The Things That Make Us Richer

"I lower the window. The warm salt air whips the hair off our faces, bringing with it the promise of our summer and more flights landing, more compatriots returning, the city once again infused with amity and opportunity, because we're only twenty-four for fuck's sake.

I tuck my Palm safely back in my purse, one souvenir housing another. Suddenly the dark sky is ablaze with Memorial Day fireworks, a glorious burst of pyrotechnics shimmering over the water, making a blurred rainbow as we barrel over the patched tar. I nudge Kira awake, "Look." She grins, the lanes clear before us as we accelerate." - Citizen Girl, McLaughlin & Kraus

The paragraphs transcribed above are the last in the most recent of my literary conquests, Citizen Girl, a well-timed gift from April. Although I found myself irritated through most of the book, April's guess was right, Girl probably is the "kind-of, maybe, sorta, surreal [me] of the soon future." Or maybe the even sooner present, and even the not so distant past. It's no coincidence that the passage that appealed to me the most was the passage with the most perspective, the most wisdom, and the most distance from the crap of Girl's everyday life.

It's easy to get bogged down, or caught up, or really terribly lost in the crap we deal with every single day. One of the few odd sayings that I've hung onto in my few short years is 'life is what happens while you're busy making plans'. Too often I let the battle of the future and the present get explosive, way out of hand, and far too off-balance.

Despite 'knowing' that I shouldn't let plans for the future get ahead of the present, however, I consistently fail to find the appropriate balance between what I should be or am doing now and what I should be or am will do in the future. The result of this ambiguity in my life, of course, is stress. Stress about what I'm doing wrong, stress about what I should be doing differently, stress about how it is all undoubtedly going to damn me to a future in a burger joint or a temp agency or, most likely, a high security asylum.

I'd like to conclude with some sort of hopeful solution for my future, some compact panacea, but I simply haven't got it. This isn't one of those Sarah has to have the answers moments, though. I know I'm going to spend the rest of my life constantly negotiating between the situations I find myself in and the life I wish to live. In the meantime though, during the few short breaks I take from my everyday, I'd like to leech every moment of clarity and bleed it dry, hoping to bottle for a few lasting moments the magical stuff of clarity, of perspective, and of calm.

Faire Face

Sometimes when you face what you, or others, or you and others think is your worst fear, you become acquainted with much deeper, darker, more insidious and intimate fears. Sometimes the fears that emerge as you battle nemesis are mundane, cliché, even pedestrian. Sometimes they are both, and sometimes you think you are not the only one, you're just the only one weak one.

I am afraid of failure. Sometimes you need to shut the fuck up, because if you feel this way, then what is everyone else supposed to feel? No, it's not easy playing the wünderkind. It's not so easy to play anyone else either. I am afraid of becoming more and more like my mother. Sometimes you're just like everyone else in the world. Sometimes you're not. Sometimes you need to take stock of what you have, what you can learn, and what she has to offer. And sometimes you should go see a shrink. I am afraid of fading away. Sometimes you and the rest of the world are right on par with your narrow-minded senses of self. Sometimes you miss the bigger picture. Sometimes you forget that you are still only twenty. Sometimes it doesn't matter, because you don't know how to make the panic go away, and every time you think about how much you have to do in one short lifespan you shrink away and wonder how anyone is brave enough to take on this world.

Sometimes you need to see things for what they really are. Sometimes you think of that episode of Buffy and wonder if that's how it really is. Sometimes that has nothing to do with your neuroses, its just an entertaining fantasy... and... uh... sometimes that points to a deeper problem. Sometimes the most frightening things in our lives are not our fears, but their consequences, their implications, their repercussions. Sometimes these repercussions are what we really fear, and we are simply incapable of putting a name and a face to those fears.

Sometimes we need to do it anyway.

I am not afraid of failure. I am afraid of not accomplishing. I am not afraid of becoming more and more like my mother. I am afraid of inheriting (only) her weaknesses. I am not afraid of fading away. I am afraid of never making a difference.

Sometimes you try to close a chapter without knowing the ending. Sometimes you lie and tell yourself you can move on with your life without seeing what comes next in your small sagas. Sometimes they eat away at you all the same, underneath the surface, or crawling slowly across it. Sometimes you live your life just to validate your own existence, just to make yourself feel better about all the things you let fall away. Sometimes you're selfish and a child and no amount of reassurance will make you stop asking for more. Sometimes you need to take the time to live out the pain, live out the tragedy, live out the reality of having to deal with a new reality. It's just that time. It's just that way. There's nothing left to do but stand and stare at your contortion-act life, letting your heart pound and your tears stream as it twists and bends all the way off the plane that you thought was the ideal you. Then you sit, and you take a moment, and you lie flat, and you start to reconstruct. You build your new horizon and you make yourself proud. You do it because you have to, or because you can, or because of whatever else might lie in between. You do it for yourself, and you do it because the only choice we have in life is to just keep on living, because our lives are all we really have.



