I Will Be Alone Again Tonight, My Dear

classicallycara @ 2006-11-12T12:20:00

2006-11-12T20:20:02Z

things go back and forth and are better again(in regards to my last entry). horribly vivid dreams i had last night. two in particular really disturbed me. there was a party of some sort at my grandparent's house and all these very odd people show up at sit around the table, everyone seems to know them except for me. they are all ritzy and the like, these people, and no one bothers to introduce them to me or anything and i feel alienated and wind up getting very upset and having a panic attack. there are many more details to it but that is the easiest way to explain it. and in the second, a very good friendship completely unravels in a terrible manner that involves that friend throwing her life away and ignoring my advice. there's a lot more to it but i'd rather not disclose the details. ummm what else, finished the potrait of dorian gray, am moving on to les miserables today... theres an open house today and i have to leave so i will be doing some coffee shop reading. i have an interview at this coffee shop tomorrow, if it goes well, i will be quitting cinnamon city for this job. and moving day is a month and almost a half away.

classicallycara @ 2006-11-04T17:31:00

2006-11-05T01:31:32Z

i'm driving myself crazy trying to get certain thoughts out of my head. things i shouldn't be thinking about anymore. it's very hard to do but it is necessary. and i feel silly typing about it. it's not really so bad. it's just when i'm by myself all of it keeps haunting me. i haven't cried much, only a couple of intense spurts when i felt overwhelmed. it's not that i'm really sad, it's just, uhhh certain thoughts of past particles that make me sad. i can't explain all of this.

classicallycara @ 2006-10-31T02:51:00

2006-10-31T03:00:40Z

long time no update... welllll, i have a job! i'm working at this cafe/bakery in the mall called cinnamon city, have been for almost a week now. got an accordion, waiting for it to get to me, yay internet shopping. saving saving saving because i'm moving to calgary in january. things have had their ups and downs, i was really unhappy for a while but i've been feeling better these past couple weeks. working on musc still, just not all the time now. i'm really excited about the move. been making lots of plans for it. basically, marie, kira & i are getting an apartment as close to ze downtown as is possible and we will be on the lookout for bandmates and will be playing as many shows as we can. tomorrow i'm doing a seance for halloween. it should be most fabulous. saturday night, dressed up all crazy-like(gathered items from my wardrobe last minute and threw 'em on) and went out to this lame halloween bash at a local club here. meagan & i made tons of jello shooters and drank drank drank and then danced danced danced. it was a silly night. i didnt get home until three and got a good three hours of sleep before going to work the next morning. work is pretty awesome. i bake stuff and get listen to whatever i want when the boss isn't there and have lots of fun with my awesome co-workers. and yes.

classicallycara @ 2006-09-23T01:51:00

2006-09-23T08:59:12Z

another failed attempt at some kind of birthday gathering under my belt... i don't really care, it's just a fact. i don't think i'm meant to try to plan things for myself like this, ha. they just don't work out and it never has anything to do with me, it's just that things come up with other people that are actually important, there is always something. bowling tomorrow will be awesome i'm sure. a few of us are getting trashed and dressed up to the elevens and going laser bowling! can't wait! on another note, i'd decided to invest some of the birthday money i get into the purchasing of a musical saw.

classicallycara @ 2006-09-21T22:39:00

2006-09-22T05:55:12Z

i want to record all of the vocal work for "more than a gift" this weekend. yes, all of it. it will happen inbetween all of the pre-birthday shenenigans. didn't look for a job today, didn't have a ride to places and the weather was too dreadful to walk around in. tomorrow? maybe. i'm still haunted by various things. every twenty-first of every month since this past july twenty-first gets me feeling more strange and sad than usual. my mother kept calling today and i just was not in the mood to deal with that trip so i didn't pick up the phone. and if marie were here, we could be recording and playing. but she isn't and i really need her presence to work on music... i can do very little without her, she adds so much and is that voice of reassurance that i need. i just need more people like that in my life who can add a lot of perspective and can go these places that i need to go with me. most of the time i feel extremely lonely. i like being surrounded by goodness all the time and i get myself feeling so negatively when i'm alone so it doesn't really work for me right now. it's like i constantly need fresh creative minds around. i'm also having the wanting to be in a relationship feelings and it's really saddening me because i have no one and i refuse to settle for just anyone(even if there was anyone to settle for, which there never is for me). and in nine days, i will be a year older. i hate birthdays.

