I stood outside in the damp night air, warm, breathing it in and out slowly, breathing it in, letting it out, letting go. I have found a force of strength and faith inside myself that I have been missing for many years. In fact, I don't think it's something I've *ever* had. At age 33 I find a gift of enlightenment, of clarity, that I had never thought to find. It's finally beginning to take root, to become a part of me, to become natural, fitting, and right. There is hope, now. There is *something*. One step at a time, Grasshopper.

I have confidence in myself that had been missing for many years. I have faith that I can be strong enough to stay through a tough situation, or walk away from it should that become necessary. People think that walking away means weakness, and I'm telling you that's bullshit. I think it - more often than you'd think - takes a lot more strength to remove yourself from a situation than it does to stay. It's easy not to say no or nothing at all. It's not so easy to stand up and shout, "No!" But it's far easier than you think.

Thirty-three Ways To Live Today Better Than You Lived Yesterday:

attune, breathe, care, dance, embrace, face, grasp, hold, inspect, jumble, kiss, love, make, need, open, peruse, quest, see, touch, uncover, value, wish, xenophile, yearn, zero-in.

Speak in extremes, it will save you time.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Life is to be sucked in, breathed, smelled, tasted, enjoyed.

Reach out and touch someone.

Colour, and think, outside the box.

Learn like you have all the time in the world, and live like tomorrow's your last day on earth.

Be.

One of the most heart-wrenching songs ever written has to be "Fairytale Of New York" by Shane MacGowan of The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. This song *hurts* there's so much emotion in it. It hurts in hard, gut-wrenching ways, and subtle, bittersweet, aching ways. It is an ultimate song of sadness, love, romance, pain, tragedy, aching, pleading, hope, and sorrow. It fills me full of melancholy.

You took my dreams from me,
When I first found you.

I kept them with me babe,
I put them with my own.
Can't make it all alone.
I've built my dreams around you.

I hate timing, because it's usually bad. I started feeling uneasy a couple of days ago - emotionally and also in the sense of there being something going on in the ether that just isn't right. This is bad enough without tossing onto the pile the lack of seratonin due to having slept through the day from a murky, sombre morning, to an evening that hadn't altered from that any; and the fact that I've got my period, meaning low iron levels. There's little I can do about the lack of seratonin and iron, and the other things... I don't know.

I do not think he wants what he might say he wants. He hints at something, but it feels forced, or only a needy moment speaking. I just don't know that I can, or want to, live with the fact that I am just some stand-in buddy. It feels so shallow, so without real meaning. To some people it might be enough, and is, and right that it should be, but in this case I feel that I'm some kind of band-aid, something brought out of the closet when the real thing is broken or too tired to play anymore.

If you were going to pick a super-power, any power, what would it be?

Every time I see this question I answer the same thing - I want to be a universal translator. I want to be able to understand any and all languages, to become instantly attuned to their nuances. I want to be able to communicate with everyone and anyone. Language and communication fascinate me. Imagine there being no barriers at all? Imagine being able to instantly understand whatever anyone says to you? Imagine being able to retain it all rather than a machine doing the work for you?

I am here with Tom Waits for company, and he reminds me of a place I've never been, of a dirty little street, and a seedy little bar, and it's three a.m., and there's too much smoke, and the light is dark, and we're all mellow, all one tuned-in body throbbing along to his growl, all in the same place inside and out, all slightly sleepy, all of us with cold vodka and beer, all of our talking hushed but rumbling, all of us together, cocooned, secure in a moment none want to see end.

It is my wish.

I've been thinking of creating a little "countdown to Bowie" ticker for my website. Yes, that's right. I have Bowie tickets, and you don't. (fx: sticking out of tongue like your average playground brat). Well, who knows? Maybe you *do* have some. On August 5th my cousin and I are trotting off to Toronto to see Bowie, Moby, and a bunch of other bands, as part of the Area 2 tour. A part of me wishes she'd seen Bowie 15 years ago, but the rest of me is just glad to be getting the chance to see him at all. Two more months.

I was watching some lectures on the history of Christianity just yesterday, and went a bit berko about some of the "facts" presented. I should learn to watch myself more carefully than I sometimes do, because I made myself look like quite the idiot because of my over-zealous sarcasm. I'm not anti-Christian nor anti-religion per se, the problem I had was with some of the origins, not the churches themselves, and certainly not with the person to whom those churches are dedicated. The churches are not responsible for how they came to be, only in how they continue to be.

