Pop Cultured Me

Do you ever look in the mirror sometimes and not really recignize your face, but then look at pictures and recognize yourself even less?
I guess that sounds like one of those melodramatic things you should write in a livejournal, but I just think it's interesting about how sometimes our perceptions of ourselves are drastically different from what we actually are.

So right now I'm sitting here, chewing on a lime-green piece of watermelon flavoured bubblegum from Lena's party, enjoying a lazy Sunday in the typical fashion of the unemployed and out of school. Not that it really counts because I'm going to be leaving in 10 days for BC- I've already received my flight ticket, and the house leader whose name is Sunyata has already emailed me. But even though every Sunday is a lazy Sunday for me, this one feels even more delightfully lazy and laidback- because there are no commitments or work looming in the future. The only thing is take a shower and go meet my sister for dinner, her treat. Freedom is delicious. Even better than bubblegum.

Friday was my last day of work. It wasn't really sad, but there's nothing like a last day of work to make you realize how not that bad work is. I said goodbye to Sheena, my 42-year-old-single-mom-buddy who got me into the beading. Dad even took me for a long lunch at the Mandarin which would have never happened unless he worked at the same place.
After work we went to go visit my Nonno in the hospital, and he seems to be doing a little better.
Then we decided that we were going to go bowling as a family in Orangeville because
a) I'm leaving ridiculously soon
b) the Orangeville bowling just finished renovations and has cosmic bowling
Sarah wanted to go visit Cat, except it was 9 at night, so mom said it probably would be better if we didn't knock on her door. Instead, we decided to go to a cute little cafe on Broadway called the Mochaberry. And when we walked in, aside from the usual teacher fare, we also saw Cat and Matt. We sat and talked with them, which was cool because I love Cat and Matt, and then we brought Cat bowling (Matt was too tired). Bowling was fun, so was air hockey and getting demolished at pool by my dad. We might do it again before I go.

I woke up delightfully late yesterday morning, after staying up late listening to David Bowie with my sister and her falling asleep in my room. Then I rolled out of bed, and did a combination of working on Sandra's present all afternoon while watching movies all day. Lena/Sandra/Tom Delaney's party was pretty sweet. In attendance were:

and

and


as well as Jenny T, Karl, Marcy Marc, and LOTS of other people- including unexpected ones like Romanoff and other yearbook junkies. It was quite fun overall without having any really funny moments to mention. Just lots of highschool people I wanted to see.
Hopefully my party next week will be as fun and well attended. Chances look good. Don't forget to bring yourself and something for potluck.

Work Countdown: 4 days
Katimavik Countdown: 16 days
Nervousness Level: Mid-low

I spent a good part of this week reading a book called "generation-X" by Douglas Coupland, which is a very good book that I recommend to everyone, about the vibes of the new generation. I also managed to get some art in, and hope to do some more. This time I created a contour of my Nonno Giovanni. I now have one more piece than necessary to apply to York. Which is not a lot.




This weekend may have proved artfully unproductive, though I did take the opportunity to perform the tradition of going to the Shelburne fair- though alone. Then on Sunday my mom, Sandra and I all went down to the exhibition place to go to the clothing show. I spent too much money on t-shirts, primarily because I found this booth that was selling tees with thought-provoking slogans about racism, and war, bodyimage, etc. and they were sweatshop free. I also bought a fake amber ring and spent too much money on beads, so I've decided to try and spend very little money between now and the 5th.

As it gets closer to time to leave, I get more and more nervous. And lonely. I guess I'm coming to the realization that I'm going to have to experience things on my own. It feels like being birthed again. But maybe I just have a slight case of the post-graduation blues. At least I'm not crying again. And I'll still have oppurtunities to see people. There's Lena/Sandra's birthday thing this weekend, and my party next weekend- which I'm really hoping people will show up to. Somewhere in between I'm going to visit Hall, and also go to U of T with Cole. Maybe while I'm there I can say hi to Roberto. I was talking to him online and he told me to stop by. And yes, that makes me happy.

Something wicked: I have exactly ten days left of work
Something sad: that I'm not counting down the days until I leave for Katimavik, but I'm counting down the days til I leave work.
I think it's just still to surreal. Which reminds me, I need to tell OHIP that I'm leaving.

Thursday I was a little bit bummed because I found out that dad wasn't going to the stag, meaning I wouldn't get to go visit Paula Friday night. Plus Nasser stood me up for our driving thing. Needless to say I was a little bummed. But then after work on Friday, after all the union drama and Cheryl's mysterious quitting which may have been pressured, I found out that I was going to Midnight Madness. So I immediately called Paula and Ana and met up with them in town. Ana got me this rainbow coloured elephant that I named Ana the Acidphant and Patrique pushed me around in a Liquidation world cart until some bald guy yelled at him. Unfortunately we didn't make it to the fancy pants clothing store before it closed, but we did walk through the drive thru at Timmy Ho's to get Donuts and tea. It was pretty fun, but way too far away to repeat.