classicallycara @ 2006-09-20T18:14:00

2006-09-21T01:34:54Z

emotions swinging up and down. the brian jonestown massacre show last wednesday was absolutely fantastic. had a really good time... drank a lot, danced a lot, and managed to meet anton after the show. from thursday until yesterday, i had the house to myself. it was a free for all commune involving the playing and recording of music, lots of alcohol and noodles, staying up until at least five am every night, and fun activities like going down staircases in suitcases with wheels. lots of fun was had again and now, i must go look for a job. i don't have any other distractions like concerts and places to go... so it's time to play the real life game so that i can save up to escape again. tomorrow, i'm actually going to hand out resumes and stop pretending that i don't need to. movie night is being resurrected soon... can't wait. and psychedelic drunken laser bowling this weekend for my pre-birthday birthday party. and i've been more interested in playing piano again lately. and i've played so much saw that my hands are quite crippled. but it's paying off, i've received many compliments on my continuous improvement. i barely slept a wink last night, and had this intense piano part invade my head and it's been in my soul since, i've been slowly working it out and i have great hopes for it. it's a very melancholy piece because i am very melancholic these days... i've just gotten better at hiding it when i want to have a good time and to function. there were a few times this weekend where i almost started crying in front of everyone. and yesterday and last night as well i cried a lot. this song will be another one of those getting intense things out of my heart songs because i'm going to go totally insane if i do not express these feelings creatively.

classicallycara @ 2006-09-12T10:16:00

2006-09-12T19:11:25Z

strange dreams again. dreams about making films. about sitting around and brainstorming and having great ideas but i cannot remember what those great ideas were but i had one that i know i have not already had in real life that was really brilliant, if only i could remember what it was. i'm going to try very hard. and something about riding bikes and me having to go through the 'i cannot do this because i cannot ride a bicycle' speech. i love that speech, no not really... it's funny feeling awkward when people talk about riding bikes. it's my little handicap that will probably stay a handicap forever unless i get aggressively persuaded into making a fool of myself by trying to learn someday and possibly succeeding. and fucking brian jonestown massacre tomorrow night!i've never had the opportunity to see any of my truly very favourite bands live, can't wait. it will be the best show of my life, i already do know. i'm so broke that it's ridiculous. i'm making a huge amount of food for everyone for the journey so we do not have to spend a cent on food because marie and i both cannot even do that. and somehow we can going to get alcohol. three cans of old milwaukee from saturday is a start. but it's a far cry... wish we could busk in calgary with the ukuleles but we have not practiced together and there won't be time i think and marie is always nervous about things like that. but maybe... maybe... i'm still bringing the uke and a tambourine.

sooo last weekend, been practicing saw and uke a lot. friday night, went down to jamie's with the saw and the uke and marie and jamie made up a fantastic song about drunk mike that i made a saw part for and i hope that it gets recorded because it really is that fantastic. marie, laura, jamie and i took an interesting detour to 7-11 for cigarettes and pop. silly screaming and making up folk songs, and weirdness all around. that was the most fun. it was a very eary night though. i got home at one and could not sleep and wanted to talk to people but there was no one to talk to so i took silly pictures instead and then forced myself to sleep. saturday, lots of running around, trying to get set up for some kinbd of jam. took about three or four hours. marie and i hung out with patrick all day, was awesome. his driving scares me, but it's fun. so around six, we are finally set up in his garage, marie trying to teach guitar and bass parts to harley and patrick. me stressing and forgetting what notes i play exactly on the keyboard, figured it out eventually. realized the weird fact that the keyboard part is the key to the timing for that song... with verse and chorus changes. it was fun playing it once we kind of had it almost figured out. can't sing and play keyboard at the same time yet, will be practicing that on my own a lot. need more people. need lots more people. it was going well, then we left the garage to go for a break and then patrick left the key inside so we were locked out for a while and then too many people showed up that weren't in on the music playing and the music got forgotten when we did get back into the garage, it was discouraging because the music was all i really cared about doing. but we did spend a bit of time and figured out a little bit more of christmas lights for jesus, marie's new song. eventually wound up at kristin's house. hadn't been to her house to drink in ages, it was fun. although, i wound up sneaking away from everyone whenever i possibly could to go talk to someone dear.