Yesterday I was at peace. Most of this morning I was at peace. Now, I'm not at peace. I don't particularly care for lack of peacefulness; not the least of the reasons being that I don't care for how my intestines tie up like knotted noose rope. However, these things will fail to eat me up as they once used to, because I am finally able to believe that "nothing lasts" forever. I embrace that Noble Truth and hold to it, because it gives hope, relief, and release. Really, there is nothing that I can't now get past, in time.

My grandmother had a minor stroke this morning. It seems the only bit affected was her speech, which is very slurred. Her motorskills are fine, she has strength (though her right arm is somewhat weaker than usual, and her handwriting is poor), she can walk, she's on the ball mentally, and she's lost no feeling in her face. She's already worried about people making fun of her speech, but I was told by a nurse that the speech (The speech therapist said she passed all tests with flying colours), occupational, and physio, therapists, will work with her about her self-image.

I was in the emergency with my grandmother for several hours yesterday, during which time I had to use the washroom a few times, and had to help her do so also. In all, I think I was in three or four different washrooms that day. In each and every one there was a sign that said "Have you been hurt by someone close to you? Please see a nurse or doctor." It struck me very sadly that such a sign was necessary, and necessary in so many places. To quote the Wicked Witch Of The West, "What a world."

It seems my cousins are taking a very active part in taking care of my grandmother who's just got out of the hospital after her stroke. It's about bloody time, too. Last few times she was in the hospital for any reason, no one, outside of my mother and I, did very much (if anything at all) by way of care. It was very damned frustrating and depressing. I'm glad of it this time around, also, because I'm having a hard time understanding her speech, whereas my cousins seem a bit more in tune with it. It's about bloody time.

I've got two weeks left to my school term, and I'm screwed. I've got so much work left to do it's unreal. I don't think I'm going to get any of it bloody done on time. Fuck. I really need to beat myself into non-lazy submission one of these days. I have to call the director tomorrow and see if he'll give me some sort of special dispensation, due to recent events concerning my grandmother. If he won't, well, then I'll be doing nothing but reading and writing every waking moment for the next week. Why do I procrastinate so?

Sometimes I think the only reason people in a failing relationship continue to argue, is because it gives them something to distract their minds from the fact that the relationship is over, and that they're going to have to say goodbye. It's not easy to say goodbye, I know, but sometimes what you do to yourself and the other person because of not wanting, or being able, to say goodbye, simply isn't worth the added stress. Mind, that's coming from the viewpoint of someone on the outside. The dynamic inside a relationship is something an outsider will never truly comprehend.

My friend Charles fiddled around with some java code for me, and now I've got my very own web version of a magnetic poetry kit which I can change the tile text size of, and create my own word lists for. It's a hoot, though I've got a very bad habit of making word lists way too long, which sort of ruins the whole point of constrained writing. I've just made up a list out of the words of band names, and I'll do one out of album titles next. I wrote one yesterday that had "obfuscated chicken" in it.

The big topic yesterday on the radio morning show I listen to, was people who give their children (obviously) poorly thought up names. Because if it's done with full conscience, it's just damned cruel. There were the usual mentions of Tom Thomases and Brian O'Brians and such, but the one that got me was this one kid in northern Ontario whose name is apparently... I'm still trying to get over this one... Maxwell House. This poor kid's parents need to be shot. Come on, it's not you that has to deal with the trauma of a stupid name, it's your kid!

My flat's a mess. No surprise there. I keep having to kick piles of things aside just to remind myself that I actually do have a floor - and kicking them aside because it beats the hell out of tripping over things. I have learned to develop my sense of equilibrium to compensate for tripping over piles of books, clothes, cds, and other indeterminate piles of stuff. I can recover from a trip before I end up head first into the tv screen or nearest wall, even while carrying a full cup of tea, and without spilling a drop. I'm good.

I've been having the most incredible urge to have flowers, lately. I'm not normally a flower person, and definitely don't like to get your typical bouquet of roses (I find them cliche and unimaginative as a gift). I like tulips, gladiolus, morning glory, poppies, asters, anything purple, tiger and calla lillies. I keep dropping hints, but no one's caught on yet. Drop louder hints maybe? Teehee. Even though this is secret women's business I shouldn't share: Guys, here's a clue to buying gifts for the females in your life - listen to what they say. They'll TELL you what they want.

