with my lighetning bolts a-glowing i can see

sometimes the subject matter of what i read snakes its way into my dreams and manifests as weird little episodes that, when i wake up, i think back on and can only decide that yes meaghan, you are a freak.

when we read dante's inferno i was particularly interested in the level of lust- mainly because that's where i'm going to be if and when i go to hell- ad the two lovers that dante and virgil meet there: paolo and francesca.

in life, francesca was married to paolo's ugly dwarf-hooknosed-crippled brother, but she had it good and she knew her place. unfortunately, one day she and paolo were hanging out in the parlour reading some poetry about lady guinhywvar and the knight lancelot. this invaraible led to some hot'n'steamy love making, which the hooknosed-dwarf walked in on.

he killed them and francesca and paolo went to hell.

so, three times now i've had this dream involving them that's basically the same. i'm in my room, working on something or reading and i get this phone call from tuesday and peter. there's a terrific din in the background, and they're talking over one-another and yelling and what i get out of them is that i need to get to peter's house immediately, as i'm desperately needed.

of course, i tell them that i'm busy, and ask them why. but the phone starts breaking up and they make me promise. and i do, so i run over there, arriving not so much later.

the sun is setting and it's a beautiful day. tuesday is wearing this magnificent dress whose colour i can't even tell you- just know that it's the most beautiful frock you've ever seen in your life EVVEERR. peter has a red velevt hat with a big green feather perched on his head. and the both of them are sitting, cross-legged in the road, in front of peter's house smoking cigars.

big motherfucking cigars.

they point at the house and inform me that the didn't know she'd be so much trouble and that really, since i understand her the most, i'm going to have to deal with her because really, she's trashing the place and could she maybe pick up her feet as she flloated over the coffee table?

i finally figure out that they've stolen francesca from hell and that i have to go into peter's house and pull some sort of kick-ass ghostbuster move and get her back to the winds of lust somehow.

[yeah, i know].

twenty bucks says that tonight i dream about verb infinitives, catullus' quite-homoerotic love poetry, and the fifth declension- as well as the random meanings of words like sumo and sodalis.

any takers?

i just don't want to miss you tonight

despite latin tomorrow, i have to finally admit to myself that it's over.

the exact moment of this revelation? walking back from southam hall in the rain, my toes slowly turning red in the chilled and misty air, listening to a group of people i love very much clamour behind me about simple nothings.

nothing and everything all at once.

i'll be around- you were right about the stars

although i have a lot of work to do, i'm bored. fancy going out? we'll find some dark basement bar and i'll order glasses of red wine, not too sweet but not too dry. the live band will warm up behind us, cymbals periodically crashing and guitar amps humming. when we feel the need for fresh air and the desire to move on really takes hold, we'll slip outside and watch the storm that has been predicted roll across the horizon. when it starts to rain, i promise to take off my shoes and not worry about getting wet- instead i'll focus on how your face is lit by lightening and how each time the thunder crashes you remain perfectly still for that fraction of a second. and i'll pretend that i can stay that still even though we both know it's impossible.

don't wait for me to call.

and i can see that it's a lie

i like to think that i am one of those people who tans beautifully in the sun.

the reality is that i am quite fair, and when exposed to the sun for any period of time my skin usually goes slightly blotchy and te progresses too all shades of that lovely hue i would like to call le lobster.

i know this. and i'm usually pretty good about being in the sun. i usually don't see a lot of sun during the summer anyways because of my job, and the sun that i do is entirely after five pm. so, imagine my joy yesterday when i woke up, it was twenty degrees and the sun was shining and i could actually go outside in it.

i went.and oh my, the mother-lovig sunburn i got is absolutely ridiculous. but amuses me no less. it's line is utterly hiarious because of what i was [and wasn't] wearing.

hahaha, april sunburn. another thing to check off of my to-do list.

why does my soul feel so bad?

even though i knew it was coming, the commencement of the end makes me sad. all my crap in boxes makes me sad. the thought of leaving makes me sad. the thought of home-home makes me sad. the thought of what's being left behind makes me sad.

and i know i should be doing that chipper psychotic-woman-in-a-flashy-pant-suit-convention -on-happniess-and-well-being- thing and be chipper, but i don't want to. and in another non-adult way, i don't want to talk about it, AT ALL.

because that makes me sad too.

to counteract the sadness, i'm leaving my room and going to the canal to sunburn the top of my head and rate the roller bladers and they roll past on shakey legs. i give them all a ten, but only if there's no spandex involved.

it's a privlage folks, not a right.

same pattern on the table

with great reluctance and supreme effort, i've started the necessary packing for my move home.

i'm spoiled, in general. i mean, you can't argue with me when i tell you that there isn't much wanting in my life. i have a beautiful home, a wonderful mother, a generally kick-ass stepfather, three siblings who are utterly indescribable, cats that growl and a computer on which i store three-thousand plus bits of happiness.

that's right- i derive physical happiness from mp3s.