thursday through sunday were days in particular where my feeling overwhelmed me and i had to get some of them out, they were days where i felt the feelings of missing him terribly and wanting to see him incredibly much(although thursday was mostly being jealous and losing my mind over paranoid delusions). these feelings are always here but sometimes they are more vivid. and on sunday we actually spoke briefly and i was so happy for that because i had hated the fact that hearing his voice had become such a distant memory and hazy thing to the point where i was almost forgetting what he sounds like. not a lot scares me anymore but many of my own feelings do. because i spend so much time trying to contain myself and in deciding that certain things are right and wrong for me to feel and i get upset about feelings because i think that i should be working hard to be accepting of everything and to not be any bit selfish or want things for myself.i really need to calm down about that a lot, i think and accept that most of life exists in the very large grey area. very little if anything, belongs to black and white. everyone tells me how unhealthy it is, the way i think about things. how i think automatically that people do not care about me at all for the silliest reasons. it's really quite disgusting how warped my mind can become sometimes.

on another note, the film viewing has kicked up again. watched match point, swingers and junebug since sunday. have enjoyed them all. marie and i are planning to watch a ton of woody allen and ingmar bergman in the next while. can't wait. i need to review much of bergman's films, i think. especially cries and whispers and wild strawberries. wish so much that i had the whole through a glass darkly winter light the silence trilogy but i only have access to winter light right now because that is all that the art gallery has. through a glass darkly is definitely my favourite of the three but the are all amazing! harriett andersson is marvelous in that film, so tragically beautiful. another film i've had an incredibly desire to watch lately is la dolce vita. there are certain things in that film that are so magical that i cannot even express it. they just have to be seen. things like the castle scene and the party at marcello's writer friend's house and when he plays the organ in the cathedral. and the most obvious magic, anita ekberg in the fountain. i just remember the first time i sat down to watch that film in may of last year late at night and being completely overwhelmed by its beauty and then watching it immediately the next day, its so enchanting.

classicallycara @ 2006-09-07T23:25:00

2006-09-08T06:44:14Z

feeling better, most of my insecurities were based on things inside me, i have a terrible habit of distorting reality and deciding that my distortions are truth when they are not and assuming extremes. for me, it is hard to find a balance between things being very good and very terrible. i was able to start my adventures in musical sawing this evening. laura came over, we printing off tabs and tried to start practicing for busking and man do we need a lot a lot of practice to be able to go out there on the streets. it'll happen though. yes, soon. called triple a for cigarettes, the buddy who delivered took it as some kind of a sign that we were still sitting outside on my porch that it was okay for him to hang out with us... very awkward. he tried to sound all cool about his car and his job(s) plural. eventually, he got the hint: no, we are not interested in talking to you! please leave! and he did. i was trying not to laugh at him, i always laugh in those situations... quirky strangers and awkwardness do that to me. and i am sleepy and trying to feel the best that i can. it's hard, some days i'm okay, others i lose it completely and today, man, i really lost it for a while. there are only a few things that can do that to me... mainly the sadness of not being able to have certain things that i want. *sigh*

classicallycara @ 2006-09-07T16:09:00

2006-09-07T23:10:10Z

why do i let myself care about people so much? ughhhhh.

classicallycara @ 2006-09-07T10:32:00

2006-09-07T17:40:26Z

purging always and washing myself clean again and again of all of that of which i thought i knew; every day, again and again. new favourite band for today. unable to sleep again. not wanting to wake up but still going, going, going. always going. needing to get the hell out of here and find something new. peace doesn't exist for people like me, i've accepted that. rotting and rotting and rotting. thinking violent thoughts about myself again. but finding comfort in the music that i am creating because of all of these wretched warped feelings. i know i will reap beautiful music out of this, i already have started to. if that's what i can offer then, that is that. let others have beauty because i cannot. and even if given the opportunity to be happy, i don't think i would be, i would still pick apart every little thing until misery finally would swallow me whole like it already has. needing to find something simple to hold, knowing it will be ages before that is possible for me unless something falls into my lap because i do not ever look for anything really. and i will find my place in the wilderness someday.

classicallycara @ 2006-09-06T17:48:00

2006-09-07T00:55:30Z

just gave myself a haircut. was going to get it professionally done but well, i am broke and cutting my own hair is always fun. hung out with shannon a bit last night. it was good to leave the house late at night and go sit at the beach. last night i felt empty and reaking of rot for no reason, no reason at all. but i'm writing a song about those feelings: i have become a living shadow, forbidden is it to say my name aloud, there are no prayers to save us shadows, only haggered hands to ease the path to hell (thats all i've got so far)

A is for age: twenty-three days away from nineteen years

B is for beer of choice: pabst blue ribbon

C is for career right now: music-maker

D is for your dog's name?: no dogs, cat please.

