my rear view mirror to catch the giant pumpkin orange moon swaying above the horizon before it disappeared as I descended into another valley. Two things popped in to my mind, one so familiar and comforting I'd forgotten how often I overlook it. The other an oddity I've never given much thought to, but all the same was once a source of great worry for me. As long as the sky is clear on my drive home I can steal a few glances out my drivers side window and see, without fail, Orion's Belt hovering close enough to the top of the Sooke Hills that it isn't obscured by the roof of my car. Every time I have looked for it, it has been there; unwavering, unassuming, concrete; a presence I can count on. And I do. Like a parent it's there when I am looking for reassurance and support. What terrifies me is the day, too, will come when I can no longer see either. A few minutes before I reach my home I pass a giant rosary. Where this rosary comes from, why it is where it is and the purpose for putting it there have all eluded me. I can not, however, pass the rosary without remembering the man who so diligently sat at it's foot, day in and day out for as many years back as I can recall, holding a card board sign counting down the days to the world's end. Many times I marvelled first at his ability to endure below freezing temperatures so early in the morning, before I realized his sign read one day closer to Armageddon than it had the day before. As an eight year old, as a nine year old and as a ten year old I grappled with the idea that one particular man could be so accurate in judging something so final. One day his sign declared that the next would be the day on which the world would end. I was petrified. Having never been a religious child I prayed to Allah, God, Jesus, Buddha, Zeus, Athena, and my dead cats for good measure. The day after the world was supposed to end started like any normal day, as did every day after. The man never returned and I have always wondered; just where did he go?

The other thing I have been thinking about is this quote by Thoreau:

"Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played."

I think of this quote, and then I think about all the conflict in the world, all the oppression and disarray and I wonder how he was able to isolate himself enough from such anarchy to appreciate the unabashed beauty around him. Was he an idealist? Did he prefer not to see that which he did not want to acknowledge? Or was it the opposite? Did he feel that by placing emphasis on beauty it would help people to overcome their differences? To unite over the simplicity of life and the appreciation of a force greater than human disruption and disturbance. The cynic in me wants to scream, to get angry. Why all this idealistic bullshit while pain and suffering rise exponentially all around? Why close your eyes and imagine fields and flowers when all surrounding you are mud flats and smoke stacks. Smoke stacks from fires, set by hatred and despair.
"Under the rocking sky...tottering crazy on its smoking columns." -- Yevgeny Yevtushenko

But life as well is about choices; decisions made, decisions left behind. Every time we come to a cross road we must choose the path our life will take. Sometimes it is the right choice, often it is not. Perhaps it is only in retrospect that we can truly see what we have left behind.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
For it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

--Robert Frost

Oh, life and its deviance's. Where will this path take me next?

Help me to understand hatred. I want to know where it comes from. What breeds hatred, who was the first person to hate? Why is it that everyone hates someone, or at least something. Every society has it's biases, every society has its own view of who to love, who to worship and who is the enemy. White people and black people, the history of slavery of maltreatment and of hatred. Israeli's and Palestinians, they hate each other because somebody else divided up their country? What about our North American hatred of Native peoples? and their's of us. Everyone hates. Everyone feels disdain towards another group of people or culture. Homophobia is hatred, of what? the unknown? Because you may not go into the bedroom with the same intentions as somebody else? Is that relevant? Is it important? Should somebody's sex life govern your opinion of them? Who knows what goes on behind closed doors, it is the most unpredictable way to distribute your trust. Muslims, Christians and Jewish people; this confuses me. How can three religions with so much in common have so much contempt for each other? The stories are uncannily similar yet they fight. Why do they fight? Because radical religious leaders preach cases that dictate people's beliefs. Hatred is a method of control. It is an ancient human instinct that can be funneled and honed, not unlike irrigation. Directing the emotions of minions to fight battles so the people at the top don't get their fingernails broken. Every person has a story, every person has a terrible idea in their mind of somebody else, many people haven't witnessed these atrocities for themselves. So where is the line between truth and fable. Where do we distinguish between true events and a drive to separate people so they are simply easier to control. What is fact and what is a myth?
People always fight, when one society has power another wants to steal it from them. What I don't understand is how everyone can be so numbed, so ignorant that they comply with these ideas, spoon fed to perfection like ridiculous drones moving in and out of consciousness. Since when has it been all right to accept an idea as it is without questioning from whence it came. Watch your mind jump specifically to radical Islamism, shake your head in wonder as you try to understand how these people can just accept everything they are told. But how different are you? In your comfortable society that gives you everything you want to hear. The fuckups are on the other side of the planet, not here, right? You would know the difference between the truth and dictated lies if you heard them? I wouldn't be so sure.
The worst part is amidst all the chaos, the hatred and the treachery, where do we begin to rebuild? At what point must we drop our gloves and scream over the deafening sounds of war, and will we be heard? Is there anything in one little voice that could ever make people listen? The problem with the world is we've all stopped listening to everybody but ourselves.

I'm procrastinating. Again. Actually I'm putting off procrastinating until I have finished writing this. I'll do that later too. It's become an art in itself, something I get so wrapped up in avoiding that I inadvertantly spend all of my time doing it. Even things that I enjoy doing get sifted to the bottom of the pile in lieu of more frivolous tasks like looking up Osama Bin Laden on google (who doesn't want to know his life story) and calling people I don't even want to see.
So after writing all that about procrastinating I was avoiding putting on paper (kind of) something that needs to be put in a hard copy, and that is a New Years (or in this case five days after New Years) resolution. This year it is just one idea, but it covers a lot of different areas. This year I resolve to Be More Involved. Not just in the obvious areas, like the gym (ahem), school and family, but more importantly in events. Don't just go to events, make them. Find ways to immerse myself in projects and shows, get to know people...really know people not just light hearted chit-chat that never really scratches the surface. Go climbing more and get other people involved in climbing. Learn more about my favourite artists, writers and musicians. Get involved in politics, understand what they are talking about and have a real opinion on who should be running this country. Above all else Read.Read.Read. Finish "War and Peace"(Tolstoy), and "The Great War for Civilization"(Fisk), read work by writers I know as people but not as writers. Read poetry. Dare I say read a book a week? I don't know if I'm ready to be quite that committed yet...small steps.