it's amazing how a demolition can bring strangers together

some songs or bands are just so great at capturing the theme of life.
i've always wanted to film a short movie of a certain part of life solely based on how well a song fits.
my streetcar ride today fit so well with wintersleep's migration; especially if i could slow down the passing of people. the variety of people and storefronts and delapidated buildings...maybe because i was on the dundas car, which always has some interesting sights around regent park--kind of a sad, unsettling feeling while still being full of beauty.
godspeed you! black emperor often has this same effect for me--although more for the ups and downs of my own life...personal trials and tribulations.
but why do only upsetting events warrant a soundtrack? it seems that happiness is usually expressed as cheesy pop. maybe all that angst and depression causes good writing?
or maybe that cheesy pop is just a mask of happiness (made to tell us what 'happy' is) and what's not always 'happy' is what's real, and as a result, is actually what makes happiness?
or maybe it's all just my interpretation.
i had a few songs in my head for a soundtrack for the demolition i saw yesterday, that could have made it beautiful, but the fact that strangers were conversing and laughing together made it beautiful in its own right.
sometimes music isn't even needed for therapy. sometimes all it takes is a little human interaction.

Music to my ears: wintersleep & godspeed you! black emperor
Words to live by: "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." ~Aldous Huxley from "Music at Night" (1931)

In reality: this is just freakin cool.

i'm just not feeling very smart right now

trivial pursuit always makes me feel stupid.
why don't i just go with my gut answers? do i even care that much?

In reality: Artificial penis allows rabbits to mate normally

I really need my own chatbot right now.

why nursing is working for me

trish is teaching for a different reason than the others.
she's targeting those grown up enough to make a fast change. she's part of the greater good. none of the cutesy games & activities. she's not targeting the young nurse who thinks blood is gross but thinks she can make a small difference. this woman wants changes.
she truly believes that nurses are the first to push for primary health care in our country. maybe it's not too late for our health care system. maybe that idea of universality and accessibility can stay....if we act fast. the 2-tier system may be upon us very shortly.
maybe that's why the level of education has increased for nursing students. more education could equal more intelligence. at the very least, 4 years worth can definitely weed out the not-so-serious, or the ones in it for money (and they do exist! there are a lot easier ways to make way more money, seriously. get into ad sales).
so maybe the increase in education years is not helping the shortage of nurses we're facing. but maybe if we look at it as a shortage in the short term. it's a small sacrifice to make for nurses who are passionate enough to stick it through. nurses who can make a difference.

Music to my ears: Amon Tobin's Permutations
Words to live by: "Nursing is most truly said to be a high calling, an honourable calling. But what does the honour lie in? In working hard during your training to learn and to do all things perfectly. The honour does not lie in putting on Nursing like your uniform. Honour lies in loving perfection, consistency, and in working hard for it: in being ready to work patiently: ready to say not "How clever I am!" but "I am not yet worthy; and I will live to deserve to be called a Trained Nurse"." ~Florence Nightingale (advice to nursing students, 1873)

In reality: The kink at the edge of the solar system

today is the first day of the rest of my life...or something like that

this is it. this is the day. i have been smoke-free for 1/2 a day now. it's gonna work this time. i've been clearing my apartment of all evidence that smokers lived here. the ashtrays are washed out, the nicotine stains have been windex-ed off the tv and glass surfaces, the dust is about to be vaccuumed off the floor--although the clumps of cat hair under the bed will never go away.

i was talking to my friend cathy on sunday and i told her my plan.
"tuesday is the day. it's attempt #7, and maybe it's my lucky number. no, it is my lucky number. this is it, for real this time."
and she said, "oh lordy...dude, why did we ever start?" (yes, she actually talks like that; she's great)
but i can't think about why anymore. that was so very long ago. i don't want to regret that decision anymore. i've had some great smoking years. really. 14 years, to be exact. it got me through those turbulent & depressive coming-of-age years. it was great after sex. jon and i chain-smoked on road trips to wonderful places while drinking gas station coffee at 3 am (which by the way is a recipe for some serious gut rot). sitting in a smoky pub in belfast last year wouldn't have been the same without contributing to the eye-watering haze.
i ran a marathon and got my black belt in karate while being a smoker. seriously.

i've quit before, but only half-assedly (is that a word? it is now). you know, the pack in the freezer "just in case"...or "jon, let's just share one, okay? it's not really like smoking."
this time the pack is in the garbage. i've got my supplies: gum (spearment & nicorette), bottles of water, books, the patch (if it comes down to it), ibuprofen, toothpicks, kleenex (i start to get overly emotional--really, it's quite ridiculous. look at me the wrong way and i'm apt to start bawling). i just wish i didn't have to work or go to school, and i could just hole away. because my strategy this time is lying in bed and going through the full junkie withdrawal. i can't go out (especially for a drink) and i don't want to talk to anybody. atleast for the first 3 days.

my motivation is this: i don't want to be a smoking nurse. (of course jon says "oh you'll be a smokin' nurse!" heh, he's funny). but i don't want to be a smoking nurse. it just doesn't make sense. it has always gone against everything i care about. the environment, stickin it to the man, blah blah. you know, important stuff. my own health. and the time is now. my dream of typing away furiously in a smoky study overlooking the water somewhere up north...with an ashtray full of butts...isn't so sexy anymore.

i think i've finally made it past the "i like smoking" bit. i will miss it, but i'm seriously over it this time. of course, talk to me tomorrow. when i'm begging for your half-smoked cig, say no. please.

