My cousin Ian died early this morning. Thanks everyone for your thoughts and well-wishes while he was in the hospital. ♥

it's been awhile. Updating tonight because I can't sleep and I thought it'd help.

So my mother calls me today, to tell me that my cousin probably won't live out the weekend. He has four infections, only three of which they're able to treat at all, and even that treatment might kill him anyway because his liver's almost lost all function. At this point the doctors have put him on enough morphine to keep him comfortable and not freaked out by his current predicament.

I'm pretty upset about this, as you can probably imagine. I've talked about Ian's potential state of health on here before. We were never particularly close, since he's a musician/nomad and older than I am by 15+ years, but he's family and I'm superclose with his parents (my aunt and uncle) and they're beyond devastated.

But right now it's easier to focus on how upset I am by the way my mom approached telling me the news.

This is how she tells me:

"So I know we had plans for lunch this sunday, but we'll have to play it by ear because Ian probably won't live through the weekend, so I might have to go to a funeral that day or something, but I hope to see you, alright?" O_o Uhm, what? 'sorry I might have to cancel our lunch plans but I might have to go to a funeral'??? HOLY HELL. I calmly pointed out that if Ian were to be having a funeral, I would see her anyway because I WOULD FUCKING BE THERE. I just didn't even know where to start. We didn't even really have plans, just tentative plans to get together anyway. So it wasn't even like a courtesy 'by the way I might stand you up' call. Because there were no fucking plans, other than 'let's have lunch, we'll talk'! So it's just a big fucking ruse. Like "I didn't call to tell you your cousin's dying, I called to talk to you about lunch plans". As if his dying wasn't a good enough excuse or something. aAAAAAAAAGh.

Then she tells me that she 'hasn't heard from matt (my brother) in three days', and that 'if I talk to him I should let him know'. A little further in the conversation it comes out that three days ago she left a voicemail message with him that he should come pick up his Economist magazine from her during office hours (they work in the same office building) and he hasn't shown up. OKAY WAIT. So, a magazine is worth a voicemail message, but a warning that Ian's about to die isn't even worth another call? A text? Anything??? So I should always call her back every time she has a piece of mail/news for me because if not I could miss out on hearing about what? Divorce? Pregnancies? DEATHS IN THE FAMILY?! What a passive aggressive way to punish him for not staying in contact I can't even deal with this level of crazy X_x

Sometimes I can't stand the WASPish ways my mom uses to cope. I know she's just coping, the way I am with this livejournal entry, but I mean. I just. Can't we just focus on the fact that Ian's almost dead and this is important? Does it have to be about all this other meaningless stuff? Do I need a magazine subscription in order to hear important news?

If any of you who know me IRL wonder why I'm SO terrible with phones, and particularly why I NEVER call 'just because' or 'to check up', this is exhibit fucking A.

And now that I have that out of my system, maybe I'll be able to mourn for my cousin and hopefully get some sleep.

So I did end up missing the Mother's day dinner, but my family dropped by and though I wasn't able to touch them (or come within 2 feet) I passed on mother's day cards and they gave me yummy desserts from the restaurant. My cousin has woken, which is both good and bad. Good because his fever's gone and he can make decisions for himself now, which eliminates the previous drama, but bad because he's not supposed to be awake yet and it means potential amputation soon.

No news from the hospital. My cold is getting worse again (another fever?), and so I'm going to have to miss Mother's Day celebrations with my family, as we can't risk any kind of exposure to infection. Did a little art last night and today, which felt good. Right now I'm feeling too low/tired for even TCAF, which is a brutal shame because it's only every two years and practically all my favourite artists will be there... I just need to get some good sleep (which eluded me yesterday). Is it just me or is this post rather whiny? lol. I guess I'm feeling sorry for myself tonight.

Life has been...crazy. As always, I guess. It just feels a little epic right now.