E is for essential item you use everyday: ukulele

F is for favorite TV show at the moment: arrested development

G is for favorite game: hide and seek

H is for home town: toronto, on/barrie, on

I is for instruments you play: piano, keyboard, guitar, ukulele, tambourine, glockenspiel, etc....

J is for favorite juice: does lemonade count?

K is for whose butt you'd like to kick: no ones

L is for last restaurant you ate at: jerry's!

M is for marriage: someday i know someone will look into my eyes and say.... 'hello you're my very special one' (that would be cool but if not, then im down with celibacy)

N is for your full name: cara joy balazs

O is for overnight hospital stays: more than i'd like to count.

P is for people you were with today: dad and girlfriend. oh, the joys of being a hermit.

Q is for quote: "don't TOUCH it with your hands!"

R is for biggest regret: no regrets.

S is for seeing someone right now?: am i ever? no.

T is for time you woke up today: one p.m.

U is for unforgettable: too much.

V is for vegetable you love: mushroom

W is for worst habit: perfectionism

X is for x-rays: teeth, stomach, nose and some more...

Y is for yummy food you ate today: cheese hot dog mmmm.

Z is for zodiac sign: libra

classicallycara @ 2006-09-05T13:16:00

2006-09-05T21:23:53Z

more strange dreams. one part: working at superstore again but it's not really superstore, it looks suspiciously like a mix of winners and the grocery store near my grandparents house in toronto, and i organize shoes but it's still all the same people. another part: everyone i know wanting to learn accordion, which discouraged me from wanting to learn it and made me wonder why, why, why. another part: being in portland for an hour on a journey somewhere else, even though i've never been to portland, don't remember where i was ultimately going either. and more strange strange things that i do not remember now but certainly there were things that had to do with certain things, i'm sure.

ukulele practice is coming along well. i played uke for about five-six hours yesterday. then switched to guitar at around midnight to fix up the guitar parts for 'more than a gift', which i did, yay. playing uke makes playing guitar much much easier, i have found. i wanted to start my adventures in musical sawing but nothing to use as a bow could be found in this house so alas, i must wait til i have a bow.

and now i am frustrated because i should have written down all of the settings for the synthesizer parts for 'more than a gift' because i now need to duplicate them and i cannot figure out how to get that first ridiculously high one that i had and what fucking notes i was playing during the end part. ugh. ugh. ugh.

classicallycara @ 2006-09-04T15:57:00

2006-09-04T23:24:51Z

weekend was insane. friday was very melancholy and involved drinking some rum with marie and jamie late late at night. saturday, drove out to edgewood. what an absolutely beautiful timewarp that place is. no signs of technology, totally untouched, in the absolute middle of nowhere. i will probably wind up moving there someday, or a place that is very similar, because i'm realizing weirdos such as myself eventually must vanish into such places. the benefit show was fabulous. lots of interesting characters including the infamous "drunk mike", oh what a nickname. " 'drunk mike' thats what they call me..." and then there's his extremely inappropriate song and dance around the fire in front of the local pre-teen girls ("i don't need no one all i need to do is jack off, let's jack off..."). him and his friends trying to recite poems about last cigarettes and score with these underage pre-teen girls. for the first part of the evening, we piled into the car in the parking lot and drank some rum and cokes and beers. car parties are good ventures. i wound up getting very intoxicated, a few hours later, we just kept venturing in and out of the hall and into the car and then to the playground across the street where we laughed and then swung on swings and laughed some more and then drank some more. lots of compliments on my pillboxd hat, some free beer care of the lady who was running the benefit, twenty year old girls calling me beautiful and urging me to dance with them. and i did dance, oh i danced. outside this guy who was kind of a jackass whipped out a musical saw, we took our turns with it, i had it for about ten minutes and got to the verge of almost being able to get it to do something not terrible sounding. lot of nonsensical conversations. an older gentleman asking me and jamie if we knew any single women between the ages of 35 and 39, asking us to send them his way and so on. after the show, going back to the cafe where we were spending the night, more free alcohol, more conversations with strange and unusual people, mostly people in their thirties and fourties, as usual. sang along to waiting for the man with one lady. played lots of tambourine. people came and went, and when things got too weird for me, i passed out. and good thing i did when i did because a lot of shit went down with the lead singer of the band and the locals and yada yada yada, he is not welcome back to edgewood ever again. rolled out of bed the next day, coffe, food, recouperation, beach... well sitting in the shade for me, going to robyn's sister-in-law's house and having dinner with them. so great. i completely fell in love with robyn's siter-in-law. she is living the life that i can see myself living in the future and is just one of those really warm and sincere people that just glows all shades of wonderful inside and out. had some good conversations with her. her husband/partner(not sure if they are married) was a very neat fellow as well. left edgewood around eight o'clock. slept most of the drive back. and that was the weekend. now i'm back at practicing and playing music in the basement again. my room is now being painted and i've been moved into the other room. i almost like it better in here right now.