Then yesterday I woke up early and went to the Odot. We went to Betty Jean's apartment, and she's making me a fashion crime of a skirt, which will be awesome. Then I spent a ridiculous amount of time and money at Walmart, buying stuff for my trip. I took my mom out for lunch, and then we hit the vintage stores in Oville, which are really high class. I got this totally skanking checkered hoodie at Salvation Army, and a couple of dresses at As We Grow- I want to go back there and find something for Lena's birthday. We went to go see the 40 year old Virgin together to end off our day, and it's pretty funny. Somewhere in between all of this I saw Mr. Reist and Karl's mom. When I got home I made some jewellery, and now all of my beads are gone, and that blows. It gave me the idea of making jewellery to sell at fall fairs- though not this year. And or to make a really nice piece for my portfolio, but I gotta check with Vitti on that.

I went to bed at 4, and throughly enjoyed waking up at 12. I got up and started to make a pastel drawing of the sunflowers that I bought mom. That occupied my whole day, with a break in between for dinner and going to Alliston to give my sister moral support while she got the coolest industrial I've ever seen. It's not a super drawing, but it's nice enough, and good to have another portfolio option. Hopefully I will get some more time to work on stuff for my portfolio, and wear in my new pastels. And then on my week off, I'll go see Vitti and ask her what I should submit.

All and all it was a good weekend for art students. And now, goodnight.

So I'm sitting here, listening to Malta's Mix6- which has a mid to low level nostalgia value- and I'm feeling in quite a better mood than last night, even though my mom's definitely not taking the hint that I want her to stop asking me questions and leave so I can write.

I must say, I had a really good weekend. I guess it helps that not only did I take a long weekend, but an extra long weekend. And the fact that I don't have to go back to school tomorrow definitely improves that weekend. I do have to go back to work, but the fact that I only have 14 more working days is awesome. I can't wait to have that week off in September, I really need it in spite of long weekends and vacations. Hopefully there will even be a party that weekend.

On Thursday night I got dropped off at Paula. And while my dad chatted with Paula's parents, we managed to walk to Tom's house, realize he wasn't home, play in the park while young parents laughed at us, and eat dinner. We watched Clockwork Orange and then tried to go to sleep so that we could enjoy wakefulness during our frosh adventure.

We made it to the York, Keele campus at 10- just in time to enjoy fun and educational activities that simulated school life. And so, after hanging around the Winter College quad for twenty minutes while the frosh bosses tried to organize everyone for the TTC orientation, we realized that neither wanting to participate in the orientation or the tour of the Eaton centre- we made our own way down to Queen. And missed the stop on the subway, and had to backtrack to our laughter. We actually didn't go to the Eaton centre, but ended up wandering a little further down Queen St. than we usually go- including to some interesting boutiques where we can't afford to shop at. I splurged on some cool tees at the blackmarket, including an Andy Warhol soupcan tee and a cop tee which I completed with some cop shades. We saw this attractive OCAD guy selling some cool digital art on the sidewalk, and Paula bought one. This was close to the bookstore where I laid my mitts on Naomi Klein's fences and windows for a nice price, which made me happy. We managed to find our way to the CN tower from Queen just by looking at the skyline, and met up with the huge group of froshers and their leaders. We went up the tower, which was beautiful- but had little entertainment value for the money. Then had some redbull in the lobby because we wanted to perk up for the rainbow tour of the gaybourhood. The tour of the gaybourhood started at Zelda's, which was fun. I embarrassed myself in front of the 20 theatre students our group consisted of when I came out of a bathroom and waved after Lena, a drag queen waitress, said bye to me and I waved. Little did I know that she was going around the table, guessing our sexuality. Andy, our guide, was very strict about keeping the tour informative instead of giving us the bar and sex shop tour- and everyone really enjoyed themselves. Right up until we arrived at Union station to catch the bus, and realized having missed it by one minute, we would have to wait a half hour for the next one to show up. Meanwhile, back at the school, a party was going on. We got there at about 2:30, and were kind of disappointed to find that there was not an insane amount of people dancing in the quad to grunge music- and that the mixmaster didn't know what grunge music was, and that a lot of the guys were gay. But having waited all day for this party, Paula and I were pretty determined not to let that prevent us from having a great time dancing like idiots. Which was fun. Plus there was this really cute emo guy, who we went over to talk to once the crowd of girls around him left. We called him Ryerson as he was a kid in the architecture program at Ryerson, plus we couldn't remember his name. He was here for the party, but picked a bad night.

