I have been getting emotional at odd times lately. I find myself without the knowledge and tools to even begin to grasp let alone be able to formulate a response to the ramifications of the frequent and ever volatile economic news. The markets are down, the markets are up, the dollar is down, this is good and this is bad, the dollar is and up. Greece is down, the whole thing's going to crash, new political leadership, a deal's been made, we might make it, the Ship contract comes and we're in the money, but this money is our tax money, and aren't we lucky our economy is stable, but Italy is down, oh no, now France is down, the world economy is going to crash, but aren't we lucky we aren't them, oh no, what if it happens to us. The future looks bleak and bright and bright and bleak. There is a cold wind, I have a snoring puppy, last week I bought a basket of crisp pears that all turned to rot simultaneously, before I had a chance to enjoy them. This is my November. The sunsets have been more beautiful than they've been in a long time.

what a busy week.

saturday is the day to eat grapefruits.

friday night. listening to smog, reading up on how to build a treehouse.

i miss california.

I've done it: retro house, foster dog, new used car.

wow.

i have lived in this here house for near a year. several seasons have run their course and the hoarders have done their work fantastically, as you can see.

tonight while awkwardly sober at a party in this my very living room i heard three separate drunk friends utter what i had thought had become a nearly extinct word. blog. and so i just thought. and here i am.

so while the party's still hopping i have hustled out of my control top garment and dress (which some might construe as a long swimsuit). prior to my exit i observed thomas take a bottle of sunscreen and discreetly squirt some into young eisener's hand. i'm not sure what will come of this, but preceding this action there was definitely a solid one minute of engine noises expended in unison and so it seemed like a wise time to take my leave.

seasons pass and years. we get 9-5 job and talk about settling down. being id'd at the liquor store turns from offence to flattery. but through this vastly transformative decade some things remain the same: these old things still get shit faced and sandwich crazy. do grownups grown up? maybe someday.

not finding many promising jobs, but lots of promising rugs!

Job applications. With my plenty of unemployed time bought an 8 foot dining table and a buffet hutch. Lots of relaxing drives through the country. Until the money runs out or employment finds me, this jobless thing will live like a queen.

In recent news, Ford came out with a car that parallel parks itself.

Equally impressive as far as I'm concerned, yesterday i taught the wiener dog to play fetch by himself. He now drops the ball off the warf, then swims out to rescue it. Sweet!

Last night a bird tried perching on my head. It didn't work, but it was quite exciting.

Even more exciting, today me and my lovely friends pretty much tied the knot on a large, colonial house within which we will live and in which many tea parties will be held.

Icing on the cake: Nanny thinks that Uncle Tom would just love to "do me up" a bear skin rug to lay in front of one of our many fireplaces. Darcy: flashbacks from Women In Love. Sweet!

summering

i been picking berries, been swimming in a rainstorm trying to learn by sight all the birds that i see. i been to the cottage, played some badminton, and to local vineyards for some pretty great wine. drove to uncle tom's cabin- for real- and swinging on a treeswing on a cliff looking over the rocky shore and a silent atlantic ocean where there wasn't another person in sight. collected so many beautiful rocks that day, stretched my cardigan sweater trying to carry them all home. ate lobster for the first time, baby stepped in with a very unlobster-looking sandwich, and a second, oh god, one beautiful evening as the sun set over the lake, i cut, ripped open, and chewed on him while all the while he stared at me through cooked eyes, and though i washed my hands of the whole thing, i just couldn't seem to get the smell from my fingers. i anticipate that this process will not be repeated for quite some time, not until i forget how bad. isn't that always the way? bought an ice cream maker and served my first batch, old fashioned vanilla, for dessert tonight. a unanimous success. played "chuck it" with the dog, some badminton with mom, and made my dad a chocolate birthday cake to serve for dinner tomorrow night. the whole family will be home. i bought some oil paints, and i'm really trying to make myself. but, even though i've been living this leisure life, and the air is so fresh and the world so silent at the cottage, i just can't seem to sleep that much at nights, so full of thoughts and ideas i am, that i've been trying to exercise more in hopes of using my body just to tire my full head out. went for a walk around shubie park with mom today and we met a nature man. next thing i know, i have a chipmunk eating in my hand, and mom has a chickadee. i exclaimed to nature man, "you are just like cindarella!" and he said, "no, you're just like cindarella!" i think we were both right.

