An Attempt To Stop Thinking

As a pseudo-scientist, I'm constantly coming up with what I deem are logical explanations for why things happen to me. About a year ago, I noticed that my memory was starting to wane. It drove me crazy because my memory had always been near perfect. In school I'd manage to at least get a C on a test I didn't study for because I could remember the material we covered in class. With friends, I could bring up little tidbits they'd mentioned to me years before and they would look at me in astonishment wondering how on Earth I could still remember something so menial to them.

To quote one such friend: "People like you scare me. You remember everything and use it to your advantage to control the world one day." I doubt my ability to remember things had such a sinister future but I was indeed proud of my peculiarity when it was embedded in my head by that it truly was a remarkable thing.

Lately, however, I'll be lucky to remember what I wore yesterday.

I've panicked numerous times thinking I was coming down with Alzheimer's and I laugh now considering I'm far too young for such a terrible destiny but I believed there to be something seriously the matter with me.

As a mildly superstitious person I thought perhaps my newfound forgetfulness was the product of the Evil Eye. Someone surely was jealous of my wondrous brain and hit me with the EE to take away this precious gift. A good friend told me to recite a prayer every time I forgot what I was going to say and oddly enough it worked and I believed myself to be cured. That came to an abrupt halt when I tried it one last time and couldn't reproduce the thought I'd just had. And I went hysterical once again.

I did extensive research (read: Yahoo Answers) and concluded that I needed to do puzzles and mind games every night before sleep to rub two sticks in my brain together and start a fire once again. This may have helped but doing a puzzle before bed gave me nightmares. As I've warned you, I'm a pseudo-scientist and I concluded that I must have triggered a part of my brain that controls dreams when I did these puzzles before bed and that spider solitaire was the working of the devil.

For the past several months, I've put aside any qualms I had about my memory or lack thereof and decided that everyone's memory gets a little shaky as they get older and have more real issues to worry about.

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with my mother when my youngest sister told me my problem was that I think too much. Really? Me? I found it a ridiculous statement because I figured that we all must think a lot. How can we not? I thought I would further inquire and I asked her what she thought about in a day. Her response: "I seriously hate thinking. It drives you nuts. Just live your day keeping busy. Our minds are prisons."

Suddenly, I agreed. Our minds are indeed prisons. How many times has something embarrassing happened to me and I replayed it over and over in my head feeling the shame course through my body each and every time the image popped up. Thinking is a fucking piece of shit and I'm over it.

Obviously, thoughts sprout up in your brain for no reason sometimes but why should we prolong them? Allow the thought to pass through the highway of your brain and never return. What good is it to wonder what your day will be like or what people will say to you when you show up to work wearing two different coloured socks? Just fucking live and stop fussing. I think my memory would still be perfectly intact if I had less to think about. It makes enough sense: the less thoughts that cloud your mind the less you have to remember anyway. I'm content in my new philosophy. It's only been a day but I feel relieved.

Pont des Arts

A video can capture exactly what you are feeling and make you long for something you once had or never had at all.

This video does just that and not to mention beautifully demonstrates the ambiance of the Pont des Arts. It was somewhere I went often and would stay for hours talking or be happily silent

taking in the view of the Eiffel Tower and the Institut de France.

There are few places where I can say that I'm perfectly content and this is definitely one of them.

Ode To "Next Blog"

The "Next Blog" link at the top of every blogspot blog is a beautiful thing. Just thought I'd make my appreciation known to the powers that be.

Autumn

It was so brisk yesterday and suddenly I realized autumn has finally caught up with us in Canada. At least in my town. The first thing I think of is how I literally have no fall clothes. I've been hanging on to my black and white striped H&M tee like it's the god of my idolatry and I can't quite get out of my black ballerina flats. Maybe it's because it was a staple in my wardrobe in Paris and maybe it's because I'm so effing broke from my Euro trip this summer that I can't even afford a scarf from Value Village. I desperately hope that I'll be getting paid soon butin the meantime I've got to figure out just what the hell I'll need to buy to survive the awkward time after Halloween and before the holiday season parties start.

I wish it was summer in Paris again and I wish I was on the Pont des arts with friends, laughing and praying that the night would never end. I sound like a sappy m.f. but damn I love Paris. It was nothing like I thought it would be and everything I could have hoped for. It was stunningly beautiful and yet it could be ugly (nothing ruins your mood like realizing that the reason the metro stinks so bad is because someone probably peed in the seat your sitting in) but even that brief moment in time is plucked from your mind as soon as you walk in front of Saint-Sulpice and realize your eyes have never been delighted with such overwhelming beauty since ... ever.

