Life. Oh, life.

This afternoon I bought groceries. This morning we ran into Barry Dempster in the diner down the street from my house. Last night. Oh, last night. We went to a fine poetry reading and chatted up some boys on the bus who had just met Chong. I bought a bottle of merlot, a bottle of chardonnay, hosted a drunken poetry salon, and had a sleepover.

None of this sounds remotely as glorious as it was.

Hay soos on a bike.

Nothing like being woken up by calf-muscle spasms at eight o'clock the morning after you've consumed an entire bottle of wine.

How badly do I want a Sausage McMuffin right now.

A lot, is the answer you are looking for. However, I will also give half marks to any response similar to "please don't talk about food, and please ESPECIALLY don't talk about alcohol within twenty-five feet of me because if you do, I will most likely projectile vomit all over your shoes."

My liver probably bears great resemblance to the dead leaf I just pulled out of my jade plant: chlorophyll green, spotted, and spongey.

On the bright side, Steph and Brit are SEX.

Dear Carla,

You are perfect in every imaginable way.
I weep during your readings.
Love me. Notice me.

One more way in which I am awesome:

I am now officially rockin' the fauxhawk.

I'm no one's daughter; I belong to the sun.

I love straight up not being able to cook.
I love even more how almost all of my cullinary problems would be solved by a toaster, except for the fact that I don't own one.
On the bright side: At least today my room doesn't smell like burning cheese. I hope.
I'm so awesome. Yessss.

Crapsey Cinquain: Autumn

These be
three sordid things:
the jaundiced leaves.....the black
crow on a wire.....a rabbit in
its beak.

I have just invented the best outfit of life.

It consists of:
- black t-shirt
- grey hoodie
- houndstooth scarf
- black thermal leggings
- red plaid boxer shorts
- moccasins

Yes. Best ever.

In other news, I have a now empty chardonnay bottle that's aching for some dahlias. Perhaps I can scrounge up a spare $3 to buy myself some flowers.

He got his bone, then his brontosaurus collapsed...

All those things I missed last night.

Wendy Morton kissed my forehead after I read. She is officially the sweetest lady ever.

Except for Lorna, perhaps, who was sporting a sheep's wool track suit fandango and lemon yellow hiking shoes.

I love these women more than baby bunnies on campus.

Carla's daughter looks almost exactly like her. I envy both of them beyond comprehension.

Icky Melanie was there. I really didn't want to read in front of her, but there you go. That's how the universe works. As payback...

Dear Melanie,
Here are some things to consider before the next time you attend a social function:
1. Do you really want to drink beer in front of your Writing students and ruin the facade you've worked so hard to piece together that leads us all to believe you're a cyborg who only inhabits this planet to feast on our souls by giving us horrible and undeserved grades on our poetry assignments?
2. All of us - especially those of us who have to sit directly behind you - would appreciate it very much if you made an effort to either a) start buying pants with a much higher waistband, or b) start embracing the tunic. No one wants to see your blue and yellow thong, contrary to your personal belief. Especially not us.
3. Please see a correctional dentist. Please. I promise your insurance will cover the repairs to your snaggletooth.
Best of luck on starting your new life as a person fit to be seen in the public eye. (There's no sarcasm in there, really. I will be so happy when I'm no longer subjected to cateracts and potential permanent blindness when in your presence.)
Chelsea

That's all, I think. Oh, and: peach flavored cigarettes are hot awesome.

I love your work.

Someone said that to me tonight when I read at the Patrick Lane reading. I love your work. My first ever poetry reading. With Patrick Lane. Jesus, who am I to think I can read alongside Patrick Lane?

Patrick fucking Lane.

Nothing to prove this time.

I feel so much better about my life. No, really. I do.

Day

This morning almost all of the #14 busses slipped into the fourth dimension and I was left panicking and soggy at the Douglas and View stop for almost half an hour. I made it to my 9:30 workshop with two minutes to spare before being docked 5% off my final grade for lateness.

***
I didn't leave the Fine Arts building once in eight hours. I almost fell asleep in the lobby while I did the readings for my 200 lecture at 4:30. A boy who smelled like he hadn't showered in almost a week decided to read The Martlet sixteen inches away from me even though there were twenty-five other seats available in the atrium. I was too self-conscious to eat a tuna sandwich with a stranger so close to me, so I moved across the room. He didn't seem insulted. I apparently have personal space issues.

