I'm putting out the lantern, find your own way back home.

Mistakes are meant to be made and learned from. I'm learning, it's just slow going.

To take another cue from them?

I'll even have the courtesy of admitting I was wrong, as the final words before I'm dead and gone.

I've said it before but it bears repeating, I hate the Stampede.

Apologies all around, but especially to you.

I'm so tired and sore right now. This takes me back to January where all I wanted was sweet, sweet death. All I want right now is antihistamine and decongestant. I think I'm going to be calling in sick to Chapters tonight, just based on the amount of death I feel like right now.

Wow. Thanks to Go Fug Yourself, I just learned that Mickey Rourke didn't always look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man after 9 rounds with Snap, Crackle, and Pop. He was kind of hot, in a sleazy, eighties, doing-coke-off-a-mirror-in-my-office-before-that-big-meeting-with-potential-investors kind of way. He should look like that now. Maybe then I wouldn't mind when people try to tell me to watch his movies.

Speaking of movies, I really want to see The Hangover now. Sean told me exactly how hilarious it is right now. I kind of respect his opinion sometimes. But he did cry over Marley and Me, so...

Sleep, please?

I almost forgot.

Things I'm Enjoying:

Go Fug Yourself

White Whine

Tonight I did a stream-of-consciousness about things that make me happy. I was kind of surprised at some of them. For example, I like being 23 and still printing. If I were to handwrite, it would look horrendous, I promise.

The big news of the day is my new diet plan. Coffee [black], cigarettes, and Diet Coke. When I'm all emaciated and look like a heroin addict, that'll be why.

Lelaina: I was really gonna be something by the age of 23.
Troy: Honey, the only thing you have to be by the age of 23 is yourself.
Lelaina: I don’t know who that is anymore.
Troy: I do. And we all love her. I love her. She breaks my heart again and again but I love her.

Genius needs to burn a little while longer, guys.

Chest Dent

Please keep the tape rollin', boys keep strumming those guitars.
We need a record of our failures, we must document our loves.

[Psst. And so it never started and it will never stop just like I am and you are.]

Travel and discontent go hand in hand. I dislike my city. I rescind some comments about Chicago being failcago. It's still got its weak points: Shitty drivers, wind, Ryan Luciani. But it's also got some strong points: History, CTA, nice bars.

I didn't care for the venue's neighborhood, or the venue all that much but it was the secondary concern, really. The weekend was full of TWSS and high-fives for our awesomeness. I solemnly swear I am never doing a non-red-eye to Toronto again. That flight drags.

Writing up the concert and whatnot later. It's time to mainline coffee right now.

My word! It's been forever since I blogged, eight whole days. I've been keeping myself very busy between ________ Night Girl's Club, Chapters, and work. In there, I've found time to book myself a flight to Vancouver, be awesome, and drink about 6 more shots of espresso a day than any person should consume.

C'est la vie. Tout va bien.

That was a few hours ago. I take it back. Tout ne va pas bien. I just got back from seeing the doctor and I'm getting tested for Strep and Mono. Je n'aime pas.

Anyway, now that I've wasted 3 hours at the doctor's office, I've got to catch up at work.

Mitchell, I'm sorry, I know I said I'd post my goals in here for 2009 and I haven't yet. I fail, I only just got them down onto paper and into my other blog. Some of them are really, really personal though and I don't really feel like having them everywhere, so I'll just fill you in on them. Here are some things that aren't goals, per se, but things I'd like to accomplish this year:

1. Buy a canvas and either silkscreen it or paint it to match the words I live and die by.

2. Visit Mitchell at least twice.

3. Stop self-medicating to treat my extreme social anxiety. 

4. Be more organized with my personal paperwork. File all papers by third day of following month. Where I can, go paperless.

5. In going along with number 3, find a shrink by June 30. 

6. Clean out my closet and either consign or donate the clothes I don't wear. "I might wear it" will no longer be accepted as an excuse.

7. Make my bed every day. 

8. Take more time to read. 

9. Get more sleep. The fact that I'm posting this after 11:30 on a week night says that I'm not doing so well on that. 

I had a bitchin' Christmas and New Year. New Year's Eve was all kinds of ridic that I won't even mention. I got a lot and gave a lot for Christmas. I'm very lucky to have my friends and family. I love my friends and family. I try to tell them that more. I had the flu for Christmas and woke up Saturday with what I found out on Monday was tonsillitis. Yeah. Awful lotta awesome in my body this holiday season. [That's what SHE said.]

