I've been meaning to write in here more, especially because i have the time and I'm feeling more introspective since I'm on a trip and stuff.
it's good here, I've been hanging out with emma and her sister and it's been so great to have them here and to make plans and feel like I have some solid friends. The shed is interesting, it's small and finding a place to work (draw) can be hard, mostly i've done it on my the high bed, but also in the yard and in the zine library itself. tomorrow I'm going to go to the harbour by myself and also the garden and see how drawing goes there. I only have a few more days here and I think I'll be a bit sad to leave. people here are nice and super grounded and the city has endless charm. it would be easy to get used to living here, although I don't know if I could stay in the shed for much longer. It's a super effeciant space and has everything I need, but the house is a "Social Centre" and you never know who's going to be here and sometimes there's a lot of people and it gets intense! it's all really positive stuff, but sometime I just want to be alone (and I think was expecting a lot more of that) and then there's like 10 people outside the door. nice people, but i'm sensitive and am not always prepared for it.
tonight one of the girls who runs the archive invited me for dinner but I got it too late!!! mannnn, she's really great and i"m sorry i missed out on that one.
I'm glad I came here, i really am. It's made me think of some of my own innner conflict, even just comparing halifax to toronto. I think I struggle with the part of myself that's really earnest and simple and the part of me that wants to reject that and turn everything on it's head. I have generally felt strong and happy here, minus some anxiety and missing my boyfriend and cat ( i dream about them every night, sometimes together and sometimes sepreate) and am most excited to get back to them. I think I'm also sick of living in other people's rooms/couches/sheds. I caaaaan't wait to move to my new place and set up my own nest again! oh! you wouldn't believe.
anyways, two more days here and important days at that. people to spend a bit more time with, some important work to do on my own and a bit more to soak up. I'm working on a comic that is specific to my trip here, ask me to see it (I should be done in a few weeks) and I'll pass it on.
oh, and the Art Gallery of NOva Scotia was great, they had a really good folk art show and maud lewis' actual house! (folk artist from rural NS who painted all the inside of her small home)
okay, so much to say. but that's my general laundry list.

hew, today it was hard to get up. complete exhaustion. I didn't go to the east end to dog walk, bailed on that. but now i'm up and i just got a bunch of groceries and some coffee brewing.
on my way out I got my first piece of mail here. This is important because i wasn't sure I was getting any...so far I'm quite certain jon's postcard and a cheque for rent from months ago did NOt arrive. frustrating....i think I got it in my head that my neighbours are stealing it. but why would they? it's so easy to build on the few qualities you've learned about people, to totally villainize them because they leave there cat in the hall and let it shit in the hallway and seem grumpy and yell too quickly and won't look me in the eye so they mussssst be hording my mail? maybe....noT? I'm still not sure when my instincts are telling me valuable truth or if I'm simply subject to paranoia. probably both.
this important piece of mail was from the Anchor Archive and they are the girls that are providing a shed for me to stay in. Recently I asked my parents to let me put the flight on their credit card and then I would pay them right away with cash. I maxed out my master card (I omitted this) and needed some help. it didn't seem like too much to ask, i wasn't asking them for money. but they talked about it and said they couldn't support my trip there, even after explanation that it's a working vacation, a great opportunity for me to think only about my work and leave stressful everydays behind, as well as be in a different part of the country and meet a slew of new people. but that doesn't make any sense to them. they can only think about how my lack of stability as of late stresses them out and they are only happy if I do overly-practical things like save save save. It's frustrating because friends and other people i know will have whole vacations payed for by their parents and I can't even convince my parents that this measly adventure is worth doing. It's really tough to not have their support. I wonder if they would have supported me in any way had I actually gone to art school. I think not. It seems easy to shrug off what they think, but I think it really hurt when they rejected something I was so excited for. They have no reference for this kind of thing, but I wish they knew how it feels to have a group of people who have never met you excited for your arrival and excited to see what work you'll produce. maybe in time....who knows. for now I'm taking the bus, no flying I guess and i'll have to put it on debit. this is me whining.
I'm nervous about going. I'm afraid they won't like what I do, I'm afraid I won't make work that cute and accessible and that I'll want to make zines about vaginas and octapuses. cause I do. ah well, we'll see.
oskar is attached to my leg recently. last week someone told me that someone they knew left there cat somewhere where people didn't give him any attention and he freaked out and went crazy. I feel so bad that I might be messing with his well-being. how i love this cat. sheeeesh!

