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leaving toronto at 8:30 pm on monday. it’s funny. not two months ago i was in the inverse of this here boat, sort of confused and worried. my future was an abstraction, but isn’t it always. i think toronto was everything i expected of it, while i learned wasn’t what i wanted in life. i dunno what else to say. if there were anything here for me, i’d feel like i was giving up. that’s what leaving felt like. i guess i had the guts to admit that i’d given up, leaving this here big city life.

maybe it’s the sun in taurus. maybe it’s just turning 29 and certainly having criticism of my life. i know artists i consider weaker than i am more successful than me. i’m not married. all i really have is, well, a lot of the loftier goals i set for myself in my early twenties, questions i wanted to be able to answer, concepts i wanted to be able to grasp to any genuine lucidity, a creative practice that was capable and produced end results i like. in a lot of ways, i am beyond what i hoped i would be at 20. i’m not famous, despite having more readers for this here sketchbook to an actual writing practice, than many of the great ones ever had in their entire lives. i’m not rich, but i should have no trouble getting an alright paying job somewhere in my old company, something that doesn’t such my will to live or leave me drained at the end of the day, which is happy. i know my limits and my creature comforts after a long stretch of denying them.

tomorrow is my birthday. it seems like a strangely good omen, to turn a year over in a different city, to start the year off with the move to somewhere more relevant to my existential mandate.

tomorrow is my birthday.

on my 28th birthday i went a joggin along my favorite joggin trail. it runs along the eastern river edge by my parents’ house, unpaved and forest the whole way. at the end of the trail is a waterfall. you can easily climb the exposed roots that create steps up the hillside adjacent to the falls. then you are at the top of the lowest of the falls, which most people never see past. the falls run through the mountains from a giant lake north of where the GVRD ends, those strange never, never lands to people from the GVRD, the topography of the immediate area that lies once you get into the mountains. having lived at the very base of a portion of the costal mountain chain, it’s been a mystery to me my whole life. and up there, somewhere, past all stuff i’ve seen in those mountain climbs, there is a giant lake, one of three major bodies of water up that far - indian arm, which runs up past deep cove, the most remove annex of the sea; pitt lake, which i’ve probably been to on a trip to golden ears, and coquitlam lake, which includes and might be limited to the resevoir up there somewhere. i’m not quite sure. i haven’t been. i could take a little guided tour up into that area. it’s restricted. i haven’t though, it wouldn’t change the mountains and what lies immediately beyond still being such a mystery to me.

i once tried to use google maps to figure out the “next starbucks north of westwood” in a glib effort to learn geography and be funny. i came to prince george, though maybe one of those tiny river towns or such places is the reality.

hell’s gate canyon is the enterance to the metro vancouver climactic miracle, to the rain forest and the temperate weather and all that other beauty. if you go straight north from maybe pitt meadows or eastern poco, you hit disappointment lake. these are things i know about british columbian geography.

living somewhere, even for a brief time where you’re east of this and west of that and north of this and south of a blank is peculiar. it’s an abstraction of coastal or mountain living. vancouver being both of those things.

anyway. i went up the first falls, pretty standard for me. i love climbing things that aren’t totally hardcore, where you don’t need survival gear or a few hours or anything. quick steep hills. yes! then there are some more. the inclines are fairly steep and they are dirt, which, i suppose, for some would be “something”, but hills themselves, they’re maybe 100-500 meters a climb. you get your heart rate going but nothing too ridiculous. and i usually climb at least three, if i’m going up there. you find stuff, like, old fire pits and a couple empties in little clearings every so often. that kind of thing, but largely, just trees and clearings that aren’t man made. up three and you are pretty removed from even that. it’s just bush and inclines. the air’s a bit different, a bit colder, any time of year.

somewhere into the climb you hit a bit of a passage. the mountain base you have been climbing is merging into something else. you can see down the west of where you’ve been climbing to the river that turns into falls at ever drop, and see, way well below where you are, a water fall i’ve never gotten to. it’s above the one the journey starts (far too slippery to hike up the falls without gear) and to climb down the cliff face from this point seems, once again, dangerous. at that point, you are amidst cliffs for the next few hundred meters, you encounter them on both sides at different points, dark earth and folliage rather than the sand and stone we think to but, still, as far as angle and extent, cliffs a plenty and views everywhere to be seen. i rarely to never bring a camera and maybe doing this all visual justice is on the list for my next climbing.