Now that the insomnia I've been experiencing is done, all I want to do is sleep. Sleep. Sleep. I feel so groggy, dopey, and lethargic. Couple this with the fact that we've actually begun to experience summer, and it makes for a very slow and stupid kind of state of being. I haven't had a bout of insomnia that bad since the year 2000, when that April saw three weeks of only about an hour and a half of sleep per night. I swear I could feel the synapses in my brain snapping. I can't believe I made it through that.

I'm listening to Pink Floyd's "Meddle" again. I love this album. It's on the song "San Tropez", a place I visited many years ago, though all I consciously recall are the immense plate of mussels I ate (which I'll assume were good, I love mussels), and the innumerable bikini-clad beach bunnies lounging strategically in that "I'm here to be seen" sort of way on the decks of all the very expensive yachts in the marina. But what I really remember about that trip to the Riviera, is the white beach sand of Nice and the shocking blue of the Mediterannean.

For the past two months I've been obsessed with playing Minesweeper. I beat the first two levels easily, within the first day, but from then on it in was a nightmare. It had got so bad at some points, that I'd lay down in bed and be dreaming Minesweeper! Day and night, all hours, ignoring fatique and personal grooming, I'd play the expert level of Minesweeper hoping one day I'd FINALLY beat the damned thing. Today I finally did it! I know it's not much to be proud of, but hell, you takes yer perks where you can get 'em.

So I'm stuck for something to say, at a very unusual loss for words. My friend Charles says, "Write about the World Cup!" Now that'd be an excellent idea except for three things: I don't watch soccer, know nothing about the World Cup outside of the sea of flags hanging off people's cars (and sometimes the people too), and furthermore, I don't care. So he suggested I write about how little I care and how little I know. I figure that it's pretty damned easy to write one hundred words about nothing - I do it all the time. *grin*

I bought this horridly ugly pair of plaid pants the other day. On a scale of 1 - 10 (1 being pretty, and 10 being worse than that smelly old man at the bus stop) I'd rate these between six and seven. I don't think I could accurately describe the colours; some blue, red, white, and black. They're truly awful. I love them. I have this almost freakish appreciation for the tacky and ugly, something I'm very proud of. It does not extend to the tackiness of fur coats, and the ugliness of a Velvet Elvis, however. A girl's got to draw her line somewhere.

So, it's about ten minutes to five in the morning and I'm dying of thirst and dying of the heat. Normally at this point I'd just go to the store, but it's down a dark street and I've recently discovered that the pop machine at the hospital is much closer, albeit more expensive than the store. But, says I to myself, it's nearly dawn and if I wait just a few minutes I can go to the store in the light of day to get cheaper pop. It's a classic example of the battle between the id and the ego.

John Entwistle, R.I.P. Died by heart attack at age 57 in his Hard Rock hotel room in Las Vegas today, the night before The Who were scheduled to begin their latest North American tour. We have lost another musical great. I have never seen The Who, and was looking forward to possibly seeing them this time around. I still might, but it won't be at all the same without John. It's like losing a limb. You died before you got old, long live rock, and may your accomplishments be many in the great gig in the sky. You're missed.

So there's this website called fridayfive.org, and each Friday they give you five different questions to answer. One of this week's was "When was the last time you camped in a tent?" It's been so long for me that I can't remember, and with any luck I'll continue not to remember. I hate camping. I've got this thing about modern conveniences, like toilets that flush and showers, and I've also got this thing against going anyplace that potentially involves my being eaten alive in a manner I don't appreciate by something a millionth of my size. Hate insects too.

I have written five essays for my English course, since Wednesday:

a personal narrative (about places of power and my visits to Avebury and St. Alban's)

a summary (I summarise some really horrible essay about the internet having a soul)

a compare-contrast (comparison between correspondence education and classroom education)

a review (I reviewed a book I have that details the life of Che Guevara via photographs)

and a persuasive essay (I argue that mankind is not yet ready for the ability to clone).

If anyone catches me thinking for the next few days, take me out and have me shot.

I was talking to my mother earlier, and during this conversation she revealed to me that I am the most sensible person she knows. Honestly, what I keep asking myself, is if it speaks well of me, or not so well of everyone else. Sensible isn't a word I often apply to myself (much like I don't apply hard-working, stable, cheerful, positive, optimistic, and patient) This whole revelation was almost, but not quite, as surprising as the time she told me I was her best friend, and that she tells people that she tells me everything. They don't get it.