yesterday I looked at about a hundred pictures of myself. they were all taken the afternoon on the day before because N wants to paint a portrait of me and I sat and she took photo after photo. everyone should go through this experience. Looking at your face goof up as you talk is important. my face becomes five others and I have very strange lines, especially in my profile due to my large nose and small chin with overbite. studying your face is so interesting, it's better than looking in the mirror and thinking of attractive. It's nice to grow out of that, to instead look at people and memorize the shape of their nose.
I've also discovered that my phone takes pictures of my bag a lot and that the photos of black are not other photos since muted, but never actually had any information.
I went to a reading last night and there was this girl there who had befriended me on the internet and who I figured did this because of our mutual friends at a certain restaurant we both work out. but her performance was amazing, she was so confident and at one point screamed and after jon was like, lisa suckdog and I was like, yeaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!
maybe she'll do our show.
5 cars are honking their horns outside right now, I'm not going to look.
I have to make this costume RIGHT NOW, but my hair is wet and I don't want to go outside yet. I also have to sleep today because I'm working all night
I'm having at rough time at it AGAIN. I've really got to get some better notes for life, mine aren't keeping me straight. fuck, I guess I have to try all the old stuff and then some new stuff too? I don't know. I just know that it feels bad to get into it on here and it feels bad to wake up and I'm mad at my boyfriend allll the time. shiiits.

what do you think about jealousy? because I don't know what to think about it....and I don't just mean the sharp stuff that comes with romantic relations.....

it's raining again and I hope no face no problem gets to still happen, there are no more sundays we can do.

I have such funny feelings about doing it anymore. i don't really feel healthy in this community, it feels more toxic than anything, so performing and asking people all the time feels like work I don't want to do. this might pass....things are still hard, the basic things and I'm afraid that I'm slowly being transplanted somewhere else. I know some part of me is electing for this and acting too passive about what to do next.

do you believe in bad luck? or just negative energy/self talk and a pattern that one has trouble admitting to.

should I leave?

what will happen to oskar?

why, when I'm feeling a lot of emotions about something do i tell myself that I'm over reacting and why do I allow someone else to convince me of this again and again....?

I pulled out of trampoline hall. i was going to talk about fantastical worlds that children enter after trauma. and when I write it I think it still sounds good, but I freaked out and pulled out. the idea of lecturing is totally scary to me. i don't feel comfortable getting up in front intellectuals and talking about something a little too close to home. I just kept picturing myself chanting and grunting instead as a way to express...i'm not sure why that specifically....

and so.

I went to a bbq on friday. I asked a friend for a cigarette and when i went to put it out I looked for this frog ashtray that I was sure i had seen and then I asked jon where it was and he looked at me really hard and said "that was a matt's" which is where we had been earlier that afternoon, in his kitchen....a comment about the frog ashtray.

not there.
















laura

Jon got a cellphone and texts me all the time, hunky things and pictures of the cats licking each other.
i live in M K's room now and it's just fine. not a thing wrong with it! it might even be hard to leave. He has a very nice record collection, a lot of Devo and Zappa and gems like this ragtime record by Blind Blake that was so perfect and the Dirty Projectors Rise Above which of course feels better on vinyl, most things do. An album playing in my room, beginning to end. I'm also going to listen to a Laurie Anderson record which should be a treat....
Every day I go on craig's list and try to find myself a life. Mine is almost see through, it could wash away like candied paper....i look for jobs, one in a coffee shop seems good. service jobs are everywhere, but the good ones are hard to find. and I look at one bedrooms and wonder if I could afford one (i can't, hence living in someone else's room) and then I look at electronics, namely the musical ones for my ears.
I guess my finicky situation should lead to the conclusion that I'm failing, but I think the universe has something else in mind for me. a slightly different route that deosn't include money or the good things adults should enjoy. oh, but how I crave them......last night this girl I know drunkenly gushed to me that she "loved me" and even quoted something I read a year ago!! whooooaaa. She's great and we have mutual friends and I already admired her, but she told me i'm a great writer and I was glad to hear it. I bet if she wasn't drunk she wouldn't have said a thing. I also got asked to do Trampoline Hall, which makes me sooooooooooooooo nervous. more nervous than any other performance. nervous like a class presentation kind of way. nervous like I just met this group of interesting people and now I have to say something kind of way. nervous in the I DONT' KNOW HOW TO TALK kind of way. But I'm meeting L B on friday to talk about it and I'm flattered she thought of me since we don't really know each other. geeeesh. but part of me thinks I should stop saying yes to things... can I do that? in the next two months I'll be performing at 6 things. it feels like a lot, especially because each performance takes out of me what a prom date with your crush would take out of you... over and over, wet panties and non-stop butterflies and thinking about it too much the next day.
okay.
goodbye.
laura

I've probably had the worst year financially. it was constant strain and stress. my body felt it, my relationship felt it and my soul felt; It just couldn't rest!
so I am likely subletting a place for very cheap and then committing to being without a home for july and august.
what this means....
any more I make from now until then will be saved for trips during my without home months.
these include:

halifax (2 weeks confirmed)
worcester (just got mail about artist residency....)
the beach (sauble, old family favourite. quality time with my mom)
new york (just an idea, but with jon <3 <3)

but I also hope to be in the city trying to enjoy toronto when it's at its best. this last week and the warm weather has had me feeling my skin again. It's so wonderful to NOT BE couped up in a house depressed and moneyless. bike rides anywhere for any reason is welcome. the winter to spring affect is soooo needed.
I also need to be in the city to work TO WORK!!!!!