but this isn’t plans, this was my last birthday. this is about as far as i get, this general area, if i’m really givin er. usually, in a standard hike, i go up the falls and then up one to two more hills (running) and there is this amazing area with moss and trees well spread that makes me feel very happy. then i go back and continue my trip through the trails and that’s that.

hardcore, i get up to where i can see the second falls.

but it was my birthday and i decided that since i’m prone to accepting it when i hit a superstition of a momentary decision that isn’t stupid, dangerous or otherwise likely to get in a bigger image of my way that i take it. vague? when i was a kid i used to make weird suicide pacts with myself based on chance procedure. kind of like “omg i will, like, totally kill myself if that happens” but literally. that’s superstition getting in the way. i never went through with it because that’d be crazy. when superstition says, you are hiking on your birthday, you must go farther than you have within the limits of safety because you can clearly see more to go before you turn back as a rule, you do it.

and as such, i did it. and it got pretty crazy. first i hit a big steep hill, damn near a cliff. i climbed the face of it, which was kind of intense in that the earth wasn’t that stable and there were no exposed root steps. basically, i was using my hands and feet and climbing things like branches and vines. seriously, cartoon hero living (i’m kind of a living cartoon character in a lot of ways).

then i got to some straight forward hill climbing. up, up and away until i was pretty fucking high. there’s some industrial noise, very faint, in a lot of the climbing. gravel pit up in the mountain to the north of where my parents live. i couldn’t hear a thing. my instinct has always been that if i were a bear/cougar/cayote or any of the other wild animals that have ended up in my parents’ neighborhood for the proximity to the wild mountains, anyway, if i were sleeping, as such animals often do in the day, i’d probably wander far enough that i couldn’t hear any human noise. it’s amongst my safety guidelines (truth be told, i don’t hike that far post hibernation season, as a rule, which was talked about a lot after this here hike i’m trying not to digress that far off, so i’ll return to it).

i hit this point, it was far, far away. i was in a clearing. it was broad daylight, a blue skied sunny day and it was cold and dark in there. the trees weren’t that tightly packed. it was certainly wooden but by BC standards, a forest is this lush, leafy space, exposed mulching trunks nearly orange from so much rain ware, ferns on the ground, salal, ever greens, the rest of it. this. i dunno. maybe it was poorly reforested. maybe that’s just what the woods look like that high up, where the snow and frost are frequent. it was very, very strange. creep, and strange. and down i made my way.

somehow, you tend to forget that the difference of a few hundred meters in teh mountains is the difference between a path and a cliff. given that i’d basically scaled a soft-core cliff to get where i was, i was pretty ambivalent about how i got back but assumed i’d slide half way down on my butt if i wasn’t careful and i’d accepted it. instead, i ended up in this muddy area full of pretty prickle bushes where i was climbing logs that had fallen on my hands and knees to avoid the quicksand effect i learned as a child, wandering through forests. i had to jump some areas. at one point i was bushwacking through stuff that felt like a video game about orienteering. it was fantastic!

when i got out of the terrain i was way south of where the falls are, on the usual path, the higher route along it, and i made my way home to shower and drive my old standard transmission honda to the mall cause i wanted to get something or another and some essential oil blend.

i can’t remember what happened next. there were a bunch of events around that weekend. some asher penn opening, some crappy show at the emergency room, i went out a lot but it wasn’t very memorable, any of it. i mean, yeah, writing the jewish spelling of rachel in swastikas is funny if you’re a rich, jewish art fag and can get away with it, as is most of ashers non photographic art. love the guy, he’s a great conversationalist, but other than liking the art at that show, i can’t remember a thing about any of the social activity i partook in.

27.

i dont’ remember much about my 27th birthday. i called in sick for work. i spent the day doing something or another. i went to pat’s for karaoke and hung out with timmy, kayla and (good lord) rob dayton in kayla’s apartment shooting the shit and watching the remake of Dune, which is kind of cheesy.

