Thursday, December 31, 2009

Hour 25 and 2/3rds

Okay, so I finished reading Twilight and am currently reading New Moon, in which I noticed an error of MASSIVE proportions.

In the book, Bella gets tossed into a table and gets cut up by all the plates that fell and broke on her. Jasper doesn't get thrown anywhere.

In the movie, Bella gets tossed into a mirror (which is fine), and Jasper goes flying back into the beautiful black (and shiny!) baby grand piano, which crashes and splinters and makes good kindling.

Dude. Why the piano? Honestly. Have some heart.

I told this to my friend and she texted back saying that it was meant to be dramatic for most people, and tramatic for 'people like me'.

It really was.

I'm right in the depressing portion of New Moon (I know, that's like 3/4s of the entire book) and she's all numb and lifeless and not alert. I really need to be alert right now, 'cause reading a book in a comfy bed with a warm kitty beside you is really tempting.

I'm thinking I'm going to sleep at 8pm. That gives me twelve hours of sleep before I want to wake up, which should work. In total, I'll have been awake for 27 hours. I know people have stayed awake for much, much longer than that, but the point is to wake up at a reasonable hour tomorrow morning, not compete (and then promptly pass out and die three days later).

My high school science teacher once told us that a friend of hers was taking his hugely important medical exam which he needed to pass in order to graduate from the program. He stayed up for four days studying. His exam was an essay, but he was so tired after he wrote the first line of the page, he forgot to move his hand down to the next line so he wrote the entire essay overtop of itself on the same line. And then failed.

I'm feeling much more awake now. I've also completed all of my goals from my first entry. Yay me.

One hour, eight minutes to go.

Tick tock.

Hour Nineteen

I am currently re-reading Twilight as a way to help keep me awake and active. It has been working surprisingly well, however there have been dilemnas.

For example, I never noticed how much Bella sleeps.

All the time.

Every chapter.

Aw crap.

Mr. Sandman

So lately my sleep schedule has been...unusual.
School starts on Monday and most days, I'll have to get up around nine am. Right now, I'm three hours away from going to bed at nine am. Two of my friends have the same issue, so tonight we decided to fix it.

We're staying up.

I woke up at five pm (Seriously! I have never in my life woken up at five pm!) today, puttered around for a bit, saw New Moon (you're not Team Jacob, you're Team Taylor Lautner, there is a difference), then went for coffee with said friends.

We got to Timmies around midnight, and then decided we wanted to play cards.

We didn't have any cards.

So we made them! I ripped up old panto pamphlets, one of the others labelled them and the other miscounted salt packets (aka our chips) and we spent three and a half hours playing poker.

It was kinda awesome. We're keeping the cards.

So now we're awake. And we're gonna stay awake until tomorrow evening (I know, we're gonna crash early on New Years Eve, whoops!), and then wake up on New Years Day at a perfectly respectable hour.

And hopefully keep that up from then on.

I think we can do it. Except we need motivation so I've made a list of things I want to get done.
Okay.

Here goes.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

I <3 Tuxedo Mask

I wear nail polish because it makes me feel like Sailor Moon.

It's true.

Don't tell.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Just Bump It

I blame Tim Allen.

Watching Santa Clause II got me all hyped for presents and cheer, and consequently my room ended up covered in tape, littered with wrapping paper--there's a bow still stuck to my desk--and crumpled post-its are everywhere saying things like 'DVD for Mom' or 'nail polish for unknown'.

My sister had told us about her friend who used to receive presents from 'the Naughty Elf', 'Santa's Mistress', or 'Rudolph's Evil Twin' instead of Santa. She thought it was creepy, but her Mom thought it was hilarious, and so did we, so this Christmas, my sister received a gift from Farmville.

New tradition? I think so.

Since I had been rudely awoken at eight thirty (a.m.!), I went back to bed after all the presents were opened on Christmas day. When I woke up several hours later, I was late, still needed a shower, and relatives were due to arrive any minute. Oops.

They arrived, I greeted them with wet hair, and the chaos descended. No one really noticed the creepy name tags, but they were still worth it.

Dinner, card games, and Cornation Street scene-it later, Christmas was over and we all stumbled into bed (literally in my case, since my parents blow up bed was in my room and there was no space to walk).

For the second time in a row, I was abruptly awoken, this time by my little cousin.