I've never in my life wanted to so badly to work. really. I just want somewhere to go and for someone to give me money for it.
it will happen. it is happening.
I have promised myself that I WOn't LET this continue to be a trend in my life. I just can't.

I read this interview with debbie dreschler

http://www.tcj.com/249/i_drechsler.html

and it got me drawing again. well, i didnt' stop drawing, but it got me thinking about comics again and I started writing a story. I totally fell into this great groove and I am going to find it again. righ now in fact. It feels like a million million dollars when i find that. I look so hard....

The article is interesting because she started drawing comics because she realized the was a survivor of incest. it all culminated and she explains this trance-like state when she draws her first comic which explains (in detail) this experience. It's the most wrenching thing I've ever read in comic form. I'm not joking, M gave it to me when I was dating her and said "the whole time I was reading this I kept thinking , why am I doing this? why am I putting myself through this."
I guess because it's important to go through. we have the safety of pages.....

over and out.

but I've just got back from the liqour store and I'm proud to say that I have some beer to drink and a bottle of wine to share with some friends. I never go out anymore, I never even smoke a joint. all I do is stress about supid life and wait for every thing that happens to end, as though every commitment, even friends and things I should enjoy, is a shift.
I walked to the store and realized that I never just have a drink and enjoy people and dance and feel cute. I'm in bed early and up early ready to stress, putting my stress pants on, wondering if I have any friends anymore and if i'll get to hang out with my boyfriend or if it'll just be me and the cats, and I'll try and draw and watch oprah and check my email 17 times and look at stupid fbook and feel like cracking proceline. that's not good. how did this happen?!
I'm going to dance! there's a queer dance party (which is really the best dance party) and i'm going to hang out with steph and her ladies and try and feel like a human being again.
i think i can.

last night I worked my first overnight. it's from 12midnight until 10am and I was nervous about how my body and mind would hold up, but it went just fine. The new job eagerness keeps me alert and on my toes and so even though for about three hours (330 - 630) there wasn't much to do except bang my feet against the floor when the little mouse came out and listen to my co-worker laugh in at the other computer, I managed to keep my eyes open and stay with it.

I am feeling heavy and more groggy now but want to stay up for a bit longer so I"m about to start reading a novel and am compiling a list of women cartoonists, with the women in my age group right at the top.
I've also got a whack of recently downloaded music awaiting my my ears. sun ra (first time) new white magic, the 13th floor elevators, quick finger guitars from the congo and zimbabwe, and more more more.
I've been spending (what feels like) most of my time alone. I think i'm taking stock, reading numbers on my library, reinventing ways of say I feel lonesome. I've found myself tapping into old states, old heartbreaks and old fears and I have this vision of my mother (just the other day) holding her hand up to her head making a talking motion to assist in telling me to turn on the "right voice" as I move ahead right now.
I have lost a certain social comfortability that I used to have, it's making me feel all this guilt and I'm so hard on myself about how I interact with my aquaintences.

I want this to be a short entry, so I'll just say that today also happens to be my one year anniversary with J. It was a year ago today that we went to the 17th floor of the king eddy in our best duds and looked at the cityscape and 17 times in my head I repeated (before I let it slip out of my mouth) "hey jon, I really like you"
I thought it must be the scariest thing I'd ever say. and right after he jumped up beside me and gave me a big kiss and here we are now still doing it. It's been such a hard year though, I haven't experienced this amount of stress ever before. it just felt like a lot of head shakes and WTF WTF and it seemed to include ever area of my life. It still feels hard to manage.
but my heart still funs faster when I hear my ring and see his name. It never fails.

