Victory is Mine

I have spent the past three or four days trying to get a copy of the song 'Through the Glass' by Stone Sour. I must have downloaded 8 or 9 different copies but every single one was just silence. It was so infuriating. Today, I finally managed to find one that actually plays. It has a wierd beep in the middle in it but I can work with that. The reason the song caught me when I heard it on the radio was these lovely lyrics:

I'm looking at you through the glass
Don't know how much time has passed
And all I know is that it feels like forever
But no one ever tells you that forever
Feels like home, sitting all alone inside your head

No matter how happy I may be on any given day, that melancholy music always reaches out and grabs my heart. Somedays it makes the depression worse and others it reminds me that I am not who I used to be. Star says that she can't listen to 'Concrete Angel' by Martina McBride because it's what I used to put on and loop over and over when I was doing really badly. And it's that exact reason that I still listen to it. It forces me to admit that I have come a long way and that, for the most part, I am happy now. There's this line in the book A Complicated Kindness that I had as my quote of the moment at one point which sums it up pretty well. "It bothered me in a kind of Charles Manson way to have a brown smear of blood on my wall but I also liked it because every time I looked at it I was reminded that I was, at that very moment, not bleeding from my face. And those are powerful words of hope, really." Is that why my most listened to playlist is labelled as 'Depressed'? Probably. But the truth it that it makes me smile more often than not.

I have never claimed to make sense.

I'm a Lemming

If You Ruled the Land . . . by wackyweasel
Your first name:
How you gained your rule:	Military coup, of course! They never saw it coming . . .Walked in and took the throne while they were at lunchRightful heir!!Strategic poisoning . . .Mind controlAsked for it really nicely, 'pretty please'No idea . . .
Your title is:	Your Great Grand High Awesomeness
Your symbol is:	the snake, because you can wear it like a feather boa
You rule from:	a floating castle - ABOVE A VOLCANO!!
At your side is:	your sexiest bodyguards
Your enforcers, troops, and guards are all:	veeeery heavily armed
Your most popular law is:	No more speakers on cars that rattle windows of homes
Your least popular law is:	Banning of 'stupidity and laziness in the same person'
Your worst enemy is:	rumored to be cuter than you . . . so not true!
Your popularity rating is:: 42%
Your chance of being overthrown is:: 98%
Quiz created with MemeGen!

Not Sunburnt

Today was the Capital Ex Parade and I somehow I got myself roped into getting up at an ungodly hour of the morning to go hang out with the Knights and ride on the Scandanavian float. And, the big exciting part of all this that justifies a blog post - I didn't sunburn myself!! I'm so proud. I'd like thank the Academy....

Actually, seriously, I have my mother to thank/blame for the fact that when I go to events like this, I end up taking a bag with me containing sunscreen, insect repellent, snacks, water, things to amuse the children, kleenex, and basically anything else you could end up needing. I can't decide whether to say she trained me well or she brainwashed me well. In all honesty though, I'm proud of my ability to be prepared for things. It's nice not to have to stress during events and it makes you look pretty cool to the unorganized people. And I only had to forcibly apply to sunscreen to two or three people, so I figure it was a good day. Long, but good. Anyways, here are some photos to check out and, I promise, the photos from Alyssa's visit are coming soon. There were just a lot more of them to process. Hopefully I'll get those up sometime this weekend. Somewhere in between the belly dancing workshop, going to see Clerks 2 with Mike, the Ascension game, babysitting, and marrying Lisette off to Tall, Dark and Evil.

My life is never boring. Mundane, yes; boring, no.

Most of the Time

I broke last night. Sobbing, curled up on the front steps, chest heaving with sorrow. I stayed there until the mosquitoes drove me inside, cellphone clutched in my hand - one last life line. I have lost much of the stupidity of my teenage years and grown a conscience as I have healed and while, on a regular day this is something to be proud of, on a bad day, it leaves me with no coping mechanisms, and the feeling like I'm going to puke it hurts so much.