The adults were all talking downstairs, her brother was off playing a game, and she was determined to get me out of bed. In some cruel twist of fate, she is both persistant and a morning person.

I am neither. I earnestly tried to convince her that I would get up soon and meet her downstairs (yeah, right) but she shook her head and said, "Now."

I know it's lame to let a six-year-old boss you around, but she always has the option of crying. Or screaming. Or just wailing in the middle of the room until she gets her way.

...okay, I let the six-year-old boss me around.

I got out of bed. I then tried to convince that since it would take me a while to get dressed and ready, she might as well wait downstairs.

"Now."

Fine. I ended up brushing her hair for thirty minutes while re-telling all the fairy tales I could think of. I think it's fair to say that she got her way.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Drink lots of fluids, call if you feel sick, and no strenuous activity.

It's possible that I'm a moron.

I'm not saying it's true! Just possible.

Today, I gave blood. Everything was going fine, my iron levels were good, my temperature was fine (the second time round, I might be getting sick, yetch), I haven't had sex with a man who's had sex with a man who contradicted AIDS in Africa, yadda yadda yadda. Surprisingly, I was done rather quickly, then ate some cookies and off I went.

Right in time to seem my bus drive pass. Darn.

So, being the bright, intellectual, academically-inclined person that I am, I decided to walk.

One of the things they tell you after giving blood is to avoid strenuous activity. Now, I assumed that translated as, don't run a marathon, don't go rock climbing, do use this as an excuse not to vacuum.

Apparently, it also meant don't walk.

From the clinic to my house, it's about a thirty minute walk. Not a big deal. Off I went, humming 'Merry Chrisislamakwansica' under my breath.

Twenty five minutes into this walk, I realized something was wrong.

When texting to say I'd be home soon, I had to physically slow down because I couldn't concentrate on my phone and the path ahead. I'm a teenager: I can text anywhere anytime anyplace. This was not good.

I put my phone away and that was when I realized that if I didn't stop, my body was going to. I stopped and woah, dizziness. My heart was racing, my skin was clammy and I felt like I was a step away from fainting.

How exactly had I not noticed that?

I took a moment, but I was so close to home that it seemed ridiculous to stop.

I took another step.

Wrong move. I swayed but managed to stay upright long enough to think, oh gee I should sit, and then I sat. At the side of the road. Alone. In the dark.

Another two minutes and I'd be home! If I could just get off my ass...

A failed attempt at standing was all I needed to get out my phone and call home. Sure, it'd be a thirty second ride, but I was desperate. Last thing I needed was to wake up with bugs stabbing at me 'cause I conked out at the side of the road. Or worse.

I managed to stand and walk another thirty paces before I saw my ride. They didn't ask why I'd wanted to be picked up at the side of the road two minutes from home, and that was probably for the best.

Now I'm at home, lying in bed, studying the hole in my elbow, and wondering if a fear of needles is rational.

Yup, I'm a moron.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Rumplestiltskin

I am going to write a pantomime.

I don't know when or, honestly, how, but I'm going to and it's going to be epic.

Or at least mediocre.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Life Lesson.

Manical laughter. Thunder. Lightning.

This is awesome, honestly. I feel so evil, except I didn't do anything evil, they just did something stupid!

Texas. Poor, poor racist/sexist/discriminatory Texas. They tried so hard to ban any and all forms of gay marriage that they accidentally banned ALL marriage in the process.

See children, that's what happens when you're pigheaded.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

The Solution To Our Problems

When I was little (well, younger), I would drink warm milk while writing.

My sister was confused by this healthy habit. She announced that I must have added sugar.

She didn't believe me when I said no.

Ever courageous (and still believing that sugar is the solution to everything), she stuck some milk in the microwave, added a heaping spoonful of sugar, and gulped it down.

The look on her face said it all.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

And then the teacher let us finger paint and then we ate animal crackers and Jamie called me stupid so I said, "I am rubber, you are glue!"

I'm not that whiny, honest.

But somehow, in my playwriting class, all the characters I've played during the entire semester are high-pitched, whiny brats.

My first monologue (previously posted) involves a 14-year-old very energetic girl. A couple times I've read out in class, and the character has always been weird. And today, for our group play, I was a seven-year-old girl that talks rapidly and giggles.

Afterwards, even one of the guys commented on it.

I've been typecasted. As a child.