On my birthday I woke up to jon with a lit cake singing to me! it was amazing. While I slept I saw a light invade and I wondered why it was so bright, and then I heard a call from the awake world and it said "hey, laura"
EYES OPEN.
Then we lay in bed and listened to the mix cd he made for me! it's really special because he's never made a mix anything ever, in his whole life! imagine!!!!!
The day was great. the girls all came for brunch (minus a few0 and Sadies was a good choice. then we went to pages and I bought the book version of Skim, which is a "graphic novel" about this sort of gothy teenage girl and it was made by two cousins. It feels really sincere and I'm completely a sucker for adolescent stories. They seem to be the ones I obsess over the most.
I also bought a copy of Giant Robot, mostly because it's one of the few mags I can find art or mention of art that I like. No easy task. I also like it because they interview people and somehow it always comes back to why they can't NOT do it. maybe it's something particular to illustrators or people that draw a lot, but they have this very modest and fun way of talking about their work that doesn't make me feel icky. No art jargon I guess.
I went home and realized I only had 10 dollars! yes, I'm still down and out with the whole money thing. I would give up one of my fingers to be able to be stable and rely on an income. four jobs nothing! I just want to work and earn my keep! I don't want to cry because I don't know when I'm getting paid and I can't buy food! no more!
after the anxiety of that wore off I went home and drew in my new sketch book and talked with kt and cam. it is a rare treat to have them both home at the same time. Kt made us this greengreengreen soup and corn bread and we all sat and ate like a family. I relaxed and felt grateful. truly. then kt and I went to jon's to scoop him up and we walked to the mouthus/axolotl show together. It was fantastic! It was a short set for A, but such a treat! His recordings get me every time. the thing about those two combined (and together) is that there sooooo emotional. the music is huge and hard to see, but it's felt so completely that it becomes dizzying. I also talked to mary's brian and it was so nice! He's a great guy (mary) and it was nice to see him because in some way I was seeing you too.
We had to leave because an early morning awaited, but it was hard. kt told me that the show made her excited and I haven't heard her say that in a long time.
Also, Facebook and all the birthday wishes almost made me cry! can you believe it! having so many people send good vibes to you is amazing.
I am sick again. which just pisses me off! but fighting it with every liquid concoction I can come up with.

I am reading at The End of The Internet next week and I'm super excited, but also very very nervous. I'm going to try and get really into character and do it "balls out" (pardon me) but today is my only day to write! so we'll have to see what i come up with.
I'm also performing at Bonny's Laundry show. I'm gonna be going solo and it's also a music show, which feels a bit funny. It'll be more of a party to people and then I'm gonna get up there and do my thing and hope they respect whatever that is. what a challenge. It'll feel very different from performance shows, but ultimately I think this should be the trend. combining these mediums is a very good idea and i'm glad she's fronting it. It's good to feel the nerves again and I think I like the idea i'm sitting on right now.....we'll see!!!!

today it was warm and it rained.
I ate food with steph and got to inspect the apartment she's subletting. It belons to this rockabilly lady who loves elvis. the only thing on her walls have something to do with elvis. she also owns a lot of furniture form the 60s and 70s, cheap space savers with tons or charm and even a really old juke box that made me wet. what a dream to watch those records and flip out and in. Salt n pepa were on the juke.
willies!
She was house sitting for a while at another "family house" and that one had the wildest paintings from photos and they were really really something. the couple with a big plate of sushi in the foreground. it felt awkward and unclear. but was huge and demanding! oh man, peoples homes are the most interesting.

steph and I drank wine and it loosened my nerves so now I can wiggle like spaghetti and sit back.
steph works for hot docs so she lent me some films that I need to be discreet about. I think the mention of this tantalized me more I should admit. look at me, i got some secret movies.
Today I ducked out of the rain and found BMV. I almost bought a Patricia Highsmith novel and it was only 2.50, but i put it down because it stressed me out to think I might not like it! wha?
I've settled my need to read with a copy of Believer (eileen myles is in it) and am not longer regretful for having spent an hour frantically looking for books to eat.
Books are so comforting. I used to bring a pile where ever I went in a house and still haven't stopped (which only just occured to me.) I went to kinkos today and found paper garbage, like a big photocopy of a goodwill banner. I shot it through the machine a bunch and got excited about the black. I met with jon to draw at cafe braziliano. big booths and cheap cafeteria-like food with a huge front window and just the buzz of conversation. we both worked well at our own things. I found an old notebook with an entry about a severed racoon head near some train tracks and some writing I did for the NO Face on the tracks.
I've been doing these freewrites for comic ideas and it feels good to be developing a narrative in whatever way I can right now.
I draw the same character over and over and really look at all the lines. and soon I'll try dialogue again and think about how to tell a story with panels, real panels (not that it matters whether they exist or not) but trying to think of it in a more blocked out way even, really can help. Before I was just exploding on the page in some way and it feels a little insincere now.
I think it's important to open up old boxes, especially of work, and really think about what you were doing/trying to achieve then.
okay.

gud nite.
okay. I'm going to read and sleep.

