Too many halves.

I've just read through the last handful of posts I've written and have realized that according to this blog, I'm a pretty negative person. Which is strange, because whenever I get down, I think nostalgically back to that time when I was happy. According to this blog, that time never existed.

truthfully, I know that I generally write here when I'm feeling conflicted. It's a great way to organize my thoughts. It would seem that when I'm happy, I don't feel the need to analyze myself or question my feelings. Right now I wish I would so that I could look back and see that I'm not ALWAYS like this.

I have a lot on my mind of late. Which, of course, is why I turn to trusty ole' blogger.

First, and foremost, David is leaving. This, of course, is causing me a great deal of anxiety and brings up a whole host of issues that I am quite frankly not ready to talk about here. So I'm going to stop here. All you need to know is that this fact is that its like a constant buzzing that's humming in the background of my life right now. I'm sure you'll have a angst ridden post about this later.

Second, because David is leaving, we can't afford to keep our apartment. Despite its problems, this apartment is my home and I am sad to leave it. This means I have to Move. I'm capitalizing Move because it is such a simple word that implies so much to me right now. Move. Eurgh. I hate moving. I'm going to make a quick list of things that I need to do before I move. Mostly for myself:

-Figure out where to store our stuff: Because we are both moving into rooms in other people's homes, we need to put the majority of our stuff into storage. This sucks. And is expensive.

- Figure out who will take our apartment: This isn't so bad. Our place is cheap. The only problem is dealing with our crazy old people landlords.

-Pack: This also sucks. We need to figure out what goes where.

- Figure out Christmas: This includes buying gifts, buying tickets to get to London, setting dates for when all this stuff happens.

-Money: this doesn't belong on a to-do list but it's here because I am stressed about it. You know how when you don't have money people are all like... the best christmas gifts are hand-made! What do you do when you don't have time or money? I have to buy tickets to go places, rent vans to move things, pay rent to live places, buy gifts to give people.... And at the same time I have to take time off work to DO all this things. Essentially making less money in order to spend more of it. AND my laptop is dying. Rapidly. I was saving money to replace it but now it seems that money will be spent on the aforementioned list. And once David leaves I will be without laptop. Joy.

So yeah, that's my list. I do kind of feel better. It's not so bad (she says, trying to convince herself).

David mentioned this to me last night, and I have to agree, but ever since I've gotten the second job, my overall life happiness level has dropped dramatically. Here's a bit of advice that should have been obvious to me in the past. Working LESS than 40 hours a week over 6 days a week is without a doubt the worst way to live your life. I am constantly broke because I don't work that much and constantly tired because I work too much. It is simply the worst of both worlds.

Saturday night I start dreading returning to work on Monday, before I've even had my one day off. And my day off is half spent sleeping in and lazing, because I never get to do that, and half spent feeling guilty for not doing anything, and half spent desperately trying to get some quality time with David that doesn't involve doing nothing after work. You may have noticed that there are too many halves there and you can interpret that as some sort of metaphore for my life. Too many halves. Hmm. I'm going to work on developing that into some sort of life theory. Too many halves. It's now the title to this posts. Done.

Okay. So it being Sunday I have now wasted half my day lazing and sleeping in. I'm going to shower and head to the studio and set up some lights I bought about a month ago in a desperate attempt at productivity before I meet up with David to spend the rest of the day in an even more desperate attempt at some quality time together. Then I will come home and stay up too late in an attempt to suck every last bit of joy out of this day off but really all I will be doing is dreading going to work tomorrow. Then I'll go to bed and be late for work which will stress me out and spend the day at work being miserable and anxious. After work I will debate going out with friends, spending quality time David or going to the studio. In the end I will dissolve into an anxious mess and convince myself that my time is best spent at home and I will do none of the above. Instead I will sit on the computer and waste time dreading going to work the next day.

And the cycle will continue.

Tune in soon for When Emily Loses It.