Monday, November 16, 2009

To Keep My Love Alive

Today, while discussing the battered wife syndrome, my Crim teacher said it's not a good defence for those of us looking to kill our husbands, and as he said it, he looked directly at me.

Thanks, really.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Mandrake Roots

The other day in my English class, a kid was in front of the class doing a presentation of John Donne's 'Song'.

The poem references a mandrake root, so the kid (well, a kid in his mid 20's) was describing all the different connotations they have.

He explained how the root looks like a human body and how folklore says they scream when you uproot them.

Then someone in the back went, "Like in Harry Potter?"

Suddenly, everyone knew knew exactly what a mandrake root is.

Score one for college :D

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Oh.

You know when sometimes there's that moment of they like me, they really like me!

I get that sometimes.

It's kinda epic.

Also epic: gossping and chatting and laughing so hard you push on a pull door at the same time your friend does. Then there's that moment of, why isn't the door openin--oh.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

My Philosophy class is really improving my artistic abilities.

Iolanthe '08


Pirates of Penzance '09
Princess of the Pea '08
 

Me in twenty years.


Monday, November 2, 2009

Odette, the Swan Princess

Today I was on Facebook when suddenly my Internet crapped out.

And I thought, No! I need to know what non-Disney princess I'm most like!

And then, when the Internet came back a second later, there was ad in the corner. 'Do you like Hannah Montana? Come meet thousands of other singles that like Hannah Montana too!'

...

I don't know what the signs of the apocalypse are, but I think it's fair to say that the world is coming to an end.

And if it isn't, it should be.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Totally worth it.















Cinderella had it wrong.

If life gives you pumpkins, don't make a carriage. Make shoes.

And throw out the lemons.

That's a life lesson.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Ice cream.

I can't comfort people.

I just can't. I'd like to, it just doesn't work.

Maybe it's a maternal thing, I'm not motherly so even when I want to help, I'm at a lost.

I think it's 'cause if I'm panicking, someone telling me that it's going to be okay doesn't really do anything. It just is. And I just am. And give me some time, and I'll be fine, but a sweet phrase isn't going to speed things up.

There was an incident a couple of months ago. I was on stage, and I watched as something bad happened to my family in the audience. I didn't know what was happening, or who it was happening to, just that it involved my family and that it was big and bad.

And all I could do was watch.

It was a terrible feeling. Everyone was singing and clapping and swaying along to the very last song that ended the show, all cheerful and joyous. Except me. I was watching this big, bad thing.

After a while--it felt like a long time, but it was probably something like thirty seconds--I realized I'd stopped smiling.

In a panto, on stage, that is the worst thing you can possibly do.

So I grinned. And swayed. And sang.

And watched.

I could clearly see my brother, standing in the aisle, with his back turned to me. No one in the little area where my family had been sitting was paying any attention to us on stage. People were standing up, they were looking in all directions, and they were my family.

I kept looking up and down the seats trying to find them sitting somewhere else, two rows down maybe, completely oblivious to what was happening just behind them, but they weren't there.

And all I could do was watch.

The song ended and instead of skipping down the aisles into the audience and into the lobby, we were directed by the stage crew to skip off into the wings.

"Medical emergency."

I was pretty much dead at that point. When you're on stage, there's a lot of adrenaline, you're pumped and excited and exuberant and usually there's a crash afterwards. I didn't crash. I had more important things to worry about, more adrenaline, more of everything.

And I ran backstage, ran out the wings, through the green room, through the lobby, up the stairs (passing dozens of audience members who were just leaving and looking at me very surprised since I was still completely in costume), and into the theatre.

Then I crashed.

I didn't want to hear that it was fine, that she'd be fine. I wanted to know that her pulse was stable and that her breathing was regular, which I was eventually told. And I wanted to cry because all I'd been able to do was watch, so that's what I did, in the arms of a complete stranger.

After the ambulance came, I had to go change before we went to the hospital.

Since I played a princess, I had the princess dress and the tiara and the pearls and the tights and the shoes and the stage make-up and the eyelashes. I had everything and it all had to come off now.

So again, I ran. Out of the house (theatre), through the wings (past several crew members who looked all worried and concerned at me), down to the green room and into the dressing room.

The stupid top of the stupid dress was always annoying to get off and I just didn't have the patience, I was not in the mood to shimmy and tug at it until it came off. But I did, and I did it badly and messily and one of the other women had to help me, and then she hugged me.

