I really like making lists and plans.
I don't always follow them perfectly, but that's not the point of them for me.
It's just how I sort my mind out when there's too much going on.
Anyways, I usually write them out. Physically. But my journals are not where I am so I suppose I'll leave my lists here. This is basically what I foresee in my life until June.

Things I need to buy:
- SM58 + XLR cable (maybe a stand, if it's cheap)
- Sasquatch ticket
- First Aid Course
- Headphones
- Easel
- Steel-toes
- Random tools
- Chalkboard project stuff

Things I need to learn/practice:
- WHMIS
- Knots
- Feedback frequencies
- Wireless mic techniques
- Acoustics
- Scoring

Things I need to do:
- Clean and re arrange bedroom
- Clean up basement
- Write and record some songs
- Intern/job shadow
- Get a real job
- Design a proper diet/exercise plan
- Turn my little wimpy brother into an intellectual and athlete.
- Pay off rest of student loan

I finished school on Friday. I'm certified in audio engineering.
I've studied and soaked up everything related to sound for an entire year.
No one really understands what it is I've gone to school for, and I don't find it easy to explain.
I learned how to turn music produced by instruments into electrical signals and digital data.
I know why the kick drum sounds like it's punching you in the chest on your favourite songs.
I know that it's not the drummer who is responsible for it.
I could compose a symphony, strings, brass and all, with a keyboard and computer software.

Going to school kind of ruined the way I listen to music.
Everything is analysed. I point out technical faults in everything. And technical wonders.
Music is no longer an art. It's a science now.
I don't even like listening to a lot of my favourite bands anymore.
I listen for production value instead of musicianship.
So basically everything sounds like pop music. Except orchestral.
Everything about orchestral satisfies my ears wholly.

Regardless of all this, I'm glad I did it.
I have to be. I have to be happy where I am, no matter where it is.
Everywhere I go is exactly where I've put myself.
It's easy to wish I had gone for a degree in psychology.
But I have this problem with commitment. With staying in one place. With authorities.
And with that, I accept that I am in the best possible place I could be.
I thought today that I am actually pretty happy with life.
I realized I haven't felt that way in a while. In fact, I don't remember what it's like.
The last time I remember being entirely happy was grade five.
Obviously I've felt happiness since, but overall I've been a rather depressive person.
Which I have no qualms about. I'm perfectly sociable. I have a creative mind and an intellect that surpasses most common people's.
I can only describe it like living with a mild bipolar personality. Not to flippantly compare to the seriousness of a disorder, but I can remember specific moments in my life that paralleled what people describe to be manic episodes, followed by crying for hours. I still do that.
Given the circumstances I was forced to develop under, which I won't elaborate upon now, I'm rather pleased with what I've done with myself. And I firmly uphold the thought that I will only make myself better.

Look at all these little boys
who live like they can't die.
It's funny all the shit they do
and seem to stay alive.
The pills, the drink, and getting sick.
Then sex and cigarettes.
Teenage boys will get their kicks
and take all they can get.
Living fast then dying young;
that isn't always true.
The world is full of sick old boys
who live to sixty-two.
Adolescents save their tears,
for the day they swear;
"If I had known I'd live this long,
I'd have taken better care."

Look at all these little girls,
they could be even worse.
They toss their hearts at little boys,
and cry when they get hurt.
Skimpy clothes and sappy notes,
they give it all away.
The stupid things they seem to do
all to make him stay.
Ladies look you in the eye
and say their heart is ripping.
But it's simply never true,
if the lady's living.
So then these girls turn into wives
Debts, kids, bills and work happen.
They'll say "What a silly teen I was,
I thought I had real problems."

The Perfect Fit

I can't change my name
but I could be your type.
I can dance and win at games
like backgammon and life.
I used to be the smart one;
sharp as a tack.
Funny how that skipping years ahead 
has held me back.
I can take a vow
and I can wear a ring 

and I can make you promises but 

they won't mean a thing.

Can't you do it for me? 

I'll pay you well

Fuck i'll pay you anything

if you could end this hell.

Can't you just fix it for me? 

It's gone berserk.

Fuck i'll give you anything 

if you can make the damn thing work.

I haven't felt like writing lately.
Not because I'm uninspired though, there's actually too much in my mind that each thought is almost indistinguishable from the next.
I can't express my delight in the fact that I'll be done school in two weeks.
I'm moving back home soon.
I'm in my tiny Vancouver room that I've been away from for three weeks. And it's depressing.
I need to decide if I'm a capitalist or a socialist. I need to decide if extremism is all that bad.
I need to get 90's on my exams and final projects.
 I'm going to be alone for two weeks.
My future paycheques are going towards a student loan.
I need to start packing and I'm thrilled about it.
I need to get fit this year. The healthy way.
I need to take better care of myself because I fear that one day, I may be old.