Postscript

Ha.

And sometimes the only person who can stop the pain is the only person who won't. Sometimes the only thing you feel you can do is to swallow and move on, but when that panic creeps up, when your neck and shoulders tense and you feel that familiar knot in your chest you suddenly find yourself thinking

"Emotional bulimia would be nice."

Sometimes you wish you could induce, expel Mark Salter from yourself, and flush him down a toilet.

My Gift to You

Take one part fatigue, one part writer's block, and one part forgetfulness. Stir. There you have it. A desperate measure. In an effort not to get dropped from April's blogroll, I am posting pre-emptively. A real, respectable post will be added soon, hopefully later today, shedding light on my two month absence.

Shut Up Rory

It occurs to me that this may be a philosophy I should take on in life. Today I would like to drop out and travel across the continent reading Jack Kerouac.

With love,

Sarah

Maybe I just don't want to change right now. Okay?

I was still far too energized because of Activism Class, still far too hungry from my barely noticeably broken fast, and well away from any state of preparation for sleep. Glancing at my monitor, a thought from earlier today popped into my head. "That picture," I thought, "has been my desktop background for far too long." And so, despite a small voice inside my head (specifically on the right side, slightly above eye level, too far back to be frontal, but too far forward to be in the middle, probably a centimetre or two before the ear) telling me 'you don't want a change... you're not feeling a change,' I opened my browser and began my occasional routine of searching for rain and cityscapes. Although I found no shortage of lovely pretty things to make my own, I was unable to find something that appealed to that certain spot in my heart, that evoked my latent desire for new frontiers.

My desire to cling to an admittedly drab background picture has left me wondering at some other aspects of my recent behaviour. Today, in a meeting in my very demanding and very gratifying environment of work, I balked internally when D mentioned that I would be leaving after this year. I am fairly certain that my eyes attempted to abandon my face, and I had to restrain, with some difficulty, the desire to pipe up with something to the effect of 'actually if you'd like I could stay on another year or so... I know I won't be a student anymore, but I really don't have much planned for my immediate future, and I find it both challenging and comforting here.'

I've also been back and forth over the past few days on the matter of my hair. I cannot seem to decide what it is that I would like to do with my head. Yet another frivolous matter of no great consequence. And yet I cannot seem to settle into the idea of change this year. I imagine that, despite all efforts at failure, I will be forced to once again come to terms with change when I am handed a degree and told to graduate on to something grander. Until then, though, how do I contend with change?

Normally this would be the point in discourse where I come up with some manner of summative solution, and a slightly open-ended concluding statement that leaves room for individual reflection. Sorry, dear reader. I'm just not there yet. How do I contend with change? How do I contend with change? I do not know. I really do not. I am at a loss. I usually deal with change quite well, welcoming it and hoping for new and exciting challenges. Perhaps it is because I truly feel challenged for the first time that I do not feel ready to move on. At the moment I am gaining so much from life that I do not wish to end this stage of life before I have enjoyed all it can offer me.

Although I perform best when I am busiest, perhaps my constant occupation prevents me from savouring each of the remarkable opportunities presented to me this year. And how odd, as it is the occupation that I savour the most.

Drowning, or the Downside of Desirability

In actuality, my nightmares are most likely panic attacks that occur during sleep. Chances that the nightmares of many can be described as such are high. Lately, though, I have the feeling that the boundaries between life and dreams are starting to fade. Perhaps it's a product of not sleeping enough. Even my subconscious is infected by the rushed pace of my life, unable to torture me sufficiently in my sleep. Perhaps it's a product of the exhaustion. While my body rests my mind succumbs to the quiet as best it can. Perhaps it's the precursor to something deeper, more insidious. Perhaps the panic in my chest and the fear creeping up my neck and shoulders across my skull is my signal. Soon I'll step out, fall down, and no one will know what happened, but everyone will know that I couldn't do it. All this from my drowning laundry.

Inaction's Back. Or Some Such

After an unintended two month hiatus, I have returned. Ah yes, just the stellar opening line I was hoping for. Many things have changed, of course. New apartment, new room mate. Other things too.

