Speed. Rush. Residents stuck on a permanent pace.

Cyanide. Meth. Toxic world, it’s so divine.

Spinning. Twirling. Heart always beats too fast.

Every picture a blur but distinctly there is you.

 

You, the push behind my step. My reason to run.

You, the dark cloud above my head. My reason to smile.

The wretch in my gut. The bile on my tongue.

The last and first thought. What destroys me and what makes me whole.

 

Laughter and cold dead silence. Victory and failure.

Every step, every let down, every success.

Every breath, every pulse of blood.

It is you and always has been.

1. I am a total flake and forgetful as shit. This makes me feel like a bad friend all the time.

2. I am spoiled. If things don't go my way all the time, I get geniunely upset.

3.  I have absolutely no drive. This leaves me feeling virtually talentless and directionless because I never take the time and effort to accomplish things or get good at anything.

4. I am not happy with my body but for the latter reason I never do anything about it.

5.  I don't know how to talk to people about serious problems. I would usually rather just ignore something then have to deal with a difficult conversation.

6.  I am too easily defeated.  I hate conflict and confrontation so I'm usually the first to back down.

7.  When I'm tired, hungry, sad, angry, frustrated, etc. I snap on people and they usually don't deserve it.  I don't know any other way to express emotions.

8.  I am needy. I often feel ignored or unappreciated but for above reasons I'll never tell you that.

9. I am so vain and so materialistic that it even pisses me off, so I can't imagine what a lot of other people think of me.

10. I have no sense of reality a lot of the time. I'm much happier living in a fantasy.

But all of this is okay. Because:

1. I may be a flake but I certainly am not stupid.  I graduated with first class honors and math honors.  Despite no longer being in school, I still love to continue reading and learning about a lot of different things to enrich my mind.  I can hold an intelligent conversation with almost anyone of any age.

2.  I may be spoiled but I am by no means ungrateful.  I am so thankful every day of my life for the priveledges I have had and for the people who have brought them to me.  I realize how fortunate I am.

3.  I like to attribute my lack of drive to having a way too large of a list of dreams.  I'm a dreamer.  And before I chase one I need to get them all in order and assess which ones are the most important to me.  When you love as much as I do, there's really not much time for them all.

4.  I am not happy with my body but this does not mean that I am not happy with my appearance.  I honestly think that I'm a pretty cute girl.  I have great hair (most of the time) and I love taking time to do my makeup and put a cute outfit together.  Being unhappy about one thing in my appearance does not get my confidence down.

5.  I can't have serious and difficult conversations.  This keeps me only spending my time with people that I won't ever have to.  I don't settle for less.  My friends never treat me in a way that I have to confront them on anything and if they do, it's toodles time.

6.  I may be easily defeated but all that means is I'm not as hardheaded as most people I know.  I get along with almost everyone.  I find no reason to fight over petty differences.  Agree to disagree is alright with me.  Unless you're downright ignorant, I'll accept you for whatever you are.

7.  I snap when I'm under stress for any reason.  This isn't a good thing but at least I will be the first to admit that I'm being an asshole and need to take 5.  I know when I'm being unreasonable.

8.  I am needy but I won't ever ask for attention.  I don't seek it in petty ways.  I just accept the fact that most people's lives go on without me most of the time.  I know that there are a few people in this world who do need me and they are all that really matters.

9.  I am vain and materialistic but as Ke$ha says, WE R WHO WE R.  I am 100% myself always and looking and feeling good is important to me.  If you don't like my style, how long I take to get ready in the morning, how much I appreciate quality in a product, what I'd do for a buck (hah girl's gotta live), I could give zero fucks.  I don't care what other people think of me.  I am me and I can't be anyone else.

10.  And lastly, FUCK REALITY.  I am okay in my fantasy land.  Fake it 'til you make it.  Every day I feel like a superstar.  Do you?

What was the point of this?  To prove to myself that for every fault, every single thing that I don't like about myself, there is something that I love about myself.  There is a reason why someone else loves you.  All your faults are just half of who you are.  The bad half that every single person on the face of this earth has. 