26.

um… holy shit. i think i took the day off from the vision quest. i was living in the 400 suites at bad manners. maybe i did some gymnastics.

25.

i think this birthday sucked. i can’t much remember. i remember _____ ditching me to fuck some guy who wasn’t even interested in her and being kind of disappointed in her for it. not much else. this was one of the worst times of my life. luckily, that was also about the point i stopped “partying”.

24.

i went and saw adult and viki with tavis and ai ito. i saw michael stipe. i didn’t talk to him.

23.

i hung out with joy. we got kind of drunk and rode the bus around and went and saw the gossip play at the pic.

22.

i went to work, which i avoid at all costs on my birthday. i’d taken the day before off and figured money was kind of nice given that i’d taken to spending it freely. joy and chris and some skid joy was friends with all went to the jupiter. they gave me a free shooter beyond the single drink i can consume with food and comfortably drive. i drove everyone home drunk, woke the guy i was seeing up at 2am and we made out all night. i stopped at 7-11 on the way home, bought a bunch of junk food i didn’t even like, ate it all and spent a while vomiting it up. i then slept for 36 straight hours for no particular reason and when i woke up i had began un unwind things like my life limiting “best” friend and my fondness for locking myself in the bathroom and working out my stress with high water puking.

21.

i went to the alibi room with bronwyn, devon and chris. i wanted to go see emperor tomato ketchup at the blinding light but by the time i got there and dealt with getting everyone together and stuff, we’d missed it. so we went to the alibi room, got a choice downstairs table, at some food and courtney cox was there. not being a friends fan, or really giving a flying fuck about courtney cox, all i really had to note was that she didn’t carry herself like the my limited understanding of the characters she plays. then i think we went to some bad dance club which is always fun when you’re pretty oblivious to anyone thinking anything of you and don’t drink.

20.

i rented nowhere, joy, chris and i got drunk of malibu and watched it. i gave them both suprisingly good haircuts for being drunk off malibu and pineapple juice. the next morning i drove to seattle and hung out with adam. i gave him a haircut also and saw the rapture’s last show as a seattle band, which was as terrible as you’d expect it, but rad, since, you know, i was 20 and loved that shit.

and tomorrow is my birthday. i’ll spend it in toronto. on toronto island i guess. given that i won’t be spending any further birthdays in toronto, i guess that’s worth it. it’s sort of neurotic, like, i need to find someone to lend me a bike which is weird. i guess meg, who i’ve met once, will or something. i dunno. biking suddenly means no camera and while i’d totally just walk it, i guess i “need a bike for this”.

i sort of feel like last year took it up a notch. having a stable life and stuff, well, equal to getting more done in creative terms, it’s upped the ante on what to expect out of my birthday. i guess spending it in a city away from vancouver is a first and i actually like the friends i have here so that’ll be fun. then, next morning, wake up, cab my stuff to missisauga, spend hours in the airport reading and beading and then BAM, the end of this.

i am wearing,

purpley grey dress. development by erica davis. it’s a cheaper expensive dress but was likely expensive before it ended up on a clearance rack, where i found it. it’s very low cut with a drape quality of hang to it and a skirt with a slit that is full enough that you can’t see that slit unless i’m sitting in certain positions.

sheer black pantyhose. i know. why do i even own sheer black pantyhose? in short, for a job where i only made $200 dollars. they were really cheap for multiples at the drug store and work well to look either dressy or kind of cheesy. the cheesy element really worked well being a waitress. i’m sort of a hum and haw with hosiery. it’s all good. i tend to think those “flesh tone” thing are really ugly. i’ve considered owning a pair, ironically, but i’m fairly pale and as such, well, i dunno, it’s just sort of terrible for your legs to be seven shades darker than your face. i did “tan” briefly, maybe seven years ago. it was sort of this thing, when i was in my early twenties, the ultimate rebellion against dyed black hair and winter sunscreen and other such things, to go to the tanning parlor. in the spirit of this, i also got blonde streaks. that was a long, long time ago and despite having redone the same thing around my 25th birthday, once again, in the spirit of being funny, i ixnayed the tanning parlor. somewhere along the line. i mean, i’m not gothic or anything, i’ve even been known to lie in the sun uncovered to get a tad bit of color in me. i just find iodine tans kind of ugly and the whole process kind of someone else’s taste. i also have a moisturizer with an spf, so who am i kidding. i’m not white white white, i’m actually fairly rosey, and try to have a healthy quality to me and all, but i certainly avoid too much sun on my face. that’s someone else’s taste.

