seriously,

the whole world just seems like an infinitely better place when everyone is just nice to everyone else.

this isn't really a very profound insight, i know. but honestly. it matters.

i thought you knew how to be scared

isn't it funny
how a couple of good workshops in a row
make me feel infinitely better about life
maybe we're all cracking
a litte but i like those women
better when we're all a little insane
because honestly
a wee bit o crazy never hurt anyone
it's like rain
in victoria
or something

yesterday i lost my shit
on cook street when i was walking
back from the beach and i actually found
a curly willow tree
it was just funny because
all last summer i was telling customers
about this woman
who got curly willow in a flower arrangement
once
and she didn't want to throw it out so
she planted it in her garden
and four years later it was a tree
which got me thinking
wow man
that would be a pretty sweet tree
and then there it was

that's sort of how my life has been going lately
all the answers are just sort of
bobbling up to the surface
and there's a very comfortable serenity to it all
that makes all of these stupid technicalities a little easier
to handle
multitudinous revelations always seem to have that effect
truth is just like time
it catches up and it just keeps
going

you have so much remaining,

they all say, but i'm in no mood for leftovers.

and if my stomach would contract
because of some explicable phenomenon
such as pregnancy or constipation

I would not remember you

i'm so lost

i am tired in my eyes and the chestnut trees are all just budding. they are the shade of green i ache for when i spend all winter longing for spring. nine o'clock bed time tonight? yesssssss.

PST. Mama Noel! Il neige! Regardez mon nez.

My chest is full of phlegm and I have like, one billion pages of Women's Studies readings to do. I'm not really overly impressed with life right now.

Il n'est pas rouge!

woah, what the hell was that, she says.

so weird.

honestly

my life is getting weirder and weirder
seriously
i'm just waiting for it to spiral
in a fibonacci sequence of absurdity
until i implode
or more likely
get whisked off to neptune
by a wild pack of rhinoceros-
sized fruit flies where i will
get fed to their alien
larvae
which would give a whole new meaning to the afterlife
spent in the extended breaths of the solar system
now wouldn't it

yesterday i ate
a hyacinth bloom on elise's porch
and it tasted like
the sweet nectar of evening
garden parties
and half-asleep in may
when morning air is crisp and orange
but then i saw scary sandy
201 workshop guest lecturer
at pep right after i volunteered
to read
which kind of killed my high on flowers
my high on plants
on the other hand
my apartment smells like apples
and you, watch as we

today is the spring equinox

and everything is spooky
like halloween in march

the moon is nowhere in sight
and neither are you and this is another
broken empty-room night alone in the haunted house

today is also something else
important
at least to me
but maybe it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of life at all
and i'm just cracking a lot faster than i origninally thought
which is entirely plausible
you know
because not everyone is convinced without reason that
they're being hunted down by the authorities
every time a siren wails its melancholy
down my street
but maybe it would be better if
they were hunting me down
i could pull a tim when they take me
plead insanity
spend inordinate amounts of time
writing in a six foot deep hole in the back yard
just behind the ferns
that uncurl like fetal spines in the summer
how's that for irony

because here's a secret
i miss the sky and the dry
air and ten thirty sunsets
and on-site reminiscense
and the fucking highway hand out the window wind hissing at my eyelids sing until i can't hear the sirens behind me kind of driving
nisha
hardwood floors
a washing machine in the basement
a basement that's not full of dead bodies and ruptured sewage lines
my best friend
the stoner park
even though they tore it up to make an underground parkade
(they paved paradise
and put up a parking lot)
so that's kind of a moot point anyway

i don't need to be reminded to follow
my heart
by hallmark card telephone sentiments
it's just marginally more difficult when you have a borderline
personality
and by this point this "spiritual revelation"
is beginning to make me feel like the correspondent
in this little open boat and i'm pretty much ready
to throw up my hands and play rock
paper scissors with the universe to make this decision
because honestly
the correspondent wondered ingenuously how in the name of all that was sane could there be people who thought it an amusement to row a boat
it was not an amusement
it was a diabolical punishment

salutations from the middle of the pacific ocean
my favourite lovers
i'll remember you all
in my afterlife hallucinations
when i impale myself with the oar

this has been an awfully strange weekend

tulips and the beach and a round
of cheese with french bread in a kitchen
bright in the evening
loft time
massage hours
an avon lady named fabiola and too many
soy balls on st. patrick's day
long walks on the first day
that really felt like spring
the first omelette i ever made myself
and an email that finally justified
all those times i sided with ani and thought
one day you are going to get hungry
and most of the words you just said
rosie's diner and the waiter who looks like alec baldwin
served me a milkshake that tasted like cake
no work
no work
no work
so much work
and the complete collapse
of my superego
which i'm dying to get back

you thought you were a voyeur but i foiled all your plans

i am quickly becoming exhausted by life. this must mean... actually i don't know what it means.

