Blog.

Hello there world. It’s been a long time. I don’t expect things to be the same as they were over a year ago. The economy crashed and burned. America elected a Black president. Michael Jackson’s kids have faces. Lauren Conrad’s ghostwriter topped the New York Time’s Bestsellers list..etc. etc.

We need to reacquaint ourselves with one another. Here’s a quick post to get me back into the game. This is an excerpt from an old journal entry that I found both humorous and self-affirming. In the spirit of openess, I will share it with you.

Date: March 30

I liked [insert name], but he did not like me.
I liked [insert different boy's name], but he did not like me.
What the F is wrong with me those stupid, crackhead, man whores?!

In thinking about the last few months combined with the happenings of the last three years, here’s something I’ve concluded: boys hurt my heart, just like a plate full of bacon, sausages and eggs from Bon’s Off Broadway. You always think you know what you’re doing at the start; you think you’re going to pace yourself and go slow, but then you get caught up in the $2.99 bargain and inhale every morsel of delicious grease. Next thing you know, your chest hurts when you breathe and you think you’re about to die of a heart attack. It’s really just slight indigestion, but you’re melodramatic and think that the pain will kill you.

On the flip side, I hurt boys too. I’ll have an appropriate simile to follow at a later date. I don’t know what it will entail, but it might involve Hitler. He was an awful, awful man. I can be a reckless jackass sometimes and I hate myself for that. But, I still hate Hitler more.

I am very thirsty right now, and I don’t know where I stored my bottle of water. All I have is a bag of M&Ms. Did you know that chocolate coated peanuts do not quench thirst? In fact, I think they only exacerbate the predicament. So I’m probably going to die of dehydration. Nevermind. The valiant flight attendant came to my rescue and handed me a cup of water – that I just spilled. Near my laptop. Now, I’ll probably die of electrocution. Oh god, why is all this happening to me?!

So it looks like my pupils have not been very dilated recently (ergo the lack of recent updates here), which is odd, considering the unreal excitement that’s been punctuating my life. I mean, did you not read about my Saturday night rendezvous – with my cubicle?? My head imploded from the awesomeness of the situation. In all seriousness though, while I was logging on to my computer, from my work, at 9:30 PM on a Saturday night, I almost cried. It was a new low, beneath rock bottom, wedged somewhere between Andy Dick and Pauly Shore’s career debacles.

Actually, a lot has been going on. Decisions, my friends. I have to make them and they’re not always as instinctive as “HELLS YEAH, I would like a cup of water!” They’re hard, consuming and uncomfortable. The greater the distress, the more important the decision.

I’m a person who finds solace in fate. This idea that in life, there’s a destiny and everything is pre-determined – every professional milestone, every heartache, every win, every loss, every encounter, every missed connection, every…thing. It’s a way of thought that many regard with indignation because they’re adverse to the idea of relinquishing control. I don’t understand that though. I’m not so much relinquishing control, as I am trying to find a purpose and meaning in life’s outcomes.

I don’t dwell on regrets because I believe everything happens for a reason. The most agonizing part of the process is often the moments leading up to that pivotal fork in the road and then planting your foot on the one path to travel. Living with consequences isn’t easy either, but humanity is great at rationalizing. War is for the greater good. The Olympics will ignite an economic boom. Photoshopping yourself into a celebrity photo is merely a display of raw talent. We learn to live with our decisions, because we have to. Consequences abound, but we still need to sleep at night. Maybe that’s why I hang on to the idea of fate. I think we all do, in some form or another. You might call it something else.

I’m writing this entry because I’m almost 25 and I have serious decisions to make – people to let in my life, professional development to consider, relationships to let go of and more…A season of personal Spring cleaning is upon me and I have a big laundry list of decisions I’ve been putting off. I’ve been too damn scared to make them. A belief in destiny doesn’t preclude the existence of fear.

By the way – I have to pee desperately now and the seatbelt sign is on. Bad call on the water? Probably. See, then there are some decisions that you don’t need to rationalize because they’re insignificant to the bigger picture. That is, unless I peed my pants in the next few minutes, which would probably effectively get me fired (I’m traveling with senior co-workers) and likely be symptomatic of a serious medical illness.

I want to believe – so badly – that I learned some some hugely profound lessons in the last 2.5 years. Ones that have irrevocably transformed me into an assured, independent, confident person; who’s firmly gripping to her sense of self, not willing to compromise her intrinsic worth for the sake of placating.

Recently I’ve been thinking –

– about how much it scares me to my core to even entertain the thought that those 2.5 years of piercing introspection might have been in vain. The idea that I might even exhibit a single semblance of the person I was that night I closed his car door, and walked back into my house, absolutely breaks my heart.

