For no reason at all...Sparks is exciting to us Canadians, since we don't have it at home.


A certain someone borrowed (well, took, let's just call it for what it is) my digital camera when they went eastward so I've been biking around this week taking photos of my new city(real road bikes work sooo much better than old cruisers, it's amazing, now I bike ride for miles and miles, I haven't taken a bus in days) using my old film camera to take photos of my new home.

It's a really nice old camera, but it is weird to readjust once again to waiting to see how the photos will turn out. And-somehow there's just something nice about feeling the weight of a manual camera in your hands. It's like unearthing a record in the dusty stacks in the back of a dingy store in a small town somewhere versus downloading a file on soulseek- the internet revolution really left me in the dust. And I know it's a far-gone pop culture cliche to mention, but CD-R's really took the romance right out of mix tapes. Even in the post-High Fidelity age, I would still melt for a mix tape in 2008. Especially since I really came of dating age in the burning CDs era. Hell, especially if someone played it out of a boom box and stood on a car and held it up outside my window....hah.

Anyways, I still feel that it takes way nicer photos than any digital camera, so hopefully I can charm someone into letting me use their scanner, so I can show off my photo adventures.

Being alone is a funny thing. Living alone is always thought it would be something I would like. I like the feeling of playing the music loud and drinking wine and hanging out in slips and being shut off from the world- but then, I get it, and I start to feel a little bit lonely. I guess I've never been alone for too long- I've been dating consistently since I was 16- so maybe I've never allowed myself the time to get comfortable with not having anyone to call, sometimes, and learning to be okay with it.

It's like just after a breakup, no matter how much you're convinced that it was the right thing, or maybe, it was your choice to end it- but there's still that familiar ache that tells you there's something missing, and that takes a long time to go away.
It's funny, I guess I've never been stereotypically "dumped". I've never had my heartbroken out of the blue, but, regardless of what people think, my heart does break a little having to say goodbye to someone or, even, if you allow yourself to get those butterflies in your stomach about a crush, even if you never admit it, and nothing materializes. I guess I'm just saying that, at least for me, I get little heartbreaks all the time. Sometimes I do wonder about how, after a certain age, it is possible to fall head over heels in love with someone. Is it possible? Even if it is, would anyone normal admit it? I mean, who would throw it out there that they can't stop thinking about someone they just met? I wouldn't. I dare you to admit to someone that you want them. I mean, it's total shit if you scare them, but the payoff is huge, no?

I don't think anyone's been like that about me, but, really, it's possible that they have been, and I've never known. I've never been a capital 'R' "Romantic", well, at least not within the past 5 years.

But anyways, loneliness is a funny thing, and breakups are total shit, almost always.

I had almost convinced myself that "Love" doesn't exist (just rm be clear, I've ended a few long-term relationships in my time, so that's where that bias comes from) and that romantics were silly, and then I talked to my Mom, who, I think, believes that the reason I've never cared about Valentine's Day or weddings or anniversaries is because I've never really been madly in love and she told me, that after 25 years that she and my Dad are still in love and that, "marriage doesn't make any sense, until you meet someone who makes you want it, anyways." So well, there you go. Of course, my mom and dad had two kids by my age, so we do differ slightly in our life paths, but sometimes I do have wonder if the pool of cute and interesting boys that are so easy to meet at this age will, ahem, dry up at some point in the future, and I am missing out on an adventure I should take. Not like I'm in any hurry to settle down, but I am conscious of....wasting any part of my twenties not living life to the fullest.

I do feel weird talking about personal stuff on the internet, since, I think it bores people, and I don't like the idea of talking about anyone else in a public forum.
I am a private person, and it always feels weird to put my thoughts out there, but I guess they're all pretty abstract/general ones, anyways. I had one boy who actually used to post on a Myspace blog (yes, totally public!!) about the ups and downs of our relationship as well as post emails I had written him, which was absolutely horrific. Another boy used to post poems on the internet discussing my "stone heart" and "glass eyes". He was no Wordsworth, but still.

Anyways, that's why I even feel weird about people I barely know knowing who I'm dating or not dating on networking sites. The ease of internet stalking is pretty frightening.

I think the one thing I've missed about moving to the US is having lots of girls as friends. I've made friends with lots of boys, who are super fun, just because it seems to be easier, but I'm used to having lots of girls to get ready to go out with and watch silly TV with and cuddle with when I'm feeling down. Boys, unless they're super flaming, maybe, just can't fulfill the same function. It's rare that you can have a friendship with a boy without any kind of romantic tensions, and even if you manage it, it always seems to change once they fall into longterm relationships. I've had a couple of good girl friends since I've moved, but I do miss having lots. I also grew up with two little sisters not too too much younger than me, and I just miss that energy, I suppose. I mean, I love love love having boy friends to go to bars with and talk about music and everything else....but, I am a bit of a girly girl, after all, let's just face it.

I had a movie date this weekend to see "The Wackness". I never had any desire to see it, since from the title and previews it just seemed too....precious or like
"cool" marketed and packaged for the masses.

But, it was playing at the 3 dollar theater by my house, and I'll see most movies if I can pay 3 dollars and order a pitcher of beer and a veggie burger to go with it.
It might've been the pitcher of beer, but I was pretty amused through out it. I didn't like it for the deep generational poignant movie it, periodically, tried to be, but I liked it for an entertaining movie that went down nicely with my beer. And, any movie that crams enough A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and Biggie onto the soundtrack, really pleases the mid-nineties child in me.

Speaking of the nineties, (you know, I have an undying love for the 1990s, as I'm sure I've mentioned, but I'm not gonna lie, I was probably like 10 when Kurt Cobain died) last night I went and saw Irvine Welsh (Filth, Trainspotting, The Acid House, etc) read from his new book "Crime". He was charming and self-effacing in his Scottish way
and, to horribly misquote him, I liked what he said about cutting down in his drug use in old age: "well, drinking and doing drugs is fun, and I still like it from time to time, but the hangovers get worse as you get older, and at my age you only have so many days left, and I don't want to spend them all on the floor sweating. It's a pure calculator game. And, I've done them all and know what happens, so some of the fun's been knocked out of it. There's no mystery anymore. But, if something new came on the market, I'd be tempted."

I mean you have to love a middle-aged dude that spends half the year in Miami for the "house music scene".

I always like seeing writers speak about their work. One of those childhood dreams that will probably never materialize was and always will be to be a published novelist, so it's always inspiring to see some bloke with that lifestyle stand up and talk about it, although they never have anything useful to say other than "just fooking do it". It was also interesting to hear him talk about how Iceberg Slim was one of the most under-appreciated writers of the last 50 or so odd years. It is funny how a Scottish author can capture the colloquialisms, failings, and language of his culture and be revered for it, but how an African-American on the other hand...