Draft(s)

I am writing an article about dairy products. Trust me, it is fascinating. My mission is to expose the seedy underbelly of the Ontario dairy industry. Actually, that is entirely untrue. To my knowledge, there is no seedy underbelly, and I have looked because, as it turns out, under the belly is exactly where udders are located.
30.01.10

My blue jeans are sagging. This saddens me, in a way, because I purchased them approximately one month ago.
28.01.10

I think I may have caught a cold. The contents of my stomach feel like the may be rallying together in an attempt to reemerge from the very same passage way they used to enter.
27.01.10

The new commercial for Subway evokes a feeling of such extreme annoyance in me that I am inclined to stab myself in the ears each time I hear it. If I had ever actually eaten at Subway before, it is the exact kind of thing that would cause me to stop.
25.01.10

I do not understand the song "Iko Iko."
For serious.
What kind of grandmothers must these people have if, out of the blue, one turns to the other and suddenly declares that she is going to set fire to the unsuspecting grandmother's flag? That is just uncalled for. Now, as for the flag boys, I can understand that to an extent. They are adversaries and are both carrying flags. But the grandmothers? I would be very disappointed in my grandmother if I caught her pulling that shit.
18.01.10

Last week, while at Best Buy, I suffered the aftermath of eating an entire jar of hot peppers.
I really felt the need to share this information with the Internet. Also, thank god the auto-flush toilets had a manual override button. That's all I'm saying.
29.12.09

I want you to talk to me.
To say something witty. To make an attempt at being suave.
I want to charm you with my quick response. I want to make it so that you cannot wait to hear what I will say next... So that you hang from my every word.
I want to touch you. And I want you to touch me, too.
I want to close my eyes at night and feel your chest, rising and falling with each breath, beneath my head. I want to feel your hands on my body. I want to engage in groggy, middle-of-the-night romps and early morning neither-one-of-us-has-brushed-our-teeth-yet-so-let's-not-kiss sex with you.
I want to draw patterns in your palm in the dark at the movie theatre when there is a lull in the action on screen.
I want to make you shiver and perspire with passion and then lick the sweat from your cooling skin.
27.12.09

My grandfather livened up our the ritualistic early morning opening of gifts when his nose began to bleed as though it were a leaky faucet - a leaky faucet that risked forever staining the new sweater I had purchased for my grandfather as the garment lay defenseless in his lap.
Christmas was good to me this year.
My grandmother is a master of jell-o.
26.12.09

"What I need is an in-between relationship," I explained.
"What you need is to be less commitment phobic," she told me.
I think the reality is a mixture of the two.
I am not ready to be with him. I feel like there are oats that I still need to sew.
21.10.09

I love to sing in the car.
Even more, I love when I am singing in the car and look at another car only to notice the driver of that car is singing too. And then we catch each other's eye and begin to sing to one another, and that is how fairies are born.
By "fairies," I am of course referring to the enchanted, winged creatures and not the lame slang for a homosexual.

Although...
09.10.09


I have a confession to make: I miss North Bay.
I miss my voyeuristic, elderly neighbour (even though we never spoke). I miss the crazy man from down the street who would just walk into my house if I left the front door unlocked. I miss the man (woman?) who worked at the Mac's down the road from my home. I miss the bicycle path behind my house. I miss coasting down College Drive. I miss having bonfires off of the path behind residence. I miss walking down the hallways of the school and hearing the teacher's college students' choir singing. I miss the Wall, the Moose, the Boat, Fionns and even Fanny's.
04.10.09

My period has always been regular, almost to the point of ridiculousness. Every twenty-eight days, like clockwork, my body celebrates the fact that I have not gotten knocked up by cramping up and causing me to loath those around me who are not suffering the same discomfort that I am.
30.09.09

I spent several hours contemplating eugenics. Not evil, Hitler-esque, I'm-going-to-create-a-master-race!!! eugenics, but eugenics in relation to personality traits.
Do two assholes who procreate with one another produce a baby asshole? Are there families filled entirely with assholes?

I think we all know the answer to be yes.
09.08.09

But I will be back with Starbucks

The mental health ward was not what I expected, although, admittedly, I hadn't really expected much of anything.

Our first several minutes of visiting seemed awkward. I admit that it was probably my fault when I opened the conversation by saying, "So, do you come here often?" I asked her if she'd made any friends or met any cute guys. We quickly decided that developing any type of relationship, friendship or otherwise, while under an involuntary hold was likely to result in more complications than it was ultimately worth.

We talked about many things in the two hours I was there. I vowed to bring her slippers and a bouncy ball ("Be careful not to hit that thing," I said, pointing to some sort of fancy looking device on her ceiling. "We had something like that in residence, and, if you hit it, it caused an alarm to go off in the whole building," I explained). We discussed what other entertaining items were permitted on the premises. Glass and cords are forbidden, as is anything that can easily be used to self-harm. It sounds simple enough to avoid these items but causes a lot of second guessing when you really think about it. If a person is intent enough, anything can be used to self-harm.

We talked about the arts and crafts patients are requested to participate in each day. We talked briefly about her therapy sessions and the other inhabitants of the ward. But what I really wanted to tell her was that she had nothing to be ashamed of. There will be people who judge her for the time she has spent in this place. There will be people who will see her in a different light when (or if) they learn that her brain isn't quite right, chemically speaking. But those people are not worth more than a passing thought. While it is technically true that there is something wrong with her, her value is no less than any other person around her. She should never let her self-worth be determined by the opinion of anyone but herself.

It takes courage to admit you need help. It takes strength to keep moving forward when you are so paralyzed with fear that you can hardly breathe. It takes bravery to remove yourself from your comfort zone to go to a place where you know you will be scrutinized by professionals who have the ability to turn your voluntary three day stay into an involuntary two week long admittance.

There is nothing to be ashamed of, but there is a whole lot to be proud of.

"I will see you tomorrow?" she asked just before I left.

"No, not tomorrow, but you will see me Monday. You will also see me Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.. Well, you get the idea. I will see about having chocolate bars delivered to you each day at noon as well."

And then, with a heavy heart, I left.

Spiderman stickers are pretty awesome

"Megan," he whispered, "at night, the cat jumps into my bed and sleeps on my pillow. And my tongue tries to eat him."
"What?" I asked, thoroughly confused.
"My tongue tries to eat the cat," he replied, as if I was daft for my lack of understanding.
"Why would your tongue do that?" I asked.
"I do not know," he said, pausing thoughtfully to consider the question. "I think my tongue must be hungry," he decided.
"That is awfully silly of your tongue," I told him, and he proceeded to giggle.

Little boys can be endlessly adorable. They can also be endlessly frustrating, especially when they decide that "fooled" is a bad word, rip up the picture they had previously been colouring for you and then, filled with remorse over ruining said picture, begin crying with such despair that you would think someone had died.

In the end, most every problem can be solved with a cookie, a spiderman sticker and a hug.

I do not think that adults and children are that different after all.