After having my best semester yet, and yes, this is the part where I confess *cough*brag*cough* about my +A from Wolfgang, I am now in fourth year. It's a similar experience to grade 12, when, despite not feeling any less like the kid I am, all the little ones appeared to be infants with over-laden rucksacks.

New revelation: I can be of interest to very intelligent people. I've always known it's not too difficult to impress very intelligent people, but to capture their interest? That, to me, says sexy. I've been hobknobbing, and so far have managed more than one double take from a slightly disarmed professor.

And with that, I am going to cut this entry short. I've broken my 'never write about the mundane aspects of your life outside of the abstract' rule. Icky. Now all I have to do is start behaving in a manner I don't find personally offensive again.

I'll try this again later.

Welcome back,
Love,
Sarah

Today's the Day

After a long wait and a lot of putting off, I've finally decided to post that pesky update on The September 12 Project. The project began on April 9, 2005, and since then I have received an oh-so-stunning total of 1 response. To my supporter: you know who you are, and I thank you kindly!

The question I pose as the launching point of the project is: "On September 12, 2001, what did you want the world to be?" I left the question very open-ended and vague, not wanting to limit responses to a particular framework or topic. From the feedback I have received on the project, however, it seems that the question is a bit overwhelming.

In an effort to inspire a greater response, I am going to share a few of my ideas, the general topics that ran through my mind on September 12 and the following few weeks. To begin, it's only fair that I expose the most fundamental question in my project:

"What is peace?" As a general rule, peace is defined only negatively, the absence of war, the absence of violence, the absence of tension, hatred and animosity. Unfortunately, we seem to only have an idea of what peace is not. I'd like to establish some idea of what peace is, what conditions constitute peace, and how one might identify a partial or whole state of peace.

Feel free to comment directly on the question of peace, to let your answer address the question indirectly, or to ignore the question entirely.

And now, a list of questions that I hope do absolutely nothing to narrow your thinking, but do inspire your minds, pens, or keyboards.

• What type of reaction did you hope for (from peers, communities, families, political representatives, other countries, religious leaders at the community and international level, etc)?


• What type of reaction did you fear (from peers, communities, families, political representatives, other countries, religious leaders at the community and international level, etc)?


• What was your greatest concern? (environment, censorship, travel, security, trade, war, foreign aid, intolerance, politics, economics, etc)


• Did you hope the events of September 11 would inspire change? If so, what changes did you hope for?


• Did you hope that the events of September 11 would change nothing? If so, why?

To include a personal response in The September 12 Project:

• post your personal response in the comments section
OR

• e-mail september12project@yahoo.ca

And please, please, please, please, please, share this with your friends, family, and mortal enemies.

Thank you,

Sarah

Taking the High Road

"Perhaps, in many ways, the cookie represents at that is wrong with advanced civilization. People are so enamored with the luxuries afforded to them by their cherished technogolgy that they often forget the deeper joys of life." - koalaMan, The Four Ninja Food Groups

I've been having trouble with the high road this week. Not with taking it, but with my faith in the ability of others to take it. When did the social constructs of karitas, love, community, and friendship go out of style? More importantly... why did they go out of style?

If you have nothing to say in response to that, say something nonetheless. A fun little game that I picked up I-don't-remember-where. What does the dubya in dubya really stand for? Some of my personal favourites include:

• War criminal


• Wanker


• Why the hell am I the president of the United States of America?

Disgust. Discuss.

"If 5 mins of your time could save a life, why don't we deal in hours?" - MBLOG

More fodder for thought on poverty in Africa:

“…Instead of Saudi Arabia's oil wealth being used to "save Africa," how about if Africa's oil wealth was used to save Africa--along with its gas, diamond, gold, platinum, chromium, ferroalloy and coal wealth?

- Naomi Klein, A Noose, Not a Bracelet

From the management:

The September 12 Project is over two months old. Look for a progress update soon.

1:34, Hot Hot Hot

A fly landed on my monitor. I chased it with my cursor. It freaked and flew away. Sorry little fly. The heat is a-makin' me crazy!

"If everyone who wants to see an end to poverty, hunger and suffering speaks out, then the noise will be deafening. Politicians will have to listen." - Archbishop Desmond Tutu

From Sarah:

Today I joined thousands of Canadians pushing for the Government to recognize and support work being done around the world to end poverty. Is it an idealistic goal? Most certainly. But ideals and reality do not have to be as irreconcilable as many imagine they are. All it takes is one step. It's not a leap of faith. Just one brief moment of trust and belief that despite all pessimism and fear, we still have our voices, the power and reason to recognize suffering, and the kindness of spirit to do something about it.