Chapters is still awesome, I'm still awesome, and most importantly, you're still awesome. Because I'm still awesome, have some pictures of me looking awesome with my Femmebot hair. [It's Mitchell's personal brand of heroin. We're lame, we know.]

My new coat. Note how unimpressed I look. That's not for any particular reason.

One of my Christmas presents. Also, I like my boobs in that picture. 

Melinda is tired after Boxing Day. She is tired but her hair could go for days. The winning hairspray appears to be the red bottle from Samy. 

i still don't know exactly who i am, i never will oh man.

Well, blogger. You don't lmoe it but I've been blogging on you all day.

i schooled allison on how to drink like a woman, aka drinking a cooler in 3 seconds (read: 8 seconds)

i went to a house party where andrew was interested but i was not because HELLO! drew = the best times.

meghan is better times. caps wish they were involved in my drunkest post ever. 

theyre not. nor is punctuation. 

stupid davis. trying to get back together  with chantal. dnw, man, dee en dub.

Whatever, I haven't gotten over my crush from grade 10, yall don't know me. yall don't know my life.

apparently ill do some punctuation and spelling but not all. don't judge me?

Chicken necks?

So. We flew in Tuesday and got completely messed up. We watched TAI and were disappointed in their performance. I'm sorry you're such an enormous cockface, William.

He looked about 3 days old.

We met the usual type of randoms and then came back to the apartment and tweaked for eight and a half years.

I might be drunk right now. Whatevs, it's evening somewhere in the world and I'm on <I>vacation<i>. Yeah, I tried drunk html.

Tonight is cobra, ftsk, and an afterparty at republic? Je ne sais pas. Time for a smoke and picking up more mix. Vahdka lemonade, please and thank you.

Remember, you're only as big as your imagination. So continue to box yourself in while I wander the plains of africa and hunt big game for sport.

Oh, one more thing: I might also be an asshole. SURPRISE!
Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry

Remember that time that I would only smoke marlboros?

Me either. This past night was a gong-show. I wish I could accurately represent what happened? But in order:

1. Renaldo, giving us some Mean Girls. Madge being straight-up 50s. 

2. Not getting enough drinks but being danced all up on right away.

3. Having two gays to rescue you instead of just one. 

4. Chugging coolers.

5. Hot wrist-bandana guy being too hot for real life.

6. Meeting a pornstar and not realizing he was a pornstar until Landon recognized from pornographic material he has studied.

7. Rosalie and Alex coming to an afterparty with us. 

8. Our own afterparty being better than anything else we could have done.

9. Almost getting killed by group of slightly homophobic people who don't take too kindly to being flipped off. No, actually.

10. Underwear party with painting, uninvited upstairs guests entering in the most unusual way ever, and a group bath.

11. Our paintings including peppercorns and bandages. 

12. The most awkward morning after this side of Mary finding out she was pregnant with Jesus.

13. Random gay men being perfectly awesome to dance with. 

14. Short gay men running rampant!

15. Go-Go Dancers! 

16. Someone totally fucking calling Piece of Me 8 seconds before it played. 

17. Alex passing out on the couch and us having to check to make sure he was alive and ensuring he was in the proper vomiting position.

18. Nerdy straight boys? No. 

19. Once again making out with a gay boy.

20. Mixing champagne, vodka, rockstar for the cocktail of doom. 

21. Drinking a silo, van, and bucket of alcohol. 

22. Spoon-dancing? Something involving spoons over our nipples and Landon grabbing my breasts for no apparent reason. 

23. Drinking while watching The Gods Must Be Crazy and thinking it was a documentary.

24. The bathroom being the best fucking seat in the house. 

25. Corporate discussions on the balcony. 

And now, I think I want to go smoke with Landon, my new BFF from last night. He and I might actually be the same person. We're trying to piece together the evening and all of us have different recollections of everything but something none of us can figure out is whether or not we were wearing pants when the guy scaled the wall, Spiderman-style.

Take your zen where you can get it. Two of my personal favourites? Quartering 6" pizzas and replacing the toner cartridge on my printer. I just got a sheet out of the printer and it was so crisp, it made me wonder how I managed to live for so long with a dying cartridge.