black naturalizer shoes that i actually bought at naturalizer rather that at some thirft store like most people acquire naturalizer brand shoes. like all things naturalizer, they age well and are suprisingly comfortable for $100ish shoes. the toe on them is perfect. it’s a narrow rounded shape, it comes to a degree of a point slightly rounder than “seventies”. it’s somewhat dainty, despite my size nine feet. the vamp is fairly low and there’s an ankle strap and a very narrow wedge heel that is, somehow, not that annoying. probably because they aren’t at all clunky or funky (i am inclined to hate most wedge heels, even the newer/expensive ones). they’re black ultra suede. i’ve had them for a couple years. i basically have them as my default “heeled” shoe since the have a perfect shape, the raise is the right height for a raised heel in a shoe and they are within that ballet shape without being too round and shapeless in the front, making them easily neutral to anything i want a two inch heel in, without being implicated in high heels (i tend to think that heels, pumps in particular, are in fairly poor taste).

there’s a black slip under my dress that i can see since it’s really low cut and i’m slouching. the long, black short sleeved trenchcoat with the leatherette detailing i default to is still on since it’s just warm enough and comfy.

i’m wearing makeup, though i have to say i won’t be buying lancome mascara next refill as it just does not sit! i did my eyeshadow with purple tones (also lancome and unlike this mascarra, not shit), they’re very blended. perscriptives foundation, as per usual, i bought it in september or october and it’s may and i haven’t run out yet, not because i don’t use it a lot, i do, but because you just dont need that much foundation when it is color matched to your face. $55 + tax well spent, given how many bottles of the shit i go through, since i tend to use foundation a fair bit given that it’s a good barrier between the elements and the skin on my face. having tried no makeup, my skin really felt too naked and i’d get the elemental effects of this on my face. not my scene. much like i wasn’t raised to be a poor person, i wasn’t raised not to be at least a little vain.

my hair is flat ironed and just worn down. since i switched my conditioner to cheap ass dove shit (because i couldn’t afford anything better what with poverty) my hair became less a tangley mess. this being said, i still need a trim. i’ll probably continue millimeter microtrims with nail scissors until the end of summer, when i’m going to have to suck it up and take off a good inch. i’m not looking forward to that but if it’s breast covering and fall it won’t be as traumatic and that’s about how long it is… it was flat ironed because it’s been in messy braids for days and i had to go out and cooking and eating were more important that showering but i had to get to a party. yes.

i had a good meal. lentils and rice cooked together (complete vegan protein), temphe. almonds cooked in tamari and balsamic for a savory savory element, cauliflower, shitake mushrooms, green beans (on sale on spadina!) all cooked up and yummy delicious it was, which is such a good thing, given that i eat the leftovers tomorrow and make something similar with the produce in my fridge every day until i leave. breakfast food is still an abstraction. i need to locate some cheapish edible fruit. it’s still up in the air. tomorrow. but no today, where i woke up and had a cup of coffee with soy milk as breaky. that’s just not my thing. i ended up wasting a dollar of cookies when i got the chickpea pattie to get me home after a long day of walking to the bloody annex to sell books only to find out that the toronto used bookstore owners stink. the annex. it’s like everything in toronto, alright, i mean, yeah, but somehow, to me, just missing something.