From Make Poverty History:

Right now, there is active campaigning in over 50 countries around the three core demands: More and Better Aid, Make Trade Fair, and Cancel the Debt. In Canada, we're also campaigning to End Child Poverty in Canada.

Go to http://www.makepovertyhistory.ca and sign on to the campaign yourself.

There is no time to lose. It doesn't matter who or where you are, your voice is critical to the success of this campaign. This is a rare chance to join me and thousands of others across the planet to once and for all make poverty history.

What you can do right now:
Sign on to the campaign
Tell Paul Martin to commit to a timeline for 0.7%
Click others into action - forward this message to your networks

WHAM! Pineappled!

Today has been a good day. Terribly unproductive, but one of the best days I have had this month. And I have not so much as left the house yet. Things that make today wonderful:

• wedding planning
• unexpected conversations with wonderful persons
• plans falling apart, only to come together perfectly
• barbecues
• foreign adventure
• pineapples

I opened the pantry in hopes of finding a cracker. A cracker for a snacker, you might say. As I was closing the Breton box, cracker in mouth, I looked up to the top shelf of the pantry. And that's when it hit me. WHAM! PINEAPPLED! Right between the eyes! Note: I was not, in fact, literally marked by the pineapple. But it was a shocker, let me tell you. Oh yes, that is what I was just about to do... Now normally the site of a pineapple would not inspire nearly so much shock and awe in me, but this was an exceptional little pineapple. In the nearly two years that I have inhabited this apartment, you see, there has never, (no, never) been a pineapple to inhabit it with me. You might say the 99 is a pineapple free zone. Note: people might look at you funny if you did, but you just might anyway, you crazy nut, you. So the sight of a pineapple was a highly unusual and foreign experience. Kudos, young produce, for you have braved the treacherous journey that is... being purchased and carried home by Angela!

Dancing Records, Wooden Spoons

I tend to forget that no matter where in the world a person is, the one thing that remains constant is the inconstancy of time. All over North America today there are people cursing their double beds, their dressers, and those cumbersome armoires, wishing they did not have to move from this apartment to the next. People frantically scrounge for first, last, or even just next month's rent. People forget and then recall again with a pang and a turn of the stomach that there are phone bills and mortgage installments to be made. And this activity continues in perpetuity, biweekly, and month after month, never changing, while nothing stays the same. Such is the nature of the capitalist maze, I suppose.

This post is dedicated to Alison and April, in hope that their transitions are without event, and to the 99, which will soon be no longer.

"...a sense of the gravity of knowledge..."

Hmm. Well. I think it might have something to do with knowing something terrible, knowing that you will always know it, and knowing that you have a lot of power to affect such a terrible thing. Sort of a pandora's box thing, mayhaps?

Elegy for a Test Tube Vase

It travelled over 3000 kilometres, and a curtain killed it.

Lluvem

There's a quaint little bookstore that I frequent with my husband (Carlos, this morning). Today we were on our way to the hospital, when Carlos decided he needed reading material. The impending birth of a child, it seems, would not be entertainment enough. After Carlos pulled up across from the bookstore, I sighed, conceded, and waited as he turned in to the alley leading to Lluvem's customer parking. By the time we had pulled into the alley, not even parked yet, several years had passed, and our daughter groaned from the back seat as dad got out to spend yet another 'jiffy' in our favourite bookstore. It was raining lightly, as it is now. The mists come lightly, softly, and few by few. They bring with them the sadness that one knows after the anticipated end of a long period of happiness. A pink and brown brick library, on a downtown street, in the middle of a shower. If ever it were so...

I Was Born on a Tuesday

Today is yet another last day of work for she who would be called Sarah. There are a few important details that I fear have not been addressed in full, but I don't fear enough to really care. But this is not what we are here to discuss.

The September 12 project is progressing, if only in my mind. I have devised a number of strategies in the 11 days since I lanched the project. I have yet to receive any responses, but am quite confident that I shall. But this is not what we are here to discuss.

Today I am amused by simple, frivolous things. Things like bangles and toile, feathers and lemons. But this is not what we are here to discuss.

I was born on a Tuesday. Twenty years later a man named Karol died. But that is not what we are here to discuss.