Paula's mom picked us up at 4:30, and we dove into bed as soon as we got home. Not that we slept for more than five hours. Then we drove to my house and just chilled before going to Laura's. Laura's was fun. There were some people there I hadn't seen in a while. There was fun dance music and fun people to dance with, in spite of the fact that guys are always too cool to dance. Laura's mom made us daquiris, very loaded ones- which was weird and cool all at the same time. Tom and Kevin showed up, and Tom invited me to come stay at his house for the night. I took him up on it because I knew it would be the last time I'd see him in ten months, which is depressing because even though I've hardly seen him all year- the few times I have it's been like old times. There was spraypaint, degenerates at MacDonalds, guys at Jay's house, trying to blow the reefer and not getting high, empire records, a morning car ride and nostalgic music. It was nice. I showed up at Laura's house before she woke up, and it appeared that she wasn't pissed at me- which was cool, because I totally didn't want to hurt her, but she would've definitely had reason to be pissed at me. I did get a talk from her mom about letting people know where you're going, which had a lot of good points to remember. But I did not get busted, which is good because getting punished for spontaneity blows. I spent some time talking, ate some hotdogs for breakfast, and got picked up.

The only thing I wanted to do when I got home was bathe and sleep because I was so sick from TO. And when I woke up my sister was on the phone with Stuart, who was offering to take me to see Pearl Jam because he owes me a concert. I was definitely tempted, until I remembered the feeling of seeing Steve at Jay's. Man, I am hateful ex, but in these cases it's deserved. It still made me kind of mad though, because I was enjoying the 11 months I hadn't heard from him. It made me wonder why the hell he was calling me now to invite me somewhere. But fuck it, I don't really care. I was inspired to write a poem by Tom, although it's about growing up and not Tom. It never ceases to amaze me how he has the power to randomly inspire me to make art. I need to find someone who can do that now that there's no chance of seeing him around. Writing that poem made me very sad, and I called Paula and ended up crying over the phone to her. But I think that the tears give it validity, like I actually put pieces of me into this poem- unlike a lot of my other stuff, this is a snapshot of where I am right now. (Oh, if Curtis could see me now).

Today I didn't really do anything, but I don't remember doing nothing. My mom and I drove my sister to Orangeville, and then picked her up. We waited around an hour for her because she lied and went to a movie instead of coming back at eight when she was supposed to. I napped somewhere in between. I didn't make art like I hoped I would, but such is life. It was an ok day all in all. No being screamed at by mom because I was in too shitty a mood to watch tv with them. And that is always good. Whereas being a drama queen isn't.

I've had a very interesting weekend, and especially in light of the fact that I haven't updated in a very long time- I should go through the play-by-play. However, this poem better describes how I'm feeling right now.
It feels like the best parts of the old and new mes are rising to the top and leaving the shit behind. It's been so long since I've written anything, and it feels so good and bad to be writing and reflecting again. But life is all about juxtaposition. And so is this poem.

Grasp.Release.

I am capturing this moment
two people driving down a country road
and in this moment
as we listen to the soundtrack of our youth
there are no consequences
the pricetag placed on the apparitions of the divine in the everyday
has yet to be written on.

we listen to the soundtrack of our youth
adding this moment to a recollection, the way a jeweller places another pearl on a string
(everything is divine, but only glimpses of the ordinary make it so)
it is time now to string up our pearls
because the morning star is ascending back into heaven
and the soundtrack of our youth is fading, changing movements

the music is changing while our lives are carrying out mathematic functions
subtracting the familiar, adding the pangs starting over again
we, two adults, become children again as we enter the unknown
the way we entered the bush that day
back when we could imagine, that the long grass behind the garden shed hid lions and gazelles
we were not afraid then, of the vulnerability in adventure

we didn’t know then that everything must be broken
the way that we don’t yet know that that’s how lives piece together
and as the two of us stand in that junction
knowing that our paths can only run parallel for so long
I realize that in order to take pieces of you with me,
I must lose pieces of myself

I string them onto necklaces like pearls,
and wear the ornamentation of the everyday in the divine
the way you wear that charm your nonna gave you to ward off the evil eye
it is the time now to string up the pieces that we give each other
(time to acknowledge that you cannot live without dying simultaneously)
so that we can enter the new world whole,
holy images of divine we encounter in the places and people that we’ve travelled

So far my vacation from work has been... interesting. I can tell you about it, but there's not promise that that alarm that's supposed to go off when someone spouts too much bullshit and/or melodramatics will go off when it's supposed to.