did i mention that the other night while i was returning my library books i saw a ghost? the one in the attic window of the scary red brick house. she followed me down the block, i think, and it might just have been the wind but i'm pretty sure she pushed me all the way to the cathedral doors even though that wasn't where i was trying to go and they were locked for the evening.
weird, right?
right.

i love it when c sends me unprompted emails from her personal address. about ice cream.

today I want to see the sea, but it looks like it's going to rain. and anyway i have job-finding things to do.

this morning i felt benevolent

and gave an inordinate sum of money to a woman on the corner of yates and vancouver who told me she was a public defense lawyer from toronto who had to get up island and just had her wallet stolen by a schizophrenic
i make a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year
she said
i can pay you back double
maybe she was schizophrenic
maybe i am
she wore electric blue eyeliner and i don't think i'll ever see that cash again
and for this i blame sex
and humanism

o universe you keep trying to teach me lessons and i know this
but i don't know when i'll learn

comfortable material conditions may not be to the advantage of the seeker

chelsea: dear tarot cards
are you sure i should move back to calgary?
tarot cards: dear chelsea
yes
but only if you're doing it
for the right reasons
chelsea: what does that mean?
tarot cards: please ask again later

sir
your product works like no other
these metaphysical slips of paper
each one the size of a small
locked door to your magic
transformations
on which you've left a countless
scramble of loose keys
for me to match
metal into metal
hook in eye
yin and yang
good and evil
in solitude

i am a lone woman
on a tin-can telephone
with god
and everything he says is coming
in crackled through the shuffling
of the cards
through the ever-shifting wire

***
i'm listening to ckua radio
and i miss my dad
there are approximately 80 pages of women's studies readings on my coffee table
but instead
i decided to do this
maybe you should just indulge
said this morning's globe horoscope
maybe i will
my work will still be here tomorrow
it's not running away
but my bunny pasta is

wtf, tarot cards.

seriously. don't give me exactly the same answer when i ask you two completely different questions. that's not really how i need you to help me right now.

in other news

i wish i had an art history text book so i could meander through it at my leisure and pretend i'm doing my workshop homework.

writing upside down is seriously so much better than writing right side up.

life is exhausting. i am exhausted.

i want to quote depressing sarah harmer songs right now, but that's too emo to even attempt.

this week i have learned that:

writing upside down is way more fun than writing right side up.

Dear Life,

I have a 12 page research paper due in 24 hours that I haven't started writing yet.
The precarious balance between procrastination and apathy in which 30% of my Women's Studies grade hung until today is no longer a balance because I just don't care enough to get stressed out about it.
This must mean I'm giving up.
Just thought I'd let you know.
Love,
Chelsea

i pray that something picks me up and sets me down in your warm heart

Egads on a banana.

I have a theory.
It goes like this.
Reading week
exists
so we don't all want to commit suicide for the rest of the semester. Like, Actual suicide. Right?
Right.
Well


I forgot.
Oh well.

Oh right.
It didn't work.

AND
I just had another one. but i'll save that
for the print journal.

i'm bare boned and crazy

right now i want jenna and deerfoot trail and my summer two thousand and three car tape and a chocolate banana milkshake from peter's drive in and the fucking calgary skyline because sure the cherry blossoms are nice and i'm having an excellent love affair with the sea but srsly guys. don't try and tell me this isn't bullshit. one of these days i'll find a stellar reason to drop out of university and believe me i'll do it.

these questions pointing me in a crooked line

Today I am fine as a poetry major in March.

Feel free to interpret the previous statement any way you see fit.

squint your eyes and look closer

It's snowing.

I don't think I'm happy about this.

yay, love, it's march.

cause drunk dialing is embarassing says:
sometimes when i am sad i drive past your mom's house....
cause drunk dialing is embarassing says:
i miss you so much.