day two

can you see it? can you see it?
personally, I love it.

I love those days when I can't tell my hands apart.

(Truly, I do.)


I also feel...maybe ambivalent about my vein drain today.
They had to stop the draining after about three minutes (they had filled the little bag and only STARTED the big one) when the nurse said that my blood was too slow.
Then she said I had started bruising so they stopped. They didn't really tell me what was going on so I decided to be patient. I kinda like the unkowns of the human body. I love things that aren't easy or whatever because I marvel at the human body's ability to heal itself and compensate and all that.
I like that there was a glitch, that there was something wrong with the visit. BUT, I didn't like that I couldn't donate my max amount. (Hence, ambivalence.)

It's a very weird sensation, that sharp pricking on the inside of your arm. I only get that on some visits, usually when the pressurized arm band is too tight and when they need to readjust the needle after it's already in. [I've been denied the last two times I tried to donate. I forgot how painful the insertion of a needle is. Not that it's anything compared to being punched in the face or stubbing a toe but hey - its not painless.] I love it when they readjust the needle. There's no way you don't feel every second and every square nanometre of it. Mmmhmm.

"Did you know you can get money NOW to start saving for your child's education or training after high school?"

(that's what a canlearn.ca commercial just said! I love it! I love that they said, "education or training" because that's just so important! yes! That's the perfect compromise. Let's say everybody should finish high school and then those that wanna school can school and those that wanna do something else, can do something else! Not everybody's cut out for post-secondary ed! Let's stop the guilting! Ahh, je l'aime.)

what I wanted to write---

I have always loved how 1 is unique among ALL numbers in that its units are singular where every other number has plural units. Maybe that seems obvious. I always do a little step back and double take when I think about it. Above 1 I could understand: 2 ducks, 167 people. But you'd think that anything less than 1 would also be singular: Zero dollars...but also negative nine-point-eight metres per second. My favorites? The fractions between 1 and 0: zero-point-nine grams, even three quarters. ohhh baby. love it. 1 is so special.

1 and 1

things I hate:

#2 two-door cars.

something I like:

OMAR
Why you let that creep talk to you that way . . . All you gotta do is swing and keep swinging. F*** it if you lose. F*** it if you win. Makes no change either way. Just let him know you's a man. I ain't the smartest guy in the world . . . but I do know that some people you can talk to, some people you gotta fight.

CUPCAKES
I took a swing at him.

OMAR
Not hard enough . . . Not at the right place. You should wait till Juan is here.

CUPCAKES
I don't wanna use Juan.

OMAR
Bulls***. If you're drowning, you use anything. You's a fine motherf***er, Cupcakes. like I said, I ain't the smartest guy in the place. But I get the feeling you like being a fine motherf***er. And maybe . . . (71)

Piñero, Miguel. Short Eyes. Toronto: Doubleday Canada Ltd., 1975.

14 active games and 3 inactive games

I don't ever remember feeling so grungy as I do right now.

What is it? is it the half cup of champagne that's just not sitting right? is it the chocolate left-over taste in my mouth? (old chocolate taste is ALWAYS grossenating to me.) is it that I need to go pee? is it that my hair feels like straw today? I think it's time to break out the Dove conditionizzle. (why have I waited so long?) is it dreading work on Friday? (YES) Is it feeling alone even when I've spent much of my time in the last fortnight with friends that I adore? is it self loathing? is it disappointment? is it the devil trying to tell me there's a loophole in God's character and His grace ACTually just ran out? (LIE)

what is it? I think my pants are too tight. also, this sweater needs to be washed. dude, I love it but I wear it all too often. I think I also feel I got short-changed from this evening's jumbly hang-out with two on-purpose friends and two whaaaa???? friends. (I like 'em all, don't get me wrong.) I liked that good conversation at the end, too. I liked it. I could feel myself listening. I think that being strangely tired (I shouldn't be!) was helpful. Somehow it made me focus more single-mindedly. I am ashamed that this is what it takes. (Can I not be so good a listener all the time?)

I've been romanced by the United Kingdom yet again.

Yes, I definitely need to pee. And I'm definitely going to take a shower tonight..knowing I'll take one in the morning. Morning showers are for function (cleanies and WAKE!!ies) but night showers are for comfort. it feels good to go to sleep with your skin all soft from warm water, your hair all natural and Idon'tgiveacareI'lljuststreamacrossthispillowifIfeellikeit. I also like smelling good. I love showering and not having anywhere to go. (Weird. I never thought I'd say that.) Ohhhh kay now I'm looking forward to it. I'm also very excited about the two notebooks I found at Chapters today.

What's that? They're made in Canada and Spain respectively? What? One had a "30% off" sticker on it? What? It has a curly (what's the proper term?) spine so it will lay open and fold over as I tell it to? Yep. That's what I need from a Jesus journal. They gotta meet all my needs AND anal-retentive idiosynrasies. (I have a few.) I figure - I figured this out maybe a year ago - that it's worth...yep it was last August, I remember it now... it's worth paying more money for a journal I delight to write in when it only takes one or six little things to irk me enough to say I'm not having quiet time today. I never say that outright, I either sub sub sub-consciously think it or I just waste or "run out of" time until the sun sets and my eyes close so there's nothing I can do about it. [Insert "innocent" shrug and wide eyes]
The other journal is pretty sweet... green lines, crazy colorful and ecofriendly cover that's just small enough to do the job I want. I wasn't sure if I was going to write This journal but, seeing the book, I'm now sure of it. I've already started. I love writing. I love that I love to write. I love that I CAN write.