On Thursday I went to Paula's, which is not technically on vacation, but it was fun nonetheless. We watched movies and made fun of Steve, and went for a walk trying to find our crazy friends who ran away. All was good in tascha land.

Then on Saturday we decided to drive down to Windsor. And we weren't even out of the driveway before we'd had our first fight. The trip ended with neither one of my parents talking to each other. But then, as soon as we got home they were fine again. Which is great, except I wish people around hear would either go through with their threats or shut the hell up. Because I have to live with everyone's bullshit.

After the Windsor excursion, my parents decided to go on private vacation to an undisclosed location- Barrie as it turns out. And they left us alone with the instructions that no one was to come over. Which was my fault because I was egging them on about who could and couldn't come over. So, being the dumb teenager that I am, and since I had such a little track record of doing stupid shit, I decided I ought to use the three day vacation to my advantage. At the end of much phonecalling, Erica, Sandra, and Marc were able to come over. Sandra brought a lot of beverages- most of which we didn't drink. And Erica, Marc and I played a long game of Monopoly. We woke up late, made bacon and eggs, cleaned up the house frantically because my mom called and said something about a surprise visit- which never happened- and then cooked quite the gourmet dinner. Then, when more thoroughly cleaning up today, my sister tells me to ditch the pizza boxes because mom and dad will bust me. I don't. I get busted. Which means no Sloan, but it was surprisingly cool on both sides and I took what I got because I deserved it. And it could have been no fun until Katimavik.

As for Katimavik, I leave for New Wesminster BC, a suburb in the greater Vancouver Area, on Oct 5. Then it's Edson AB until April, then Sherbrooke QC. I am more psyched than you can believe, though partially for the wrong reasons. I can't even imagine what type of drama is going to go on here while I'm gone. I guess the moral of the story is that no matter how much you change, and how much you try and imagine things away- some things just never change.

I
it was an August afternoon when Wednesday sat with me
she was putting the break in summer
I was putting together a puzzle
with an infinite number of pieces
one for every hateful word that been spoken
but everytime I thought I had the picture formed
a peel of laughter like new beginnings would show up
and I would have to start again

II
Wednesday loved puzzles
how she could sit there assembling the little light and dark pieces
but how she would never know what the final picture would look like
until it all pieced together
it was her delight to see
whether yellow pieces in her hands would become yellow sunflowers
or the yellow bulldozers we use to pave over the people that we love

III
her weeks were long
because for her, everyday was Wednesday
never escalating or declining,
an eternity of tears
she coped by living in denial,
giving away pieces of her own puzzle,
the sacrifices that we make
to keep the most important piece
the naïve hope for a better tomorrow

This weekend was definitely jam-packed. But I guess that's subjective, especially after seeing the frantic lifestyle of the Richmond hill kids I know.

On Friday my dad came over to my desk to tell me my sister wanted to go to a punk show- which was very exciting because I hadn't been to a good show in a couple of months. And that was a really good show. So I shouldn't have thought it would be as cool as Cole's show. I came home and changed out of my work clothing into something a little more exciting. And then took that off because I was wearing too much black and felt like un poseur- and then I realized that I kinda am a poser, but I think I can live with that. Anyways, I got to the show and noticed an abnormal amount of kids loitering about outside. Two of these kids, and the only two I really recognized, were Chris Tolone, and Pilon. And so as my sister went off with those people to do what those people like to do- while to my distaste, I could find absolutely none of the straight edge kids. No Jenny T. No Cole. No clique that hangs with Cole. And I had no idea what bands were even playing. It was terrible. So feeling completely out of place and even more like a poser in a strange outfit, I left Sarah and went to go see if Jordan was home. And she was, and she was happy to see me and it put me in a very good mood. We talked about schools and what we're going to do in the fall, and it made me very excited for university. It seems like even a bigger adventure than Katimavik.

I woke up at a pleasantly late hour on Saturday with the promise that if I did chores the ladies in the family would go to the beach. Except it was late in the afternoon and I still wasn't done my chores. So knowing that I wasn't going to accomplish any cleaning or any painting for the portfolio if I went, I tried to not go. And then I felt bad because my mom and sister never get to go out during the week, so I decided to go- otherwise my sister wasn't going, which meant mom wasn't going. The whole family went and we went to the strip this time- AKA the part where all the teens and 20somethings go to show off their bodies AKA the Wasaga most people know. As we were pulling into the strip, I saw Sandra and hollered at her- which resulted in her jumping into our car. I went to go say hi to her family and aunts, and they thought it was cool because I'm the other girl going to Katimavik. After it started getting cooler and we'd stopped swimming, Mom took me to check out some swimsuits were on sale, but the kind I really wanted was 40 bucks and I didn't feel like shelling out that type of cash considering I already had a swimsuit. Walking down the strip as the magenta sun was setting on the glass surface of the lake, I saw Danielle who I used to work with at the Happy Dragon. It was really cool to see her because she was always really cool. And she invited me to come to the bar with her, but of course, I'm not legal. So I'm supposed to go get her number at Futureshop. It was really late by that time, too late to go and get Chinese Buffet as had been the plan, so I caved and got something at Taco Bell- reminding me of my aftergrad fast food adventure. And I talked to Michelle Bernardi in line.