I was struggling with whether or not to finish the school term, but I did. Barely. I gave up any hope of maintaining straight As, but at least I'm pretty sure I passed. Now I have a month or so to decide whether or not I can handle finishing my degree right now. I'm about 4 courses away, but every time I try to do this it gets harder...this last time almost felt like ripping myself in two just to get the final essays done. And considering what I'm doing, and what my goals/aspirations/dreams are, and the fact that I don't actually NEED a degree, it seems kind of insane to go through that again just because of a crazy middle-class belief that I don't have worth if I don't have a degree. Unfortunately my parents don't think this belief is crazy at all, and buy into it whole-heartedly. Which means potentially alienating myself from them, which is where the real soul-rippage comes into play. We'll see how it goes. Ideally I'd be able to finish the last 4 courses without the soul-rippage and just put the degree on the shelf where it was always going to go, and get on with my life...but I don't know if that's possible.

Then, I won a Wii. By eating soup. It was the best surprise ever. I was so happy to get it, the six year old of my roommate was thrilled, and things were good.

And then I found out that my cousin had a major infection which led to heart failure (he was born with not enough valves in his heart, which has always made it weak) which led to kidney and lung failure. Now he's in a medically-induced coma to prevent him moving, he's lost enough circulation that they're going to have to amputate his feet, IF he survives which is still iffy because his lungs and kidneys show no signs of recovery.

And I can't go see him, or my parents or my aunt, because I'm recovering from a giant cold which has knocked me on my ass for 3 days, with a major fever for one of those, and which made me miss a wicked concert/afterparty that I've been looking forward to since January. And I could be contagious and cause my cousin's body to have to fight one more battle that he really can't afford to fight right now.

And the kid I live with's dad is gearing up for a custody battle.

Which, if he wins, would mean that we'd have to move (because of complicated government kid-custody stuff I can't get into on a public forum).

And I have no money to move because.... the student loan is due. Even if I finish my degree, it won't be enough to count for full-time status, and so I have to pay up. Now.

I....don't even know. Universe, the Wii was nice, but dude seriously not enough positive karma to prepare me for this shitstorm.

Tonight was the Mindless Self Indulgence concert.

( Best night ever. )

Hey! So. It's 2009. I think that's actually the first time I've written the year yet this year, so I guess it's good I saved it for an auspicious occasion?...

The year ended with epic cleaning at my new place. We're still working on getting the basement done (well, I should say we have every intention of continuing to work on the basement sometime soon...) but the main floor has been significantly overhauled, and was done in time for christmas. Even more impressively, it's been maintained as relatively uncluttered since we cleaned it.

Christmas was a mix of highs and lows. It was, as always, stressful like woah. I'm glad the holidays are over until february. On the plus side, my christmas gifts were pretty much all art supplies and money, which rocks hardcore. On the negative side, the holidays have drained me to the point where doing art is kind of beyond me.

New Years, in contrast, was wicked. Mostly because there was almost no preparation necessary, I didn't spend any of it with my family, and instead I went drinking and dancing with friends at the Annex Wreck Room, where DJDwight did his thing and catered to the weirdos and counterculture hipsters by playing 80s music mixed with Mindless Self Indulgence. It was WICKED. I got home at 6am and slept so long my roommate was worried I wasn't breathing *lol* it was good times.

I just found out today from my brother that my mom is getting a cockatiel O_o...yeah, I got nothin.

Since my last post, things have been both better and worse.

I got out of my trauma-flashback-related funk. I started seeking help. I'm seeing a psychiatrist (DSM-IV, do your stuff!), and am on the waitlist for an art therapy group in january, as well as potentially another group in january. Still no word from the Trauma Therapy Program, but I hold out hope. I've dropped down to 3 classes this term, and I'm going to do the same for next term. I've decided. Might as well do it now rather than go through the embarassment of doing it mid-term again. So I'll be doing one more term of school. Will I ever get out of undergrad? Only time will tell.

I wrote a couple of really great papers; one was on 19th century anarchy, which btw was wicked and I'm potentially an anarchist now. I'll let you know how that goes. I at least agree wholeheartedly with the anarchist view of schooling. If you're interested, look up Summerhill School in the UK. It's been running for 80 years, and it works.

I've been doing stuff around the house, and most importantly I've been doing art again. These are always very good signs.

I went to the One of a Kind Craft Show with my brother, and we spent SIX HOURS. I was so exhausted, when I came back it was like I was drunk on art. It was wonderful, and so good to spend that much time with him, and I was so happy.

Also, my friend Gareth is coming to visit, and I haven't seen him in just under 2 years, and I miss him like crazy! I'm so excited.

