i'm sad.

i've been hurt. i can't talk about it. for legal reasons. seriously.

but you think you know someone and it's completely amazing how quickly and easily a 4+ year friendship can be thrown away for a few dollars...

and what do i have? nothing. i pay my rent, my debt, get some food and maybe go out and buy a couple cds and get drunk a couple times a month. maybe get tattooed if i have a little extra but i don't have a lot.

i'm heartbroken.

michelle.

i wrote on paper with a sharpie

and it may be a little while before what i wrote is out there-out here-for you all to read.

it's a MANIFESTO!-yes, a manifesto! but to me the manifesto is the first step in an actual plan so i don't want to jump the gun by sharing it too quickly.

i'd feel dumb if it all fell apart.

to me, manifestos have always felt like the first step in something bigger and i need to be on the path to step two before the world sees step one, y'know. i just feel like i need to make some calls and solidify a few things (like some help at the very least) before my plot is revealed.

but why? i can tell you why.

i'm fucking bored and depressed and mad. and i'm depressed and mad because of how fucking bored i am. i think being back in school, even as ridiculously part time as i am there, made me realise how school conditioned me. i NEED to be busy. i exist better when i have 700 things to do.

and truthfully, i'm angry with myself. i'm up late resting on my laurels. sure, i did a show in september but it's fucking january and what have i done. i keep telling people, 'i'm in pre-production for a fringe show!' and i am but that's a bit of a fabrication because the play isn't even finished.

i'm just sitting. i make such a big deal that we started this company and did everything without the help of some miraculous benefactor but what the fuck have i done since? besides talk a good game? NOTHING!

so that's it. i'm tired of sitting under a tree waiting for an apple to fall on my head. i'm fucking doing what i need to do.

enter the manifesto!

so what i hope now is that i get my shit together, cash in every favour ever and get done what i need to get done. i'll need help (PLEASE!) and i'll need people to come look at the results (PRETTY PLEASE) but i think it can be done. i HOPE it can be done.

if it's like ben says, that 'every plan is tiny prayer to father time' than i hope he's listening.

that was rambly...

night night.

xo michelle.

p.s. i think this guy might be doing my new headshots. i HOPE he's doing them cuz he's pretty much the raddest dude with a camera in this city!

ultra violet deep red

so i'm a red head! it's pretty bright today! exciting! HOT! i LOVE red hair and i forgot how much i love it!

it's such a change from the black.

and i talked to johnny today! i'm getting more work done on my sleeve on the 17th of february. should be rad!

that man is sooo cool. in the same sentance he swears like a trucker and tells me he's going to go see la boheme and then calls me kitten. crazy. i love him!

xo m.

we both reached for the gun

sorry the blog has been sucky lately.

no titles.

drunk posting.

vague.

gawd, i promise it won't suck anymore.

xo m.

by the numbers

so the election has come and gone.

amidst a flurry of slander and scandal the conservative party of canada led by the infamous stephen harper has won a minority government.

here's how it broke down:

Party Elected Seats in 2004 Vote Share Vote Share in 2004
CON 124 99 36.25% 29.61%
LIB 103 135 30.22% 36.71%
BQ 51 54 10.48% 12.40%
NDP 29 19 17.49% 15.69%
IND 1 n/a 0.52% n/a
OTH n/a 1 5.05% 5.6%

for you non-canadians out there:

to form a majority government the elected party must have 155 elected seats
CON-conservative (led by stephen harper)
LIB-liberal (formerly led by paul martin...there will now be a leadership race to appoint a new leader)
BQ-bloc quebecois (a quebec only party led by gilles duceppe)
NDP-new democrat party (led by jack layton)
IND-independent
OTH- other. (includes green, marxist-leninist, etc...)

also yeah for us canada! voter turn out was a whopping 64.9%. that's up from last year's 60.9% which happened to be the lowest turnout since 1898! 64.9% isn't great but it's better than last year so that's something...

for more information and results go here (the cbc)

so yeah. that's that. i've been thinking about this all day and wondering what was going to happen to us, to canadian, now that harper is prime minister. it's sort of scary thought, right-wing christians in positions of governance are always a scary thought (george bush anyone?). the previous liberal government made some really positive changes in the past little while and i'm worried that the positive steps forward might be undone. not that the liberals were without issue but...

anyways, i'm bad at writing about politics. i go off on leftist idealist tangents and my true colours fly. i'm not in the mood for that this afternoon. i'm tired and still reeling from the apocalyptic feelings i was having this morning.

so read up on the results, the campaigns and when something happens (when harper does something) that you're unhappy with make an informed stand against him. don't let our rights to marriage, sex, our bodies, peace, etc...be smushed on. if i were a betting woman i'd say there will be an election within two years but don't count on that.

keep standing up! (i plan on standing up taller and speaking louder than i've done in the past when it behooves me to do so...)

xo michelle.

