She is!

She has so many things to do and never enough time to do them, because she can't remember how long each thing takes or how she should handle them. She can't sleep. When she does sleep it's unproductive and frustrating. Work is something she dreads because every moment spent there is another moment of anger, or wasting time. She should be doing something important, dammit. Something better. Not pretending to smile because no one really cares about her problems. She goes through each step of polite niceties because if she doesn't, if she deviates from that set path of 'Hello, how are you?' 'Good, you?' 'Fine. What can I get you?' It might make someone else uncomfortable. The small talk is a necessary thing.

Even though her days are filled with knowing she isn't good enough she pretends, because if she dosen't pretend then they will see it. The ones who snicker and make cow noises as she walks by and the ones who see her as some sort of emotionless animal covered in blubber. They will know that they get to her, and that would be bad. Because if they know that then they will use it, and if they use it they may finally beat her. As long as she hides it from everyone, she is fierce. She is invincible and feral. She will reduce you to tears or speechless looks.

She is every middle-class deadbeat woman who cannot find her place in the world. She is you and mean and anyone else who feels alone because of the hateful snobbery of others. And she is powerful in her own right.

She draws others to her with personality alone. Her smile is quick, her jokes clever. She can go from kindly talking to her best friend to vehemently defending her from another in seconds. She is generous. She loves and feels and laughs. She is delighted by a loving spouse and saddened by the plights of others. She is ambitious, she is stuck. She is confused and hurt but hopeful and healing.

You are beautiful. You are smart and you have talent. Your eyes sparkle with the light of someone who will live and learn and discover new things. You will fall, but you will climb again. Never forget that.

Never.

Well Jezze

The Boyfriend told me I should watch this video by Katey Perry, because apparently the song and video are both ridiculous.

I watched it and couldn't help feeling all squishy inside, epically with what has been going on with me lately. It really touched me...So I'm posting it to make those feelings appear in others.

:D

Har

So my huge sob-fest the other day has made me feel a bit better. Even if no one reads this blog, I got it out in the open, wrote it all down and it's had a...cleansing effect, I guess you could say. I feel lighter.

Which is why I'm going to bring up more stickers for smiles!

Laura the wonderful and I sat down and thought up some places for us to try stickers for smiles. She's the only one to agree to help me out on this which is nice, cause I don't want to do it by myself.

Places we've thought of:

The Mall-It is indoors and therefore, warm (CON-potential legal issues?)

On Durham college campus- This works cause it’s not like they’re going to kick us off, but Do college kids actually like stickers? Besides me, anyway?

Holy Trinity (Laura's high school)-God knows angst-ridden teens need smiles. (HA! Religion pun!)

Huh. We really didn't come up with a lot of places.

Well in our defense, just randomly outside isn't really an option, seeing as the true Canadian winter has begun in the Greater Toronto Area and, while I want to make the world a better place, handling stickers while wearing mitts is hard.

Thank you Ceemo, that's helpful. :)

Anyway, I think I'm going to kidnap Laura sometime today and try to get her to think of more. Maybe we can work on a logo for Stickers for smiles. :)

The early bird doesn't always get the worm. Somtimes it ends up late.

I woke up early this morning to print off the first major writing assignment for design writing. It's basically a course teaching you how to write concept statements about your work, and the best way to explain to a client what you were trying to accomplish. Class starts at nine so I got to the school twenty minutes early to be sure printing it off wouldn't be a problem.

It was. The first time I tried it printed, but half of my picture was cut off. I took a picture for you.


It's not readable, but you can clearly see only half of a picture. Not even half.

So I went to the IT guy who did the same thing and once again, half the picture shows but not the rest. I'm irritated. So I gave the paper I had to my professor and she seemed fine with it, which makes me happy. She just told me to send the full thing to her online so she can mark it properly.

But I spent almost an hour trying to print it and getting the IT guy's help. So do the math. I got there twenty minutes early but showed to class forty minutes late. Go me.

It's really overcast and rainy this morning, but i like it. Besides the fact that my right foot is soaking wet because there's a hole in the sole of my runner, I like rain. I don't like getting wet from rain, but rain itself if beautiful and always makes me smile.