( On the other hand... )this incidence really gave me clarity about just how much I love living here, which I have done some work around articulating to her. Also, her son (who is six) is freaking adorable, and tonight bribed me to help him get his snowsuit on by offering me hugs (one hug for every limb). And then, he was showing me videos of Ghostbusters toy commercials from the '80s, and he said to me "Don't you wish we were born in the '80s?" To which I replied, "I was born in the '80s". This look of total awe melted over his face; his eyes were the size of saucers. He just stared at me and then finally freaked out: "Was it awesome?! WHAT TOYS DID YOU HAVE??? Did you ever try the Ghostbuster's cereal??????" TOO CUTE!

Note: Edited to respect my roommate's privacy more, and to update since I'm in a much better place than I was when I wrote this a few hours ago.

These days I'm not doing so good. I basically feel torn in two between just finally fucking getting my BA degree why is this so hard, and dealing with my trauma and new flashbacks at the worst possible time etc. It's very annoying. I've called some places, plan on seeing some people who will hopefully help me figure out wtf I'm doing.

In the meantime though, I have joy.

Have you guys heard about Rahm Emanuel? Not like, that he exists, but how awesome and incredible he is? This is a great post for a Rahm Emanuel primer. He is like fiction, only real. I cannot understand how he exists. As a general nice person/wuss, it's nice to see someone who is a complete and utter asshole who still has people who love him and who gets far in life. I can appreciate that.

Anyway! Once you've discovered the incredibleness that is Rahm Emanuel, if you are like me and enjoy ostentatious exaggeration, then you will die at the amount of insane increditude that is rahmbamarama. It is... a beautiful world of crazy where we squee over Rahm Emanuel. Think Chuck Norris jokes x1000. There is also fanfic, which you can either love or ignore.

If you need more convincing, or don't know where to start, there is a Manifesto that basically has the best stuff from the community quoted.

One of my favourite things of all time was when people decided to start messing with love poetry Rahm Emanuel style. Seriously the geekiest fandom already.

William's 'This Is Just To Say': I have eaten
the motherfucking plums
that were in
the goddamn fucking icebox

and which
you, asshole, were probably
saving
for breakfast like some fucking pansy-ass hippie who can't eat a fucking bagel for breakfast like every other sane fucking person in this country

Suck it
they were fucking delicious
now I'm going to get me some goddamn coffee


And just as icing on the cake, FANART. And there is MORE over at rahmbamarama. Come join and freak out with us!

I was momentarily excited about Obama. And then my housemate decided to come in and repeat constantly that she's convinced he's going to be killed, which sort of dampened the mood. And then the USA went and passed Prop 8 in California, as well as Amendment 2 in Florida, and whatever the one in Arizona was called. And so I thought to myself okay, so America hasn't really changed, I can deal. And then I hear things like people getting beaten by cops for protesting, and I just get really pissed off again. I mean. AAAAAAGH! I don't know how to manage this kind of rage.

I was so freaking excited to have gone through a term without getting a cold/other horrible illness during or right after midterms, and now I have been SLAPPED with a cold. Seriously. No sneaking up, to let me know it was coming, just last night my throat practically closed up, and then all night I kept waking up to clear my sinuses and feel shitty. WTF. I haven't been eating as well this week, but last night I had a very balanced meal. And it was like my body went "Oh! Vegetables! Time to FLIP THE FUCK OUT!" >_< Some day I will understand this fleshbag of mine.

For posterity: I moved out of my parents' place because they were (quite literally) driving me crazy, and I needed distance to manage my relationship with them. My friend, who is quite a bit older than me and lives with her 17 year old daughter and her 6 year old son, offered me a room free of charge as long as I helped out around the house and put money in for groceries. I figured that was pretty much the best deal I was ever going to get, so I moved out. It's slightly sketchy, but fun, and worth it. Also, sometimes there's no better therapy then a cuddly little boy who will randomly run up to you and give you a kiss just to say he loves you. I'm not a huge kids person by any means, but I mean. How can I not fall at least a little bit in love? It's impossible.

The only thing better than Obama winning tonight is hearing people screaming with joy outside my building because of it ♥ ♥ ♥

Speaking of which, I've moved out of my parent's house! I now live in community housing at Spadina and Dundas.