And the thing about healing is that people don't really get it when you break down anymore. See, they start expecting you to be happy and healthy and all that so when you're not, when you just can't run fast enough to stay ahead of the depression, everyone's confused. "What's wrong?" they ask, truly concerned because they don't understand where it's coming from. "You seemed to be doing fine." Seemed - the operative word. Most days, I can get by. My life is bearable, even enjoyable on rare, beautiful occasions like Saturday night. But every once in a while, it all catches up with you...

It’s funny. Whenever I talk about this kind of thing you get these people saying things like how it’s all old hat, movie-of-the-week, tearjerker crap. They’re tired of it and wish that people would just shut up and get on with their lives instead of going on and on about it. Well, we’re tired of it, too, those of us unfortunate enough to be Children of the Secret. But that didn’t stop it from happening to us and screwing up our lives. Way too many of us weren’t lucky enough to find support like I got to help me pick up the pieces of my life again. And as being here makes it all too clear, the reality of it never really goes away, does it? It’s always there inside us, an unhappy ache that we can’t completely ease no matter how deeply we bury it. It’s not something I think about all the time or anything, but I still wake up sweating from bad dreams, trapped in an endless cycle of being hurt. Or something I see or hear will trigger a rush of panic before I remember that I’m not there anymore.
(Charles DeLint, Widdershins)

What was is that I told David, again? Oh right, "We do not change our fates; we merely live in the world given to us and try the make the best of it." One of these days, I'll start listening to my own words of wisdom.

But not tonight.

Trixie Whirlwind

She's come and she's gone and, as cheesy as it sounds, the house seems quieter and smaller and lonelier. Diana's on a massive cleaning spree which helps but I miss her already. It felt so right having her here with me and I wish we could have kept her.

For those of you out of the loop, my bestest buddy Alyssa from Wildfire came out to visit for a week, starting last Wednesday and ending today. It was busy and chaotic and crazy and so much fun. A recap, as much for me as for anyone else. Pictures to follow...

Wednesday: Diana and I picked Alyssa up from the airport. Much crying, much hugging. All sorts of happiness. We stopped by Bioware to visit Marc on the way home and Future Shop to buy a cable for the DVD player, lovingly donated to us by my favourite Rabbit. After much sitting around catching up, and a nap, we had dinner (that's right, I cooked!) took the bus to Whyte and saw a wierd movie called 'Free Zone.' Ice cream, walked home and to sleep.

Thursday: Alyssa and I tried to take the bus to Star & Eric's - we failed. Stupid Millwoods. After being rescued, we hung out with the babies for a while and then took Aria and Kessie to a movie. We didn't actually care what we saw, we just wanted to be in the air-conditioned building. It was blessedly cool. We ended up seeing 'Take the Lead' with Antonio Banderas and it made me want to dance again. Sigh. Thursday night was geeks at Jekyll's and then home to sleep.

Friday: Shopping with Myrna and Davyd and wandering the Ave, though that was cut kind of short by massive amounts of pain in my knee. Home again, home again for lounging, reading, etc. And then a piratical adventure in costume to City Center to see the new Pirates of the Carribean. Dressing up is fun. Dressing up your friends is more fun :)

Saturday: Knights of the Northern Realm tournament and feast - see previous comments about playing dress-up. Due to unforseen breakups, the dress I was planning on wearing was no longer available, so I ended up borrowing my mother's wedding dress. Wierd but very very pretty. It was so bloody hot that I wonder how people survived wearing that kind of clothing all the time. But other than sunburns it was good fun and it was neat to watch the knights bashing eachother with swords and falling off the quintain jousting horse. Oh, and one of the knights looked like Mr. Tumnus with lovely long hair. He was very pretty but it turns out I know his mother so that was wierd. The feast in the evening was awkward and hard but fun too. I got to dance and to teach medieval dances which was really nice and it was cool to see all the pretty costumes. Feeling like I had to watch out for my sister was wierd though that one's my fault alone. I can't help but worry about her. And I got a lot of less than positive responses as the ex of the Knight. But I'm glad I went, truly. I think I would have regretted it a lot more if I had chickened out.