You know, my sister used to have this book, black hard cover and blank white pages inside, about six by eleven inches and in it she would write (or draw) ANYthing. I mean, a schedule, appointments, ideas, poems, prose, homework (this is in uni), sketches for doodle, sketches on purpose, lists.... man so many things. So many everythings that anyone would write down. I look at it and my brain registers equal parts envy and frustration. Envy that every thing goes in one book. You don't need four, you don't need a notepad, a calendrier, etc. etc. You could find everything in there at one time. BUT, frustration because you CAN'T find anything there at the needed time. I mean, there's no form or structure, there's no table of contents or page numbers so how do you know where anything is? Fortunately, I think visual memory (and having less than 200 pages) would help you out enough that you could never get TOO lost but let's be serious here! What if I want to KEEP some things long term and THROW OUT some things the next day? Couldn't do it, couldn't do it, couldn't do it. So, vicariously, I love it ...cuz she can do it. Love it.

In light of this, I'm excited for the small, task-specific journal because I haven't given myself a form. I think it'd kill the spirit of the exercise so I'm excited to be allowed to write freely. I'm going to write freely and..... and yeah, it will be good.

I decided that an aspect of my thinking style is reflected in the sports I like to watch (not to play). Hockey and baseball are a DEFINITE YES while American football must be a DEFINITE NO. Baseball makes sense to me because it's very ordered and predictable. (When I say "predictable" I don't mean to imply "boring" because I know that WITHIN a play - or, on any given pitch - almost anything can happen and yes, baseball is exciting. But it's predictable certainly in the sense that it's ordered and play is stop-and-go and positions are VERY specialized.) Hockey, on the other hand, makes sense because it's completely random. (When I say "random" I don't mean that the sport is aimless or impossible to follow. There are many rules to the game and it is intense and complex - in some way - but at the end of the day, it LOOKS like skating in circles with sporadic flurries of activity here and there...which often result in more circle skating.)
American football now, THAT just makes me crazy because it's a SET of stop-and-go flurries of random. It's the rudest hybrid of the two situations I have mentioned above that I have ever come across. I don't much like the sport. When I got a brief glimpse a few months ago into some of the inner workings of it, I had a BIT more respect/interest for it but I haven't seen it through. I also appreciate it for how many die-hard proponents it has. Nonetheless, it looks like ordered randomness and THAT doesn't make sense. It's a mathematical discomfort for me.
Basketball is a lot like hockey but has a different appeal (another story) to it.
Football.....(European) football just pisses me off. ahhhh yep. I don't get it. I doesn't even fit into my categories. Though I did spend many of my formative years under the impression that I was in love with this sport and would excel at it. hmm I feel a shower comin' on.

"Would you like to be a man?"
"No. Even though I feel women get the short end of the stick most of the times--"
"Are you saying that God didn't create us to be equals? Are you saying that His creation is flawed?"
"No. I wasn't making a truth claim. I was saying that that's how I feel. I have hardly made up my mind on the subject yet."
"But what you 'feel' reflects how you see the world, doesn't it?"
"No, my feelings reflect how I SEE things, not necessarily how they are. I generally try not to trust my feelings until they're founded on something verifiable or concrete."
(Silent)
"It's like a priest - he gives the appearance of being a man of God when really, he's a man of Satan."
"WHAT?! How? What are you saying?"
"I don't mean all priests, I mean for those who molest children, young boys. Molesting kids is pretty much about as satanic as it gets."
"That doesn't make him a tool of Satan, though. It's bad, yes, but you don't have to go that far."
"We humas love to think that something exists between the extremes of good and evil. We like to think it's a spectrum and, as long as we are > 0, we're good. Hence the development of purgatory. (A minus-three can be cured with anything better than a plus-four, I guarantee. I'm not sure about subtracting a negative, though. That concept, perhaps, doesn't translate into the abstract world of valuing human works.) 'If you're not with us, you're against us,' has never been more true than when 'us' refers to God. There is no third choice, this is not a false dichotomy. If you're not a proponent of God, you're a proponent of Satan. [Pause] I'd like to say that this Earth is about a battle between the two, between God and Satan but that's just giving Satan too much credit. More than that, it's like saying Satan was self-created or maybe that he's equal to God, in terms of function. I suppose a better description would be, you're either with God or you're with Not God. Ahh, how painfully extreme and rigid."

oh, man.

the lyrics of this song are as tru for me today (particularly in this moment) as they were the first summer I delved into this CD which was the summer after "moving" out of my mother's house. oh boo.
but WOW do I love the song.
This song plays perfectly into the hand of all the things in me that try their best to disagree what I know is true about God on my good days.

I’m tired of being me,
And I don’t like what I see,
I’m not who I appear to be
So I start off every day,
Down on my knees I will pray,
For a change in any way

But as the day goes by,
I live through another lie,
If it’s any wonder why
Am I ever gonna change
Will I always stay the same
If I say one thing,
Then I do the other
It’s the same old song,
That goes on forever

Am I ever gonna change
I’m the only one to blame
When I think I’m right,
I wind up wrong
It’s a futile fight,
Gone on too long

Please tell me if it’s true,
Am I too old to start anew,
Cause that’s what I want to do
But time and time again,
When I think I can,
I fall short in the end
So why do I even try,
Will it matter when I die,
Can anyone hear my cry?

Am I ever gonna change
Take it day by day
My will is weak
And my flesh too strong
This peace I seek
Till thy kingdom comes

Extreme. "Am I Ever Gonna Change?" III Sides to Every Story. A&M Records, 1992.

I'm wearing black and yet I feel nothing.

So much dread, so much anxiety....so much nothing.
What a weird Sunday. I'm disappointed beyond belief. I'm actually pretty angry.