***
The fancy new lecture hall in which I attend my Psych class has a faulty computer system, and during every single lecture, without fail, all of the lights flicker out and leave two hundred of us giggling at the absurdity of modern technology in complete darkness. This happened in the middle of our Intelligence unit exam. Our professor, the only one who knows how to turn the lights back on, had left on a quest for more ScanTron sheets. The marking assistant didn't know what to do. We only had half an hour to write this test and couldn't afford to waste any time. Two hundred of us were left to our own devices and bubbled in our answers by the industrial blue light of our cell phones.
Miraculously, the après-examen lecture on Development was cancelled and we were sent home early.

In other news:

I have a new Jade Plant. Her name is Roberta.

We won't say a thing to you.

I really should have just not socialized today.

Eugh. So. Much. Work.

Turn me on, I'm a radio.

My biceps are bulging and sore from the giant move fandango yesterday. The hostel is only ever so slightly less charming than I hoped it was going to be in the manner of a not quite brand new bathroom and the fact that for some reason, the hallway outside my room (of course, only THAT hallway) always seems to smell vaguely of sewage. However. My room already smells like me (read: patchouli and laundry detergent), my tea set is on display, and I'm almost entirely unpacked. Last night I went outside for a cigarette with the hopes that it would help me better complete my Writing 307 assignment, and two french men were sat two tables over saying something about cheese and c'est bon and hostels. I think there was something about sandwiches in there, too. That would probably make sense. I have a view of the oldest operating synagogue in Canada. I've got a very interesting bookshelf/storage locker extravaganza going on, which I enjoy very much, and my room appears to be dark much of the day, considering my window faces east. I'd complain about this, but I spent all summer bitching about the fact that it was light all the time and how could I ever expect to be a poet if the bloody sun was shining all the time. I need to buy a new desk chair because the one provided is possibly the most uncomfortable piece of furniture on which I've ever sat, but otherwise, things are peachy. Tomorrow, probably, I'll go grocery shopping. I'll post pictures soon. Promise.

This is going nowhere.

How surprised am I that the only day all month that we're having rainy weather is today, the day I have to cart six boxes and two giant duffel bags across two Victorian municipalities to the hostel?

Not, is the answer you're looking for.

!!!

I just read poetry in front of the mayor and the woman who won the most recent Governor General's award.

I'm scared in retrospect.

Here is a summary of the last two weeks:

Tyra the cat just ate marijuana off the coffee table.

Fate's not just whose cooking smells good, but which way the wind blows.

The only reason I haven't blogged in four days is that I've been dying to post my first workshop poem, but I haven't been able to ask my professor if that's plagiarism. I figure I shouldn't take any chances with that one.

I don't have class today so this afternoon I am Going Out to Find Myself a Job. I haven't heard from Foxgloves, and I'm too stressed out about finances to keep waiting. On the bright side, Victoria's less-facial-piercing-required equivalent of Divine is hiring. Someone tell me to break a leg.

Not literally, of course. I've already almost done that once.

I usually just let the phone ring.

Yesterday my aviators broke in my purse. I cried when I had to throw them away. Moral of this story: always use a case so you don't break your father's hot sunglasses that have survived since 1979.

Today I bought my textbooks. I am now approximately two hundred and seventy eight dollars poorer. However, on the bright side, I overbudgeted, and because I've decided to take four classes a semester instead of five, thus saving myself almost nine hundred dollars, I should be able to afford lunch at Bean today while I do eighteen light years worth of reading.

It must be nice to finish when you're dead.

I have to spend approximately four hundred dollars on text books tomorrow. I'm pumped. You know it.

Let's not ask what next.

Things in general are giving me a rough time lately. I want so badly to be having more fun than I could ever articulate, and I guess I am, but it doesn't really count when somewhere under the precariously thin layer of easy-going lurks the undying urge to sob into a pillow for hours and never get out of bed again. Major life changes are fun that way.

On the bright side, my day tomorrow starts with Lorna Crozier, and I have a new cell phone charger.

I've been known to come down this road.

Classes start Wednesday. Today I was a tourist in my own city. I took a billion photos in five hours. Tyra the cat chewed through my cell phone charger. I ate Second Slice pizza. There is nothing of much interest to report.

Find the map and draw a straight line.

I'm home I'm home.

My hair has never been so curly in my entire life. And the air smells like kelp.

This place, I swear, is pure magic.