I am a march baby. Born almost 27 years ago. My father has just told me that when the air pressure is low and a storm is brewing, that things get born. He said this because my sister in-law is as pregnant as you can get and my new nephew is set to be born any day now. Birth is totally wild, absolutely and positively. It blows my mind and I my body begs for it. It's a very interesting thing to be a 27 year old (just about) female in 2008 because my mind does not want it, cannot want it because my hands can't pay for it and my life can't hold it up high enough so that it breaths safely, ohhhh, but my body, it cries when I get my period and it wants badly to be inseminated. PARDON ME, I'm almost running back for those words.
I'm totally dumb today. I worked at the art store and i did so many dumb things. directed people west instead of east, said we didn't have it but it was RIGHT there. and I made a big dumb sign, but really it was the best sign. it said, "oh oh oh! looksey SALE big big" and we hung it in the window and I was glad I got to spend two hours of my shift doing it. My bid dumb day happened to coincide with my big melancholy day. I'm loosing my footing lately. spinning into a familiar haunt and my mind is racing with thoughts that cause extreme stress. I will ache over planning my visits to work and my boyfriend and other parts of town. I have to pack a big bag and make sure I have money to take ttc and enough money to buy food while I'm not at home. I'll spend 30 minutes trying to leave the house and forget movies and my pastels and then spend the whole way there feeling bad about late fines and no colour to draw with. I'll stress about money as it comes and leaves so so so quickly. and last night I had some good friends near me at the Rozasia/extra life show but I just felt terrible. I didn't know what to say, so i just stood like a grump and someone I don't know very well asked me if I was okay. I can't hide a thing.
peter walked me home and he said we have to be careful not to wallow. so right right right right.
But my feelings get to have all the control.
I tried to sleep at jon's before the show, but the cats open his door and want in and out, so you can't have privacy. so I covered myself up in his bed and listened to his roommates move and talk and I felt so frozen in the stress and fear. Every thought drags and then slips into sludge and I have such a mean mean voice. UGh, i could make a career of writing about how this feels. How to translate this to you?
barooooonie.
I'm going to watch the end of Through a Glass Darkly and then draw until a beautiful boy comes over to fall asleep with me. Jon and I ate expensive treats on my break and I stared at his face and felt a deep, real feeling in my gut. I went back to work and tried to not be so dumb.
I've been telling myself that this stress won't last and I just have to get through the next couple of months. Soon we will move and summer and its sweet will come. Things with be stable again.
and I will be an aunt this week, again, and I think it's so fucking beautiful.

my head is just swimming.
I just talked to an old friend (and by old i mean gr 3) and she told me that her step-father died of bone cancer in september. I actually thought about her recently because i drove by her old house at xmas and remembered hearing he was sick. I got this really bad feeling on that drive and knew I had to talk to her and find out. when she told me just now it hurt. Death is always strange, but it's especially hard and strange when it's my friend's parent/guardian because usually that means they're quite young. i think 65 is young to die. The weird part is that these adults from my childhood seem to just vanish now and it must have something to do with (What was thought to be)static figures or fixtures of strong falling. The parents, the stoic parent or the warm parent who was always there (at the friend's home) when i was and now they're gone and I know there is pain in their absence.
growing up is still so strange.

also on the mind is this:


BANKRUPTCY
.

should I file??? whhhhaaaa! really? I've just had a lengthy conversation with the friend about this and how she did it. there is much to consider. The thought of my debt disappearing and waking up one morning without that is almost holy! I could live with bad credit, I don't have plans to include acquiring assets anytime soon and can take bad credit for ten years as punishment. or can I?

today kt and I called a man we had never met and his name is mr. sit. we said we wanted an apartment in chinatown or kensington for our us and our cats. he said he'd call us back when he found something. I wonder if he will?


one of the best part of working with kids is the illustration in the books. they are so inspiring! the other day this book from 1967! had these amazing coloured pencil sketches that made me melt. i considered asking to borrow the book!
instead I thought I'd just go home and work the coloured pencils.


life.

here's what's happening.
I have four jobs, they are::::

- curries retail which has very low stress and allows me to SIT when things are slow. I work with very good people including D Rocca who is an extremely good conversationalist and makes me think and allows me to delve into his art school centered head in this way that i never do and makes me think about drawing a lot because he is (literally ) drawing constantly. he draws a new book every day! he is what jon calls "the best" also, the others are so cute and not people i would know otherwise. Last week after work they went out to eat spicy korean food and I couldn't go because i was broke, but the thought of made me giddy! plus, i get discounts on art supplies. BUT i make minimum wage and unfortunately i'm not in a position that can allow that.