She's a mom. It's her thing.

And I knew that being hugged was a good thing but I did not want it. I was worried that my parents might leave with the ambulance and make my brother take me home. I didn't have time to waste hugging.

So I wretched off the skirt, jammed on my jeans, grabbed my jacket and bag and ran. The woman who hugged me had been gathering up my stuff as I was throwing it and told me to just go, she'd take care of it. That helped me. I really did appreciate that. My dress specifically needed to be hung carefully and there was no way I could do it.

Once again, I was running. Out of the dressing room, through the green room, through the wings, into the house.

We left, following the ambulance.

Okay, here's the image I want to describe. When I walked into the ER room...I was messed up. They must be used to seeing some pretty crazy things, and I was no exception.

My hair was in an elaborate braided twisty thing, reeking of hair spray, in the style of the 1800s. I was wearing full stage make-up (think clown make-up), except my eyes were all red and I had only one fake wing--sorry, eyelash left. My neck was covered in pearls and sweat. I was wearing a sweatshirt over top of a tank top--the same one I wore under my dress during the show--and jeans. And under the jeans, I was wearing a pair of thick, white tights with character shoes.

Hehe.

We waited.

Finally, my parents sent my brother and I home because we knew she was alright and there was no need for all of us to stay. I think it was because my mom kept looking at my face. She kept commenting that I looked like death (I'm paraphrasing). I guess I did.

When I was home, I coloured. I hate colouring. I hate it with a fiery passion and think it is ridiculous for teachers to mark your overall work on the prettiness of your drawings and oh my god why am I so bad at it?

I had to create a kid's book for my creative writing class and all that was left was the colouring, so I very calmly sat at my kitchen table and coloured.

That helped. Thinking helped, moving helped, hell, showering helped (that helped a lot actually, stage make-up is really thick).

Hearing pretty things didn't help. I didn't want to hear them. I wanted facts, I wanted to know precisely what had happened and why and what it meant now. Hearing that it was going to be okay--when they had no idea if it was going to be okay--did not help.

So I think that's why I can't comfort people.

I want to comfort people that need it. I really do. But if it was me, that's not what I'd want. Hugging is always useful (except in my one case but that was a special circumstance), but not talking. I don't want to hear it. So I don't know what to say. I don't know if it would help to say that it's going to be okay--when I don't know that for sure--or if I should keep quiet.

I don't know.

So when my friend needs help, I don't know what to do, what to say.

I'm sorry.

The morbid creature is tucked safely away.

The first group I ever joined on Facebook was 'Writing Papers Single Spaced First Makes My Double Spaced Result Climactic'.

I get it now.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

The Scarred Smilie.

My hole puncher is leaking.

Every time I pick it up, a shower of perfect circles rains onto my lap, each identical to the last, in size, thickness and colour. They're simple and stupid and when I stabbed one with my pen, it wouldn't rip, it just took its disfigurement and kept staring at me like, ha, you can't break me!

Of course, then I threw them all out.

I think that's Morisette ironic. Or just murder.

Or maybe it's nothing at all.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

We Are the Champ--uh, maybe not.

Today, I made a discovery.

My friends and I went and saw 'The Invention of Lying' (Ricky Gervais is a genius, especially for a secular audience), and afterwards, we weren't quite sure what we wanted to do, so until we decided, we hung around outside.

And it took me a minute before I recognized it.

We're those kids now.

We're the kids my mom didn't want us to associate with when we were younger, the reason she didn't like us going to late movies, the reason she'd always volunteer to pick us up so we wouldn't have to loiter outside the theatre.

When I was younger, they seemed so cool. They could hang out past eleven o'clock on a school night, at the side of a street, outside of a cinema, totally at ease; they could smoke and glare at people walking by; they could not worry about the 'weirdos' (my moms favourite title).

And now they're us.

But we still have bedtimes, they're just self-imposed now because hello responsibilities, and we're at ease because we have each other. We don't smoke, we only glare if we have reason, and we don't worry about weirdos.

So my revelation of the day: we are the weirdos.

Friday, October 9, 2009

When I was a kid, I adored Nancy Drew.

Loved her to death, read every book twice, wanted to be her. Except I had this theory. I didn't think I was smart enough to be a detective, like her, so I was going to be a forensic scientist.

Logic of an eight-year-old.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Two Stops and a Sixpack

Today, there was a drunk on the skytrain.