common enough to say, "one day we awoke in my bed together and the next day he was gone." more startling when "one day we awoke in my bed together and the next day he was gone and so was my bed!"

i sleep on sofas. i live almost nowhere. i dream of visa weddings.

last days in the San Fran.

samusa soup; tea leaf salad; lychee mojito; syrup of a young coconut; ceviche & fried yucca; roasted nut tart; tamarind margarita; cookies the shape of italy; breaded scallops with red pepper coulis; bruchetta with eggplant tapenade; rosewater dessert wine; award winning homemade caramels. and the rest is yet to come.

begun the first few pages of thoreau's walden today, trying to get into the whole 'simple living' thing. romances about jars of jam, pickling, and making my own toasted coconut and almond butter ice cream. but, to be honest, i'm no simple girl: i know the language, even though i may choose to abuse it; my nails are red; my bling bling is quite big, as is my hair. i like stuff.

but, nonetheless, i still write poems about how to build a heartfelt treehouse. and little house on the prairie in my heart. and so i return to my native land. i may regret this. i am about to let go of the handle of a kite and i have no idea. i am about to learn some things. i have learned a lot of things. i am much more or less myself than i've ever been.

oh, gosh. it has been a long. i don't know if i should even keep this thing anymore, but i shall because i'm allowed to remain a creature of habit with some things, some things in the midst of so much change. like, that i am leaving california in 10 days feels like 10 minutes when i think of all the things between now and then: namely, eating various african and latin american cuisines not available in canada; hugging people; and staring at every beautiful thing trying to soak in enough to last me through the winter. bought a little green robin hood coat the other day: preparing for the cold. and though i'm very good at convincing myself with my head of how i should feel about a decision, starting to feel the change fall upon me physically now, too. i fear i will go into shock. besides all of the super tough stuff like blood and death, i don't know if i'll ever lead a life as easy as this one i live here in this pretty land. this past year hasn't felt like real life, so i guess deep down i never thought i'd really get to keep it: i mean, people can't really live like this all of the time, can they? can they?

There were a good 2,000 people in the park today, I mean, at Dolores Beach. We gave the new picnic basket a whirl. There are these brothers on my street who started selling creme brulettes out of their garage. I am thinking of opening a lemonade stand.

carl & sue

have come to town! Today mom kept calling, "I just want cheap ethnic food, give me cheap ethnic food!" So I reminded her that white people are also and ethnicity, and hooked her up with some killer, cheap Vietnamese. Mom told me today about how after three months of pestering she got Dad to remove several boxes of junk from the attic. But, as Dad would counter, not all of it was junk: among it was this little gem.

"My Diary."

It had two entries. The first, on the title page, was the key to a "secret," unnamed language, invented of course by me. It has 27 characters, because it appears I decided that the letter 'O' needed to be represented twice by two different symbols. While creating a language was industrious, it seems I was not so bright. I did not realize that if I write put the key in an obvious place the language, is no longer secret. Luckily, I never relied on this language to protect my secrets. The only other entry is written in English:

fri. sept. 25, 1992

Dear kitty,

It is a warm summer afternoon, i'me liking up in the attic let me tell you a little about my self I am nine and I live in dartmouth I'm a little tall for my age and have brownish red hair. and I'me writing to you cause I need to tell some one. from Jill

This weekend Mark and Cate came up, and Daniel and Linn came a long way over. It rained and rained and rained and rained. In a 24 hour period we left the fireplace for 3 brief episodes:

Once we left briefly to get vegan cheesesteak takeout.

The second was to get coffee, a large quantity of the best bread pudding evar, and other pastry treats,

The third was to go to spectacular brunch featuring not vegan hamburgers, and whiskey in the maple syrup french toast!

Many smores and good conversations, and good times were had by all.

