not getting what you want

Up until fairly recently, I have been very good at getting accepted for things that I wanted. I applied for Girl Guide trips/task groups four years consecutively and was accepted to all of them. I applied for jobs and got interviews. I went to interviews and got jobs. It was always exciting to get that acceptance letter, email, or phone call, and I don't think that I felt entitled to the things I applied for but I definitely took my admittance for granted a lot of the time.

Fast forward through my wildly successful teen years to this October when I didn't get an interview for a leadership program. This was only a small blow because I secretly knew there was a spark missing in my application. The spark was missing because I was somewhat reserved about my excitement to be a part of the program. It must have come through in my application. Still, it stung, and after getting rejected, I met someone who had done the program before who raved about it, and felt a pang of belated loss.

I learned something from that experience, though. Namely, if you're going to take the time to write an application letter and shuffle together your resume and maybe even references, make sure you wholeheartedly, 100% care about the opportunity because insincere applications are transparent and a waste of everyone's time.

The next opportunity that came my way was something I was endlessly stoked about. I put all my energy into my application and then into my audition, which was just over a week ago. It was a poetry mentorship put on by a local arts centre. It felt super right for me at this time in my life. I'm ready to get serious about my poetry and working with a professional poet as a mentor felt like the perfect learning experience.

On Monday I found out I hadn't been selected for the mentorship.

I was a little disappointing upon reading the email, as is to be expected. However, it wasn't until I shared the news with others that the feeling of rejection really hit me. Telling people about getting rejected has to be one of the shittiest parts of rejection.

Strangely, even in the process of telling people, tears inexplicably streaming down my face, I started to get really excited. I don't mean for this blog to seem like a really cheesy story about how getting doors slammed in your face is actually hugely promising but, um, I kind of feel that way?

All I can say is that once I knew I wasn't part of the program, I started to think of all the other super cool things I could be a part of and it's pretty damn rousing. I'll let you know what plans I cook up.

new cups

Today marks three weeks since my mom dropped me off at my first day of school, leaving me in the parking lot alone to swim through the murky waters of public education. I guess I'm a college kid now. Go figure.

The strange thing is that moving away from home does not feel utterly groundbreaking or revolutionary. I am not really freer or liberated or any such thing that newly minted independent adults may say they feel. I have my own room and that's pretty cool but I honestly don't spend that much time here. Apart from the sleeping and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer in bed.

It's made me wonder all of the things that I was already wondering to a greater degree. Like, what is the point of life? I mean, that's a big question, and it's not like it really matters. Well, okay, saying it doesn't matter is, in itself, a pretty nihilistic take on things but whatever. I don't really subscribe to any sort of "greater, all powerful" entity, and the idea of there being an overarching point to the universe's existence doesn't really jive with me. I guess when I wonder if there's a point, what I'm really wondering is what is my point. What am I going to do. How should I focus and organize my life.

School is kind of depressing that way. Or maybe it's just the social sciences. Sociology and Women's Studies are continually pointing out all these institutions and how they're designed to oppress us and it's so bleak. Then there's the blatantly exploitative capitalist system that's so hard to not see once you have even the slightest grasp on how it operates.

When I started to write this, I typed the title in first, 'new cups.' I wanted to talk about getting accustomed to using a new set of mugs in my new house, picking out favourites and figuring out the merits and drawbacks of each. Yet here we are with existentialism. I can't escape it.

I'm still teasing it out, I suppose. Trying out all the mugs. Deciding which ones fit best in my hand. Testing the waters of different points to life, different ways of organizing living, and deciding which sits best with me. And maybe the point is that process of evaluating and reevaluating. Or maybe I'm nowhere close to it.

We'll have to wait and see.

fontal punishment

Sometimes I desert my blog for months and then when I go back to check on it everything is in COMIC SANS. -gasp- I know. The world is a scary place.

Needless to say, I have learned my lesson. So...

I'm back!!!!1!!!1! -jazz hands-

I just remembered the fact that, when I write blogs, I'm mainly just talking to myself and posting it on the internet and then when I find out that people have read it (usually in the form of me trying to tell someone something and them being like, "Yeah, Alex, I know. I read it on your blog") it makes me feel really weird and then I don't post anything for months. I think that's ironic but I STILL DON'T KNOW.

-sigh- I am a really weird blogger. And general human being person.

Today was also weird. I bought some pens and then I sat in a coffee shop for a couple hours thinking about what I'd be doing with my life in a year. And then for the rest of my life. Then I went to the library to look for books on human sexuality, which I intend to write a paper about! Yay college!

This is not interesting. Yet I know that someone will probably read it. Mostly because this blog is probably still Rachel's homepage. Unless she gave up on me. Wait, it's her homepage on her account on my computer, which I now have, eight hours away from her. Maybe no one will read this. -maniacal laughter-

How many years later...?... and I still have no idea how to blog...

...

...

#can't be tamed

A thank you poem (and a social skills rant)

I’m going to be honest with you

I don’t know what to write

a common plight

in my relatively English assignment free unschooled life.

I fight to figure out what to say,

five hours in advance of a shindig,

where I won’t wear a gown or walk across a stage in a funny hat as my name is read off a list,

because this is Nelson’s hippy school,

and that’s just not how we roll.

We roll in the direction of ‘artifacts’ rather than ‘assignments’

to a place where the answer to the question

“Is this mandatory?” will always be, “This is an invitation.”

It’s cool because I still get to tell people I’ve never gone to school,

at least not, “Real School,”

and bottle up those surprised looks,

the ones that say, “But you seemed so normal,”

so I can use them fuel my stilted forays into social environments.