Now that it's all out, I can try concentrating on one thing at a time.
It's funny how it doesn't look like all that much on paper, but I find myself magnifying each of these thoughts into a multi-faceted enigma. So essentially, my next few blog entries should encircle these puzzles and my attempts to logically solve them.

But I'm okay right now. Not depressed, but not overjoyed. Not yet suicidal but not quite living to the fullest.
This is bad. But I'm optimistic.

For the most part, I'm pretty satisfied with being alone. I don't wish for a man or long for arms to hold me.
I fantasize about mountains and the ocean. London Bridge and New York City.
There's no room for anyone else.
What I am scared of is getting lonely. Because sometimes, it drags me in like rip tide.
It's sudden and it's deep and I fear I could drown. I get overexposed to television telling me I need love. To the questions from friends and family; disappointed in my lack of interest in relationships.
But I find being alone isn't what makes me lonely. It's being left alone.
I don't have many friends in Vancouver. I don't have any family.
There's a part of my heart that's full and whole when I'm around my parents. Or my friends. Or anywhere I feel like I'm home.
But when I'm away, when people leave, and when I'm the most alone I could be, that part shrivels up and turns black.
And it seeps toxic drops that poison my heart, slow but constant. This is where I'm taken in.
It could take an hour to get out or days.
But this happens often and I need to make it stop.
I think I miss my family too much. I think this is why most people my age who leave home, fill the time they aren't around mom and dad anymore, with one person they can try to love for a while.
But I can't do this.
I worry that when I'm away from my family that they might go away.
I've never experienced death of a family member. I'm scared it could kill me when I do.
My parents do more for me than anyone. They do more than what I've seen most parents do.
I need to use the time that I'm away from my family to make them proud of me.
I need to deserve the family I have.
I need to achieve even though I'm alone.

Lovely.

Worship this world of watercolor mood
in glass pagodas hung with veils of green
where diamonds jangle hymns within the blood
and sap ascends the steeple of the vein.

A saintly sparrow jargons madrigals
to waken dreamers in the milky dawn,
while tulips bow like a college of cardinals
before that papal paragon, the sun.

Christened in a spindrift of snowdrop stars,
where on pink-fluted feet the pigeons pass
and jonquils sprout like solomon’s metaphors,
my love and I go garlanded with grass.

Again we are deluded and infer
that somehow we are younger than we were.

- April Aubade by Sylvia Plath

I bought the moon from the sky last night
And asked to buy the sun too.
The sky said no, she would not sell,
she said it was owned by you.
The royals crowned me yesterday,
but said I couldn't be King.
Because you were already Queen
You'd taken everything.
A kitchen knife across my wrists,
but no blood did I spill.
For my heart was in your hands;
your fingers held it still.

Arterial Gushing.

I came back home today.
Well. No. Not entirely.
But I'm in the spot I've been all year.
The place I've raised my expertise into what I can only hope is enough to carry me through life.
My flight left YYC at 9:45pm and the airport was virtually barren.
There was a lovely boy at security who asked me where I was going.
I said "Vancouver... home." But it felt false and wrong coming out of my mouth.
"Well, not actually, I just go to school there. This is home. And I'll be back soon."
Truer than my former statement but still somehow awkward.
How do you define home?
Is it where you were born? Where you were raised? Or where you are happiest?
I've lived in Vancouver before. I've lived in two different cities on the island too.
My mother was raised in Africa. She's lived in England.
The family moved to Fort McMurray before settling in Calgary.
What kind of life is that? Would you feel privileged? Worldly? Or deprived and alien?
She had me and we floated between BC and Alberta until I was nine.
I thought it was beyond odd that none of my fifth grade friends had lived in eight houses or moved every year like I had.
Everyone was born here, raised here, under the same roof.
They all had a wall where their parents would measure their height on their birthdays.
Or marks on doors made by the slap shots of older brothers who had long forgotten their dreams of the NHL.
I was raised to crave change. To adapt. To be a nomad. To despise routine.
I feel imprisoned by schedules. Deadlines put me in a box.
I need to challenge everything to stay alive.
I need to move to feel human.
To be still is to die.

I've been back for about two hours.
I've already unpacked half my things and packed another bag because tomorrow, I'm going to the Island.
I'm leaving on a ferry from a terminal I've seen uncountable times in my life.
I'l sail on that same ship to visit my father. In a town called Qualicum. He didn't like Parksville anymore. He stopped liking Nanaimo, Victoria, Youbou,, Richmond, Calgary and Melville long ago.
I'm sure my dad will stay there until his last days.
I'm starting to believe it's not where you were born or where you were raised that you can call home,
it's where you choose to die that defines it.
It's where you, from the deepest trenches of your mind, want to finish your human existence.
I'm nomadic by nature. I'm quite possibly not even born of this planet.
Now I know it's okay that I don't have an answer for "Where's home?"
I just don't know yet.