A gloomy day to paint pretty pictures.

The sun was shining so I hauled my mom's tripod, all my paint, brushes, armful of canvas, and folding chair down to Lake Ontario. By the time I reached my painting spot the sky had clouded over and all you could see was the skanky skyline that was hazy from Toronto's pollution-spew. But, being the optimist that I am, I gave the sky the metaphorical finger and painted the dull landscape for a couple hours anyway.


I even used water from the lake to wash my brushes and keep my paint wet. Does that increase the value of the painting? Heh. This took two hours. It obviously isn't done, but I was cold and tired so I left before I finished. Right when I started an old couple came by and the lady noted it was chilly to be painting out, I agreed and laughed. She said I must be a strong woman before they moved on. After that I felt like I could paint forever.

One hour was occupied by birdsong and lake sounds, the other was mostly the soundtrack of some drunk bottle-collector telling me his life story. I found both motivational but the latter left a sad taste in my mouth because when he discussed his life before where he came to be I was reminded of some close friends. He enjoyed traveling. He loved music history and worked in a music store that catered to people who took music beyond the interests of HMV... now he's collecting bottles and struggling with loans.

In other news: I sneezed into my hand this morning and found I threw an incredible amount of loogie into my palm; the most I've ever managed to sneeze up before. I also looked up storage facilities in Oakville for my stuff I want to keep here and there's only one, it's pricey. My good buddy Rory awesomely offered a corner in his basement. Thus I am a happy little bunny.

Spring tip #1

If it's a warm day, put a few frozen summer sweet peas in your mouth and sit on your lawn or a patch of warm pavement. Let them melt on your tongue and then eat them.

The Trafalgar campus of Sheridan is two strips of buildings separated by a stream. Today there were about eight big canvases out with several illustration students painting tag-tastic art on them. I'm assuming they were 3rd (and 4th?) year students, because Hieng (the 3rd year who helped me out with my portfolio) was among them. Tonight there'll be a Grafitti-themed illustration pub. If you bought a ticket, you get a free white t-shirt and a marker to draw or write on fellow pub-goers with. I'm not going because it's grocery day, but I loved watching them play with spray-paint and doodle on canvas today.

I'm so grateful to be here. My God... and I get to spend four more delicious years in this place. It seems too good to be true, but it would be better if you were here standing hip-to-hip with me.

Eat some frozen peas in the sun for me.

Illustration, ahoy!

I accepted my offer of admission to the Bachelor of Applied Arts for Illustration program this morning! Four years from now, I shall hopefully have made sufficient connexions in the field to build on a shiny new career (after [or while!] I do some brief soul-searching traveling, that is).

It's not just about the degree, it's about the people I meet and befriend. It's about the network of friends in the Toronto/New York area that'll give me an insight into the current artistic realm of modern society. It's about--

dude. My future is a stone's throw away. 'No more waiting; I'm here to seize the fuckin' day, world!

I believe in magic.

There's romance in every ounce of life. Even the darkest parts are romanticized with magic. You can see it, can't you? You can feel it, I know because of the distance in you when you look across the water. Wolf spiders dart over and through the streambed stones. The water is green, mauve, peach, and silver. It's anything but blue. It's a gray day but everyone's smiling. That's because they know about magic; the way spring brings warm smells reminiscent of fall. It's how you look when you loop a thumb through a belt loop in your jeans. It's how I feel the texture of your laughter in a memory.





It's the raw fact that I love you. I believe in magic because the oak tree looked straight through me and spoke through the bowels of his roots to say in a brittle tone, 'You belong.'

I asked for his lifelong hand in friendship.

I felt my soul stir when I saw the swollen maple buds on the trees. The book was right; they really did bloat like grapes at the tips of the branches! Rain slapped the streets while a mix tape from an old friend poured songs into my thirsty ears. My mind drank fully. Nostalgia crimped the edges of my lips into a quiet smile. I was heart-sore without being sad.

Today I caught the eye of a tree. It was shallow and blue. The iris was rimmed by hollow white that stood in stark contrast to the surrounding dark, sopping and wrinkled bark. Under its unblinking stare my soul fell wonderfully apart and scattered with the rain.

I couldn't believe how perfectly the caps wagged in the distance on the Great Lake before me. The blue clouds hung low and moisture pressed my breath upon the heaving sigh of the rolling waves. With the loving roar of dissident music in my ears I felt his presence hang over me like second hand smoke. I laughed at the sky and spun wide-armed below the poppy-red lighthouse to the throaty songs he gave unto me. The cassette filled me with our camaraderie. I knew more gladness under that gray sky than I could bear, so I laughed as hoarsely as the gulls called and wrapped my heart around each munificent smile I offered to passersby. I hope they felt an iota of what I knew today... in the rain, before the waves, under the eye of a noble oak...