I want you all to know that every time anyone has ever asked me one of the never ending variations on “Who did you have to assassinate to acquire social skills?” I have bitten back a retort.

“Social skills? What are social skills? Wait, I know this. Or maybe I used to because I crammed it into my head right before a test one night at 3am. Let’s see. Social skills. Is that when you are able to have functional interactions with other human beings and not make them feel really awkward for stereotyping you as a socially inept outcast due to your non-traditional education? I guess I learned it all from watching Seventh Heaven reruns every afternoon at 1. Still working out the kinks though. Please fill out this comment card with your constructive criticism or call one eight hundred-how’s-my-small-talk.”

But I don’t say that because sometime between the sleeping in and wearing my pajamas for days on end, I picked up what I like to call my social toolbox. And it’s not perfect, the lid doesn’t close all the way and the handle is rusty. But at least I learned to build relationships based on shared interest rather than mutual confinement. We can’t all say that.

So yeah, I had a friend once. It was kinda cool.

But back to my point. Matriculation.

I guess thank you is in order. See, I have enough social skills for that.

Thank

you.

I can’t find a way to express what I want to say that’s not a hopeless cliche

but one day,

I might have it down.

one day I might have a language to express all this misplaced gratitude but until then, I have this one simple word to lay in front of you, knowing full well it won’t be enough to measure up to all the cups of tea and hugs you proffered on those too often bad days. All the support and love, without which I would not have made it to this stage.

Thanks.

pop up books

You take me to the valley that you’ve told me I smell like

and I’ve never been here but with your hand in mine, I feel at home.

On the way, you narrate a physical history of you,

weaving a landscape of lazy river drifting and 35 kilometer per hour car crashes,

before my tired eyes, events come to life like some kind of pop up picture book,

the pages of which I sleepily turn while listening to my bedtime story.

And I would listen to all the pop up books you had to offer in the hopes

that I might uncover something about you that no other

person knows just to show you that I love you,

like no one ever has,

and no one ever will

again.

You may accuse me of paying the barest attention,

but my information retention is just fine.
I may look dazed but mostly

I’m stuck reveling in this backdrop,

how it’s brought new parts of you into focus,

like after it rains and everything is three shades brighter.

So I just grin and hold on tighter to your hand and this rare moment.

And it’s in these moments that I think that love was something invented

so that we could fall into it,

or over it, or onto it, somewhere near it, all I know is falling,

in the best way with your arms around me.

And maybe that’s selfish. But hell, I am a Bounty paper towel of self absorption,

I’m not afraid to admit it,

any more than I’m afraid to fall into this thing that was meant for us.

So if you want, I'll be your half sarcastic half enthusiastic co-pilot,

I’ll adventure with you until our aged bodies crumble,

and even a little after that.

educated virgin

This is a poem I wrote. Kinda self explanatory. I hope it makes you feel really awkward (like maybe how you feel reading poems I wrote about my ex-girlfriend) and that you regret creeping my blog and not leaving comments.

Kidding. I'm kidding. I hope it illuminates a part of my soul that you may be unfamiliar with and that it brings us closer in strange and beautiful ways.

*****

I’m not a whore,

I’m just an educated virgin,

carrying apple flavoured condoms around in my back pocket,

because you never really know.

you never really know.

and better safe than sorry, right?

Or safer because sex isn’t safe.

What’s safe about baring your whole body,

placing yourself delicately in another’s arms,

for them to break or bend.

tell me

what’s safe about sex?

I am a slut,

AND an educated virgin and you may think

that this is an oxymoron

but I can assure you with my voice,

the one that moans into my pillowcase at night,

that you would be far from accurate,

that my sluttiness exceeds the boundaries of any penis,

and I’d rather be defined by myself than someone’s dick.

I’m not a whore,

but if I was,

I still wouldn’t deserve your judgement.

No, I’m just an educated virgin,

opening my apple flavoured condoms in the park,

curious to know if they actually taste like apples,

or just vaguely sugary latex.

And I’m shoving protection back in my bag

when I realize that I’m sitting in a park,

licking a condom.

Really, Alex?

Really?

I’m just an educated virgin.

For now.

thank you

Considering the fact that I had multiple syringes stuck in my mouth about twelve hours ago, I've had a pretty excellent day. On the anniversary of having one wisdom tooth extracted in a hellish surgical experience we shan't speak of, I had another wisdom tooth pulled in a much less traumatizing fashion today. It only took two songs on my iPod.

When I got home, I proceeded to feel sorry for every person I had smiled at since leaving the dentist as I appraised my bloodstained mouth in the mirror. I asked my sister why no one had told me that I looked like a dopey cannibal and she responded by saying she couldn't look at me until I rinsed the blood out of my mouth.

Attractive.

I started to get feeling back in my lip while watching Gilmore Girls and eating apple sauce. Rachel was a lovely provider. I sat in the comfiest chair ever and got to relax and tumbl and feel better than I had in three days, reminiscing about a year ago today.

A year ago today feels like a lifetime behind me but I still remember coming home from the dentist after test driving the Westie we eventually bought, and lying on the bed that was mine for the last time in that moment, with a person I cared about more than anything. I remember being cranky because I hadn't got my pain medication fast enough and I remember asking her not to leave me. And she didn't.

I remember it so clearly. My sore jaw and swollen cheek. I remember picking up sushi and Starbucks. A smoothie for me--I had to eat it with a spoon. I remember warmth, despite the ice packs.

And even though those memories are buried in a past that's not all hand holding and half-numb smiles, I'm still grateful to have them.