Last night I moved the first of my boxes to Meghan's and realized how truly, truly awesome this is going to be. Everytime I'm there, I think "Wow, in a week, I totally won't have to leave because it's late and I'm tired. I can just go upstairs to my room and go to bed. It's a little heady and all that. Meghan, I think you should meet Kassie and see if maybe you want her to be a third roommate if Nadia doesn't work out.

Ugh. I've had this open all day. Time to leave.

The years of playing catch up have finally caught up to me

Obligatory post-Warped Tour update:

Thank God for:

1 - Cool breezes
2 - Merch guys not being allowed to charge extra for the musk
3 - Brickbreaker
4 - Hip(ster) flasks
5 - Skills
6 - Roommates with wine
7 - The best line-up since '05? '06? '07 was a dud.

I'm not nearly as sunburned as I thought I would be and except for a little bit on my face, I'm actually not sunburned at all.

I copied down the setlists that I cared about and maybe I'll figure out the ones I care about now. Best part? Someone being too busy shittalking to play their set. Oops, oh well, the kid wasn't in on the joke anyway.

Sorry, guys, you can't afford me.

I'd like to do the last 24 hours over and over again, even if it means going to bed with a hangover again and again. Maybe one day I'd get it completely right. Practice makes perfect.

Go Team Hannah!

Today I started reading “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” by Lynne Truss. I'm hoping to become a more grammatical person. It already seems very dry and witty.

Work went well today. I found out last week that one of the co-workers I work closely with is moving to our US office. It's going to be an adjustment without Adam around but life is about adjustment. I went for a walk at noon today to get some pop from 7-11. It's nice to step outside and remember that you are more than just your awesome ability with HS codes and ability to sweet talk customs agents.  

I had a brief moment of self-doubt this afternoon and it felt really, really terrible. But I'm trying to work through things like that so I can be a better person so I sat down and repeated in my head “This is not because you're boring or uncool or unlikeable.” Of course, admitting that on a blog makes me boring, uncool, and unlikeable. But I don't really care, because this is for me. The people who read it just get the privilege of knowing me that much better after the fact. 

I went to The Rocket after work at got a really, reallllly sweet shirt printed. Remember Hannah? I know you guys all know who Hannah is and how she makes my days go a lot smoother with “HO NO!” ANYWAY, check this out:

I'd like everyone to meet the Captain of Team Hannah.

Sometimes being a girl sucks because words curve where you don't want them to.

99, because I knew it was some really awesome hockey player's number. Turns out it was Wayne Gretzky. Meet The Great One. 

Oh, she's just being Mindy. This is in bed, which is actually where 99% of my pictures are taken. I'm not perverted. Just lazy.

And now I'm going to go get a really good night's sleep. But I'll leave you with this picture:

$8.50. I won't even show you the other two I got for $4 each, you'll just die of jealousy. Well. Not over Terry Jacks, but over The Muppets and John Denver's Christmas Special.

I'm listening to Motion City Soundtrack's album and contemplating a conversation I had in the wee hours of Saturday morning. I don't know how many people listened to the last song on that album or how many people listen to that band at all, but here, have the song that is about to become the soundtrack to my life:

Motion City Soundtrack - Even If It Kills Me

And I'll do whatever it takes, even if it kills me. Pick it up, pick me out of it. 

I know I've said it time and time again, but I mean it. Everything that came before this doesn't matter because it has nothing to do with what I'm doing now. I'm not ashamed of where I came from, I just don't want to continue down that pathway. I've slept better the past two nights than I've slept in years, so thanks. You know who you are. 

We're not that far from voting Feldman-Haim.

Today, I got to utter the best sentence ever and it is the only reason I know the movie I was watching was a good movie. "Everyone dies except Corey Feldman."

This has been a long week. I worked almost fifty hours at the office and another twenty at the theatre and when you're not getting paid for your overtime at the office, that's kind of a big deal. Thankfully, I went and drank with Meghan and watched Family Channel. Mitchell can attest to the fact that I love watching it when I'm drunk. I woke up one morning in our hotel room and it was on, apparently I made him leave it on that while we were trying to sleep.

I needed to just unwind and decompress last night after my week. I was ready to kill someone yesterday when I was in the office. Mostly Muthu. Who am I kidding, always Muthu.