UPDATE: NO BABY!!

babies on parade!

so i'm not always the most...um...responsible gal when it comes to sex. it's my own fault, obviously.

the paranoia that results is baby fear...not std fear but BABY FEAR! think about it: i'm 24, i have ZERO financial stability, ZERO shit laid out for the future...i mean, i know what i want to do but it's not secure. it would be irresponsible of me to have a baby right now and it would be sad for that baby...there are enough poor single mothers out there and i don't need to add to that in any capacity...

so all that being said i'm worrying again. round #2 of pregnancy paranoia.

as a result my errands for the morning resulted in a trip to shoppers drug mart for that little $12 pee stick.

it sucks. SUCKS! there i am, exhausted, when the 15yr old supergoth cashier shows me a moment of solidarity. i can tell. she gets it. there's no judgement, pretense. she gets how much that purchase fucking sucks. how scary it is. how much i DON'T want a kid right now.

the last time this happened i left the drugstore crying. thank god that didn't happen again.

i'm off to pee on a stick. we'll see what happens.

xo m.

where the shadows make things ugly

i always feel a little strange when i get home from hanging out with people who've known me since i was six. while i believe that parts of us stay the same over the course of our entire lives i really believe that we change more than we can measure.

i know this sounds simple but spending time with these girls wholly reinforces the profound affect our choices and environments have on us.

take kyla for example. she is my closest and oldest friend. she is the one i'd go to first with any sort of problem. we've known each other for almost 19 years. that's pretty amazing.

kyla works at a job that i don't understand and can't explain to you. she has a diploma in instrumentation (and another in design drafting) so it's something to do with that. she has a serious boyfriend and recently ended a five year relationship. she'll be 25 in march and is bothered by the fact that she isn't engaged or married. she was sure that by 25 she'd be married. she owns her car outright and is in the market for a condo.

michelle works at a job that is well below her education and skill level while she bides her time before grad school or until she can work in theatre full time. she has never had a serious relationship; just a few scattered loves and one-night stands. . michelle will be 25 in september and is convinced she's FAR too young to get married. she owns nothing but some gorgeous tattoos and a lot of cds and she can't ever see herself being in the market for a condo.

she and i couldn't be more unlike. but maybe that isn't true. we're both kind and compassionate people who love our families and friends and try to do what we can to make sure the people that we care about are cared for.

and while i'm sitting there listening to kyla (and these other two girls i've known for a while) talk about condos and engagement rings and boyfriends and the fact that they never go out drinking anymore i start to wonder what i'm doing there. why am i sitting in a movie theatre with these people. and the other two are who they are and i neither like nor dislike them, nor are we friends...but kyla.

i love kyla. and all our differences only make us better friends. we come together with no pretense and are wow'ed by how the other lives. me with my occasional one-night stands and her with her boyfriend and condo hunts.

i read once that douglas coupland called nostalgia a weapon and in a lot of ways i agree with him. when used improperly nostalgia can kill. when fueled by loneliness and alcohol there is nothing more dangerous. but in the right hands nostalgia reminds us of our pasts and keeps us intouch with the people that have shaped our present.

tonight i am happy.

xo michelle.

so llewelyn's comment read something like this:

michelle, if you're talking about that shithead who's always mean to you until he wants to sleep with you? cuz if it is i say take your own advice and don't have anything to do with him. you're a princess and you should only be with people who treat you like a princess. and you're the co-founder of awesometown...treat yourself as such.

and if it's someone else than call.

it's the shithead. i'm a shithead because i want to spend my time with someone who's a shithead.

me: are you coming to my brunch?
him: nope. i have to work. (somewhere he uses a diminuitive like miss or doll)
me: oh
him: and besides, i'm not vegan. but mostly i have to work.
me: no, i said vegetarian. only one of my friends is vegan. i'm not so.
me: ...but if you have to work...
him: i could try and juggle but i haven't been so good at that lately.

and then some bullshit about balls dropping and me making a comment of how deliberately vague i felt he was being.

if you don't want to do something, say so. say "sorry michelle, i don't want to hang out with you." "thanks for the invite but i'm not interested". something like that. instead of talking about being straight up just be. straight up. with me.

i'm sick of this shit. this is the breaking point. vegans. work. work! ha! the kid can take time out his afternoon to fuck me when he likes but come over to spend some time with a supposed friend. ha!

i know. i know. you're thinking that i'm just one of those girls: "says she can fuck someone and not get attached. look, she's attached. told you so..." and i am attached. but not because of the sex. it was the moments in between. the moments when you think you're friends.

god, why am i even talking about this?
because i'm a shithead. and because of other things that i'm not ok with talking about on el blogo.

m.

dallas green makes me feel slightly murderous.

seriously! he's terrible.

my sister is watching muchmusic and i want to PUKE! like seriously PUKE all over the tv.