Hi, my name is Shirley and I eat melodrama for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Today, I had trouble opening a bottle of water during a quasi lunch meeting. So I just stood in the conference room, nonchalantly clutching it, feigning disinterest, all the while desperate for the sweet relief of a single liquid drop to permeate my over salinated mouth. I was very sad. And thirsty.

It’s been a tumultuous start to the new year, textured by delightful peaks and profound valleys. I know that’s trite, but there isn’t a more apt description. The first three months have been christened with a brisk cascade of the ‘new’, sprinkled by memorable glimpses of the ‘old’ and underscored by disappointment from the ‘familiar’.

Three months of visceral living is overwhelming. In the past I was numbed by consuming academic and professional workloads, but this year, I’ve been blessed/cursed with the gift of time. Seconds, minutes and hours of indulging in a moment, rendering it almost palpable. How odd. Moments are usually so fleeting, so intangible. You live them as quickly as they end. That’s why they’re precious. I’ve had too many moments to relive. Over-saturation leads to boredom or in my case, disenchantment.

I’m swept off my feet by the sweet, lyrical lamentations from my favorite lovelorn musicians. They strum to the beat of their every heartache and it’s absolutely breath-taking. Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? Maybe. I don’t know about that. Some of them are very sad. But so is a lot of world. At least they make provocative music.

Infatuation is so cruel.

Undignified departures are infuriating.

A cryptic post is my catharsis.

I hate it when life kicks you in the ass, knees you in the groin, uppercuts you in the chin and pummels you with brazened knuckles.

Resiliency is an imperative because living can be so damn hard.

Read.

Friday…

The weekend started off with a birthday event at Sip, a restaurant lounge famous for its inclusion of alcohol in every dish. I got drunk off my salad.

Saturday…

A friend recently moved here from Toronto. He was eager to take in all the great sights of beautiful Vancouver. I was the designated tour guide and prepared an exhilarating itinerary.

First, I took him to an understaffed burger joint. where we waited 30 mins for our food. Then we headed to the city’s local mountaintop university, SFU. He marveled at the school’s unique architecture. I quickly pointed out that the design helped inspire the highest student suicide rate amongst all Canadian academic institutions. It was an uplifting moment. The fun continued with a trip to my workplace, EA, where we played a bunch of non-EA games. I ended the day by dropping him off at the skytrain because I didn’t know how to navigate my way to where he was supposed to be.

I hope we’re still friends.

In other news – it’s pretty apparent that I’m the best tour guide ever. Tell all your friends.

Sunday…

Today, I met up with another friend for lunch. It was my second time meeting him but we quickly broke the ice with some very fun banter about pop culture, particularly on the topics of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode 2.22 and Angel episode 1.8. Epic television writing, everybody.

My friend is in the business of accounting, which reminded me that I need to file my income taxes soon; which reminded me to buy my RRSPs; which reminded me to find my 2007 tax return to know how much RRSPs I’m allowed to buy; which reminded me to clean my room; which reminded me to stop thinking about income taxes because I don’t want to clean my room.

I finally had a chance to talk to Eva, aka “my soulmate in a non-lesbian kind of way”. I miss her so much. We’ve been best friends since we were 8 years old and she used to live a brisk 5 minute walk away. Now she lives a 15 minute drive away. Sometimes our distance breaks my heart. I’m not even joking.

That’s my weekend. I just wanted to post something on my blog. I feel like I’ve been engaging in some serious infidelity because I’m always updating my tumblr. I won’t forget my first love. Well actually third love. There was this and this before. We all have a past.

I had four pieces of deep fried chicken for lunch yesterday. Immediately after, I inhaled two pieces of freshly greased roti soaked in oily curry sauce. Later that night I cut up pieces of banana and smothered chunky peanut butter over each slice and ate it. Much like what I did this afternoon. Tonight I went to a hockey game and dipped dozens of nachos into a steamy side of melted Kraft cheese.

I just finished taking a bath in a tub of lard.

Changing my life. One day at a time.

Let me just preface by saying, I feel incredibly self-important as I write this, but I think there’s a need to clear up any confusion to my devout readership of three. I guess I could’ve just sent you each an email, but I didn’t want this very critical message to be lost amongst the frivolity of your inboxes. So I’ve recently started a Tumblr in addition to my regular blog.

Tumblr is home to the notable minutia I come across on a daily basis, as well, it feeds off my blog, collecting all my posts. It’s updated frequently, because often times, I’m just posting videos, images or very short blurbs.

The blog is home to all my writing – of more substance. It’s tumblr, but with the fat trimmed.

I hope everything makes sense again. I’m sure you were all feeling very discombobulated. Please, carry on with your normal lives now. Everything will be okay.

So all three of my best friends are now in happy, committed relationships. I, on the other hand, am a level 7 priest, wandering the stone paved roads of Stormwind Castle, looking for a candlemaker, while trying to complete the quest for the Garment of Light in the World of Warcraft. God. I really need to get my life together.