- Fresh as a server. It would have DIED 6 months ago to know I was going back there, but the money is too good to ignore. Also, nika and cam work there and I love them and i'm only going back two days a week. The thing with fresh (and i've thought about this a lot) is that it asks me to think about my attitude. See, I've been exploring my comfort and my patterns in these trying times I'm only just coming out of, and I think fleeing when things aren't good isn't actually the best way to deal. I also think I often develop a really bad attitude when i'm uncomfortable and unhappy (which makes sense)and this perhaps explains why i've become so negative lately. BUT i think it would serve me better to try and work through this or understand it more rather than just store it and move on to the next thing that works. So i'm going back and I'm gonna make some money (that I need) and I'm gonna try and develop some devices to make it okay.

Respite/support working for 5 year girl with various developmental disabilities. It requires a lot of focus and is trying because she is hard to focus and i somehow have to get her to play with kids she doesn't want to play instead of rubbing a sticky thing for half an hour. But it's interesting and challenging and I really like her.

Relief Support worker at Homeless hostel - I'm very excited about this and have yet to start! very good path for me right now and hopefully it's as interesting and challenging as the other support work i've done.

I've been riding my bike a lot and it's cheaper and far better for my brain and heart. I feel strong because of it and more in control. TTC is bad, so very bad and if I an avoid it I am grateful.

Emma and ashley are coming over for dinner and i'm hopefully going to see this jess dobkin performance with some of the girls.

kt and I have decided to move out of millicent. which i'm realizing is succcch a good idea. We have really mastered living together and totally respect each others space and stuff. Living with too many is fun, but i've found it to be mostly stressful in the last year. Cleaning up after people and worrying about bills together and this week one of my roommates ate my last two bagels. no big deal i guess, but it was the only food I had for days and days and it really frustrated to find out that that's what happened to my food. petty? maybe. We are going to try and live in the market or close to, which means we'll be closer to most things (friends, boyfriend, going out places) and this will hopefully allow me to be more social. I haven't stayed in as much as i did in the last year ever. So it will be nice to reconnect with the world. really.

Jon is working the puppet job on monday and we're doing pretty good. Perhaps things are really looking up, i'm gonna keep my sights set on it.

today Cam told me he has to get glasses because when he reads and looks at a comp screen he gets really sleepy because he's working harder and straining and therefore exhausting himself in order to actually see. I hadn't thought of this and just today i spent an hour on the interWEB and read a short story by a lady named mary lavin and then I felt my eyes wanted to close completely, so i got all horizontal and let them.
glasses, mwah? or maybe I need to eat better and sleep the proper sleep?
Last night sheryl was here and A and A and S came over and we made a wonderful dish and talked and hung out for hours. It felt great, really. I didn't go to the end of the internet (where mr hobbs was reading and GASP threw up on the stage with what I'm sure was taken with complete serious integrity when really it sounds so hobbsey and funyy that I wish I'd seen it) and stayed in with the ladies. We felt older last night. I am feeling older these days. How does that work? what can that mean exactly? I can't be sure. The feeling is full of something familiar and warm, yet it is deeply sad because of this. LIke something has moved on, but I won't and therefor I'm getting to watch instead of leaping ahead and then I am feel a shadow and a nip and the word old finds the front of my brain.
I mean that about myself more than any of the friends I mention. In a few weeks I will be 27. which is not old. not even close.

I was drawing just now, but there a dread in me that makes my hands heavy. Disgust with what I find on the page.

I feel like I've become very negative in these recent weeks. i find it when I talk to others and I find some of them offering me other perspectives and it's then that I'm aware of it and it feels like it's building in me.

today started off okay. I unexpectedly didn't have to go to work because the little girl I work with was sick.
So I waited for J to get up and we went out for cheap breakfast, but while I waited i read In Praise of Slow , which seemed like the right idea as far as starts go.
But by the time I got home in the afternoon I crashed. I was really angry and didn't know how to to talk about and still haven't talked about it and really don't want to talk about it on here. I tried to induce sleep, because I also didn't want to think about it.
which makes me feel really low.

I'm kind of sick of coming on here and venting all my dark stuff, but maybe these days I'm super prone to it.