But these faults all combined together with all the good things that offset them come together to form YOU. Beautiful and perfect you. 

Always remember the things that you love about yourself.  If you forget about them you become all the things you hate most about yourself.  Always remember your faults.  They humble you.  They are goals, improvements to make, a drive to go on, and most importantly, they are what make you human.

Everyone on my friends list should try making a list like this for themselves when they are feeling down.  You don't have to post it publicly.  Just keep it around for when you're feeling bad about yourself.

 

I hope Ashley will do a zipline with me :)

Just got back from a lovely day doing some Christmas shopping in Bellingham.  hobbit_eluned met me there and we hung out all day and it was wonderful since it has been way too long since I've seen her.  But the second I walked in the door I was propelled to my computer to rant about the bullshit I just went through trying to get back home into Canada.

I have one thing to say about Canadian Customs and Immigration and that's FUCK IT.  I have never once had problems trying to go into the States.  Never once been hassled.  The only problems I've ever had at the border were with coming back home.  So this time I answer all the same standard questions.  Blah blah.  Where were you, what did you buy, etc etc.  I answered.  Then he asks if I come to the US often.  And I say yes quite often, probably once or twice a month.  Then he asks if I met a friend in the States.  Now anyone who knows me knows I'm the shittiest liar on the planet and answered yes honestly, knowing that there was going to be a ton of questions to follow.  There wasn't, oh no, instead he sends me to park my car and wait inside the office as my vehicle gets searched.  Ok, a piss off, but ok.  HALF A FUCKING HOUR LATER the officer comes back and stands and stares at me for like a full minute.  Like hi, can I help you with something?  So I just stare back looking obviously not impressed.  Then he starts asking about the Coach purse in the back.  I was like "what about it?" He asked what was in it and I just said nothing important since it's in the back of my trunk.  Then he asks why I have a tire in my spare tire thing.  Really? Who the fuck DOESN'T have a spare tire in their spare tire thing! I just looked at him, didn't even answer a question that retarded.  Then he gives me my keys back.  Like actually?

It's not like I have anything to hide.  I don't care about random searches, I know they have to be done.  But what pisses me off is when you give them no fucking reason to think that you're hiding something and they put you through the ringer.  Ok, it's just a random search.  Do a 5 minutes sweep through the car and if you find nothing suspicious tell the driver to fuck off.  I can't help but feel like the punk rock chick with tattoos and piercings obviously has something to hide.  Even though buddy at the booth maybe should have graduated Crim and figured out that there is almost literally NO crime demographic for a female in my age bracket. 

Pisses me off too all the bands that get in shit for coming here just to try and play a show.  The border will make up excuse after excuse after excuse not to let these bands in and play for their fans.  Ridiculously unfounded ones too.  I mean how many bands do you hear of crossing the border into Canada and going on a murder and drug spree? Ya, happens all the time.  It must, they have black hair and tattoos.  Or they play that crazy rap music kids are listening to these days.  You never see Barry fucking Manilow held up at the border now do you? 

Meanwhile you've got assholes like that guy that murdered his girlfriend and cut her up into little pieces and stuffed her in a suitcase strolling on in like our country is a goddamn theme park or refugee camp for the murderers and terrorists.  And we're all like 'ahhh murderers, whatever that's like a slap on the wrist crime in our country, let's put forth effort to hold up Canadian citizens well known to the border crossings because she met up with her friend in Bellingham.'  Fucking idiots.

"The earth, he'd say, is just a big machine.  A big processing plant.  A factory.  That's your big answer.  The big truth.

Think of a rock polisher, one of those drums, goes round and round, rolls twenty-four/seven, full of water and rocks and gravel.  Grinding it all up.  Round and rouch.  Polishing those ugly rocks into gemstones.  That's the earth.  Why it goes around.  We're the rocks.  And what happens to us -- the drama and pain and joy and war and sickness and victory and abuse -- why, that's just teh water and sand to erod us.  Grind us down.  To polish us up, nice and bright.