Okay so I've been moved in for months now but I just redid my art space and I just finally dug my digital camera out of the dark recesses of my bookshelves so I figured it's about time I showed photos of my new room! ( cut for the perpetually uninterested )
Glorious! My room is glorious!

So I was all "oh man I bought waaay too many art supplies this month I am going to die a horrible unable-to-pay-my-loans-back-when-school-ends death" when I got a letter from the government telling me that they are giving me $2000 to help pay back my student loan because that is what they do. Best news ever! Tomorrow I will go back to being angry about unnecessary tax cuts and smear campaigns and the treatment of Aboriginals and stupidity but today, today I say Harper, you ain't so bad.

Wow, I really stopped updating this thing didn't I? *lol*

Okay, so things that have happened this past couple of months:

o My dad managed to make a deal and avoid bankruptcy (his creditors received 20 cents to the dollar). His car was reposessed. When it was over, his bankruptcy trustee offered him a job. Hilarious.

o I completed my therapy program and my course. Only did decently in the course (it's not my lowest mark, but it's tied for that honour at 74%) and did really well in the therapy program. I have waaaaay more perspective on things, way more skills to help me deal with everything, and a plan for continuing to improve. I'm going on to the next program that the one I was in feeds in to, which will be longer (six months) individual (as opposed to group) therapy. It'll be interesting. I still really hate sociology. Now even more than ever, actually. God that was a terrible course. The day it ended, I cut up my textbook as an art project. The biggest thing that I took away from the group therapy was a renewed sense of pride in myself. I don't know if I ever knew that I was a pretty impressive person, or if I'd just forgotten, but this therapy program really helped me (re?)gain that knowledge. I'm pretty cool, y'all.

o I signed up for courses for the fall term. I don't have a single course through the english department, which is kind of terrifying, but also really exciting. I have no idea what to expect. I'm really nervous about the whole thing--this is the year I'm really going to feel the fact that I changed degree specialties. I think the challenge will be good for me. The courses I'm most excited for: Celtic Lit, Medieval Vernacular Lit, the Medieval Book, History of the Dark Ages (7-10th cent) Europe, History of Advertising, and Media Revolutions.

o I've been to a shit-TON of concerts. Great Big Sea, Mindless Self-Indulgence, Counting Crows (with Maroon 5), Paramore (with Jacks Mannequin), Warped Tour (including The Academy Is, Corbra Starship, Oreska Band, Beat Union, Gym Class Heroes, Bouncing Souls, Shwayze, Four Year Strong, and Anberlin), The Artist Life (with the Fullblast) about 3 times, and I can't remember what else. It's been crazy. I've laughed, cried, been hugged, sung to, soaked through, bought merch, and danced like a mad woman. I love concerts.

o I've missed dancing like crazy. The Funhaus closed down because they couldn't pay their rent, and Hybrid was put on temporary hiatus. Other than concerts and the occassional trip to the Pheen or Velvet, I've been not dancing at all when I'm used to going every week. It's killer. They had a Hybrid reunion at the Annex Wreck Room on Sunday and it was amazing. I seriously almost cried with joy.

o I've been buying TONS of art supplies. The difference is that this time, I'm actually making art. Slowly, but still. Doing any art at home is a vast improvement from the years of not. It's exciting to be productive in that way again. God I love it. Of course, now I want even MORE art supplies (which I seriously cannot afford, I am spending loan money and it is not good). I think I need to learn to share better.

o I'm still reading a ton of fanfiction, and hardly reading any books at all. I've been reading Breaking Dawn (that horrifyingly terrible Twilight book, that if you havent' heard of yet you are missing out on a world of cheezy, terrible, awful writing that is equally horrible and hilarious and I suggest you get thee hence immediately) for kicks. It's way worse than 99% of the fanfiction I read, which maybe makes me feel better about reading so much fanfic.

o My vancouver friends are all slowly congregating semi-permanently in my city, and it's wonderful. My evil plot is proceeding exactly as planned. Muahahahahha.

The house is SOLD! Finally. That's the good news. The bad news is that it sold for $100,000 less than we originally were hoping it would sell for. We entered the market at the beginning of a downturn, and the longer we waited the worse the offers got. But it's done now, and hopefully it'll be enough to stem off bankruptcy, and if not then at least it's done with.