classicallycara @ 2006-09-01T18:55:00

2006-09-02T01:58:27Z

oh that note, i realize how few movies i've watched in the last while. dear god, could i be caring less about cinema? this must be rectified immediately.

new journal, same movie list

2006-09-02T01:50:12Z

Yeah, I've decided to keep going with this list.

1. The Seven Samurai
2. Casablanca
3. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
4. City of God
5. The Best of Youth
6. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
7. 12 Angry Men
8. Goodfellas
9. Spirited Away
10. Sunset Blvd.
11. All About Eve
12. Apocalypse Now
13. Das Boots
14. M
15. Modern Times
16. North By Northwest
17. Rashomon
18. The Third Man
19. Ikiru
20. Leon: The Proffesional
21. The Maltese Falcon
22. Metropolis
23. Oldboy
24. The Passion of Joan of Arc
25. Ran
26. Wild Strawberries
27. Amadeus
28. Chinatown
29. La Grande Illusion
30. It Happened One Night
31. L.A. Confidential
32. Million Dollar Baby
33. The Pianist
34. Saving Private Ryan
35. Blade Runner
36. Fanny and Alexander
37. 8& 1/2
38. The Sea Inside
39. The Night of the Hunter
40. Raging Bull
41. Persona
42. The Philadelphia Story
43. La Strada
44. Sullivan's Travels
45. The Twilight Samurai
46. The Return
47. Charade
48. Raise The Red Lantern
49. Dersu Uzala
50. Finding Neverland
51. The Great Dictator
52. Harvey
53. The Killing
54. Throne of Blood
55. A Night at the Opera
56. Shadow of a Doubt
57. The Seventh Seal
58. Sleuth
59. The Station Agent
60. Strangers on a Train
61. The 39 Steps
62. Barry Lyndon
63. The Big Sleep
64. Cool Hand Luke
65. The Deer Hunter
66. The Killer
67. La Dolce Vita
68. The Elephant Man
69. In The Mood For Love
70. Show Me Love
71. The General
72. The Graduate
73. In Cold Blood
74. Jean De Florette
75. The Bicycle Thief
76. a)Through a Glass Darkly
b)Winter Light
c)The Silence
77. Once Upon a Time in America
78. Platoon
79. Sideways
80. Twin Sisters
81. Z
82. Amarcord
83. Arsenic & Old Lace
84. Au Revoir Les Enfants
85. Brazil
86. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
87. Crimes & Misdemeanors
88. Die Hard
89. Doctor Zhivago
90. Ed Wood
91. Wings of Desire
92. The Killing Fields
93. Lost in Translation
94. Mystic River
95. Scarface
96. Sling Blade
97. The Straight Story
98. The Terminator
99. A Bout De Souffle
100. 21 Grams
101. All the President's Men
102. American Splendor
103. Band a Part
104. The Conversation
105. The Gold Rush
106. His Girl Friday
107. Les Quatre Cents Coups
108. The Day the Earth Stood Still
109. In America
110. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
111. Three Colours:
a)Blue
b)White
c)Red
112. Roman Holiday
113. Dog Day Afternoon
114. Dogville
115. Miller's Crossing
116. Network
117. Deliverance
118. La Jetee
119. Day For Night
120. Cries & Whispers
121. You Can Count on Me
122. Badlands
123. Stolen Kises
124. Blood Simple
125. Breakfast at Tiffany's
126. Jules et Jim
127. Moulin Rouge
128. The Producers
129. The Player
130. Une Femme est une Femme
131. Boogie Nights
132. Down By Law
133. Contempt
134. My Life Without Me
135. A Simple Plan
136. Swingers
137. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
138. A Woman Under the Influence
139. American Movie
140. Domicile Conjugal
141. Leaving Las Vegas
142. Longtime Companion
143. Mean Streets
144. Some Kind of Monster
145. Pi
146. The Purple Rose of Cairo
147. Stranger Than Paradise
148. Small Change
149. Two English Girls
150. Faces
151. Shallow Grave
152. Shoot the Piano Player
153. My Life to Live
154. He Loves Me Not
155. The Crying Game
156. The Woman Next Door
157. Histoire d'Adele H.
158. The Man Who Loved Women
159. Jacob's Ladder
160. Manhattan Murder Mystery
161. La Mariee Etait en Noir
162. Masculin Feminin
163. My Dinner With Andre
164. Pierrot le Fou
165. Shadows
166. Sydney
167. 13 Conversations About One Thing
168. The Unbelievable Truth
169. Week End
170. L'amour en Fuite
171. Ararat
172. Happenstance
173. Deconstructing Harry
174. Eraserhead
175. Fahrenheit 451
176. The Grifters
177. Mother Night
178. Le Petit Soldat
179. Pollock
180. River's Edge
181. Sex, Lies and Videotape
182. Der Unhold
183. City on Fire
184. Alphaville
185. El Mariachi
186. Red Rock West
187. The Daytrippers
188. Jesus' Son
189. Lovely & Amazing
190. Slaughterhouse Five
191. Choose Me
192. Les Carabiniers
193. Light Sleeper
194. Real Genius
195. Repo Man
196. Slacker
197. Kids
198. Walking & Talking
199. Anything Else
200. Eulogy
201. I Shot Andy Warhol
202. Notre Musique
203. Six in Paris
204. True Stories