But the rain got me thinking about how unhappy a lot of people are on overcast days, and that got me to thinking about the free hugs campaign. I thought about how something so simple and easy could brighten someone day and how I wanted to be a part of that.

Not hugs though. I feel like that could get me in some serious trouble with my parents. No, I want to do something that might not be huge to most people but will give them a glimmer of happy thoughts. And I want to be able to do it with someone, a few friends maybe.

I was sitting at the bus, watching cars whiz past when I came up with an idea. And all because of these.

They're rainbow stickers. Of smiley faces.

The Boyfriend bought them for me way back and I haven't used them all because even just seeing them makes me smile. So then I thought 'You know what would be cool? Stickers for smiles.'

So now I keep thinking of doing something where me and a few other people spend some money and buy some stickers. Then we go somewhere crowded and just hand them out to people with the condition that they smile.

I think it would be a great way to maybe meet some people, and maybe make someone's day. And I think I might try to do it. I doubt The Boyfriend would want to but... I really do.

Also, the CMO mascot is Ceemo. K chose it. :)

Dying holiday, dying dream.

My dream, since I was little, was to have the best house on the block for Halloween.

I would have the fake cemetery, the creepy, billowing fabric and haunting music. My front yard would be lit in a blood-red glow while creepy, haunting pumpkins flickered with evil intent. A skeleton would laugh from my front door as the braver children led their timid friends towards the sounds of werewolves, screaming witches and snarling dogs. I would be sitting in the entryway, just out of sight from the little ones because I’ve always thought ringing the doorbell was one of the best parts. I’d be dressed in some outlandish costume, Harley Quinn or maybe some kind of zombie witch, and hand them their candy with a glare or maybe some sort of peppy but demented comeback (It’s Harley Quinn, guys.)

Then, as they made their way down the steps, my significant other (Who had been dressed as a zombie warlock or perhaps the joker) would lunge at the nearest child with a haunting laugh or maybe even a simple boo. My house would be the ultimate experience. Tricks and treats galore.

Every time someone hopped out and scared the living crap out of me on Halloween, I thought of a time when I would be that person. I would be the one who everyone talked about, the one for one night who would steal the show. Younger kids would be terrified to approach my door; older kids would point out all the important but small details to their parents. I would be the best.

I’ve held onto this dream for my whole life, since those mystical nights when I would bounce around impatiently with my little brother, waiting for it to be dark so we could go out. Every year the night would become unearthly, radiant and alive. No one was who they appeared but that was okay, because by god- It was Halloween.

I had to work tonight, so I put on most of my costume and worked until 8. In the Halloweens of my youth this was when the night was in full swing, the streets packed with ghosts and ghouls and all manner of creepy creatures. And as my boyfriend (Who one day might be the Joker to my Harley) drove me home I began to fret. Where were all the kids? The little ones who could barely get up the steps and the older toddlers with their little Halloween pumpkin buckets. I didn’t understand.

I told The Boyfriend this image I had in my head of my perfect Halloween haunt once. It was a while ago, but I still remember what he said. “Halloween is a dying holiday. You could put a rubber bat out on the front of your house and have the coolest place on the street.”

When he said it I not only refused to believe him, but got downright mad. I told him he was dumb for thinking that, because holidays don’t just die.

But as I took in the few straggling kids as they walked from house to house I became depressed. A vampire trudged with his mother along one otherwise deserted street. Few houses were lit, few creatures creeping sneakily along the sidewalks with tired parents in tow. There are so few people out there these days, and I don’t understand why.

To all you parents out there who may have stayed with me long enough to get here, please listen. BRING YOUR KIDS OUT ON HALLOWEEN. Dress them up, give then a pillowcase and haul them from place to place. Ignore the cries of ‘my feet are tired’ and ‘but I don’t want to carry the bucket!’. The few fond memories I have of my old house are the ones of shivering under my robot costume with silver face paint slathered all over my forehead, getting home and dumping all the candy on the floor to sort through it and give my dad the things I didn’t like, or swap with my little brother.

And who knows. One day you might show up at a house with billowing fabric and blood-red lights, and your child will receive some tasty treat from a woman dressed as Harley Quinn.