These days I've had to choose cards for my dad very carefully. I don't want them to say something I don't mean, so cards that say things like "You've always been there for me" or "You take care of everything" or "I admire you" are out. The one I found this year says that "You mean a lot to me", which is true. It always feels kind of sneaky to find a card that sounds positive but that doesn't say so much. Blaaaaaagh father's day.

The WRAP program has been INTENSE. In the first week my symptoms (of PTSD and CSA) have gotten worse. I was stuck on the subway on tuesday and had a panic attack (which I've never had to that intensity before). The good thing is I've also been learning coping strategies--when I got the panic attack, I asked for help (HUGE for me!) and grounded myself using my senses. It's been a crazy week, but I think it'll get better.

My bookshelves are up, though they aren't as organized as I'd like them to be. I just wanted to get all those boxes out of my room before I tackled the huge job of organizing my books in more detail (right now they're organized by section, but not within those sections).

I've been watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, mostly because Summer Glau (who played River Tam in Firefly) is the new Terminator. I'm halfway through the first season, and I haven't decided whether or not I like it. It's interesting, and it's somewhat difficult to watch (what with the questions about the timeline, about humanity, about when murder is acceptable, and about heroism).

Kung Fu Panda was wicked, by the way. I loved it.

Hey there!

So things have been happening but since the biggest thing we're waiting for (our house being sold) hasn't happened yet, I haven't felt like they've deserved an update.

My birthday was wicked; jam-packed and spent with my family, and ended in late-night dancing. Totally wicked.

I discovered something on my birthday: apparently even though I haven't been drinking lately, I have gotten an even higher alcohol tolerance than previously, which is kind of insane. 3 bottles of wine between 2 (and a half? my dad had some) people plus a couple of mixed drinks and a couple of shots (admittedly over the span of 3 hours) and I was sober an hour later. How is that even possible?

Even though the house isn't sold, we've half-moved in to our new townhouse as of monday. We were tired of living in the house while it has to always be in the perfect condition for showing, but houses show much better with furniture in them, so we moved the bedrooms (and put the spare bedroom furniture in the master bedroom) and the kitchen stuff (but not the table) and left the furniture in the dining room, kitchen, living room, and basement (as well as the spare furniture in the master bedroom).

Since my brother has a waterbed, we had to empty it sunday night so it could be moved monday. So matt needed somewhere to spend the night. We decided to pack saturday, and then spend sunday at Second City's 24 Hours of Comedy fundraiser. It was the best thing ever, and I'm definitely going every year that I can manage it. It went from noon Sunday to noon Monday, cost $20, had wicked guests (Colin Mochrie, Sean Cullen, George Stroumboulopoulos, etc) and every hour was sponsored by different companies that gave us free samples--which meant we got free food and drinks all night (they had an extended liquor license that allowed alcohol to be served all 24 hours). In-and-out priveleges meant we went for a walk when our butts fell asleep. The comedy was amazing and hilarious and super-impressive, particularly when the core improvisers from Second City carried the last hour of improv on their own despite having been there the whole time. It was wicked!

The only problem is that staying up that long has messed with my sleep schedule hardcore and I've slept 11 hours of the past 65.

I have 21 bankers boxes of books just waiting for me to put back on my bookshelves. I love reorganizing my bookshelves, and I kind of take it very seriously, so it'll take some time to decide exactly what I want to do this time.

I looooove our new neighbourhood. We're literally a five minute walk from Empress Walk, which means basically we're 5 minutes on foot from anything you could ever want.

Other than the crazy move, I've been studiously avoiding my summer Sociology course (I hate sociology, and then add to that the fact it's a first year course taught by someone who thinks telling racist jokes for an hour is a good way of teaching students about cultural differences, and it's a miracle I go to any of the classes at all), and doing pretty awesomely in therapy. I'm feeling optimistic about the future despite all the crazy stuff with my dad and the house and everything. And of course it's the summer in Toronto, which means the immediate future is going to be filled with amazing and wonderful (and usually free) things. Life is pretty sweet!