I really hate dreaming. I don't mean that thing you do where you sit and imagine a better life for yourself. I mean images-running-through-your-head-while-your-asleep dreaming. Nothing makes me feel more unrested and unsatisfied as a night of random dreams, even if I don't remember them. Occasionally I'll have one that is just entertaining and I'll wake up and it'll have been just fun. But for the most part I just wake up feeling tired.

One of my most reoccuring dreams is particularly unsettling to me. It always starts out with me planning a trip to somewhere really far away and exciting. Then the dream skips ahead to me frantically packing and then rushing to the airport (it's always a plane). The whole dream I'm stressing out about what I did or didn't pack and how on earth I'm going to make the plane on time. I'm always so so late. I'm just furious and sick with myself for being so unprepared for this trip I've been looking forward to.

The few times I make it to this part of the dream, I usually DO end up catching the plane after a mad dash through the airport (the hopeless optimist in me?) and the dream sort of falls apart there. I never actually get to go to where ever it was I was so excited about. (well actually last night's dream sort of split in two: 1) in one half all the passengers for the plane were led to this cart on rails and we were all sped away on a crazy and dangerous rail ride until we got to the boat. We all got on the boat. Then the rest of the dream focused on the various ways to get food on the boat. 2) this is almost a separate dream because I don't actually remember getting there but I did end up in Greeceland [I think I wanted to go to Greece but bought the wrong tickets] where I went swimming in the ocean [I'm not sure where Greeceland is but it has an ocean] and a man grabbed my boob and made it look like an accident.)

Anyways, I always wake up disappointed that I'm not actually going where I thought I was going. The disappointment is generally mingled with the residual anxiety of being late/badly packing.

I'm sure this all says something to the effect of that I feel ill prepared for this life and that if something wonderful did happen I'd probably screw it up. Or something.

Someone stole my visa card and used it for 92$ worth of bixi-ing and 20$ at a dep. Seriously, whoever you are? I really hope your beer and bike ride were worth the pain in the ass this is causing me. About an hour after, we opened up our 500$ Videotron bill for our month of internet. It would seem that David had some sort of virus that was downloading/uploading an ASSLOAD of information without us knowing. We have yet to tackle videotron on that one. Whoever it is that programs the viruses of the world, you're an asshole. Pur and simple. Please go fuck yourself because we really can't afford this. You self entitled little shits, get a real fucking life/job.

I really try to do the right thing towards other people. It is so infuriating to me when someone screws me, or anyone, not through neglect or mistake, but with malicious intent. It was as though one day someone out there decided, oh hey, Emily seems to have a slightly too optimistic look on the human character, we can't have that now, can we?

Well, it would appear as though this rant has made me late for work. So with these happy thoughts I wish you all a good day and implore you to WATCH YOUR BACKS BECAUSE THE WORLD IS TRYING TO FUCK YOU!!!!!!! ARGH :OIEGGNBIO$QQ(*ENID

Or something

So... what's new. I'll break it down for all of you so that we don't have to do anything drastic like actually communicate.

Will be graduating shortly - Considering how I don't seem to feel much of anything about this I'm going to assume it hasn't properly sunk in. It feels like I'm just done for the summer but will be back in a few months. Also, I'm not exactly going out with a bang. No one seems to want to show my work, despite the fact that I don't think it sucks.

Job - Will soon be done with the restaurant/cafe job and be replacing it with a gallery/studio assistant job. I'm living the dream. Or something. No, really, I'm excited. It's partly sales (which means commission!) and partly everything else (like building canvases, varnishing, shipping, framing, hanging, sweeping floors...). I've only worked a couple days so I'm really anxious to get started full time so I can get a better handle on things.

Studio! - Yesterday I paid my first month rent on a shared, shared studio space. Essentially, it's someone elses studio space in a shared studio which she will be letting me use 3 ish days a week. Pros - hella cheap and two blocks away. Cons - must share. I'm looking forward to one day being able to spread out and work without feeling self conscious but the truth is I just can't afford it right now. In the mean time, I will settle with a nice corner in a nice studio.