anyway. my legs look hilarious in these fucking sheer pantyhose. they do the trick. i left my legwax in vancouver for some weird reason. they’re getting kinda hairy. i must say. i’ll be sitting back and wincing ever so slightly when i get back getting back to myself and not having these hippie fucking legs. i will not shave my legs. it’s gross. stubble is ugly and it’s a huge, constant effort. it also grows back fugly and it’s just better to endure it every month or two and wax your fucking legs. it’s also not contributing to razor blades in landfills, which is not really so great. sugar wax, biodegradable, reusable clothes. it’s, really, the ecological and aesthetic choice. i just trim my hairy fucking armpits, a concentration of sweatglands really aren’t something i want to go out of my way to flaunt and it keeps pit stains off your shirts.

anyway. just got back from a party. toronto seems very “about” the cheapish champaign in the places i’ve been hanging. like, sparkling white i’m talking. not baby duck, but sweet. i’m kind of into it. it’s sort of the happy medium since beer is gross and red wine is really kind of prone to getting all over things.

so i went to a party in a fabulous loft in parkdale, which is like actual east van since it’s not gentrified like where i live, which is slightly closer to downtown, maybe a kilometer or two away. it was fun. i didn’t really get that social but it’s nice to sit around, listen to good music, enjoy the fact that people in toronto are “money” so instead of BYOB and a backyard where you can bum smokes it was a loft with freepouring owner less bottles of martini and a cheese plate. i wasn’t that compelled. i didn’t really migrate socially. i kind of made friendly with anyone interested or willing but on the whole, it was introverted party me. didn’t get drunk, didn’t dance, didn’t do anything loud, didn’t much speak and when so, just kind of quietly said things and made conversation with people i knew before i got there. it’s really not my favorite social personality but whatever, i’m leaving in less than a week and there wasn’t anyone i wanted to make out with or anything so i wasn’ t that motivated.

it was fun though. i kind of liked the music and stuff. i’m sure there are a lot of parties at that approximate economic and soical level in areas like railtown or yaletown or something, like, good mix, maybe some velvet underground or something to keep the cred and maybe some en vogue because who doesn’t like it. people who have jobs. a lot of dyed hair. me, being unshaved in the armpit, wearing the least festive dress (it’s purple grey and drapey) and having that long, lanky, pinstraight natural brown hair (other than one person i had the longest hair in the place, it’s beginning to grown quite long so that makes sense but all the while, that’s still sort of weird to me), well, i felt like i was maybe not out of place but from a different city at least.

and as the clock struck one nigel had a car and i hitched a ride since i figured it was time i got some sleep. i have nothing much to say. tomorrow, check out my exciting saturday, the last day of my 28th year i must add,

-finish packing,

-call mom and get ticket arranged,

-work on beading,

-maybe read.

on job. i am suddenly less stressed and hating life.

fucking annoying fucking day. wander around looking to sell books for groceries. i guess most “buy and sell used book stores” are just so fucking pretentious that before even looking at what i have they don’t buy books. dicks. finally get totally lowballed on what i have but, whatever, i’m broke.

pretending i’m at absolute zero when i have $20 two days from my birthday is just not how i like to roll. anyway. i will continue to. sold some books for groceries. whatevs.

this is all somewhat annoying since the former inhabitant of my room offered to take it over and pay me back half a month’s rent and i had to say no because my roommates don’t seem to have any faith that when someone asks to move back, usually, they’ve reevaluated. but whatever. i’m moving mid month, no need to get indignant over my $200, even if it’s a massive pain in the ass, given that i found a tenant for my room within 12 hours of deciding to leave, and what not. i hate when you can accomplish something and other people’s head trips get in the way of that. but whatever. i did move out mid month.

what’s eating at me is that most sane people will not pay $400 plus utilities to live in a 10×10 foot room in a house where the common space is virtually uninhabitable due to the fact that the cats shed like crazy and no one cleans up the fucking cat hair. that basically leaves you trapped in your room unless you want to be breathing in that much animal dander (not healthy, at all) and covered in the stuff.