Sorry. I don’t quite know what to say on here anymore now. So much goes on in my days, in my life, inside of me, and I don’t know that I feel well to air it. More and more, words seem to be such sharp, busy, imprecise things. I wrote a big, long paper about that once. In hindsight, sort of defeated the purpose now, didn’t it. As I age I come more silent. Nonetheless, I have committed to talking here. And if I must, contrary to popular opinion, I believe talk of the weather has merit.

The sun has been so good for me. I am sure it heals the heart. After it’s been for ten days when it goes away for a time, I find myself more apt to bear it. My body feels increasingly better, too. Riding my bike, each morning and night, my hips, a steady and stronger rotation. The wind washes over me for this hour each day and I feel peaceful. It finally rained this afternoon and the air smelled so musty sweet it made me want to go the gallery and sit in the garden. It was locked, so I sat by the fountain. It began to rain again. The palm trees are so kind and I feel the blood warming different parts of my body, constantly. I have known sweetness, known it inside. It is only for this that I have the ability to feel sad. Winter staring back at me from the bottom of my tea cup. I have so many expectations. Pretty marbles in a mason jar. And there is nothing I can do but examine each one over and put it back again. Grow older. I don’t know how to move forward and less and less do I believe in this. And maybe that is really it. So I have decided to believe in magic instead. Other people say they know it is real, but I can only feel it sometimes. Nothing can be said either way to convince me. But if I am quiet enough I am sure I can hear the blood in my veins. It is enough.

exhausted. these vacations that aren't vacations. you know. so i remembered that canada is cold. never knew how cold alberta until today. and packing all those winter scarves and mitts i must have forgot how warm california is. like a dream i get off the final plane and the outdoor temperature is like the indoor temperature. lug my stuff home in a cardigan sans mittens and soon am sweating. it is magical. the air smells great. people in california act kind, they make conversation, they offer to carry your suitcases. when i arrived home there was a fire burning and two huskies to greet. unpacking i found a patch in my pocket, one i got in berlin that says "trust your desires." i've abided by that with california and with lately. how painful and exciting this life is.

Justin took me out for perhaps the best meal of my life last week. Out on the town four nights in a row and on the fifth flew through the night to Halifax. Arrived on "Christmas Eve," an event called prematurely because of Afghanistan. Christmas yesterday, Tracy left today, on a last minute flight to beat the snow. Put on a game face for lunch at the great aunt's. Tonight I am exhausted and bowled over by such a depth and range of emotions. Physically. My senses feel mixed with the falling snow.

twenty

fucking six.

telling myself i just ashed the last cigarette of my life.

please.


geburtstag: was gut: brunch- perhaps the best in the city yet. apple juice mimosas, soyrizo, grilled bananna bread. roommates who, by the way are great and who i'm going with to tahoe in january. a day in front of the fireplace with flight of the concords, tea, red nailpolish, telephone calls from my my mother. and friends. an evening, a good evening. great dinner at Beretta with janna. calamari risotto with squid ink. whoda thought? cocktails with grapefruit, tequila and elderflower certainly need to be repeated. went to revolution for concert and the bartender who is usually an asshole gave me free drinks because it was my bithday and i still know how. made some drunk friends. smoked my last cigarette of my life i hope. cuz i want a clean face in two thousand eighteen. going home in five days for early christmas. fuckk. that's about the extent of my comprehension right now. for better or worse, i continue. as i am and have been. a Demmons, "Demmons!" to the max.

Well, well. Providence means I am where I should be always. Tonight I drank a little whisky at a party, little truly, and I am not unruly or sad. Lately some real sad things happened and yet tonight I found myself dancing by myself tonight. A patient told me today it may snow on Monday in San Francisco for the first time since the 1980's. Maybe I'm beginning to believe in something. Tonight I found this postcard on my rug:

To myself, to you,

I've been dealing with a lot of death lately, more than I could have ever imagined. Life has been really good lately- very sweet, very difficult, very imporant. I've been living in increments lately- "If this were my last, if this were my only day, how would I?" I have been loving the people I love lately. I have been spending money I do not have on the best chocolate cake in town, I have been hugging puppies. I haven't been rash as one could be living this way. When the day concludes I do not regret it.

a drawing of a heart,

Jillian Marie

Fr. Ed was my date to the christmas party.

Prom photos on the physical therapy practice stairs.