Well, today was the first day of offers. We got one (there were going to be three, but one decided no because they didn't want a house with a pool and the other didn't want to compete, whatever that means), but it was a terrible offer, and I think it was from a certain politician from this riding (he put his wife's name on the offer, but he couldn't be at the open house because of the TTC thing, and I recognize his wife's last name), which explains why he was trying to buy our house for nothing. We kicked him to the curb though. Which means another week of showings (blegh; I just want to be able to make a curry people! why is that so wrong?). The market's on a downturn, and we're at the cusp of it. The new property tax is sending everyone out of the city to buy, particularly the larger houses. We just have to wait for people who fall in love with our house the way my parents did when they saw it to buy the place. Go serendipity, get to work!

Adventures in the Theatre of the Absurd that is my front lawn...

So today, as we prepared to leave the house again so that our real estate agent could show our property off to its best advantage (ie without us bumming around in it), we noticed some boxes on our front lawn. That's strange, we thought, we've already put all our boxes in storage. Where did these boxes come from?

So we look inside the boxes, and realize that they are 56 (the number was on the side of the box) little boxes of Honey Bunches of Oats with Cinnamon cereal. You know, the size for free samples, and for camping? So we figure someone's dropped off the boxes and are going to distribute the free samples to our neighbourhood. We leave, and go see Leatherheads (which by the way was pretty much made for me in every way-tomfoolery, sassy banter, jangly 20s music, jaunty 20s outfits, and a massive lovefest for the game of football. It was a seriously good time, though possibly only for me).

We come back later, in the late afternoon, and the boxes are still there. We wait until night, and the boxes are still there. Finally my dad cracks and goes with a neighbour to take a few free samples for their respective houses. As he comes in we look at the mini cereal boxes and realize...they're expired. They expired 3 days ago.

WHO IS DRIVING AROUND DROPPING OFF EXPIRED BOXES OF CEREAL ON MY FRONT LAWN?!?!?! It is exceedingly difficult to imagine a scenario in which this makes any sense. Did we scorn a free sample distributor at one time, and this is his bizarre retribution? Did someone from the open house yesterday look in our cupboards, and upon seeing that we didn't have Honey Bunches of Oats with Cinnamon in them, procure us expired free samples in order to show us the error of our Raisin-Bran-eating ways? I am so confused!

Anyway, one of the neighbourhood kids ate a box, and apparently didn't die, so my dad's declared the cereal safe to eat and has taken it upon himself to eat at least one of the boxes of boxes of cereal. Fantastic. There is nothing more disturbing to me than a man eating free expired cereal by the boxload just because said cereal was left on his front lawn mysteriously. If he gets that weird hallucinogenic thing from eating wheat mould and starts a new religion dedicated to cinnamon, I'm moving out.

In other news, went dancing on Friday and going dancing tonight. It's my screw-you-TTC-workers-I-don't-need-you-to-work-in-order-to-dance! weekend*. It's a seriously good thing Ashley's dad has a car, works the night shift, and likes driving around sketchy downtown areas late at night, or else my dancing would be restricted to me flailing to old Aqua songs in my bedroom, and my statement to the TTC workers would be severly reduced in effeciveness.

*Note for non-Torontonians: The TTC is our public transit system, and the workers are on strike (last I heard, they were being legislated back to work for monday?).

So I was going to whine about rushing through work on a house while I'm sick and just got free from school and all the awkwardness resulting from my dad and his family and the secrets he's keeping and blah blah but instead all I can think about is HOW TOTALLY AWESOME THE LATEST BONES WAS OMG. I missed it so so so so much and now it's back and it's so fantastic <3

Tonight I'm going to Evil Dead the Musical, which should rock. In the meantime I have to finish painting the basement and rake the leaves in the backyard while trying not to drown in my own flegm (okay so maybe I still want to whine a little bit).

Found more old school work while cleaning out the house. My dad found this book of my paintings from when I was in kindergarten (when I was 4-5 years old). And in the back, it has a little "about me" section (obviously written by my kindergarten teacher). The best part? What I want to be when I grow up.

Okay so most kids want to be, I don't know, prime minister, or maybe an astronaut, or wonder woman.

I? I wanted to be...

A secretary.

When I was 5.

Good lord, I haven't changed at ALL *lol*