today was long. these mornings I'm awake at 7 or 8 and I hear my roommate leave for work and then I think to myself how nice it is to be still in bed, but minutes later I am very very awake. the cats come down and bound around and if I keep very still and fix my eyes on one point in the room, there is a bit of frame made by my duvet and pillow and then the cats play out a scene. sometimes they jump up and on to the bed and they are so close to the screen and a lot of the time they are moving around so fast that I can't see them and then "bam" there they are, flying across my sight. it's a good way to start the day.
Today was like dirty bath water. the kind you dream of being so hot it pinches the skin, but instead by the time you get in it's already murky and that kind of luke warm that you could tolerate, but you really really don't want to and soon your out of the stupid little tub and back in the shower but it's still a little too cold.
today my friend called me on her cigarette break and told me about current lebian drama involving her and how at 9 am this morn she slipped and cursed her way through the bitter bitter bitter cold. poor lady.
I rented the Legend of Leigh Bowery upon A's recommendation and it was amazing to watch his work with the dance company. I wish something even remotely as awe awe as that would fall into my life. Geeesh, the costumes and dances together along with the Fall playing live were so amazing. Sometimes big stupid moves and clothes that loose the figure and go up and out in whatever direction they want that you have to adjust to see what you're looking at. wowzers. it purked me up. it made my bath hot again.
Soooo many people from my past are sneaking into my life again, just little peaks or serious hangs, but they are everywhere and I've spotted a trend in this. something I talked about in my last entry....I believe this marks change. real transition.
Today I drew for 3 or 4 hours. J is making a newspaper with people's drawings in it and he's invited us all to come to xpace and cover the walls (completely) for the show. It's great! and in the spring jon and I want to host a drawing show at this chinese restaurant called Lucky Dragon. Maybe a couple of art shows even....it's so nice that drawings, straight from the page are going to dance around the walls like they should. I want to draw 3 or 4 drawings a day and I bought a new sketchbook to fill up completely as a way to assume a certain style i'm comfortable with for comics. They are still so important to me and I'm not a very good artist, but I want to draw stories so bad it hurts.
My room is in the basement and it gets so cold down here. I'm going to sleep at J's tonight and I hope his properly heated room and arms and those cats too, I hope it all keeps me warm.

sometimes when transitions come...when chapters close and new ones open, cyclical and predictable...over and over again ending and beginning. dreams about babies and dreams about houses burning, whenever these times come and all of me feels the feet but sees the changes slowly slipping in I am surprised that I am seeing people from my past, always, as confirmation of this.
It's a lucky thing (maybe) to be able to go back to whole periods of your life for a night after you've thought about an old friend you're going to see on the (this) weekend. Sometimes I lay in bed and try to let my body follow my mind, so much so that I might remember details like the exact way it felt after he said something and the exactly moments that told me truths, but they seem so lost now. Even old loves, trying to remember what once felt like cemented time lines of very specific events are just gone now.
But I've been feeling it lately.
i am still so stressed about this job thing. i'm not sure if the job I started this week will have me back next and I'm not sure if the other one i've been waiting for will finally call. Just don't know.
I can't seem to rid myself of sickness lately, likely because of poor diet and high levels of stress. Right now I'm tired, soooo tired. I slept at jon's and had work and we went to his roommates anniversary party for Doing It to Death and I danced and remembered how nice it feels to look around and think you like people. It's possible that in the last year I've forgotten how to do this. Instead some harsh critical voice is protecting me from liking too much of what I see in aquaintences and even people closer to me than that, but I'm trying really hard to address this personally and live like someone who would rather look closer than where my angry bits make m me stop.
Today I bought pumpkin orange screenprinting ink to use on chocolate brown paper for a poster for the on year anniversary of no face no problem. this also means I'll be celebrating spending a year with jon and that's a big mind blowing heart swelling sqealing good goood gooooood one. I still love him buttloads and am glad we made it this far. This time last year we were making nervouse faces and talking about s show we "should" put on and wanting to talk about everything else. geeeze, he was blowing my mind.....

things I'm doing:
""**listening to ariel pink's haunted graffiti for the first time in a long time. it feels really good.
""**reading about peter doig because last night while waiting for august at starbucks I glanced and caught some of his paintings on a full page spread that talked about a book three people wrote about him. he's really magik. he does a lot of scenic stuff or iconic people with jetting things coming at and going away from them. some feel like collage and some feel like true homage to some recess of his mind. I'm not usually that excited by painters, but his stuff is warm and textured and if you step back it becomes less a scene and more patterned or design. he's really great and when I guess he's championed here, but I'm happy to discover him by accident.
""**getting myself ready for the interview tomorrow. finding out what I know and what I need to ready myself with.
""** checking on kt's new cat. a lush little guy with the best fur coat and eyes just like betty's. he is a little freaked today and I'm sneaking in his room to talk to him and pet him while not neglecting big O.


last week I had been home all day on the computer looking for jobs and so I turned on the tv because I wanted to watch some people talk. I ended up watching some stuff on showcase and this one show was suppose to be a day in the life of a call girl. so, you know, she's pretty well-off and helps out couples and stuff or just fulfills fantasies which i guess makes for better television that getting to know what sex workers without plush and high end clientale have to deal with. Anyways, the best part was that she did this partner swap. So she and her ex=boyfriend (good writing) are partners and then this couple who are celebrating their 20 year anniversary. so they come in and split up and go the the billie piper couple, but the man beaks away and wants to be with his wife and then they have this beautiful hot sex with each other in front of the hired couple and they're these middle aged people just having orgasms together and it's amazing! and it got me thinking that this is so rare! sooooo rare! to see people making sweet sweet love is hard to find and great to watch. sex and penetration is not hard to find, but this, saggy bodies reinventing their love, gorgeous! I wish this existed more along with real relationship problems. It's crazy how much your insecurities and tired problems with the one other cloud your mind but there isn't any space for this in the watching.