classicallycara @ 2006-08-31T22:02:00

2006-09-01T05:34:34Z

a bit of stress with not knowing if the next couple weeks are going to go the way i want them to but that's okay. this weekend will be alright, i hope. no plans friday besides the stripping of my walls and normalization of my room so that the house is sellable. saturday, hopefully going out to the middle of nowhere with lofi(jamie, marie, and the rest of the band...) for a show and getting loaded on constant free drinks. sunday, salmon arm recording probably staying there for a couple days. hopefully getting things figured out for bjm sooon. that show is going to be fucking amazing no matter what though, there's just certain people that i would really love to be able to come and the prospect of them not being able to come is making me a bit nervous because when i get set on certain things happening, they really stick and i get frustrated if things don't happen the way that i want them to. i'll be okay if he can't come up here but there is nothing more that i would like than for him to be able to and for us to spend some time together. but if he can't, i'd like to figure out another way for us to do so that can be made into a concrete plan as soon as possible.

but anyways, i had this really bizarre dream a little over a week ago that i feel i need to share because it haunts me and i don't usually remember dreams so vividly. some people were in my kitchen and looking in my cupboards and pulling out glasses. there are these funky goblets that i got at value village a while ago and there is in particular, this one that is more like a wine glass and the neck of it is red and has green stem-like designs on it. there was a particular person who was commenting on that glass and how much they liked it and asked if they could have it. and i was very zealous about their having of that glass and they kept continuously asking if it was okay, and i kept reassuring and being like, just take it, and then they said "are you sure you're not going to miss it?" and i paused and smiled and said "no" and thats it.

classicallycara @ 2006-08-31T15:12:00

2006-08-31T23:47:22Z

the trip to calgary was a most excellent excursion indeed. friday morning at around nine am, meagan and i finally ventured out. it being her first real highway driving experience and first trip without parentals. i was most excited to be a part of that, you know, me, the vagabond that i have become. music, nausea, terrible food at a terrible restaurant, stolen keychains, paranoid phonecalls from marie, tambourine clanking, and roughly seven hours later, arrival in the city. i navigated our way to jo's house with no trouble at all. excited and frantic hellos, the show and tell of my new song, and then cleaning up and going out for drinks.

jo: "you guys might want to be ummm careful with the sixties thing because you know, there are dress codes. i'm not saying they'll kick you out but you know, i mean, but you guys should be fine but i'm just saying, you might not get in. i was wearing a painter's suit..."

that will never be forgotten. the entire night mockary was pursued.

me: "oh no, i'm wearing too many patterns, i might be violating the dress code, you guys. what do you think, jo?"
etc, etc, etc.
and