My Oakvillian Brothers

I speculatively eyed the two wrapped sandwiches that sat in front of my two restless and hungry friends. "Eat." The word fell short and curt from me, appropriate like a whipping word from a mother's mouth.
"No." Mike said. Rory agreed,
"We're waiting for you; we're being polite."
"Yeah. We eat together. We're a family, Arwen."
I laughed kindly and smiled fully. Something about that moment filled me with incalculable joy. We laughed hard together that night. It'd been a while since my stomach hurt in such a happy way. The eve before the first day of spring I was drunk with a carefree love for life, which I nearly forgot exists steadfast in the seat of my heart.

Diary entry.

March 17/07

I still haven't heard from Sheridan about my portfolio. I look through it a few times a week and with every page I turn I feel a swell of longing so great I feel like it could consume me. I want nothing more than this. I need nothing but this. I don't need or want a boy to love or fuck. I don't need a steady income in a quiet, "comfortable" job. I don't want a car, a closet full of clothes or the sort of popularity that makes men desire me.

I just want acceptance from the largest, best art school in Canada. I don't want anything else. If that makes me greedy and selfish, so be it... I'm passionate about it right down to the seedy core of my heart.

I can't wait to meet her and praise her with him.

He deserves the best of 'em all. I hope someday he finds her, and by God... she had better love him. It'll feel so good to see him in love. It'll be even better if they share a happily ever after together.

He deserves the best. I can't wait to see it happen for him.

Springtime Love Affair

Let's eat grapes in the sun. They'll break in our mouths and spill over our tongues and teeth with sour sentiment. Let's carve our names like the rest of them do, on the bridges, in the snow, with plus signs and hearts. Even though we were just friends, our hips knocked together like lovers when we pressed our pelvises against the bridge to watch the water pour and roar in springtime fervor.

We forgot about yesterday and tomorrow as we rolled the juice of metaphorical grapes inside our salivating hearts.

The House of Scorpions

An exert from 'The House of Scorpions' by Nancy Farmer, the book I'm currently reading (extremely fascinating read). Matt is a human clone. Knowing that, read on.

A sudden thought struck Matt. "How old am I?" he asked, holding out his glass for a refill. Celia, ignoring a frown from Tam Lin, poured him lemonade instead of champagne. "I know I don't have a birthday like humans," Matt said, "but I was born. Or something like that."
"You were harvested," said Tam Lin. His speech was slurred. He had polished off a bottle by himself, and Matt realized he'd never seen the bodyguard drink alcohol before.
"I grew inside a cow. Did she give birth to me like a calf?" Matt saw nothing wrong with being born in a stable. Jesus had found it perfectly acceptable.
"You were harvested," repeated Tam Lin.
"He doesn't need the details," Celia said.
"And I say he does!" roared the man, slamming his fist on the picnic table. Both Celia and Matt flinched. "There's been enough damn secrecy about this place! There's been enough damn lies!"
"Please," Celia said urgently, placing her hand on Tam Lin's arm. "The cameras-"
"The cameras can go to blazes for all I care! Take a look, you lying, spying wretches! Here's what I think of you!" The man made an extremely rude hand gesture at the black-eyed Susan vines covering the wall. Matt had copied that gesture once and had been yelled at by Celia.
"Please. If you won't think of yourself, think of us." Celia had gone on her knees by the bodyguard's bench. She clasped her hands the way she did in prayer.
Tam Lin shook himself like a dog. "Ach! It's the drink talking!" He grabbed the remaining champagne bottle and hurled it against the wall. Matt heard the fragments shower over the black-eyed Susans. "I'll tell you this much, lad." He hauled Matt up by the front of his shirt. Celia watched with a pale, frightened face. "You were grown in that poor cow for nine months, and then you were cut out of her. You were harvested. She was sacrificed. That's the term they use when they kill a poor lab animal. Your stepmother was turned into ruddy T-bone steaks."

I'll paint you sixty-two times just to understand your enamel.

It tasted wonderful until the surprise if a lemon caught you off guard. Even so, it still tasted good... it stung a little, but that just made you bite harder.

Twenty tastes funny.

I've taken it upon myself to be the Guard of the Forest. I monitor the pathway's density and evaluate the stream by its current. The squirrels check in to give me their weekly toll on life; they tell me how they've been treated and about the happenstance that escapes my visibility. I discuss intimate matters with the trees to make sure they're in order. They sigh stories that are within their breadth of sight. They groan and whine from the stress of such surveillance. I feel the burden of their responsibility and clasp their branches, expressing through touch my innermost condolences.

The snow crackles under the sunlight, merrily winking as it releases pressure on fall's moist and fragrant pelage. Ice runs thick with residual water, slipping into the sienna-tinctured stream. The nostalgic colors of winter regale on the departing season as they begin their gradual demise.

Here, where the squirrels cheekily twist their ankles away from me, amongst the trees that loom in forlorn wisdom, and inside the last precious gasps of breath escaping winter's lips, I am still but observant... ever-protective of my precious abode and its occupants.