The Kubler-Ross Model of the Death of Rock and Roll

Public places. You should always meet in public places. Furthermore, those public places should be populous, but not so populous as to be overcrowded. Do not meet at Dundas and Spadina. That is not the best option for you, as you find the sight of bodies in a window painful. Meet, instead, further South on Spadina or, far better, on Queen. There you will be carrying a book, wearing a necklace of blue and green glass, and pondering the purchase of a paper lantern. The Buddha on your wrist and the one in your purse wink at the Buddhas in the store windows, and you wonder how many Buddhas have been missed, lost, or forgotten. You don't know it, but your heart is about to break.

Random Good Sandwich, Hot Feet

• sliced smoked tofu roll (from Ying Ying Soy Food)
  
• peanut butter (would have been better with crunchy)
  
• mustard
  
• red pepper (sweet, not hot)
  
• cheddar cheese (old equals good)
  
• lettuce (with two t's, iceberg or leaf)
  

It wanted pickles (dill).


The out-of-doors temperature is currently 23 degrees centigrade. I have not visited the out-of-doors for roughly 7 hours and 17 minutes. I removed my shoes 13 minutes ago, and my feet are no longer hot. It strikes me as odd that we spend so much time inside, away from the earth and real things. My co-workers held a farewell gathering for me this morning, as I will be gone as of Friday. We expect lightning and thunder this evening. The banana chocolate chip muffins were excellent. The gathering reminds me a bit of a wake. I wonder how many times banana chocolate chip muffins have been served at wakes. I think this is a terrible post. I am excited.


I did not drink the coffee.

The First Intelligent Thought I've Had in Response to Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me

It occurred to me today that in his documentary Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock, perhaps inadvertently, reinforces antiquated gender norms. In the course of the film, Spurlock introduces the audience to two important members of his private life: his mother and his girlfriend. In some earlier scenes, he describes the way things used to be, when families cooked at home and ate in restaurants only on the rarest and most special occasions. Most of his own childhood memories of his mother, he says, are of his mother in the kitchen. Flash forward twenty-something years. Spurlock introduces us to Alexandra Jamieson, then girlfriend, now fiancée, long time vegan chef and holistic health counselor. So Spurlock swapped his healthy home cooking mom for a woman who cooks for a living. I am not trying to call into question Spurlock's motivations or to insinuate that he allows his personal life to influence his objectivity; I simply feel that beneath the obvious theme of his film, Spurlock has allowed old-fashioned gender roles to fester. In the film, Spurlock presents himself as a man who depends on the women in his life to keep him healthy. As women, over the past few decades, have made their exodus from the kitchen to the office, they have had less time and energy to focus on keeping themselves and their Morgan Spurlocks healthy. So I guess my question would have to be... of all the fast food tycoons in the world, how many go home to a wifey and a home-cooked meal? Discuss.

On September 12 2001, What Did You Want the World to be?

This idea occurred to me not more than an hour and a half ago. I was lying in bed, trying to decide whether or not to brush my teeth, when my eyes landed on the Bush-Martin '04: Wrong on Star Wars button on my bulletin board. This, of course, led me to think about the march against Bush in November, which inevitably led to thoughts of September 11 2001. I thought about tragedy, and how politicians often mar the memory of such events on major anniversaries by using the opportunity to trumpet their successes. I found myself wondering what the world has actually accomplished in the days since 9/11. And then it hit me.

What if someone were able to look at what the world was at 7 am on September 11 2001, and at everything that happened between then and September 11 2006, and challenge the trumpeting that inevitably will go on? What if someone took the time to reflect on what has happened and on what the world has or has not become since then? With this post, I announce the official launch of what I will pretentiously call The September 12 Project.

The September 12 Project is about hope. I want to find out what we've done, what kind of progress the world has made since 9/11. Essentially this is going to be one giant research project for Sarah. And Sarah needs your help.

I want to use a human perspective in my research, because I believe the human perspective is left out of most contemporary political and economic work on the subject. So I ask you, please, answer the question "On September 12 2001, what did you want the world to be?" If your answer is short, feel free to leave it in the comments section at the bottom of this post. If not, you can e-mail it to september12project@yahoo.ca. If you wish to remain anonymous, feel free to withhold your name, or to indicate to me in your comments that your name should be kept private.

I am committed, on the 5 year anniversary of 9/11, to releasing a report on your testimonials. In order for this project to be successful, however, I need as many participants and as much publicity as I can possibly get, so please, send this post, using the e-mail link below (the envelope icon) to forward on to anyone who might be interested.

5 years later, perhaps the world really will be a better place. At the very least, I'd like to inspire people to think about what they do want for the future, and what they can do to help. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I hope to hear from you soon!