That's why we love conflict, he says.  We love to hate.  To stop a war, we declare war on it.  We must wipe out poverty.  We must fight hunger.  We campaign and challenge and defeat and destroy. 

As human beings, our first commandment is: something needs to happen."

- Chuck Palahniuk, Haunted

Seriously. It started out so typical. Me and 4 other people are going camping for the weekend (in Bear Creek Park, lmao. which was actually Stanley Park when we got there).  There was me, the best friend, the slutty party girl, the dumb jock and the guy I was in love with.  His name was Josh and he actually was perfect.  He had curly dirty blonde hair, an adorable smile, he was little but a little pudgy, he had a nose ring and tattoo sleeves and he wore bright yellow high tops.  Dream boat.

We were all at the liquor store getting wine for the trip.  The party girl wanted to get wasted before she even got there in the car and so did the jock so them and Josh went in the jock's car and me and my best friend took mine because we weren't into drinking and driving.  We were chatting on the drive that this would finally be my chance to get with Josh.  I was speeding a little but we were way behind the jock's car.  We couldn't even see them anymore when I got pulled over by a cop.  I was so mad because I was speeding but the other car was going faster and the driver was drinking.  My best friend says she's going to deal with the cop and gets out of the car.  A few minutes pass and I get out and nobody was there.  No cop, no best friend.  Just me and my car. 

I try to start my car to go again and of course it won't start.  I get out of the car again to notice that my  tires are slashed.  I think this is a little weird but also convince myself that it's just a prank so I start walking to the camp site.  This part of the dream gets fuzzy.  There's a lot of me just walking around in the forest.  At some point I run into these people who tell me about a bad part of the forest where a cult resides and do all kinds of gross things.  I don't believe it of course until I stumble upon it.

Everything there was orange and when I walked in there was probably a dozen girls and Josh.  It was kind of like that episode of True Blood when they get possessed and start having sex and fighting a lot.  Their eyes were all black like that too.  Josh was getting busy with some girl and I was just like OH GREAT THE GUY I LOVE IS A MAN WHORE AND A CULT MEMBER.  Then me and my best friend notice eachother at the same time. 

She takes off running and I chase after.  We come to a screeching halt outside where the warm orange atmosphere meets a dark snowy one.  I could tell that she didn't want to cross that line so I pushed her over it to see what happened and she pulled me over it with her as she fell.  We got into a physical fight going back and forth into each realm both of which I could feel the tempurature changes.  When the fight ended I was in the snow and she was in the warm.  She started panting and explaining to me what happened to them.  I'm guessing leaving their realm caused her to remember what was happening to her.  They were abducted by people pretending to be cops and brought there and possessed to make them do all sorts of raunchy things.  She said that life was good there as a female because the women got pretty much anything they wanted but the men are forced to become slaves for sex and everything else.  She told me I had to save Josh.

I woke up before I got to save my man.  Which sucks because he was cute as can be. 

There literally has never been a song I could relate to more.

Like the light was all I had, I struck the book with my last match
The candle burned so soft and slow, I felt the warmth and felt its glow
Salt tasting tears, they roll off of my lips
One for each day I'm inside this house, it's a trap
One I can't quite escape, so pretend it's the place that I love
I won't let it pass me by again.

The glass was lit by summer sun, it was beating down on my front lawn
All the boys and girls would laugh, I'd watch them through the curtain's crack
Place all your bets, and watch me lose
The life I got, but never used
Dream every night that one would come true but only bad ones ever do.
I won't let it pass me by again.

My heart beats way too fast.
Too many regrets sit in my lap.
I won't let it pass me by again.

Out Through The Curtain by The Hush Sound

I found these old pictures I took of New Years Day either on 2006 or 2007 Warped Tour.  Let's just say that these pictures are older than my facebook account because they are in my photobucket which I haven't used since I got facebook haha.  They are also apparently older than my ability to take good concert photos because these pictures suck but I thought I needed to share them because they make me smile.  I remember being like one of maybe 20 people in the audience in Vancouver and knowing every word to every song they did and Ashley would always smile at me because I was like the only obvious fan there.  Probably the highlight of Warped Tour that year.