I gobble your soul by the gallon.

Your hair looks and tastes like hay; it's wild and warm like a barn with chipped paint. I feel responsible for the phone cord you left in the kitchen, but you held my words by your mouth. Nobody remembers because they didn't know. We're satisfied with our eyelids hooding our souls. It exaggerates our likewise optimistic and idealistic perception of the world.

You would never begrudge him, despite his aluminum grip on a synthetic belief system. That's why I will always love you and your flaxen, barn-like hair.

Betta

Free-flowing fins trail, elegant coattails of
Blue-red, glimmering in gravity;
Bubble-gems bead into strings overhead,
Garnets and sapphires lit by his scales.
He hangs, vain, watching the mirror through his glass.
Five feet away beyond his world
She gazes too, weighing her worth –
Frowns, kneads imaginary fat,
Considers the dimples in her thighs.

He hovers, seething.
Pectorals beat in ire;
His ruffled collar flares to life.
He eyes himself, his enemy,
Gills throbbing water,
And surges thrashing at the same.

Post-Portfolio Scribble.

I have no idea when I'll know about the portfolio... I've heard many estimates that vary in an extreme way from one another (ie.] 2-6 weeks). It feels ridiculous... especially since it's marked already and I effing live on campus. But patience is a virtue artists are built to endure, otherwise we wouldn't succeed. So I have to try and live it up as best I can. Besides... with the spectacular support of my amazing family, how can I not? Special thanks to my mother and brother. I can never say it enough: I love you guys a lot. I wouldn't be here today working this hard if it weren't for you two. You're the two fundamental pillars of my foundation. /end sappy digression

Between now and when I return to Saskatoon I'm going to visit New York. How cool is that?! At first it was just tentative because I wasn't sure where Irene was staying; but since she's living in an apartment she said I was welcome to stay there when I went down! I have a international student card, which means I'll save money on the via rail ticket (without the deduction it will cost around $80 for a student, which isn't bad to begin with). I can't believe it... it feels like I'm living in a fairy tale. Art central, much? I'll take my camera and sketchbook of course. I wish I could take you all with me!

This pisses me off:

There are no 'secrets' to a happy marriage. If you didn't know that going into it, you shouldn't be married.

Everything comes down to tomorrow.

I love the fact that I'm breaking my own heart with my dreams.

Lord help me. I'm actually really nervous about tomorrow... it feels like I'm going into the coliseum with a group of gladiators. It feels like I'm poised with an apple and a blind-folded asshole is going to shoot his arrow at me. I'm dizzy, this means so much to me. Let me have a firm grip on my sword and let the arrow slice confidently from someone's adept fingers to split my apple clean in two.

Let me be an illustrator. I'll change the world for you.

Hey

you know everything's going to be alright, right?
Sure.
Sure? 'Sure' is just a dismissal, it doesn't say anything at all.
Sorry.
No you're not.
I know... but the tortoise knows more than I do, so what do you expect?
I expect more from a pelican, you ass.
Hey! The burden of my carriage is more than you have to bare.
...I can't understand why our constellations differ from Susan's.
Susan's a cow.
That's offensive.
No, it's not. Susan eats grass and moans about milk all the time.
She's lactose intolerant! Lots of people are.
But we're not people, are we?
Who are you to say we're vegetarian!?
You're carnivorous, you douchebag.
Actually, I'm omnivorous. I scavenge more than I hunt.
Oh.
There you go with your dismissal remarks again.
It's not a dismissal, it's simply acknowledgment that lacks sentiment.
I'd hardly call 'oh' acknowledgment.
Oh, fuck you. I'll take my baggage elsewhere, thank you very much.
Go on; fly away you waddle-beaked freak.

We live in a song (I love him)

What I'm trying to Say, The StarsYou look so good in the clothes of a poser
And when you smiled, all the kids fell apart here
I know a place where it's warm and it's dry, dear
Let me take you there
North of the river all the streets are the same
We can pretend that they don't know our name
And the heat is turned all the way
So don't pretend that you don't feel the pull

I am trying to say what I want to say
Without having to say I love you

You look so good in the shoes of an outcast
I kissed your throat every time they said it wouldn't last
But then I knew you, I knew you, I knew you,
I really knew you
We fell apart in the parties of the empty heart
We danced the junkie in the shadows of bad modern art
We clicked our heels and we wished we were home
One more tab
And your silk hits the chrome

I am trying to say what I want to say
Without having to say I love you

Spring comes in when I'm rolling up another one
I draw the curtains in the glare of the same old sun
We are collapsed in the act of just being here
Three blues, two greens, and a beer.
We are collapsed in the act of just being here
Three blues, two greens, and a beer.

I am trying to say what I want to say
Without having to say I love you

I am trying to say what I want to say
Without having to say I love you

(But it's impossible to say without having to say...)