It was super crowded and he was quite a ways away from me, but I could hear everything that crossed his lips, and that was only one phrase: "Two stops and a sixpack."

He got really excited about it, holding up his grocery bag, showing off his beer like a kid does with an A+ test.

He got so excited that he wanted to sing about it.

First off, that is awesome. I know when I'm drunk, the first thing I'm gonna want to do is burst into 'Iolanthe'.

Unfortunately, when he said 'sing' he meant 'rap' (I'm a fan of the 'can't have crap without rap' theory) and even more unfortunately, he can't rap. So he wobbled there, chanting 'Two stops and a sixpack' with attitude.

And then I realized, woah, that's iambic trimeter. I suck at iambic trimeter, and he's doing it drunk.

He even had the nerve to use alliteration.

Man, poets are weird.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

And his kid, his kid is gonna grow up with this gaping whole in his life and never know it was nobody's fault. So what about him? What happens to him?

"People talk. If I were nuts, I'd have heard."

Friday, October 2, 2009

They're thoughtful that way.

This post is going to be honest, blunt and bloody.

This is what happens when you give blood with the Canadian Blood Services.

When you walk in, there's a smell. A really yucky, ugly smell that's gonna remind you of hospitals and clinics and dead people (but there's no dead people there, promise).

The building is a circle, or at least the one I go to is. You start right beside the cake and the cookies and the juice (I'm sure they do that on purpose, not just because it also makes layout sense), and you can't have any, you can't even look at it too much because in a second, you're going to be called over to a desk with a man behind it, a really nice, friendly man who's been taught to not scare you. Well, try to not scare you.

He's going to take a tiny little plastic thing and ask for your finger and you, not realizing what this tiny plastic thing is, are going to hold out your hand and feel a prick. He'll have already told you that he needs to do this to make sure you are plush full of iron. It's a pinprick. You may not even feel it. Imagine someone pinching your arm: this hurts less.

There'll be a little well of blood on the tip of your finger, but they'll try to cover it with their glove.

He's gonna take a drop and tell you if your iron is high enough. This is important. If it's not high enough, then it could be dangerous for your health to give blood so they're not gonna let you. But let's pretend that your iron level is fine.

Next comes paperwork. Mostly, it's about sex. Sex-sex not gender-sex but they don't want to know your most intimate details, just if you might have AIDS. All of the paperwork is online (just google them) so you can look at it in advance too.

Next, you'll go in this private room and someone will go ask you more questions (mostly about sex again) that you'll say no to, although there'll be a couple of yes's just to make sure you're paying attention. I promise they're not judging, they just want to be safe.

They're going to give you two stickers with barcodes on them and then leave the room. If you want to donate your blood, you take the appropriate barcode and stick it on your file. If you want to check for AIDS or other blood-related diseases, or just find out your blood type without donating, you choose the other barcode.

When the person comes back, all they'll see is a barcode, so again, there'll be no judgements.

Next comes the obvious part. The giving of blood part, the sharing of survival part, the big ass needle in your arm part. Breathe. Seriously. It's okay.

Now, you might think (wrongly) that since your arm needs to be bare (and if it's the middle of summer), it would be a good idea to wear a halter top. It is not. The bed/lounge chair/thing you are going to lie on is plastic.

Don't wear a halter top. You'll stick. My bad.

So you lie down, the nurse finds a nice vein while making small talk, and they'll set everything up.

I apparently have very small, invisible veins. I'm practically albino, so you'd think they'd be easy to see, but they're so ridiculously small that my nurse took quite a while to choose a vein because she wanted to be absolutely certain that there would only be one more prick to come. For me, that involved strapping up one arm, deciding that she wanted to try the other arm, finding that the other arm wasn't any better, and then going back to the first arm. You might think that's silly and time-consuming. I think I'd rather they check several times than leave me with a collapsed vein. So yeah, they're thoughtful that way.

They'll tell you when. My nurse told me that if I was going to look away, now would be the time. I did look away, since it was my first time, but it's not that bad.

Believe me, I'm a sissy.

The needle isn't that big. The prick doesn't take that long. The pain is not that bad.

Seriously. I'm a whiner, if it really hurt I would tell you and then be bitter about it the rest of my life. It's more like a sting than anything and it only takes a second and then you can't feel it anymore.

Blood. Right.

