loneliness breeds patience.

Sometimes I think odd things like “what if I went to a finishing school?” I mostly think that when I’m putting on red lipstick and it smudges. I doubt a finishing school could teach me these things but I wonder if people would like me more if I was finished off. There are lots of things in my life that aren’t finished, sort of open ended situations that hang; friends I haven’t said good bye to but have moved away, tragic loves I need to bury, people I no longer love the way I used to.

And it is ok. I don’t mind these things being frazzled at the ends and in my own way I feel it is better that way - easier to climb into the gap if you haven’t started shoveling dirt into it yet. Sometimes the dirt just shovels itself in and that is ok too.

I was reading something about content being the new happy. Maybe too many things are just ‘ok’ in my life but awhile back nothing was ‘ok’ and I feel better with things like they are now than what they were. I would do almost anything to not go back to before. Before was just really horrid and empty and after that even content can be seen as happiness. You need to make happiness. I’ve only recently really discovered this.

Sometimes I get really quiet and people wonder if I’m ok. I guess this happens when you always pretended that you being loud and you being ok are the same thing. If you lie to people through your body language and they can’t figure you out that isn’t their fault.

Then again, lots of things are nobody’s fault. I don’t believe in blame anymore.

ch-ch-ch-ch-CHANGES,

So, I haven't blogged in ages. But this is about to change and I am starting my own personal count down to the brand spanking revived blog! So, friends and foes, in exactly 25 days I plan on having this baby up and running again like a mad woman.

Say good luck to me and enjoy your spring/autumn until I return!

25!

adventures in photography v1.2

On 28 February I started a bit of a grand adventure. Only, it wasn’t all that grand and mostly I was depressed and wanted to find a medium to get myself out of my artistic slump. Part of me is still in that slump but lots of me wants to show you the photos which have been developed (nearly and month later). There are quite a few I like. There are also quite a few that, according to the negatives, have been developed completely wrong.

Obviously I will have those redone by somebody who is not Qphoto. The Q in Qphoto stands for “quick”. When developing photos you don’t need quick. Luckily my hands are too stiff to go on a long tangent. Aren’t you lucky tonight?

So, here they are: my brave mistakes and observations through the lens of a crappy disposable camera. Also, see how many film faults you can find.

Do note my love for low horizon lines. And fish.

bleach bath!

today i changed my hair.

i took out books on analogue photography and i only have five exposures left on my disposable at which point i will go find myself some black and white film and go a bit nuts.

i have a world call card so i can phone my wife for her birthday.

i have learned about anger and patience and that violence hurts like hell the next morning.

i have learned that cell phones are expensive and that i will have to use a keypad until monday.

i have learned that strength is not in whether or not you break down - everybody breaks down - but about how you pick yourself up. strength is in recovery.

and never, ever take your friends for granted - never. they are the greatest people ever. love them.

and you are going to have to wait a while to see what i did to my hair, lovers.

just became another statistic.

My phone was just stolen. I kid you not. About two hours ago my phone was casually lifted off a table I was dining at and now it is stolen. My beautiful smart phone was just taken. My phone. It was MINE. And it really was – that phone was built for me. From it’s awesome camera filters to its amazing touch screen, HD video and lovely grid to its screwed up operating system. It was mine and now it is gone.

I’ve lost photos and contacts and emails and notes and random crap. Music I have randomly collected. For those of you who keep telling me it is just a phone: imagine losing your camera, your iPod, your phone and that random note book you write random crap in all in a matter of seconds. Sucks, doesn’t it? Of course it fucking sucks.

I am angry. I don’t want to be told to calm down or that it is just a phone. Shut the fuck up! I do not care what you have to say. I am angry as fucking hell. I could beat the crap out of somebody right now. Dude, I even offered you a fucking reward which is more that you will have now as my lovely network can apparently fry my phone. So my phone is fried. This kills me so much. 16 gigs of memory just gone in the wink of an eye. I want to beat the crap out of something.

I really just want to beat the crap out of something and drink a shit load of vodka and run away.

Also, you could never pay me enough money to go to square against my free will ever a fucking again. Fuck. I need out. I feel dumb – like I lost my phone. Like this is all my fault. And it sort of is. I want to throw things and break glass and plates and people. I’m in a mean mood. And by mean I mean so pissed off I could rip off heads.

This is my laptop all over again – I know the person who has it won’t be looking at my personal information but they have access to my facebook, tumblr, twitter and this blog. They could spy on my personal life. They have all my friend’s numbers and all the personal messages I have sent people. Fuck. At least this time I haven’t lost a whole novel. Seriously, that would fucking suck again. #sarcasmfont

Right now? I just want a shit load of vodka and the person who has my phone to be raped in prison.

Told you I was in a bad mood. But fuck, wouldn’t you be too?

farm trippin' + pocho = random jokes about swimming pools

I am exhausted out of my mind – zombified. Got back from a #FARMTRIP today and it was truly epic. It is on weekend like these that I am reminded why I adore my friends and their ability to shrug off things without needing to understand every last detail. They might not accept everything but they are some of the best friends a person could have.

Essentially we spent most of the weekend in a mellow frame of mind. I am actually surprised at just how mellow I have become in my old age and my lack of need to be doing something constantly. We spent so much time chilling around in weird places and not such weird places. We managed to laugh off some of the bad things and the way things tended to constantly fall into the pool. We need to have a function to sew our pockets closed so that things can’t jump out of them and into the pool.

Things falling in the pool became quite an epic metaphor for losing things. Lotsa stuff fell into the pool and some things we threw into the pool at a great force. It takes all sorts of make a world and we fill up that CRAYCRAY/perfectly sane percentage of the world.