Music to my ears: silence
Words to live by: "Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time." ~Mark Twain

In reality: why are things like this still going on? it saddens me.

the pop-pop of firecrackers ringing in my ears

oh the beauty of celebrating a dead monarch.
and it's cold out.

i just finished reading Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. it was so lovely to devour a beautiful piece of fiction. since starting school last september, my collection of fiction novels awaiting my hungry brain has sat, untouched, on the bookshelf. instead i've been reading textbooks on the art of nursing, physical examination and health assessment and psychology (to name a few). i have a lot of reading to do this summer. but murakami was a great start. he never lets me down--i get so lost in his world that my night dreams start to blur with my daydreams. my mind wanders into a land of metaphors and surrealism. everything you could ask for in a great piece of fiction.

it seems that i have changed so much in the last year. and not just the obvious. at 28 years of age i left a job that sucked my soul away to return to school to become an RN. i really didn't think that this would drastically affect the way i look at life. i have learned so much about myself that i've been feeling a bit revolutionary lately. some may say idealistic, but is that such a bad thing? is it so misleading to think that we are the generation that can change things? i truly believe we can. and it will be a joint effort between people across different fields of work. it all goes back to those connections we make.
i've been getting way too absorbed in sociology/social commentary and popular culture lately. but i think that's a good thing...for myself....and maybe for others. we'll see.

Music to my ears: Tool's aenima
Words to live by: "The world that we live in is not real. Consumer capitalism has taken every authentic human experience, transformed it into a commodity and then sold it back to us through advertising and mass media." ~from The Rebel Sell, by Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter (discussing the thesis of Guy Debord, a radical Marxist)

In reality: The rapping reverend

beer & peanuts at jimmy's place

i met a teary-eyed mr. grant at the hospital today.
"why are you crying," i asked.
"because i'm in pain," he replied.

Music to my ears: Talking Heads
Words to live by: "Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

In reality: Farmers hail `return to sanity'
(that was close. farmers feed cities, you know.)

a conversation with jon

"our connections with people is the only thing that seems to be real," i said.
"but even then, most connections are still founded on consumption," he replied.

i am a book whore.
i devour books and love every page and every word. but i just can't let them go. i love to buy them and i love to keep them.
i have fanatasies about finishing a book and leaving it somewhere for someone to pick up, or giving it to someone so they can enjoy what i just enjoyed, but i can't. why is it so hard to let my possessions go? they are merely possessions after all. they don't make who i am. what i have read, and what has stuck in my head, makes who i am.
and somehow with books (and music too) i think it is different. it could be worse. it could be shoes or handbags or clothes. but atleast it's art, right? but how does this make it any different? they are still a commodity--a product of a capitalist society. and yet i try to justify it as something else.

Music to my ears: Sigur Ros
Words to live by: "A corporation has no soul, no morals. It cannot feel love, pain, or remorse. You cannot argue with it. A corporation is nothing but a process--an efficient way of generating revenue." ~Adbusters

In reality: 2 separate stories, yet both travesties in their own right. we're continually forced to become such mass consumers, that we are losing our sense of community (well, what's left of it)

New rules proposed for farmers' markets: Critics fear stiffer health regulations could kill business

Three rep cinemas to close by end of June
RIP

on the way to school

da da da da da daaaaa, da da da da da daaaaa
the tai chi movements in tune with the music in my ears...arms outstretched, reaching to the sky, and side to side...i wonder whatever happened to that boy named Kyo.

Music to my ears: Wintersleep
Words to live by: "You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure." ~ John Berger, from Ways of Seeing

In reality: Teen in Texas bitten by a bat in his sleep; dies of rabies
(anyone else believe in vampires? -m.)

morning ride

i talked to a hippie on the streetcar today. "My, that's a good book you're reading," I said. He nodded in agreement and shaking his beard like a horse's mane 3 sparrows flew out to perch on my coffee mug.

Music to my ears: Saul Williams
Words to live by: "Symbolism and meaning are two separate things. I think she found the right words by bypassing procedures like meaning and logic. She captured words in a dream, like delicately catching hold of a butterfly's wings as it flutters around. Artists are those who can evade the verbose." ~Haruki Murakami, from Kafka on the Shore

In reality: 22 American soldiers in Iraq committed suicide in 2005.

outlet for the new world

i'm not welcoming you to this blog--it's more for me...but thanks for stopping by, and feel free to come back.