Addendum: While I make no secret of my own political leanings, I am absolutely open to those who would like to express opinions contrary to mine. In fact, I encourage it! My goal, as a political scientist, is to get as wide and varied an array of opinions as possible!

Wriggles and Snaps

I am excited. Very excited. And disappointed all the same. I do not know what to make of myself at present, and I spend far too much time trying to decide what to make of myself in the past and future. After a string of frustrating meetings and slow days, I found myself lapsing into the same stewing and muttering behaviours that I find so unhealthy in my mother. As per usual, I take for granted all the wonderful little things around me. Friends that care for me, and make it very clear. A future full of so much excitement and opportunity that I might collapse under the weight of it all, rolling with laughter as it topples over. Commitment to a cause that I know helps people in exactly the way I think I should help people. Direction, however broad and meandering, towards a goal that really does seem bright. So today, instead of complaining and going on, I'm going to do something that I do both rarely and not nearly often enough. Thank you. Thank you Chelsea. Thank you Kristin. Thank you Sofie. Thank you Andrea and Ciara. Thank you Raja and Jenn. Thank you Katherine. Thank you Ky and Kari. Thank you Jennifer. Thank you Asim. Thank you Emily. Thank you Jason. Thank you Andy. Thank you Aveleigh and Dmitry. Thank you Kate. Thank you Nicola and Deb. Thank you Tim. Thank you Tim. Thank you Aaron. Thank you Laura. Thank you Melissa. Thank you Penny. Thank you Leslie. Thank you Shirl. Thank you for all the happy moments you have given me, and for all the hope you give me for the future.

"But trust me... on the sunscreen." - Mary Schmich

The Randomly Hip, OR The Tragically Absurd

At frequent, random intervals throughout the day I've had a single line of The Hip's 'At the Hundredth Meridian' playing in my head. Now, normally, having any amount of almost any Hip song lodged inside my skull for any amount of time would leave me quite irate. Note: of course, as Hip songs tend, in this country, to receive what I feel is an exorbitant amount of play, they are more or less permanently lodged in my skull, which may explain my volatile potential for nastiness. However, this particular case of the Tragic Plague came with a rather amusing little antibody. I seemed to have replaced eulogy with the ever so much more amusing eugoogoly. So forget Jimmy Eat World. Get Ry Cooder to sing my eugoogoly!

Attaque à Main Armée de Café

Ah the wonders of web-based translation. I can mug a person in French. I can mug a person with coffee in french. But I certainly cannot say mug - or coffee mug, for that matter - in French. So please do not ask me to. I do find it ironic, though, that my weapon of choice also happens to be my kryptonite. Note to self: must write script for the movie Unbreakable 2: Attaque à Main Armée de Café, and send to M. Night Shyamalan. OR must write script for the movie Unbreakablesque, and send to the brothers Chaps.

T-Shirt Ninja, and Other Non-Threats

I'm guilty, I'll admit. I realized this morning, or possibly last night, while washing my face, that I, despite my years of training in you-should-know-betterology, have indulged in one of the greatest sins of all mass media consumptiondom. Yes, it's true, I've been thinking in goodguy/badguy terms. Now, I know, I am painfully aware, that there aren't really good authoritarian dictatorships and bad authoritarian dictatorships, there are no good and bad rebel insurgents, but some part of me still struggles to dichotomize international and global conflict into manifestations of the forces of good and evil.

Perhaps this urge stems from the black and white dichotomies of my religious upbringing. Or maybe I'm just an optimistic little idealist? I feel the need to box up warfare and pull it apart because, apparently, in my merry little world if I can definitely pick a goodguy and a badguy, then I don't have to accept that world peace isn't just impossible, it's improbable. If I can find a goodguy, the world will have its hero.

Never one to hang on to irrational ideas for *ahem* much longer than I know they're irrational, I've revised my thinking on goodguys vs. badguys. Turns out, the goodguys and the badguys are really all just guys. Guys with guns. And if you're looking for someone to stick up for, or whose side you can take with a conscience free and clear, it's the ones without the guns you want.

If I Got Up and Left

During my absence, the urge to abandon my life has been growing inside me, somewhere along the back of my skull. Note: yes, it really was more neglect than absence. The mass of the bug grows, like black velvet sludge, atop my brain, pushing against the walls of my skull, while it's tail slithers and snakes through my body. It creeps down my throat, entwined in my vocal cords, and wends its way around my lungs and liver. My intestines and uterus are hidden in the coils of this sly black adder. And it splits, ever so gracefully, to pull at the muscles of my thighs. The tails of this, this snake, this thing, this urge, are tied taut at my ankles, so thick that my knees cannot be kept still more than twenty minutes. It pulses, rolling its sinews inside me, urging me to go.

