palindromes are awesome
So this is 22. It’s nice! You know what else is nice? SPRING
Being 21 in another country was interesting. I’ve tried several times to write a Really Serious Post on how it played out and it always boils down to “yeah yeah yeah WOO yeah” or something equally inane
ANYWAY
Here is a picture of a puppy.
This is Mowgli. He’s a little dumb. He lives with my high school bff, and he’s great for chatting up strangers, at least when he’s not trying to sniff up the ladyskirts. Lana’s also great because her hometurf stories completely outstrip my time Canadaside. Also, she makes me feel FIERCE and AWESOME and not ragingly neurotic as per usual
I just realised this post is getting REALLY LONG and self-indulgent but isn’t that what the internet is all about? anyway click through for
- birthday week pictures
- lots of words
- rambling non-conclusion about stuff I guess
RADFERN
1.
a. “I’m a purist”
b. “Well at least I wear pants”
c. “…I’ll just make my tea elsewhere”
2.
“I dreamed my brother and I were smoking up together then I woke up and thought goddamn why is he more badass than I was at seventeen. And also why was he hiding those blunts from me?! I think my brain is telling me I really miss Vancouver right now”
(Fact: I used to live around the corner from a drug dealer who would tell terrifying stories about life in Trinidad, and we would laugh awkwardly, and then he’d try to pimp out my super-pretty housemate so we’d hide in the closet until he went away. Remind me to tell you about him the next time we hang out, my impersonation is pretty sweet)
3.
“Vancouver is the lady mecca like Sydney is for the dudes”
“Yes but Cass only hung out with foreigners. Dude foreigners”
“Um. About that”
(Lana gets new tattoos like I get new haircuts)
4.
“I just remembered who else has their birthday today. It’s bringing back memories of New York New Year’s Eve… ughhhhhh”
5.
“That old guy sitting behind us must have overheard your Halloween story because he just gave me the sleazy wink”
“AHHH wait til I tell you what happened next”
6.
“So when you say you had problems with trust and intimacy…?”
“Not really problems, more like I talk a lot of crap instead of saying the important stuff. I guess the taking my clothes off bit was fine, until it wasn’t?”
“So maybe you need to stop running away from things”
7.
(D: I don’t believe in a casual relationship. If I’m in, I’m in. I want it to be intense and dramatic and passionate and all that crap)
“I really think if you’re hanging out and you’re sleeping together, there has to be something there even if you’ve agreed to the boundaries”
“That said, there’s making things complicated and there’s being strung along. Then there’s holding back, not trusting people, different expectations, honesty, being generally dumb—”
“What about that guy who was kind of your boyfriend but not really?”
“AH”
8.
“I’m really glad my exes are in different cities and countries. It makes living here that little bit easier.”
—-
MEANWHILE
Sometimes my family likes to be reassured that they still have a daughter and she’s alive and maybe she could come home a little more often? So I thought I’d oblige them. It was great.
THEN
—-
GET YER GROVE ON
I have this thing about never going out and not liking large crowds and generally being a twenty-something senior citizen. But I like house parties! (You get to nap afterwards.) So other Cassie and I teamed up and held a party at the Grove, only secretly we hoped no one would come and it would just be me and the Grovekids drinking tea under the blanket fort
BUT PEOPLE SHOWED UP. Aw heck. So I got my Canadian on and was tremendously (happily) smashed and spent the next three days piecing together the events of the night via photos, text messages, mocking recaps, bruises and crayon smears in unexpected places
While making the chocolate moustaches I got CARRIED AWAY and drew one on Cassie. Then she licked the bowl clean. The sugar high was so intense she crashed halfway through the party and changed into her onesie and had a nap (remember, senior citizens)
Key elements: mulled wine OF COURSE, guests bringing mixtapes (‘COLLABORATIVE DJ EXPERIENCE’),
drawing on walls,
drawing on each other (check out my mad tipsy skills yo),
‘super authentic student party experience’
these dudes swapping clothes (at some point Sam in a fit of jealous rage added more stars to his name on the household tally using Nick’s red wine OR SOMETHING),
people being unimpressed at Cassie’s paparazzi tricks,
>:(
“Do you remember after your Bowie friend left you fell down the stairs and almost concussed yourself then Yi and I wrapped you up in the sleeping bag and we carried you inside and dumped you on the floor and the next thing we knew you’d jumped up and started dancing with Cassie and it took me fifteen minutes to leave with you saying goodbye eight times?”
“…No?”
“You also tried to eat my neck”
(HE WAS LYING)
“I don’t know why you’re lecturing me, you can’t even puke properly”
—-
BEWOWRA
subtitled “ughhhhhhhhhh”
Riding around on the North Shore Line, so hungover.
“I appreciate the universal obliteration going on right now”
“Google history told me I spent the entire night looking up the price of elephants”
“Put your apocalypse on mine”
We only came for the food.
“Die Antwoord stands for The Answer”
“The answer to what?”
“…Whatever, man. Fuck”
“You know Sam, underneath your Canadian exterior you’re actually a horrible person”
“Bad Izzy and the Girls sounds like a great band name”
“You can buy a cream for that?”
By 8pm I still couldn’t handle the sight of aperitifs UGHHHH tequila you were never my friend
—-
ANYWAY
(here is a shitty break-up letter)
VANCOUVER. COUV. We’ve had an almost year-long run, it’s been pretty great but I think we’ve both changed. Maybe we should see other people? It’s not even that I’m eyeing off another city, exactly. But… okay, there’s someone else. This city was here before you ever entered the picture and we were just friends in that flaky kind of way and I’m still bad at trying to figure them out and you harshed my perspective, did you know that? And it messed things up a little here. But I figure it’s worth sticking it out for a little while and I don’t know. Sydney and I have to talk a couple of things through.
Vancouver, you’re amazing and solid and you had some really great bud. But when I was with you it felt like everything was falling apart and I really didn’t know how to deal with things in a sensible way and, you know, I fell back on the time-old method of Moments of Blinding Idiocy. So I have great stories to tell about our times together, how I grew when I was with you, but I also have to unlearn all those self-preservation techniques I developed to get by. It’s not nice to be that cynical and difficult to talk to and prone to really wonky behaviour. I miss being young and dumb, and I miss the blithely sunny optimism that came with it. You took that away from me. But I guess you also gave something back, and for that you’ll always hold a special place in my heart.
Stay sharp son. I’ll probably see you around.
x