Right! The reason for this blog: If you message on AIM and don't get a response right away, be patient. It's the conference of doom this week and I'm kind of all over the place. Don't give me death, even when I wish for it. And don't ask me why I just ate five Flinstone chewable vitamins in a row, because I wouldn't be able to tell you.

Anyway, I should attempt to get some sleep before tomorrow rolls around. I don't want to die before Corey Feldman.

Happy Belated Birthday Post to Meghan. She's twenty now and I really hope for her sake that twenty is better than nineteen. 

We celebrated in true Meghan and Melinda style and ended up with a bottle of wine cooler left each. It was a good night, we ended up hissing drunk and watching BBW porn at a house party. All in all a good night after a crappy day at the theatre.

Tomorrow is my serious business day and I really don't know what I'm going to do. It's going to be kind of a turning point. At least I know I have everyone important behind me. I don't know what I did in my previous life to deserve such amazing friends but I did something right. Time for Melinda to sleep, because she's beyond tired right now. 

I keep looking over at my suitcases like they'll unpack themselves. Too bad they won't. I love how I can wear a pair of tights for a day and manage to punch so many holes in them.

Today was the AGM at work and I finally talked to someone about hooking up with Scott. It's kind of weird. Andrew came over and was all "How you doin'?" And Oliver just looked at me and told me that he hoped that wasn't some sort of message from Scott.

Busy busy busy at work and not loving it. I hate going away and coming back to find everything fucked right up. But I guess that happens when you do specific things every day. That makes no sense to anyone but me. I'm in charge of documentation for the international shipments of my company. I came back to find about eight shipments stuck in customs in various countries. Unfortunately, I can't do much about them because I'm not listed on any of the paperwork. Ugh. Office space.

I need a vacation to recover from my vacation.

Tomorrow night [actually tonight], I'm going for Starbucks with Meghan where we will discuss her New Favourite Band, ridiculous people, and our ridiculous lives. 

I'm back in my city and back in my home. Sometimes I want to just cry with how much I love the people I know. They're all so beautiful, inside and out. I don't even know what to do with them.

I'm sitting in my living room, in the dark, with only the sound of the dishwasher in the background. This weekend is really the tipping point of my life, you know. It'll all be different from here. 

New York was incredible and incredibly heartbreaking. It always is.

I need to get a hair cut and I need to remember that I'm only as smart as I make myself. 

I'm halfway through The Zombie Survival Guide and man, it's so awesome. 

Oops, I kind of died on people. It's been kind of a whirlwind of flights and drinks and bands and trains and drinks and whatnot. My, where does the time go?

Serious things have happened lately and serious things are going to continue to happen to me but I'm not going to let it get me down any longer. Damn the man, save The Empire. No, that's not a thinly veiled reference to something else. It's simply how I feel. Don't let the man get you down. When I get back, it'll be time for shit to happen and to get taken care of. Fuck the consequences for once.

I have not changed my clothes in the past 24 hours because all girls are secretly dirty girls when they go to college. 

I'm out and about in the greater NYC. Readysetgo.

Now you just say "Oh Romeo, yeah, you know, I used to have a scene with him."

I was five and he was six, we rode on horses made of sticks. He wore black and I wore white and he would always win the fight.

bang bang, he shot me down.

It's 8 days until I leave for New York and I just want to sleep forever. This isn't healthy and I know it but there are worse things I could do. I could listen to songs on repeat for hours and hours, realizing how much of myself I hear in them. It's never the song I wish it was, either. 

At least there are some lines I can sing to someone. Sing, not because I love the song(s) but because I love to sing.

all was golden in the sky when the day met the night

I whittled it down to that one for you because that's a song I'm not ashamed to hear myself in. You really are the greatest thing that's yet to have happened. Who could ask for more?

I haven't felt much like writing lately but I feel better. Props to those who helped it along. I leave for New York next Thursday at midnight and I'm really needing to get the hell out of the city.

I've overcome a few stumbling blocks and I just need to get a few things out of the way before I'll feel real again. 

Saturday night was Brandy's birthday and somewhere there's a picture of me holding two cigarettes, a Jager Bomb, a cooler, and my cell phone. Oh, life. I had to calm Jack down when I was probably too drunk to do so. "It's cool, you're struggling but you have faith and that's the important thing." 

Epic list of shit to get through tomorrow and looking forward to my free Wednesday night. If I disappear, you know how to get a hold of me. New phone number, message for it.