Mother Nature Knows No Vanity

These days the sidewalks of Ottawa City flow like tiny torrents of Hell. Looking out my 13th floor window, all I see is white. Muted, bloated, grayish white, punctuated by the occasional barb of a barren brown tree or ominous gray of some foreboding office tower. The buildings seem to cry out, "Flee, Sarah, Flee! Tear yourself from our bosom before we do imbibe you and leech out your precious spirit!" And so I flee. I flee from that window where the office towers pulse with yearning, reaching desperately while bidding me go, their windows glassy and dead. I flee to my memories, where magnolias perch calmly, peering down at me quizzically as I walk slowly through their shade. Where green marble and grey cement shine through bleak days. Where low-lying buildings in purples and reds collapse with laughter behind me. I long for the freedom of small dark rooms with old linoleum floors and poor insulation. I long for imperfection and excitement. I long for the humidity of melting snow and the hum and babble of bridges and atria. My eyes are lifting, filling with foliage and tropics. Oh can't you smell the spring?

Rage, Rage, and Passionate Cries

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

Where Do We Go From Here?

A number of events of little significance have got me thinking, as of late, about what I need to do with myself before I die. I have either an infinite or an infinitessimal amount of time left; while I'm not particularly fearful of my own death, I am, at times, apprehensive of what will happen to me in the moments between now and then. What will I do, what will I see, where will I go? Will I stop dropping my freaking cheerios on the floor of my cubicle? I've always had a somewhat morbid view of my own future, expecting it to be rife with intense heartbreak and disease or mortal injury. Is my obsession with tragedy and passion just girlish fantasy, or could there be something more, something real in my dreams? A few people close to her believe that my mother has a certain amount of metaphysical power, that she can will changes into the lives of others. Could it be possible that I will tragedy into mine? Or is my awareness of mortality simply so excessively accute that it permeates my vision of life?

Addendum: Melancholy and Laughter

I have added a slew of links to the Weblogs and Journals section of the sidebar. For perspective into the muddle that is my mind, please peruse. I stongly suggest some of the items available at Girls are Pretty, as they reflect with remarkable accuracy my own morbidity.

When You Just Want to Kick the World in the Nads

Disclaimer: I hate EVERYTHING, and will likely do so until two hours after falling asleep tonight.

Rrrrrrr. ARRRRRRRGH. GAAAAAAHHH!

You Know, You Can't Just Run Around Willy Nilly Making Up Acronyms.

My father, new to the world of instant messaging, is rapidly adopting a number of the annoying habits normally attributed to preteen and adolescent IMers. Coupled with his general infantility, this can create what many mothers and pseudo-mothers affectionately refer to as a handful.

Dad:
but what the heck is wha ja guh

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
"wha ja guh?" is my reaction to you making up msn language

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
you know, you can't just run around willy nilly making acronyms

Dad:
wot i do?

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
wjg is not a valid acronym

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
where joo go is not a commonly used expression, and therefore not acronymable

Dad:
that's just what u wrote........where joo go

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
i am aware of what i wrote

Dad:
stop using words I cant pronounce

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
the offense was commissioned when you decided to acronimify the phrase

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
stop using acronyms that aren't legitimate msn fodder and you have a deal

Dad:
kaaki tu angraizi di lat punrahee hain! (Note: unapproximable punjabi interjection)

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
aha! don't try and wile your way out of this with foreign languages!

Dad:
don't try and what?

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
wile your way out

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
like, use your wiley charms

Dad:
my name is not wily coyote (Note: Unforgivable. Who doesn't know that it's Wile E. Coyote?)

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
are you a coyote? i think not

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
precisely

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
so no wiling

Dad:
you're so cute when u r mad!

Dad:
oops was that wily too?

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
i'm not mad

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
and no... i think that was patronizing, father

Dad:
crazy?

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
oh that mad

Heavens to Murgatroid!:
well yes, i am that

Hurry up Sarah, There's a Doggy Coming! And Other Such Lies

When I was a very small child my brother used to walk me to and from school. Our relationship was not completely antagonistic, but was often so. Walking anywhere these days, I can always here the crunch and squish of snow and slush beneath my feet. I was reminded on a recent walk home from work of one of the obscure barbs that my brother once threw my way. I was told that the level of noise that I made in my clunky plastic winter boots was simply abhorrent. Further to this point, my brother informed me that no man would ever love me if I continued to walk so loudly. In truth, I cannot recall his exact words. He may in fact have told me that no boys would ever like me. Although these days I tend to disarm people with my ninja-like stealth, I have, in fact, never been loved. Single. Solitary. Tear.