this kind of pisses me off, mostly because i had to help clean to show the space to tenants and i took the kitchen, which involved scraping the caked egg goo off the stove that nobody wipes and mopping and getting up on the counter and washing the blinds and window trimming that were caked with what looked like nicotine and scraping a sticky film off the shelves the oil and honey type condiments are kept and
bleaching the dishtray that takes up every square foot of counter space despite having a dishwasher and all this other stuff and nobody made a fucking effort with the bloody cat hair. cat hair is dirty. it’s actually filth to the extent that it is present in the house. given that the cat’s owner makes good money, that there isn’t a dust buster or something else to clean this up, well, i’m moving out so i don’t have to start acting like the household militant.

anyway. most people will not live in a 10×10 foot ex kitchen. the former tenant is probably one of the only people in this city who would because it’s difficult unless you can handle it. i’ve done it before and i hope never to do it again because having your personal space limited to, basically, your bed unless you are folding it up and sitting in the corner, which is its own brand of annoying. anyway, they’re no begging the landlord to let them put in modification work on the house to use the front room as a bedroom which, while a bit more realistic, has me stressed out that my roommates are in never never land and i’m not getting my fucking “last months rent” back. i had tons of weirdos staring into my personal space because they weren’t straight up in the add and mentioning that the great priced room is basically a storage closet. it’s “all good” but $400 on the line is a lot of money and when you might run the risk of getting, frankly, ripped off (when you find a tenant for a difficult to fill space, you get your $400 back and the parties involved can fucking well pay you for being unrealistic if they can’t find someone else), when i’ve already swallowed $200 as a courtesy here for moving at the 15th (when you find someone willing to take over your room and pay you half a month’s rent to live there and you can not because your roomates will not just suck up their own character flaws, admit that usually when someone stops smoking pot everyday, they become less annoying and so forth. BUT, i’m not complaining. i’m selling shit for groceries. i couldn’t get my stuff shipped today because the email cs says they’ll do residential pick up and the phone one says no and now i have to get my fucking mother to wire me cab fair to cab to fucking Mississauga with my stuff and can only hope that i have a ticket for monday and that there’s a shortcut to walk to the fucking airport from there since the airport, while 7km of road, is right beside the drop off depot.

i actually like my roomates. they’re fine. other than katie, who is rad, the other two, they’re nice, not really people i’d get to know on my own initiative, but people i’ve even enjoyed the company of. this being said, i’m, well, i’m just sort of fed up with toronto and while i know i have to spend my birthday here and that amil will be amazing and help make it alright and that i have decent groceries and the rest, frankly, i hope my mom can fluke into a monday ticket on the internet tonight. monday at an hour where i can cab to the depot and if i have to, spend four hours in the airport with phillip k dick and beading before having to check my beading as scissors and a dull sewing needle (you dont’ need a sharp needle for what i’m doing) aren’t really post 9/11 carry on bag (idiots! am i don’t to hijack the plane with a pair of scissors? if it’s that desperate why give out glass fucking mini wine bottles that are totally possible “weapons”).

i’ve applied via the regular application process at my old company. i’ve sent someone in HR an email about the matter. i have no phone number, which might be for the best. it’s really cold for no particular reason. i’m not exactly “stressed” right now, but i’m just sort of sick of not having regular contact with nature, a biweekly paycheck or enough money that lack of such doesn’t mean i have to cut luxuries like dark rye bread and goat cheese and stuff. i figure if eBay is stupid and won’t hire me back (that’d be bizarre, i slacked off a lot in my last department, but it was more keeping my brain active while i tried to make decisions and once i got the hang of it, my productivity went way up back to normal and that was the end of it outside the normal degree to which you slack off a bit in theory when your job is, wow, i have to sit here and until i make a decision on this very difficult case, of actual consequence, i can’t move onto anything else, you do take more brain breaks. anyway… on the whole, i tried pretty hard and as such, i imagine i can get hired back. if not, well, temp agencies, apply at all the libraries, etcetera. at least the west coast isn’t “within the recession” the way it is here and everyone isn’t all weird and for reals about that stuff. i hate living places where employment rates are dropping. that’s fucking depressing.

anyway. this is crap. i’m publishing it cause writing crap about me hating life seems good for my blog hits. maybe it’s easier to relate to. it’s something i try to avoid normally, feeling oppressed, frustrated and hating life this literally. at least htere’s a loft cocktail party in parkdale tonight!!!