New apartment!  All alone!

Exactly what you wanted!

Thinkgs to cut up, photos to take!

Why am I not the happiest girl on the planet right now?

Restlessness..a nagging itch that I cannot help but scratch until I break the skin.  How long will the scabs last?  Is that simply mine to decide?  Shut up and be happy?

Hopefully I can.  I want my baby cat back so much, it is lonely without her, and I feel her jump up on the bed beside me every day at some point.  I think that a “Mission Retrieve Phoenix” is in order.  Maybe this week.  What else has me frowning when I finally have what I was waiting for, for so long – a place to call home!  I brainstorm like a Grade Four student.

• disappointment with my nearest and dearest – friends are clingy and want money or cigarettes – if I had any money to speak of it wouldn’t matter, but only comes as a cruel reminder that I do not have more.  in addition, dad is quitting his job for the insurance comanny he hates because he cannot stand it any longer.  I think this is fabulous, “they” are going to get to spend a whole lot of time together.   His wife, on the other hand, who has not worked since the early 90s – I remember her working, oddly, the only day I met her before my father and her… “hooked up”?!  A strip mall: Safeway, filler, Zellers.  Her office – she worked for one of these stupid pyramid scam real estate companies, “Royal LePage”.  If you are a real estate agent, why on Earth would you want to have this midleman checking your paperwork, that you sat beside lovingly, each day, from nine to five – with the exception of showing homes I suppose.  Why on Earth can she not help my father by taking on a couple of old clients, just as they hit retirement?  I wish I could do the work.  I hate the phone, but I’m really good at it.  I think I hate lots of things I’m really good at.  She knows this and hates me for it – not the loathing part, the skillfulness.. I could set up some meetings and ask people to sign at the “x” several times.  I’m not licenced though.  Nor have I been doing absolutely nothing for twenty years – almost my lifetime!   The woman uttered the words, “come back here”, implying that my existence in another city is too much of a burden (whether mentally, phiscially, financieally) on my father and thus on her.  I shudder as I remember that I was actually “supposed to be there right now” had I not run away without telling anyone.  Angie cracked a fake smile when saying goodbye, my father told me to “stay stafe”.

What does “stay safe” mean?  To use sexual prophilactic devices?  To make sure you do not get into a big van with a strange old mean?  To make sure you do not end up in a situation where shreet drugs are up for the serving?!

My dad actually told me to walk on eggshells around her when moving anything from his house that I could make use of, like a pot from their former set, or the one before that.  I cannot talk about this very much because I do not like to become that angry.

In sum, she will not get off the other phone when I have to discuss with my dad the disbursement of funds from my bank account in Winnipeg.  Whose balance magically went down from $12,000 to $6000.  Dad makes innuendoes that she is unaware of this account.  Yes, I worry.

I worry for my dad.

• I want to do so many things…that cost money

Canvas 1...we'll see what it morphs into

I want to buy proper acrylic paints and canvas.  I want my days to be full with learning and creating despite the fact that I’m not enrolled in school!  I also wouldn’t mind buying some ketchup.  Unfortunately, there is no disability allowance to “start from scratch” and buy those, say, $500 worth of items you’re just used to having in your house: band-aids, peroxide, scissors, tape, freezer bags, garbage bags, condiments of many varieties, spices, spatulas? Last time I moved from one Vancouver address to another I had all of these things, neatly packed in “frogboxes”, and there was none of this starting from scratch horror.

Rational as I am, I bought some canvas at the dollar store and after a talk with roomie, stating that he had been waiting for me by my apartment building for an hour to show me his latest new salon cut (the third in a month). I walked the opposite direction.  I ended up finding some friendly, amazing folks to chat with on the DTES.  As I’ve said before, I always find this where.  I started sketching the woman, who was somewhat intoxicated, thus the expressions on her face, along with the face that carried them, kept shifting.  I attempted to capture this, and the group were actually impressed – they thought I could draw!  So there we have it…one more artistic talent lost but not forgotten while wading through the murkey maters or academia.

This woman has a thousand faces, and her expression changes so often…

Sketch (for a project?) - Woman with 1000 beautiful faces/expressions

Proper paint is very expensive, I bemoan!

• Silence: it’s for the best, but it shall take some getting used to.

Silence that for so long has been filled with arguing, forced conversation, “me” in front of other people.  I have to remember how to be by myself again.  It’s incredibly pleasant and I mustn’t be afraid of it.  The silence after I close my eyes and before I fall asleep.  Why does it have to be filled with television, something to make it less vast – to silence my own thoughts.

This I struggle with the most.  My own thoughts – though they may not seem so, they are the most terrifying thing in the world to me.  Thus, when I am all alone, with nothing but my own thoughts, not even the rain or the goddamn train, I panic.  Usually the thoughts are pleasant – tomorrow is exciting.  I do not know where this irrational fear originates, or how exactly to get rid of it… Art definitely helps, but those few moments are inevitable.