the girl who owns the world

-I hate when you have an elastic band (not a hair elastic, but an elastic band), and you try to stretch it to a certain length it should be able to take, and then SNAP, it snaps and you’re left there with this long piece of stretchy, rubbery string, and you want to keep it, but somehow you know you should throw it out.

-Making plans you forget making, and then remember later is different from remembering plans but being too anxious to put the step one and two and three together.

-It’s funny how you write something in a letter, like “I don’t remember what it’s like to have a splinter, I haven’t had one in a long time,” and then just GETTING A SPLINTER moments after writing it. 

-I bought some summer jewelry from the dollar store, and I feel like it’s silly, and a little frivilous, but I need to look like a tween this summer. 

• Went swimming before work even though I haven’t been swimming in awhile. It felt good, even though I was out of breath/out of shape.
• Worked 9-5pm. It was a relatively busy day at the job. Lots of book returns, and misc tasks. Generally, I liked it though. I hope to build up a tolerance to the exhaustion I felt today though.
• Planned my TCAF travel plan with backups for events that might be really popular and hard to get space at (I’m looking at you mixed media comic workshop!!). This helped assuage my anxiety, and also set in stone the fact that YES I am going, this is something I love, and it’s important for me to go and feel immersed in it.
• Drank the instant coffee in attempts to stop buying coffee at work. My mind says I could get used to it, my heart says “yeah okay no” This is just day 1 though, so who knows what tomorrow or the next 77 cups will bring!
• Came home and collapsed into bed and continued reading Outliers by Malcom Gladwell. I enjoy it, minus the fact that every “outlier” is a man so far. And the book sort of misses the question “wow I wonder why more women don’t have the same kinds of possibilities that would make them as freakishly successful?”
• Pitched some pieces to static zine
• Made my to-do list, a mostly to-done list
• Ate some wonderful curry my sister made. 
• Almost fell asleep 4 times before 9:30pm. 
• Made some calls which I have put off before. I am hoping these calls count even though they were mostly caught by the answering machines.

I have had a very luxurious week, especially Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I feel as though I have been both luxurious with my money, and my time which is more valuable than the former. Luxurious might just be “necessities that I have been avoiding buying”, and “hanging out with friends I haven’t seen in awhile”, but at the same time, I have thoroughly enjoyed everything I’ve experienced lately. 

-Went to a favourite restaurant for the first time in awhile

-Visited pal in Toronto

-Bought two pairs of summer shoes

-Had dumplings for the first time ever from the infamous Mother’s Dumplings on spadina. 

-made a poster for the book swap (pics coming)

-Queers and Cronies bookswap

-bought essentials from the “feminine hygiene” section of the drug store

-dollar store toiletries including emery boards

-reading narrative-based non-fiction on my ereader-just for fun. It’s been awhile, but 

-wore a gold shiny necklace

-visited the homes of two people that has beautiful original architecture including old fashioned lock and keys, large bathrooms, and all the small charms that older houses have. 

-spent time with my girlfriend who let me look at all of her things. I love looking at people’s things-their books, their shirts, their shoes, everything. There is something about being able to know someone through a physical abstraction-an accumulation of objects, or to just know them further than you already know them. 

-going for walks in her new neighbourhood at night. Small things, spending time things, beautiful moments, reading together.

-photographing downtown during doors open hamilton

-“PUSSY ENTRANCE” the band, the enigma, the live-reading with charisma of the Lesbian Erotica, the double, triple entendres at Queers and Cronies.

-had a very beautifully prepared dinner by a lovely friend who keeps small bits of this and that in perfectly sized mason jars. It was a six person seated dinner. The kitchen was full of voices, stories, laughter, learning, delicious food, smiles. Something I had not experienced in a great time.

-special plans for the world, sharing special plans for the world. “Getting plansy”

-my thoughtful sister who bought me a point and shoot camera that was on sale, and coincidentally the exact same one that I lost. 

-really really living

Last night’s wild family affairs are aside, and a day of workshops is over, and I can’t seem to find my camera. It is not in my room or my kitchen (the two places I went to after last night’s festivities). I have messaged the cab company, and I have messaged the bar I was at, and I am waiting for replies.

I love my wee camera because I can take it places, and sneakily take pictures of people without their noticing (in a people watching way, not an upskirt way). I am a little bummed because there were at least 20 pictures I was wanting from it, although I had recently cleared a lot from the memory card. 

Sigh. There were some good shots of the night-mostly family/friends, weird bar decorations-a whiteboard with the band “Cruel Remedy” playing for most of the month of May and an adjacent light-up palm tree, some self-shots of my sister and I in the bar washroom, and others. 

I will keep you posted.

It feels eerily similar to when I lost my notebook-it feels Iike I’ve lost part of myself.