Late Sunday morning, after the marathon of personal preparation that seems to take girls so long, we piled into the car and drove down to Toronto. We got on the subway and rode it down to Pape and Danforth for the tastes of the Danforth festival. It was pretty fun, lots of different foods to eat, and not just Greek. We got some cheap but delicious sushi and the tastiest calamari I've ever had along with souvlaki and spanokopita. I found a cool button in an all organic store that's anti-war. And then when we'd reached the end of the street festival, we hopped on the subway, rode it to Coxwell and Gerard and visited Little India. There were so many pretty fabrics and different clothes, but what I was in the market for were those shiny Indian slippers with all the sequins. And we found this store that had them in any colour imaginable. Two middle aged ladies who were also trying them and other flashy shoes on acted like sales ladies as we giggled and tried on every colour. Some girl guides from Wales came in and I struck up a conversation with them about how they liked the city, and aparently the UK is as green as the pictures. We saw the girl guides in every other store we went to. After we got exhausted of looking at richly beautiful textiles, we left and went back to the Danforth for round 2 of souvlaki etc. It was amazing fun, although it was more packed than the halls at Hall. Stuffed, we got into our car and drove to Richmond Hill to see our Armenian/Canadian friends, the ones who are related to Billy Bishop. I hadn't seen them since last Canada's Day when we saw the Hip together, and it was nice to see them. And Kineric makes wicked food. Then when the chewing fat was wearing thin we popped in Arrested Development and watched a couple episodes. We got home at 11:30, which ended the fun, yet not relaxing weekend.

But, in other news, I get to see Paula and everyone at her house on Thursday night. Which is awesome since I haven't seen Paula since Ana's party. I guess that's working, or life, or something.

And in case anyone was wondering, shark is really gross. Eating something that would normally eat you is just asking for it.

This long weekend was somewhat less productive than it was supposed to be. Especially considering I have more portfolio ideas than I have canvas. Tragically, no painting got done. None of the clothing alterations I had to do got done. Not even the room cleaning got done.

Then, on the bright side, I did achieve socializing. Which is good, because since I started doing this full time thing, time itself has been jeopardized. Though, there's a fairly good chance that I'm overreacting. Kind of like how I overreacted with the Jon thing- because the two days after I was freaking out over potential overly-friendliness, he didn't talk to me. At all. Which caused more freaking out- leading me to the conclusion that it's just not worth it to freak out.

On Friday night I ended up going to a co-worker get together. It consisted of five fifty year old men bitching about work after we all decided not to talk about work. Then again, I didn't do too much talking since I was the only girl there besides Ram's girlfriend, and I was really only invited as a part of a package deal. Oh well. I enjoyed listening to Aldo, the Peruvian who works the order deask, rant. And we left at the time that felt right- though we got home at 10, which was a little late for me.

On Saturday my Mom and Sarah decided to go over to Monica's, but I wanted to finish chores so I chose not to go. But on the bright side Laura came over to keep me company this weekend. It was like old times, sort of. Then on Sunday Aney came to join us, and we watched movies and I kicked their asses in fun hat Monopoly. Alex called us to go out with her, but as I had not finished cleaning my room in spite of an all day cleaning session, I was not allowed out to play. Which meant not spending money, so all-in-all that worked out well. Then today she came over and we all went to the beach. My aunt didn't end up coming through, but I guess that's not surprising. Alex and Laura spent the whole day stalking some Asian boys and exchange reminscing, but I got to spend some time hanging out with Sarah- and had fun. Then we came home, cooked a late dinner, and here I am.

Tomorrow means one month of summer is done, and two more months of working til Katimavik. I got a call from Alex Crombez, who handles my Katimavik business, but he didn't tell me anything I don't know. And instead of finding out where I'm going in mid-August, it's the end of August. So although summer is going by faster than I imagined, I wish it would go by faster- and yet I wish I had more time to do things. Like call NSAP crew for camping.

Oh well, if you'll allow me the pun, life's a beach and then you die.