On the first night we tried to find “the bridge” so we could have sundowners but the bridge had managed to get itself thrown in the pool by recent storms but I got some cute pictures which will be uploaded to facebook soon. I also used the disposable camera and managed to only have twelve shots left. His project is finally taking off and soon I shall be able to start a photo wall. There are some strange and bizarre shots from roadtrippin’ to people admiring to pond of toxic waste.

Because I am too lazy tell the whole story of the weekend here is a rough list in no particular order of what we (mostly me) got up to:

I fell asleep outside while I was stargazing (I was not alone when I fell asleep. Thank you, friend, for leaving me as an offering for geese
the animals of the night) and falling asleep outside is great until you wake up at 5.44 and you are cold.

Lena and I won 30 seconds and managed to get all five right on one card. I would like to personally thank Alanis Morrisette for being Canadian. This, for some odd reason, made this five in a row victory possible. Thank you, Alanis, your nationality has been great to us.

I never used the bedding I brought but the poncho I packed was one of my best decisions ever. I only saw my pillow on three occasions and two of them were when I was packing it into and out of the car. I also never slept in the same bed more than once and weirdly enough I was in a very cuddly mood except when sleeping me kept pushing the blanket off the people I was sleeping with. I wasn’t even stealing it from her – just pushing it off of her. My subconscious is a douche canoe.

You can spend fifteen minutes listening to really bad music on a roadtrip because everybody thinks that somebody must be enjoying it and nobody wants to be rude. Never just accept the music you are being forced to listen to. Be rude and change it. Please.

We had many discussions but for some weird reason all the discussions I have been privy to lately have ended up being the epic battle of MAC VS. PC. Everybody has different things to say but after having the same conversation a million times over all I have is the word “encrypted” stuck in my head.

We named a duck. He is the most epic duck ever. A true hermit.

We yelled at many farm animals (when we weren’t naming them) Goats are what you yell at in the morning after you have managed to kill the electricity with a bath and had too much red wine. Also, sleeping next to somebody syncs your brain with theirs and you manage to yell, “shut up, you stupid, *much swearing here* goats!” at the exact same second. People become awesome when they spend more time with me.

Oh, yes, we killed all the power in the house with a bath. We haz skillz.

I experienced my first indoor downpour and lost my towel in the process. I believe I would have enjoyed the situation more if I had been in my poncho and I had not been trying to light candles so that we could see shit in the now very dark house. I am very good at making instant candle holders as well. Skillz, y’all, skillz.

We chased a gecko around a deck (and possibly scared the poor thing to death) in order to photograph his weird tail. The one photo I managed to take where you can see what the hell is really going on the tail is cropped out. I’m smart like that.

“WE LIKE TO MOVE IT, MOVE IT” is not something you want to wake up to.

Somebody ashed into my Snapple bottle lid and after I expressed my disgust at this a second person did it. Then it fell in the pool. This is sort of a metaphorical chain of events that describe the whole weekend. As soon as more things come to mind I will update this but until then I leave you with a photo of me dancing on a table.

just tell 'em

Like many humans I love being told that I am beautiful – I like being told it almost as much as I like being told that somebody loves me. It might be vain but there is nothing nicer to hear than somebody saying “You are beautiful.” And if it is sincere it has the most uplifting effect on me – like an honest hug on a bad day or a compliment out of the blue. Maybe I just like being complimented in general but whenever somebody is that sincere it always lifts up my day. Today, for the first time in a while I felt truly beautiful.

It was just an ordinary day, a bit overcast in the morning which was lovely, but on this ordinary day I was ill and had managed to catch the virus that was making its rounds around our household. I made myself breakfast and got back into bed and drifted off to sleep. I stayed in a catatonic state for most of the day until I got up, showered and did some household things, went on a lovely walk with my neighbor and came home to get ready to go to a school play, presented by my old house from high school during their annual play festival, which was showing that evening.

The play was fantastic and I adored it. It was original and had loads of awesome creativity flowing in it but the high light of my evening was seeing my cast from last year – two of them now the directors or in my mind HBICs – put a play that was captivating and hilarious. Partly I would like to think that I had helped to mentor them to this stage but that would be unfair on them. They did an amazing job and I loved being able to go up to people who I had worked with last year and congratulate them for doing so amazingly. I know that the HBICs most likely took to the water of directing like graceful swans and not like the awkward duck that I had been. I love giving compliments just as much as I love getting them – it is so lovely to see the smile on somebody’s face when you tell them you adore what they have done.

On my way home I popped in at my mom, who was working an evening shift in the hostel, and said hello to her. After I left, as she told me later that evening, the girl who had been in the staff study at that time had sighed and told my mother that I was “so beautiful”. I don’t think she knows how much I needed that but she is a lovely, beautiful person herself. I hope she knows that and that people tell her that.

When I got home, after popping in at my mom’s evening shift in the hostel, I made myself some tea that smells like jasmine and headed out to watch the moon rise. Sitting there, on the grass with my cats, while clutching my tea I can honestly say that I felt beautiful – and not physically beautiful but wholly beautiful. I felt this warm glow inside of me that I can’t really explain but it comforts me and lets me know that the Universe loves me as I am sitting on the grass, watching the moon rise. It was an inner peace I hadn’t felt in a long time and it was something I needed quite badly.

“A candle losses nothing by lighting another candle.” Somebody once told me that and it is true. So, go out and tell people they are beautiful and make them feel loved. Spread compliments like wild fire and make somebody’s day special because no matter who they are: they need it and need to know that the Universe loves them the way they are. Embrace what that teller told me once and just freaken tell people you love them.