Typically, donations take five to ten minutes. A while ago my friend asked me how long and I said it depends on your blood pressure. It does depend on your blood pressure but said friend turned really pale and didn't want to go with me anymore, so I'm going to stick with five to ten minutes.

If you hand gets cold, which mine does, they'll give you a glove tied up that's filled with hot water to hold, and if you have lower blood pressure, which I do, they'll ask you to squeeze and unsqueeze it over and over again.

There are nurses everywhere and they are bent on making sure you are perfectly fine.

There was another woman there who, after donating and sitting there for a few minutes, was feeling dizzy. Immediately, there were three nurses surrounding her with ice and cold pads. Within another few minutes, she was fine.

I think my albino-ness caused them to be overly concerned, because thirty seconds couldn't go by without a different nurse coming up to me, taking a quick glance at my file (and reading that it was my first time) and asking me if I felt okay.

I felt just fine.

Okay, that's a lie.

I was sticking to the seat: that did not feel fine. My arm felt pretty normal though.

I watched the blood. Right as it starts, you can watch it run through the tube and you get to see how fast it's going. That's cool. Afterwards, it's just a brown tube.

(I got kinda sick of all the people asking me how I felt so I started texting random questions to my sister just so they'd stop asking me.)

Once you're done, they'll take the needle out (another sting, just for a second) and press a piece of gauze where it went in and ask you to hold it there. Five minutes later, they'll come around check to make sure it's done bleeding, and then tape a fresh piece of gauze on.

(Unless you're so friggin' albino that they want you to sit for another few minutes so they go get you a drink and make you sip it there. I tried telling them that I'm naturally this ghostly but she didn't buy it.)

And then that's it! You get cookies and cake (if you're lucky and it's someone birthday) and juice and volunteers make small talk as you sit. There are people all around you--at all times--making sure that you are okay. They make you stay for a few minutes afterwards because if you faint, they are going to catch you. They're there for you. You are going to be fine.

You should know that from the moment I entered the building to the moment I left, I never once saw blood. First it was covered by the person's glove and then a band-aid, then in a tube, then under gauze, but I never saw myself bleeding.

On Greys Anatomy, there was a guy played by Seth Green who had an exposed carotid artery that burst. Lexie practically bathed in blood until she managed to stop the bleeding.

I know that that didn't really happen, but it could, it does, and you could help.

It's in you to give.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The Best Five Hours Spent On Earth

Today, I wrote a play.

:)

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Stupid September.

Oh Sweet Jesus.

I just went into the kitchen to make some tea and a big ass (big! really really big!) spider tried to get me!

Ahhgrahewwblargh!
(sound it out slowly)

This is why I hate autumn. Bring on the snow and the black ice and the blizzards, I demand Winter!

Saturday, September 26, 2009

This site made me smile.



Click Here for more.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

L'oignon.

I'm pro-abortion and anti-death penalty.

I'm a very complex person.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Diminished Seventh?

Oh, and my piano exam? Got my results. I need to take a supplement for (get this): ear. The two minute exam on listening. Passed everything else, failed my ear by three marks, so that's all I need to continue with ARCT.

:)

Perspective.

The other day I needed to find a postal code for the SARA Society. They deal with survivors of childhood sexual assualt (SARA stands for Sexual Assault Recovery Anonymous).

See, when I was working with a non-profit group that deals with homelessness, I learnt a lot about other societies and why we need them. There are dozens of crisis lines, for all sorts of reasons, shelters, emergency centres, help lines for families, women, men or children, people with diseases, people that are borderline homeless, people that are homeless, people with mental or physical disabilities... People that need help.

Along with their address and phone number, the SARA Society also had a little blurb about contacting them. If you leave a message with them, you have to say if it's safe for them to leave a message when they call you back.

Not if it's okay, but if it's safe.

And then, if it's not safe, there' s a code.

My mind? Blown.

They have codes. They need codes. There's a need for codes out there! It's one thing to be sneaky planning a surprise party, but to have your safety depend on it? I don't know if I could do that.

I guess it just makes a failed piano exam seem sorta insignificant.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Today I Saw the Sky Fall

with harmless raindrops pelting like bullets and flashing twigs that snapped at the air.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Le Vent Dans Les Ruines is Kicking My Pasty White Ass.

I haven't been practicing enough.