"no, higgins, we are not going to cowboys! cowboys is blacklisted. We've decided." (of course this coming from me and marie who have never even been there but you can just tell by the name that it is a terrible place that involves line-dancing and country music and rednecks)

so we barhopped a bit. went to this cool place called the ming, i drank a karl marx. did not wind up getting even slightly intoxicated that evening but i don't care about getting drunk anymore. ate too much pizza at domino's. we got back to jo's at around two am. jo put plastic bags filled with water around her feet and it may be the best thing that i have ever seen. marie did it too. we've decided to patten them as "sploosh" and use the slogan "jesus walked on water and now you can too!". and the most deliciously dangerous game that involves on the spot jogging in the bathtub while wearing sploosh. and the awesome idea of filling them with wine and then making someone drink it. and the even awesomer idea of ducttaping bags filled with warm water around the limbs of a passed out drunk and then ducttaping them to the place where they are laying as well. good times... so marie and i ended up not being able to go to sleep that night because it was time for one of our six hour conversations about the meaning of life. we managed to create a very workable schedule for our music for the next six months that involves the recording of our ep and also managed to reassure each other about personal problems plaguing us.

instead of going to sleep at eight am, we decided to go on a quest for harvey's hamburgers. this involved looking up harvey's in the phonebook:

"check the restaurant section!"
and five seconds later... "i'm pretty sure that harvey's doesn't qualify as a restaurant"

and then finding the numbers in the right places and calling:

call #1 to a wrong number, marie: "are you open?"

call #2: marie: "are you serving breakfast?" "What time do you start serving your hamburgers?" "AWESOME"

all through out was maddening cackles from both of us. i do not even know how she was able to speak comprehensibly. i sure would have broken down immediately in fits of hysteria. but yes... onwards to harvey's we went. the bus, talking, laughing, chitter chatter, cackling oh glorious cackling, harvey's. harvey's wasn't open....for clarification, the harvey's that marie called was not the location that we were in fact going to. a kick of the house, a yell or two and then the decision to go to the tim horton's next door get coffee and then wait outside of our hamburger-welding church to give us our goddamned hamburgers. we waited an hour on the table outside. many many people also craved hamburgers and came to partake but they too felt the sting of an unopened door and angrily walked back to their cars, their desires unquenched. and we never felt the need to tell the approaching strangers that the restaurant was closed... things are much more amusing that way.

10.a.m: the door finally opens and we let out a chorus of hallejahs and the girl looked at us like we were the scum of the earth, hah. so we got our hamburgers, sat, ate, and returned to jo's.

the rest of that day was most strange indeed. i did not end up going to sleep for more than ten minutes. i tried but then i felt recharged so i got back up and waited until everyone was ready to head downtown. that was our plan for the day, heading down to 17th ave to look at cool things. marie went to sleep. there was cake and laughter at bad television... fucking muchmusic.

one-thirty rolls around, marie gets up, much confusion, a bit of drama. we finally leave. some people uneasy about other people. i, of course, am fine and dandy with everyone because that's just how i am in these situations and i couldn't sense any reasons why anyone would be hostile towards me so i figured that i was on the outside of this one. the bus ride downtown was all cackles and insanity, especially when we passed our favourite sleazy bars and hotels that are now tradition to make fun of.

marie: when i was little, i thought that the st. louis was the salvation army because of all the bums that sit outside.

get downtown, we kept running into this same intoxicated guy who at first was yelling obscenities at us "cunts, sluts, whores...". a couple blocks later we see him again, he is carrying a cooler and trying to talk to us and not making any sense, and i'm trying extremely hard not to cackle because in those situations i can't help but and we were stuck with him for a while and i had to walk way ahead of him because i did end up laughing like a maniac, marie caused the fakest most william shatner style diversion ever pretending to fall and hurt herself so he would get ahead of us... and then a few blocks later, across the street from this second hand store that we went into, he's laying down on the lawn of a church yelling and making strange noises and i distinctly heard him yell out something about cinderella. at that second hand store, i managed to find the yellow pillbox hat of my dreams for only five dollars. on 17th ave., there were a couple amazing used bookstores where i picked up candide, brave new world, streetcar named desire, les miserable and a very awesome looking book about woody allen films. and we picked up the tickets for bjm(which i'm extremely excited for, it's going to be the most insane time no matter what)for the night of september 13th, another trip to calgary, leaving at the crack of dawn, hopefully doing some busking and other fun ventures during the day, and then camping out somewhere at night because free things rule, probably jo's backyard.