Subconsciously, it's Anything but Traumatic.

Two days ago you said that you had something very important to tell us. You were very excited. Mom and Dad got very excited because they thought that you were finally not living in sin. You were not, in fact, not living in sin. But you told us that she was pregnant. Dad threw an empty cardboard box at your head. It hit you directly in the face. The impact set off a fit of rage comparable to a hyperactive thirteen year old boy having a temper tantrum. I could not help but laugh. Not outright, the way you would if you saw someone slip and fall on their ass, or if you heard a teenage girl on the bus speaking earnestly about, well, anything that teenage girls speak earnestly about. This was silent laughter, the sort you keep to yourself. That inward snicker that becomes your only defence against the unruly and the totalitarian. And then I realized that I've been doing it, without realizing, my entire life.

PRESENTING TITANIC IN 30 SECONDS (AND RE-ENACTED BY BUNNIES)

Through random chance, slight web log addiction, and utter workplace boredom, I've stumbled upon the most amusing animation site I've been introduced to since becoming acquainted with Homestar. I recommend the Icon Story.

Could of? Would of? Should of?

Question: why is it that so many people do not understand the subtly blatant art of contractions?

I've never really been one to heed the shrill cry of grammar harpies; frankly, I couldn't care less about the use of contractions in everyday speech. Or writing, for that matter. But for the love of crap, people! You've got to know what they mean! It's not like these are particularly challenging concepts. The 'it's's and 'what's's and 'must've's of the world are pretty straight forward. Most people understand these contractions quite well, and yet a large portion of this most is at a complete loss when it comes to translating meaning into text. So here, kiddies, is a simple grammar lesson from Sarah, honourary harpy:

've >< of; 've = have. HAVE. For the love of crap, HAVE!

Thank you, and good day.

The Lost Lamb, The Lost Bread, The Lost Boys

Lyla Jones claims that she is like a little lost puppy making her way back home. I, on the other hand, feel like a baby whose mother left her on a doorstep in hopes that she would be taken in and find a better life. Of course, my 'mother' is acting more on her own desire for a better life than her desire for me to have one. And she left me on the doorstep in -40 degree weather. I keep trying to tell myself that I should not be as distraught as I am. In the overarching web of the world, this is not so devastating a life event. Nonetheless, my neck is starting to stiffen and I can feel a familiar tightness, the sort that tends to preceed the formation of a lump in my throat, pulling against my chest. Eid Mubarak Sarah.

Please, Could you not?

Everyone has a few little things that make them cringe. Not everyone can rank them, though. My top X please-could-you-nots:

1. Write little notes in my planner or on my notes. Pencil is forgivable, but ink shall incur my wrath.


2. Eat or chew, even for a few seconds, with your mouth open


3. Call me "Sarah Malik" with those horrible, grating, short North American a's


4. Leave used tissues lying around. Under pillows, in blankets, on couches and tables... the answer is always EWW!


5. Stare - at me, or over my shoulder - from within two feet of my side

"She can almost forgive capitalism for that."

Where would I be without any of the smallest things that have made me myself?

"Only the best art can order the chaotic tumble of events. Only the best can realign chaos to suggest the chaos and order it will become." - Michael Ondaatje

Perhaps my life is just that. A set of little baubles, events and plans and people, coming together and falling apart, moving in and out of the foreground like ants on a grass curatin in the wind.

Sinking In

Back in the soul trap that is the government, I'm not quite as despondent as I was the last time around. I'm not sure whether my current situation is better than my previous situation or not. These days the tedium is mostly characterized by a lack of things to do. The boredom is punctuated by a few very interesting projects, but, for the most part, there is less punctuation in my boredom than one might find in a second grader's failed attempt at grammar homework. I suppose I should not complain though. No, wait, the purpose of this entry was to find out whether or not I still have reason to complain. Note to self: when contradicting self, there is no need to make note of said contradiction in a recorded media which can be retrieved and used against self to prove self's mental inadequacies. In my previous situation I was constantly tense because of the overwhelming amounts of tedious data work that was piled atop me. So I guess the titanic clash today equals Situation: Overwhelmed-with-Tension VS. Situation: Underwhelmed-with-Boredom. Who will win? They say that only time will tell, but we all know I'm too impatient to wait for time.