For nearly a year and half I've been learning these songs, these same pieces, and that may sound crazy dull and you may be thinking a year and a half and you still can't play them? but it's not like that.

There are five pieces for my repertoire and two studies, plus ear and technique.

My first piece is a Prelude and Fugue, meaning that although it's considered one, there are two different pieces to learn. My second is a Mozart sonata which contains no less than three movements.

So five pieces becomes eight, plus two more, plus ear and technique.

I know all the repertoire well. I could perform all but one confidently right now. But you can't just perform at an RCM exam, you also have to impress. That's the tough one.

Last year, I did the exact same I've been doing this year and I should have failed. They passed me by quite a bit--I figure they could guess how well I knew the pieces even if I didn't do the best at playing them there--but I don't think I deserved it. So that's why, with my exam six weeks away, I'm sorta beginning to panic.

My last piece, the one I'm definitely not comfortable performing, is five pages of sixteenth notes, played rapidly, by Ibert.

I did the (very loose, approximate) math: it's about eight notes a second. Ibert was a cruel, cruel man.

I was late to start learning it and then procrastinated. I had all sorts of excuses. When I was supposed to be working on it the most, I was on stage every night doing Pirates of Penzance so my practice time went from borderline sufficient to nil.

Now I'm really panicking. It's a difficult piece, there's no time to think as it's ridiculously fast and I'm supposed to have three and a half pages memorized by tomorrow. I'm just shy of three right now and they're the easiest three.

And, to be honest, I should have had it all memorized several weeks ago.

Usually, I practice an hour a day during the summer. In past years, it's always been enjoyable practice because all I would be doing is learning the basics of lots of songs so that I could figure out which ones I like enough to focus on in September. That didn't happen last year, it definitely won't happen this year.

I'm going to practice at least an hour a day from now on. Really it should be two. I'm saying one for now just to make sure I do it.

Tomorrow, I begin house sitting for my old theory teacher, who's probably the gentlest, kindest most compassionate person I know, while they're away (she's doing a concert with her sister, the professional violinist, in Michigan. How cool is that!). That means that for as long as I want every day for the next ten days, I have access to her beautiful, black baby grand.

Oo!

It really is beautiful, and massive which makes it all the better.

So that's it. I wrote this because once it's in print, it'll make things more real and my practicing has to be very, very real.

An hour a day.

Easy.

Right?

Saturday, July 4, 2009

The Pen Is Not Only Mightier, It Cuts Deeper Too.

Sometimes, I scare myself.

I'll get this image, and I'll run with it and suddenly, my pen will slip out of my hand and I'll stare at the paper for a while, transfixed.

Did I do that? Did I create that? (Could it happen?)

I wrote a story tonight.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Do I Creep You Out?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk8egz_yXL0


This is the coolest song. Of all time.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Arts at the Darts 2009

Yesterday, I was a fairy for three hours.

Darts Hill is this massive, gorgeous garden that's privately owned. A couple times a year they open it to the public for cool events like last night's Arts at the Darts.

There were paintings, jazz, dancers and (most importantly in my opinion) fairies.

We did our hair all crazy (I put mind in lopsided pigtails hehe) and ugly, drew on our faces and then struggled in Iolanthe costumes.

Iolanthe costumes. Right. Last year, when we struggled out of them ("Thank God I will never wear that bodysuit ever EVER again!"), that was supposed to be the end, but when given the choice between ditzy Disney fairies and earthy, realistic fairies, we totally had to be the ugly ones. I mean, the realistic ones. Waaay more fun to be had.

The Disney fairies, of which there were four, were pretty and friendly and much more relaxed with the public.

Yeah, we weren't.

There were three of us to begin with.

We'd sneak around the paths until we saw someone coming (or more importantly, until they saw us coming), then we'd panic and hide behind a leaf or a twig. Ans hid behind my hair a couple times.

It became a lot of fun, and quite the work out. We scurried and teetered and froze and pranced and scared several people. We were quite shy but posed well for photographers (including one who we thought had a Nikon D80, but no, just a Canon. Pfft.)

Then the kids got a hold of us.

"Hey, a fairy! Get it!"

Oh no. No, no, no, this is not good. Smt sprinted one way, Ans and I hid while the kids followed her, then raced down another path after hearing more kids coming down ours.

There were people everywhere. It's really hard to re-group when you have to keep stopping every twenty seconds and hiding. And you can't just hide, you have to hide then peak then hide again.