Sunday: SLEEP!! Alyssa and I slept way in and finally dragged ourselves out of bed to go help kidnap Mike L for his birthday and take him to the Waterpark. Unfortunatly, Alyssa didn't mention that she didn't like waterslides until we were there, but she and I still had a blast in the kiddie pool. Cake followed with Mike's family where, in a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon way, his mother and I know a lot of the same people. The world is too small sometimes. We went out for a late dinner with Marc and Diana afterwards to Dadeo's and then rented movies. Whee! As a note, 'The Upside of Anger' is not a comedy. It was misfiled there but it was not a particularily funny movie. Ah well. You win some, you lose some.

Monday: Back to West Ed to see the stuff other than the Waterpark. We wandered, ate, saw the sea lions, took pictures, and generally had a good time. Sadly while we were there it started raining, unbeknownst to us, and getting out to the buses after was a wet affair. We met up with Hoffman for coffee and then visited my bookstore where Alyssa was bought the happy sounding book, 'Veronika Decides to Die.' It was good to talk to Jen and hear about all the crazyness that has happened while I've been away but it was hard not to reshelve books and shuffle things and generally clean and tidy. I think I definatley take after Dad in that workaholic way. Monday night we watched the new 'Pride and Prejudice' with the very pretty Keira Knightley and Myrna came by to pin the hem for my dress. I am sooo excited for Saturday!!

Tuesday: Another day of sleeping in after staying up too late talking. We headed out to the Park and hung out with my sister and Victor at my parent's house for a while, which was fun. We wandered around the acreage taking pictures and I remembered how pretty it was there and how much I love that property. I can't imagine my parents ever moving away from there. Then we went into the Park to visit with Alyssa's aunt and uncle and their three HUGE dogs. Scary scary big dogs. But I was brave and even pet them. But they were scary. Just for the record. And then back to the parent's for dinner with the familia and birthday cake for Colette. I forget how overwhelming my family can be until I introduce someone new to them. I felt bad for Alyssa but I'm glad she got to meet them all. And lastly we headed over to Davyd & Myrna's for girl's night. Which turned out to be rather low-key and was mostly just us sitting around watching 'Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants' (the ultimate girl's night movie) and chatting. But suprisingly, we got an April which was fun as none of us had really seen her since Christmas. All the girls agreed that we should keep Alyssa here :)

Wednesday: I let Alyssa sleep in a bit this morning while I got up and burned all of our photos onto a cd to take home and made breakfast (yea, I cooked again!!). My mum picked us up and drove us out to the airport where there was much crying, much hugging and much less happiness. I knew she was only here for a week, I knew she had to go home but that didn't make it any easier. I watched until I couldn't see her anymore and then came home. And here I am. Missing her desperately but so happy that she came.

A final thought and then I'm off to try and make the rest of my day vaguely productive. Alyssa and I talked a lot while she was here and one of the things I came to realize was how lucky I was to have the friends and the family that I do. The people here, the people in my life, are different than any other type of person I've ever met. We joke a lot that our group is made of broken people, but I think that is true in a way that is unique and necessary. Each of us is coming from a different background with different kinds of scars - drugs, divorce, abuse, neglect, poverty, self-esteem issues - and so when we say, "I understand," we mean it. We may not each know the particulars of every situation but as a group we can handle anything. So it doesn't matter who you are, you are always welcome in our hearts. I feel blessed to have friends that I know will come running when I need them, and I feel like my life is more complete knowing that I have people who will call on me for help. I have strong opinions, strong convictions and a stronger self-esteem because of the strength of the people around me.

People wanted to protect themselves from those they did not know. Others were different; they talked different languages and worse different clothes. Many people did not want them living close to them, just because of these difference. And yet, they were people, were they not? They thought the same way, and had the same hopes as anybody else did. They were our brothers and sisters, whichever way you looked at it, and you could not turn a brother or sister away.
-Alexander McCall Smith (The Full Cupboard of Life)