I could talk about it forever but to put it into mere mortal words is to murder it in a way...your eyes can't speak and your mouth can't see for a reason. So I tell you all to go and see for yourself and love it for yourself.

I'm happy to be home, honestly. I need to prepare for the next phase in life which is unknown to me now but I know I'm on the verge of something wonderful or disastrous. That is to say I'm more comfortable in accepting that what tomorrow brings is something I'll never be privy to. I can only live it as it comes.

In case you were wondering, I'm currently working on a children's book about fairies and desperately searching for a word besides "fairy" to use. Maybe I should invent a word. If JKR can use "muggle" and make it synonymous with human being I'm sure I can do the same thing for fairies with "grimroder"....it'll catch on one day, right? And yes, I did just make that up right now but mark my words it will become apart of the lexicon before I'm dead! (I'm also open to suggestions).

All this talk of I, I, I...I'm getting sick of me. That's all I can say for now and it's time I delve into some blogs I've been missing out on for far too long. Au revoir.

Let Me Update You

Life has been grand, folks. Honestly. I have nothing to complain about and it's not often I get to say that in life.

Both my jobs are going just fine and it turns out I won't have to quit my job at a certain shoe company that I'm not sure I'm allowed to name even though I'm going to Paris for a month.

I have been desperately looking for a place to stay in Paris and being thousands of miles away certainly isn't making the situation any easier, I'm sure. I'm only going to be there a month so I might have to pay ridiculously offensive prices. I'm still searching though.

Just wanted to make this quick update and I hope everyone is well.

Why I Hate Planes

I usually don't watch Gwyneth Paltrow joints because I know that it'll probably be a depression marathon but I finally watched Bounce (2000) and, yes, it was one sappy motherfuck of a movie but I liked it.

The film is about a marketing executive named Buddy (Affleck) who gives his plane seat up to another man so he can come home on time for Christmas but the plane crashes and Buddy starts a relationship with the widow Abby (Paltrow) out of guilt.

In relation to my own life, I have to say I honestly do not know how I will make it through a flight across the Atlantic next month. It's times like these I wish I had a drug dealer.

Delirious

I will be embarking on a trip to Paris this summer and I seriously can't believe it's actually happening. I've always been meaning to go but I always find reasons to not do things (I'm too fat, I'm too young, I'm too poor) or when I finally did make the plans with friends to go, they always fell through.

I decided that I'd go alone and take a course for the month of July at the Sorbonne. It's only a month so I won't be needing a visa and it's long enough that I'm sure I'll get to see a lot of the city (and hopefully some weekends to other European cities) and most of all it'll be a much needed break from the hectic thing known as my life.

Now I've just got to figure out what I'll be wearing.

Franco-rétro

I'm obsessed with 60s France and, of course, France Gall.

Je veux ça

Alexander Mcqueen pumps. Délectable.

There's Something Seriously Wrong With Me

Like most things that go awry in my quotidian, the following post has an awful lot to do with my mother. I don't have mommy issues...I suffer from something profoundly more twisted and frightening.

Allow me to expound.

Let me quickly get this out of the way: I love my mother. She is a strong and snarky human being who fears absolutely nothing. Believe me when I say that when I want someone to get it, I unleash them on her. Fo' realz. This is a woman who once made a cashier (a grown man might I add) cry because he over charged us for oranges and Dunkaroos.

"I know why you did this and it's because ripping people off is a game to you. Don't give me that look, I'm not afraid to fight you."

The exchange lasted for a full 10 minutes before the manager had to intervene and tell the poor cashier to go home for the day and my mother and I strolled outta there with a 50 dollar voucher. What's a goon to a goblin, right?

I've lived the majority of my existence terrified of my mother. I never snuck out at night to see friends, I never went anywhere without telling her where I was going or who I was with, and when I lie to her you could easily mistake me for a stroke patient. I get sweaty, I don't speak coherently and my eyes twitch. I still believe it is the natural order of things that one should fear his or her mother.

Has this kept me in check? One could argue yes. I was always a good student, I've never had problems with men or gotten pregnant and I don't get trashed every weekend. On the other hand, I basically dropped out of school this year (I'm going back in September...maybe...uh, yeah that's another topic) and all I've been doing is spending money on clothes and music.