(at least he's hot)

xo m.

to call or not to call

the eternal question. i feel slightly like carrie bradshaw must have when she was 15. no, i'm not 15. far from it but sometimes, like now, i feel sort of 15.

on a sidenote i like the carrie bradshaw reference. both intertextual and a clever reference to pop culture as well as calling into the question of authorship. if michelle relates herself to a fictional character is she herself fictional or are all things written true? do characters exist outside of their creator once their names because as recognized as those who actually exist. shit, michelle exists and carrie bradshaw is a million times more famous than she'll ever be!

i've been watching sex and the city a lot lately. yep, it's pretty much crap but it's luscious crap wrapped in gorgeous shoes and women talking cock on television. more of that needs to happen. hopefully the next time it happens a woman will write it but y'know...yes, i know that candice whatsherface wrote the book but a dude writes the majority of the 'teleplay'. so what then? women were convinced that the way these four women talk is the way that women actually talk but these strong female voices are filtered through a man's voice...

ack! don't even get me started. 'the myth of contemporary feminism'. i could go on for ever on acceptable vs. unacceptable manifestations of equality but i won't right now. this isn't what i wanted to talk about.

it's embarassing because i just ranted a little bit and now i want to act like a 15 year old version of myself. shit, i'm almost 25! you'd think at some point i'd get used to the idea that boys do exist in my world and if i want to spend time with them i will have to talk to them.

i am one of those people in constant possession of in my comp lit class, that tattooed one i see sometimes*.

(*these are archetypes and represent NO ONE in particular so stop freaking out!)

amidst all these archetypal crushes there are usually one or two boys that i would actually like to spend some time with. currently there is one. the thing about this one is that we've slept together, gone on 'dates' (sort of) but he's never expressed any real interest in actually dating me. i'd like to go on more dates with him. are things complicated by the fact that we've already fucked? or was that an acceptable 'test drive'? i don't know what to do. at times we have a good thing going. sex, the occasional drink, etc. and then other times he completely ignores me.

and i know what you're all thinking. typical girl, gets attached to someone she's slept with. fuck you! this attachment is something recent and something that has little to do with sex. the truth is he's a nice guy...or he can be. the potential is definately there. i get moments of it. i know i know, 'she doth protest too much' but my christmas holidays can attest to the fact that i can fuck people and in no way become attached. so what? do i take the risk? or should i just get so stoned that i forget about everything and have a full night's sleep? not that i'd call right now but...

so that's that. i suck. what a day. i did nothing all day and i'm running out of weed! i should call him.

should i call him?

xo m.ll night's sleep? not that i'd call right now but...

so that's that. i suck. what a day. i did nothing all day and i'm running out of weed! i should call him.

should i call him?

xo m.

i was at halo on friday night for all of about 5 min. or 10. i don't know. the jager was preventing me from being 100% aware of my surroundings. i know this: it was hot and i felt like the UN-coolest person there. now ok, this isn't intended to be me whining about how uncool or cool i am cuz i get that it's redundant. or irrelevent. or both. the point is that i was there for 1o minutes, i was drunk, it was hot and in the face of local hip hop icons and fashionistas i felt uncool. that's all. anyways, in those 10 minutes i ran into an old friend.

krystin.

i think of her from time to time. the last time i saw her was this past may. i was walking down whyte ave with aaron and she was in starbucks. we blocked the doorway catching up for a brief moment. we talked about nipple piercings. mine were only a day old and it hurt to hug her. and then i saw her on friday. we talked about getting together, as you always do when you run into people...

seeing her made me start thinking about those couple of years. being 22. huh. i don't know where this is going...

it seems like life has been throwing curveballs lately. i've been handling them well but i guess there's something to be said for being completely 22, which i'm not anymore. who knows.

i sure don't.

either way, it was good to see krys and i think that i am not going to do that thing where you say you'll email someone and you never do. i'm gonna email her. and maybe some other people i miss.

it's amazing what can happen.

maybe it's the 5 or 6 jager and cranberry's. maybe it's the crappy skatepunk. maybe nostalgia is a weapon. maybe it's the heat. maybe it's an old friend. maybe it's fucking celebrity. maybe it's a sense that something isn't what it should be. maybe it's the knowledge that i am just not enough of whateverthefuck i need to be to be there.

it's amazing what can happen.
and how much of a fucking bitch i can be when no one is listening.

a little something for everyone...