Exercise - like every other physical endeavor I've picked up in the last 3 years, I've sort of given up on Yoga and Systema. Mostly because they just don't fit in my schedule anymore. But partly because I just don't want to. HOWEVER! in an effort to justify spending money on a studio space, I've decided to not buy a bus pass this summer and just bike. I started this week. I'm REALLY out of shape so it isn't exactly "fun" right now, but I am confident that I'll get better.

Grad school - Just kidding, nothing decided there. In a year or two maybe. Actually, no, the only thing I've resolved is that I'm definitely not going to grad school in New York. I'll admit, I had daydreams after my trip in February but I also have to admit that 50,000$ won't appear out of thin air. I'll just look elsewhere.

So I'm basically settling into a nice relaxed summer in montreal (my first!) with work I might potentially actually like, a bit of painting and lots of biking. I predict sun, beers on patios, a garden in my back yard, BBQs, lots of reading.... and so on...

Next fall is really hazy. No idea what's going on then. Sort of depends on David who also doesn't know what will happen.

You know, I've been feeling sort of low lately. Dissatisfied and unhappy about everything despite rationally knowing that by all appearances things were going pretty good for me right now. I feel better after writing this out. Last night I went to paint (my final crit is on wednesday! (shit!!!)) and simply could not bring myself to do it. But I think today will be better... Well, it's already 1pm but I have nothing else planned. Tons of time!

New year.

Thinking back on last semester it's really worrying how low I got. I don't really know what's different now, same job, same classes, same clueless-ness with regards to the future. But somehow I'm just not sad about it. I'm tentatively blaming the depression on renewed birth control since it adds up timing wise (but I was on it before and this didn't happen and I'm still on it now but it seems to have gone away? Or something?)

I'm trying to decide what to do with my immediate future. May really isn't that far away.... David is considering going back as camp cook this summer (with a different company) which brought up the potential of treeplanting for me again. Which basically means I want to pound my head into a wall for even considering it. If I went I'd be planting (no more glorified baby sitting for me), so if I go by my second year production (which, in complete honesty, was the bare minimum of work I could have done) I'd make about 7000$ in 3 months. And if I'm not a lazy asshole, it would be more like 10 000$. It would be a different company so I wouldn't have to deal with the old bullshit... By weekly paychecks, hot showers and a guaranteed day off every 4 days sounds nice... But at the end of the day it's still treeplanting and it still sucks.

OR!!!! I could stay in montreal, get a second job, work 50 hours a week and save over the summer... what... like 4 000$? Maybe? If I don't spend it all on stupid shit to make myself feel better about not having a life because I work 50 hours a week? But I get a bed and a shower and never have to put on wet boots in the morning and can go out for a beer on a patio every once and a while and I won't have to spend all day in freezing rain and I'm pretty sure montreal doesn't get blackflies... And maybe I can spare a 100$ a month or so and a few hours a week (when I'm not working....) and rent a shared studio somewhere and paint a bit....

It's a tough call, it really is.

But why do I even need the money? My abstract plan is "travel". Where? No clue.... for how long? no idea. What do I want to do wherever I end up going? Also no clue. Pretty much all I know is that I want to see somewhere other than here and I'd like to go alone. But it turns out "other than here" is pretty fucking big.

yeaaaah.... That's what's going on in my head. It'll work itself out, I'm sure.

I've resolved to get myself into some semblance of shape. Yoga, Russian Systema and, as of yesterday, a little bit of running. We'll see how that goes. I'm hoping that this new-found care for my own health combined with David and I's new resolve to keep our apartment clean-ish (compared to disaster-ish) will give me some sort of inner stability. This way when art-making and work are not going so well, at least I'll know I'm doing more than the bare minimum it takes to live. So far, I like it.

So now I'm off to get my day started. Shower, blueberry muffins with strawberries and whipped cream, maybe hunt down a projector?, tidy a bit and finally, off to Phil and Laura's for some delightful socializing.

Splendid.

PS!!!

As a reward for reading my ramblings, here is some stuff I did before Christmas.

This is 11"x 11"x 11"


and this is... uh... 4' x 5' x 11" (the cube is the same size as the one above)