Am I rebelling? I don't think so. I think I'm just relaxing a little and trying to enjoy life a little more but how on Earth will I break it to her that all I want to do is write and travel for a year. Consciously, I know I'm an adult and she really can't do very much about what I decide to do with my life. However, every time I start the conversation, my voice breaks and she gets very suspicious. I go into the bathroom and take a few deep breaths before I go back and start a totally different conversation. She must think I'm snorting Xanax or something.

Hopefully I'll just come out with it and she'll be totally accepting. And by "accepting" I mean she might not whoop me.

There's No Excuse

...ok MAYBE there's one: my computer died.

It has since been resuscitated but for the past month I've had no connection to the internet other than my blackberry and I am positively dreading the phone bill I'm about to be slapped in the face with. So, alas, that is why I have been missing in action for what seems like forever.

Basically, there was a virus in my computer that had intimate relations with about 12 other viruses and took away any chance of my computer ever functioning properly again. I'm back now and I will be posting more often.

Major events in the past month: I walked out of a public washroom with my skirt tucked into my underwear and a man (quite possibly Kellan Lutz' doppelganger f.y.i.) had to be the one to explain to me why children were crying around me.

That's all really. Please tell me how you've all been.

Must. Have.

ADAM Ostrich Feather Skirt. Nuff said.

Hair. Yes, That Is All.

Before I really get my hands into this, here's a quick heads up to anyone reading: the following post will be nothing but superficial meanderings that (I think) most people will find filled with ennui. For those people I'd like to give you THIS . At least you can't say that this post was for naught!

Now onto the problem du jour (du year if I'm honest) : my hair. For as long as I can remember my hair has been long and, well, big. If you met anyone I knew and asked them to describe me they would make a gesture around their heads signalling an unusual, perhaps unnatural, mass of tresses that lay about half a foot away from my face and most likely had a bird hiding in it. Well, I never had anything in there other than insane amounts of mousse but my hair could rival the Jackson 5 in their heyday.

I then made the horrendous decision of dyeing my hair. It wouldn't have been the such a horrible thing had it not been for the simple reason that I also relax my hair and the two chemicals seem to have a slight issue with one another. That issue resulting in the most dramatic change I've ever seen happen to me. Back in February of '09 I coloured my hair and all was good until about July or August when I had to get my roots relaxed. To spare you gory details, I'll just fast forward and let you know that I lost more than 50% of my hair.

Now with the other 50% that was still on my head, I tried to retain for as long as I could. I put in clip in extensions, I wore a bun everyday and I even wore head wraps to cover it up when I was out and about. I was holding on so tightly to that hair because I was afraid of one thing: having short hair.

Why I had an aversion to short hair is something I never thought about until I was faced with the ultimatum of either cutting my hair short or looking like a Flock of Seagulls reject. Why did I hate short hair so much? Why was it consuming my thoughts? I knew the reason secretly but I didn't want to come out with it. But I will for you guys: short hair is unsexy to me. And it is unsexy because I believe that men find it unsexy. Yes, I was one of those women who styled themselves to look more appealing to men.

How pathetic. I was pathetic. I think part of me still is if I'm completely honest.

It's not that I don't think short hair looks good on other women, I certainly do. I think it can look super sexy on some women but on myself it was as though I'd be an alien. It might have had something to do with the fact that I had so many hangups about the way I looked except concerning my hair. My hair was always on point and always the envy of many women. I realize now that I used it as a security blanket, as something to fall back on because even if I had a pimple on my nose my hair was still bangin'.

In January, I cut the uneven parts of my hair off and was left with a cute little pixie cut. Not too short but short enough that my hair didn't cover my ears. Since then I've been grappling with the fact that I have the slowest growing hair on the face of the Earth and that everyone seems to think short hair looks good on me. I take their word for it but I can't wait until my long hair makes its return. In the meantime, I'll be steering clear of the hair products aisle at Walmart.

EARTH IS MY TURF!!!

I love R. Kelly. There, I said it.

I concede that he's entirely batshit crazy and from time to time I find that I have lingering suspicions about his past although I hope he truly is innocent of everything he was accused of. And let's not forget that he was indeed acquitted of all charges. (Yeah, I know O.J. was too. Watchuwantmetodo?)

Nevertheless, Kelz is a R&B virtuoso and one hell of a crazy lyricist. The above track is a Ne-Yo diss (oh hip hop) and listen to some unforgettable lines. If you simply can't endure videos of this length, at the very least forward to 3:20 and listen onward.

Just remember: I'M A BEAST!!!!