...or not.

titles come to me at random. i am at their will.

anyways, i got a new hole in my face yesterday. stretching the other hole so the two match hurt more than the new hole.

fun!

saying no one bagel at a time

so i made a desicion the other day. i know that it's that part of the year when people make these kind of desicions but it's not a resolution. what i'm doing here isn't a resolution because resolution implies impermanence. no, i've just made a choice.

i'm gonna lose weight. for real this time. i want to feel good about myself, good in the way i know i deserve to feel. i guess perhaps that at almost 25 maybe i am starting to feel worth feeling good about myself...i don't know. and it isn't about the number on the metal at my feet, it's about how i feel and how i feel in those clothes that apparently make the woman. fuck the numbers!

so i'm writing about this, not because i'm looking for some kind of praise from the internet, but because i need to make it known to myself that tonight at 10:40pm while i sit here uploading the rad hotchip album into yousendit for mary i am bored and when i am bored i eat. (i also eat when i'm happy, sad, stoned, etc...) and instead of eating i made tea. i just said NO to that bagel sitting beside the kettle. i had a good dinner and i don't need to eat right now. i just said no. that's the first step right. i just have to keep making that choice.

just keep making that choice michelle.

plus, when i lose this weight i am going to buy hot fucking jeans that cost waaaay too much money and turn down all the boys that dismissed me for being the fat girl.

the list:2005 (additions and ammendments)

it's bound to happen. i forget something, i hear something else that needs to be added. it's bound to happen.

so, the 10 best has changed and i can't believe that i left the WORST show of the year off my list.

the worst show first:

hot hot heat w. the futureheads and louis XIV (at reds in april)

yep, this show just sucked hardcore from start to finish.
too many tigth pants and boring lacklustre dance pop. i had fun at the time but thinking about it later it made me a little sad. sad because it was so crappy!

and ok, a completely different top 10 list. it has to be done. there are two albums that i completely forgot! that's not true, i didn't forget them; i got overzealous in posting that list before i had a chance to hear two of the best album of the year.

the new list:

so broken social scene and ladytron (sorry kids, still amazing albums though...) got kicked off the the old list and the new list exists as follows:

10. xiu xiu la foret-5RC/kill rockstars
9. lcd soundsystem s/t-dfa/astralworks
8. m. ward transistor radio-merge
7. venetian snares meathole-planet mu
6. les angles mort what is real?-blue skies turn black
5. tom vek we have sound-startime international
this is a new edition to the list. a friend sent me this and i burnt it onto a cd and listened to it immediately. i figured it was something pretty rad as he'd be raving about it for a while and how it was one the best albums of the year. i listen and i was like, 'garage rock-so fucking what? there's nothing special about this!' and i wrote it off for a couple days. a few days later i was going to the gym and didn't have anything in my discman; mr. vek was sitting on the top of a pile of cds and i decided i'd give it another try. if nothing else it was upbeat enough for a workout. headphones in hand tom and i headed for the elliptical trainer. 3 songs in i forgot to excercise and i stood there in the middle of club fit completely transfixed on this amazingly dynamic record. it's full of so many layers of sound it's hard to know where to listen first. i love it now! i tell everyone to listen to it and i will be passing on my burnt copy of this to the next unsuspecting fan...or person who doesn't quite yet know they're a fan. believe the hype kids! this album is the fucking shit! dynamic, stirring and fun! fun! fun!
4. four tet everthing ecstatic-domino recordings
3. bright eyes i'm wide awake it's morning-saddle creek
2. hot chip coming on strong-moshi moshi/astralworks
ok, i'm obsessed with album. how the fuck did i miss it before?! i'd seen in the store a million times since it came out in november and heard people raving about it all over the land, what was i thinking not picking it up the first time i saw it? well, i've fixed my mistake and have fallen completely in LOVE with hot chip! this is sexy music that makes you want to dance and fuck and spend the whole night tangled up with a hundred people on the dance floor of a club that only holds 50. it's what good dance music should be: interesting, dynamic, well orchestrated and actually danceable. oh, and listen to the lyrics because they are hilarious. hot chip is RAD! RAD! RAD!
1. antony and the johnsons i'm a bird now-secretly canadian
yep, this album is still perfect! i double checked!

xo m.

i'm back!

if you care.

i'm back. tomorrow i need to ammend some things. add some 'resolutions' (even though i am not a fan of that word) and comment on some recent events.

just wanted to say hi.

xo m.