ok my little mango lassies.
hang onto your hats because
IT'S PROJECT TIME.
i don't know where i'm going but it's
higher.
(i tried to do my homework, i swear.
ok fine. no i didn't.)

it's disconcerting business, defrosting my fridge.
it's like watching a polar ice cap and i feel guilty
for wishing it would just hurry up and disappear already
because i want to plug this thing back in and buy groceries
but the good news and the bad news is
the smaller it gets, the faster it goes.
there is a sopping wet bathrobe lodged temporarily in my shower stall and today i really wish also
that i had in-house laundry because i am too high for the laundromat and it's raining again and there's just no way i'm going to carry that thing all the way down there on my back.
while i was at school for three hours, instead of doing any, you know, school work, i drew a triptych. then i came home and finished it.
untitled, i-iii
pen and pencil crayon on matte board.
2009.
THE SUN IS COMING OUT and i know it's kind of unreasonable
to start thinking like that about myself but i swear it's not just me.
i think that about pretty much everyone i know.
it's coming. the sun is coming.

i swear, by reading week, anyone who bothers to watch me traipsing around outside in my moccasins and my yoga pants at one in the morning will surely come to know me only as
the free box woman.
it just keeps appearing. all this stuff i need to get rid of.
it's keeping me awake at night.
also, my fridge has been defrosting for eight hours already and the freezer is still a solid block of ice.
i have so much art to make, too.
so much stuff to get rid of, so much art to make.
the ocean collage is exiting its conceptual phase. i probably won't get to make it until reading week but holy tuna
is reading week going to be something or what.
ps. the first cherry blossoms are here.

it's coming.
the breaking.
deep inhalations, everyone.
that new moon,
it's opening
wider. long, slow,
exhalation.

in other words, i'm going insane and things are gettn funny round here.
i made a funny pun today.
hinternet.
ha ha.
(see what i put up with?)

36 hours
completion:
one kerry mason assignment
two brian hendricks journal entries
WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?
chelsea doing WORK?
maybe all these crystals on my desk have something to do with it.
the dumortierite, in the centre of the handkerchief. it's grey as a beach
pebble and shaped like the shell of a turtle and on the underside,
where it's indented, there's a chip under the surface
and inside it is a broken prism.
if i put the indented side to my forehead it fits perfectly
over my third eye.

today i woke up and
did homework.
it's like a miracle or something.
sunday mornings i feel so wholesome. even when all evidence from the rest of the weekend speaks to the contrary. and now the afternoon sun is just starting to slant through the window at an angle which makes it impossible to see my computer screen, so i have to go soon. make projects. play.
the quartz on my desk is glowing funny colours and it wants to come too, i do reckon.
there's more to do. homework. for hendricks. but i have a feeling by the time i get around to that there will be lotus pond half price lunch buffet in my belly and i will be
hi, how are you?
(just fine, thanks very much for asking)

the only important lesson i learned today is
crystals are not hypocrites.

hello, world.
my bike and i have been reunited
and i have procured a pair of merino wool leggings.
does this mean january is going to get better?
love,
chelsea.

the great purge continues in unexpected ways.
yes indeed.

the big cleanup has progressed in earnest.
tonight i got high after yoga and a delicious dinner and the universe
as usual aligned itself before my very eyes and because i actually shut up
for more than ten seconds, mercury retrograde taught me a few lessons
about what i need to do with my life right now and i'm feeling pretty good.
also, i've come into a a rather large sum of money from unsuspecting sources in the last 36 hours, as if by luck.
for this i'm very thankful.
tomorrow i have no class.
tomorrow i will treat myself.
maybe a new pair of yoga pants.
maybe a crystal dictionary.
and then the malahat launch.
o my goodness. what is going to happen
at the malahat launch.
something omniscious, i bet.

dear mercury retrograde,
how are we going to learn to get along?
because right now, i HATE you.
yours truly.

winter in victoria is just as i remember it.
there is too much rain and i find myself
craving things like doughnuts.
mrow.

today, at the cafe,
i got my year-long georgia horoscope in the herald and had
three conversations about the apocalypse with
three strange men.
drank americano wrote a letter finished payback did some drawings.
also i loved up a cute puppy and saw someone talk to a tree.

i won't lie.
i'm a little jangly right now.
it feels a little like vertigo.

today was the most fun i've had all break.
thus far i haven't been very good at keeping my
10.30 bedtime new year's resolution, but all of a sudden
there are so many things to do.
vietnamese food the tramps close-down sale late night hot chocolate swedish vampire films
etcetera etcetera.
my stomach feels a little funny tonight and i've been trying to figure out what it is and i finally just realized that thing is called
overstimulation.
yesss.
we meet again.

if this day is an omen

then i'm pretty excited about 2009.
2009 will bring glad tidings.

i'm pretty sure my soul mate and i sat next to each other at the cafe today.
he had a goatee and a barbell in his nose and he was wearing this blouse with tiny uniform cartoon bicycles all over it and he was maybe forty-five or so and he drank double americano but the clincher is
he was reading oryx and crake.
then, later,
i made health food for dinner and my sister came into the kitchen and said
something smells really good. i ventured all the way out of my room
to see what it is. (beat) can i have some?
and so i served her kamut rotini in home made sauce with salad, and she ate most of it.
then she asked if she could do my makeup and the funniest thing happened.
for four hours i looked like a common prostitute and for three of them
i was high.

nine is a funny little number.
a funny little number, indeed.
for me, nine is a black number, and a sleek one.
like obsidian. like apache tears. you can only
see through it if you hold it
up to the light.
good thing my new year's resolution is
be the light.