Also, I watched a movie called Lilya4Ever by Lukas Moodyson. I think he's swedish and he also did this flick called Show Me Love about these high school girls and their really charming love story. He is an amazing director who gets girl's stories pitch perfect in so many ways. he spends a good amount of time on dialog and never undermines the characters who are often 15 years old. Lily4ever was amazing, it hurt so bad to watch. At times I wanted to just ball, but never did I want to turn it off. Her story was wrenching, just wrenching but you want to finish it with her and it's never gratuitous. I couldn't stop thinking about it, it got under the skin real hard and I'm glad this film exists. It was comparative to the end of Boys Don't Cry, especially the rape scene. It's a fine line for the director to ride, to not give you too much so that you're not seeing anything anymore.
He also has this experimental film called Container that I've been told is amazing.

bye

laura

today was dreamy. I got peter to press record on my camera while he was stocking tooth brushes at Shoppers Drug Mart and he wouldn't do it a second time because he was afraid he'd get in trouble. I made careful choices about the food I bought as my money is just about gone and then walked home triumphently and made the nicest dinner I could. I tried to write like some spam I got in my inbox one. I don't know how I managed to actually read it as it usually just gets a delete, but I did and it was the best. lots of heavy words, but some of them were missing. J thought I wrote it because it hangs on my wall now like it's words from plath or thomas and I'm sixteen, but it's words from cryptic zlingzlang and it was all a big mistake. they weren't mine but I wished they were when he liked them so much. so i tried to dive in and came up with halfed stories about being little. I couldn't get away from it....all I could write about was my friend stacey's big bed we used to lay on and her telling me that having sex felt like snakes in your stomach! imagine.
dreamy day. dreamy. i woke up and talked to J and we made plans to watch Lilya4ever and I'm scared and excited because everyone keeps saying, "it's so sad" he will get off work soon.....
i got a job interview at fred victor, which is where a works. this job excites me and make me nervous and knotted the way things that matter should.
I had a nice newyears. good people danced around me and so hard and so well and it felt like we were all the young beautiful creatures we really are.
I was drunk and running down Augusta with J and I did a face plant into some boxes. I made a point to, only liquid courage would allow this, and it felt so amazing to fly down into garbage. he followed. we must have looked stupid.
today was just, dreammmmmy.

I'm so terrified!

I've been at my parent's house for three days now and it's making me miserable, among other things. I love these guys, but I feel trapped and my days rotates between three options...drawing in the basement with my replanted cat while listening to recently aquired:::: phillip glass, zeek sheck, john cage, the melvins, Group Doueh, Melanie, jack rose, christina carter and tom ze. eeeee! or I can watch a movie on the big screen tv, but only if I negotiate it with my dad orrrr I can drive to the stadium supermarket where last night a group of three guys followed me and were like, "heyyyyy" and then I dodged down an aisle and thought, how do I deal with this? and then I figured if they asked anything of me I'd tell them I already had three husbands. duh.
so that's what I can do. or I can fight with my mom about how I can't find a job and what I should do and there is no right way out of that argument. It's only ugly once you enter cause I need a job and bad and there is only so much time my bank account will let that search pan out.
I just spent some minutes apply to CanadianSeniors.com, cause, I LOVE THE SENIORS. oh yeah, they know more than me and maybe they can tell me that this funny life is worth sticking it out for. they'd say, "just do it laura, just saddle up and ride and count your ticks and your pretty landscapes, gogogogogo"
BUT there were only two listings on the site. this is after registration, and guys, that's not a lot. two seniors need help in all of toronto! uhoh.

I'am also scared because whatever mental and emotional instabilities live with me are poking their way to the top and I'm scared my relationship is going to end. How many times can you tell someone you're sorry for being crazy? maybe I belong alone with a crazy wastebasket and no one to say sorry to .
maybe?
but I love him so much! I really really do, but I don't think i can ask someone to subject themselves to what I give out. so I'm preparing my body and my heart for an end every day now.

I want to go home sooner than I planned.

but at least here, with the first option, the drawing on the floor in the neglected basement of my parents house I feel like I can give myself a lock down. and there is this huge fridge with beer and wine and I can hide, cave like, I can hide until someone things I should come out.

drunk.

this xmas day has dragged. I have this really beautiful niece and my family is so sweet, but i gots tears today and I'm glad it's almost over.

oh dear.
no, I mean, oh fuck.