the ride back to jo's house was a bit strange, it came clear that people were upset about marie and i pulling an all-nighter and there was a lot of miscommunications. people thinking i wasn't ready to leave when i could have left like right after getting back from harvey's, etc, etc. but we got back to jo's everyone discussed everything, everything was solved. yay. we started drinking, made most holy and delicious jesus juice to take on the bus.
"time to partake in communion... let the power of christ compel you... fill yourself with the holy spirit... "

met up with people, took the bus, i sat with higgins on the bus and was continuously amused by how intoxicated she was... good times. got off downtown, met up with more people, went to this old house converted into a bar, very cool place. i felt sick and awful and wound up having to vomit (travel always takes a few days to agree with my body, i hate it), marie and i almost went back to jo's but neither of us wanted to but i hated feeling like such a goddamned downer at the bar but we eventually decided to tough it out and make ourselves feel better. things went way up after that. we wound up at the warehouse. they played tons of new wave, it ruled(they even played the smiths!) so much fun was had at that club, so much awesome dancing, people kept asking us for drugs because they were sure that such awesome dancing could not occur without the consumption of drugs, ha. so much madness and then the quest for jerry's.

at three we had to leave, and we were all starving and we knew that somewhere on the way to the warehouse, we had passed a place called jerry's but where exactly we did not know. retracing all our steps from the evening, taking the best pictures, crazy ladies with shopping carts filled with cans asking for our pennies and telling us not to drink and drive, silly singalongs/constant singing, cackling always cackling
"baklava, falafel, pasta, koi koi koi..."
And the attempt to call 411 in hopes that they knew the way to jerry's:

"Do you know where jerry's is?"

"is that like, a restaurant"

"uhh, yeah"

several minutes later: "jerry's doesn't exist"

"show me the way to jerry's house, i'm just trying to find my friend jerry, do you know where jerry lives?"

"let's just go to the awesome kitchen, it'll be aaaawwwweeeesssoooommmmmeeeeee"

"our friend jerry has an awesome kitchen and he feeds us food that is very good, very good..."

eventually we did find jerry's because dean had a sudden revelation "it's by the 64!" and so it was and so we were at jerry's and i ended the day with the very same meal that i had began it with without even realizing it and so did marie. hamburger and onion rings for me, hamburger and poutine for her. and jerry's had those jukeboxes that you can play at your table so our playlist consisted of: the final countdown, some red hot chili peppers song that i didn't really care about, lady madonna, whip it, white wedding, and fight for your right.

the cab ride home got very morbid. no one really spoke, there were outbursts of laughter and screaming and sentence fragments and at one point i looked over at marie and her hands were around her neck and she was convulsing. what a freakshow.

a little while after we got home, i could hear kira and marie making strange noises from the basement and i decided to go down with the eight-track, i got some pretty hilarious and possibly useable material on there. kira makes some of the most bizarre noises that i have ever heard in my life, she is so awesome. went to sleep upstairs when i decided that i could descent into madness no further than evening, two days without sleep takes one to strange places.

sunday was not so eventful, everyone had planned on the zoo, marie had to go across the city to meg's to get her camera so i decided to go with her because i know how much it sucks having to do stuff like that alone when everyone else is off having fun. took the bus downtown, got off, wandered down steven ave, heard amazing classical music coming from somewhere followed it, one of those golden moments in time, it was so beautiful. i can't even describe. got back on the bus after a half hour, went to meg's, i was stoked to meet meg because i had heard so much about her over the years and yes, she was as cool as i had anticipated. caught the next bus a half hour later, got out by the city hall took a brief stroll, smelled some drugs being smoked in the park, wanted to walk on water, some woman asked if we had a cellphone and i hastily blurted out something about us not believing in technology and we scurried away. back on the bus, back to jo's, arrived in time to claim the last of the perogies. and then cake. and then ukulele and downtime and making fun of lance bass and the people magazine cover endlessly, trying to do the "lance face" but it turns out only higgins can do the lance face. had a scare with meagan's car not starting when we were going to go rent a movie. had to call the alberta equivalent to bcaa, they came, fixed car, and thank god they did. went to bed a bit later.

next morning, coffee and goodbyes. car didn't start again, jo's mom gave us a boost. we left. didn't turn where we were supposed to. i tried figuring it out, had it figured out until marie told meagan to turn onto a highway that was southbound which i knew was certainly not a good thing but there wasn't much i could do from the backseat. but it was okay, we found our way back to westward and got to take pictures of the st. louis.... oh the st. louis. were without music for a while on the highway, terrible singalongs ensued in a mrs. featherbottom kind of way. i discovered that i have a ridiculous talent for doing that voice. put on music eventually. the way home was sleepy except for screaming wildly when passing under tunnels. screaming has become one of my favourite pasttimes. and yes, that was calgary.