We went all over these paths but couldn't find Smt anywhere, so eventually we gave up and headed back to the tent but were ambushed before we could get there by these two girls.

Pink Girl (maybe 8-9 years old?) and Blue Girl (her older sister, maybe 13 or so) decided they were going to follow us and imitate us.

Woah. We are the entertainment here, okay, not the toys.

It was cute at first, I started imitating them imitating us. Then Pink started doing ballet moves which I badly repeated and gave us the first clues of her attitude ("I do ballet too, I'm really good."). It was sorta fun to play with them 'cause we kept frustrating them with our muteness ("I know you can talk. Talk! Pleeeease talk? I just want to hear your voice. No, I've already heard you laugh, that doesn't count! C'mon, just say something. I know you're just a performer, I dance, I'm a performer too but I still talk. ...Talk!)

Once we were surprised by this old guy walking along so we hid behind a bird feeder and heard him say, "I don't believe in fairies, I don't believe in pixies..."

So we stalked him for a bit.

Then later we made our way down towards the art booths where one guy, holding several paintings cried, "Ahh! Don't eat me!"

Dude, we're fairies. We're vegetarians.

Pink Girl and Blue Girl (and now their friends and brother) found us again just as we found Smt and Eml, the third and fourth Iolanthe fairies.

Pink would not leave me alone. She tried to act like a fairy with me, she tried to teach me high fives (mohahaha, I would not do it correctly), she even tried to convince me that I should stop pretending with her. She wiped her finger across my cheek, smearing my make-up, and held it up, "Look, it's just eyeshadow."

Well, duh.

But I couldn't say that, so I became in awe at the sparkles on her finger instead. Oo, shiny.

By the time it was over, I was exhausted. The constant crouching, jumping, running from really energetic kids (where were their parents?!) wasn't what I had expected so Ans, Smt and I were ready to get the hell out of there and specifically out of our body suits.

Walking out of the park was really funny. We still had make-up and hair (I had a very leafy fairy wand in mine too), but normal clothes, and there were still people hanging around the parking lots packing up.

I heard that we, the Iolanthe fairies, were the favourite fairies though, so it made it worthwhile.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Don't Follow In My Footsteps, I Run Into Walls.

I ran into a door once.

It was pretty spectacular. We were playing truth or dare in a really crowded room but most people were just chatting. One of the girls looked at me, with pathetic big eyes, and said she wanted to dare me to do something cool.

What, I asked.

I don't know, she admitted. Suddenly, her eyes lit up and she grabbed my hand. Please, please?

So I hopped up and ran into a door.

The entire room went dead silent.

And then there was the girl bursting into laughter, barely able to stay on her seat.

The funny thing was that only her and I knew it was a dare. No one else knew for sure if it was a dare or if I was really that clumsy.

I've also fallen up stairs, and tripped over flat surfaces. But that's not funny, that's just me.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Out damned spot, out I say!

Shakespeare hates your emo poems.

I'm just putting that out there.

When I started writing, I wrote bad poetry. And I mean truly, excruiatingly bad. Everything revolved around whatever words rhymed (they were bad rhymes too, oh man), there was no proper rhyme scheme, and certainly no rhythm.

At least it wasn't emo. Most of my poems were about things around me, like flowers, holidays, my cat etc. Shakespeare probably would have hated them too.

I think this is the big difference between people and writers. Not that writers aren't people, we're just...weird people. We're quiet and morbid and we think too much in general, or at least I do.

I had a point, right?

Right. I know that those poems were bad. I know how to write decent poetry now, I've studied and Google'd it, and I know to avoid the kind of poetry that gives poetry a bad name. I'm certainly no poet, but I get by.

But most people don't ever look back at their bad poetry, so they never learn how to make good poetry.

So that's the difference.

Anyway, Shakespeare rocks. But he could get away with anything. For example:

Guy get's stabbed: 'Oh, I am slain!'

And then he's dead. Seriously. End scene.

Shakespeare wrote that (Hamlet). The plot of Macbeth revolved around a c-section. He ranted about suicide over and over and over again. And how many times did we have to watch a play within a play?

We worship him, and deservedly so, but honestly, if I pulled any of that crap...

PS: ...whenever I take off really heavy stage make-up, I alway quote Lady Macbeth.

Tis now the very witching time of night
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world. Now, could I drink hot blood
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on.