music in any form actually. it's always on in my room. i try and turn it off, but i even sleep with music playing. twenty four hours a day seven days a week. a day with no music is for me the saddest and longest day ever.

so obviously, tonight when i started packing, i went with what made me happy. i started with my cds. i found some that made me laugh [um, where did busta rhymes come from and why haven't i cracked him out recently?], some that made me sad [ilistenedtogowan wheniwasyounger ok?], some that i'd entirely forgotten about [like jimi hendrix. how could i forget about jimi hendrix?]

i also have in front of me a stack of cases.

voodoo child's baby monkey. last year i was walking through baker's lounge and there was a used and new cd trader seller spalshed across a big batch of free area. i didn't exactly have a lot of money at this point in time, but i decided to stop and look anyways. voodoo child is really moby, so when i found this i was over joyed because it was relatively new but impossible to find. it cost me ten bucks and i loved every second of it.

californication by red hot chili peppers. i was in grade eight or nine, i don't really know for sure, when this cd came out. and i remember that it was probably the first thing my older brother brought home that my entire family immediately liked. it marked a shift in sound for the pepeers. it marked a shift in music for me.

interpol's antics. my sister's friend ayshia is sort of like sister number two- the older sister i never had, but there just the same. she came to our house for thanksgiving and was humming all weekend and constantly raved about how i needed to download some interpol, especially a song called slow hands. i did. and then i went out and uncharacteristically spent a lot of money on their album as a present in the middle of paper season of first semester.

the way we walk- live by genesis. when we first moved to wiarton, mom thought it best that we all have a little space so instead of living in the same house as my parents, i lived across the yard in the other house owned by tom. we called it the little house. it needed some love, so i spent a good many hours painting and nailing and crowbar-ing and being generally happy in this new and foreign place while blasting this cd on repeat through my own space, my first grown-up style 'own' space.

peter gabriel's sixteen golden greats. the second copy of this cd i have had, which kate bought for me because i forgot my debit card at home. it was the end of year one and i just needed that sound, that impeccable thing that is the opening of this album, that is solsbury hill.

the soundtrack to the lord of the rings: the fellowship of the ring. kate was gone for the weekend. i was walking through walmart with liz and saw this and it become one of the most over-played impulse buys of my life ever, as it's listened to at least once a day, usually while i am going to sleep. also- i am a huge dork.

U2's the best of nineteen eighty to nineteen ninety with b-sides. again, another second copy, but this time, i remember thinking as i rushed to the front of the music store in owen sound, this time it had the b-sides. it was coveted. and i could finally understand the joy of the three sunrises and endless deep, while re-living those memories of homework at our kitchen table in the market.

coldplay's parachutes. the first time i played it, my mom asked me to put it on again, so i did and she and melissa and i sat around my kitchen table in wiarton talking about nothing and everything all at once.

U2's all that you can't leave behind. the start of something grand and beautiful and over-riding and powerful contained in a circular piece of plastic given to me for my first christmas in wiarton. thousands of miles, and this cd went everywhere.

U2's achtung baby. this isn't even really my cd, it's the one my mom bought in nineteen ninety two when the album first came out. she hated it the first time she listened to it and lamented the loss of good money on a crap cd. but of course, being the sleeper that it is, it became one of her favourite albums. and then i came along and appropriated it and it went everywhere with me. everywhere. to new york. on camping trips. to much music. to concerts. to school. to dentists appointments. to people's homes. on road trips. i don’t think the number of spins that album received could be counted, because it was [and is] always playing in my head.

so, i've this pile of cases in front of me- empty because these are the cds that were pillaged at the toronto bus station- but i'm really not entirely bothered because they still make me happy. i haven't the physical cds but the music will never really disappear, so it's just a matter of tracking it down.

i'm just worried about the irresponsible shopping spree that i know i'm going to undertake at HMV or music world or some other store in the near future...

my visa simply can't handle it.

urgent to myself i do believe

i have issues with letting people help me when i am preparing food in the kitchen. i hate it when there's eighty billion people trying to shuffle around and really often just prefer to do it myself. besides, i'm a control-freak and want to do it all, so kindly just back the shit up while i'm cooking ok?

last night i made dinner for tuesday and she became disgruntled when i wouldn't let her help and emailed me the following message:

GGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAAAH VFJJKkdfgpefnvAKLJKIAHSWIENFCDF JKBVEILGJOPFKKLD SBMDF LKGE RWKWSMGM,DFBDF,HGJDSKFHH YJSDJAMHF JSDFHASKAkjalkfal;aksdf ufdfjktnkcx jv74w euhtrjxcvh ukdzskltr84w5iorgjerkuv6i3hr jkdcm,xcv .l;dfjkgvhsakjrtu3q4oi 4jtrk fsa[pfkldfgkdf'khdsjkf gzfjdksvhjksdjghdkfjsnhdfgj ndfklgjdfkgjdklgj dgjdfklgjdlkgjjdkl gjediti9eopq wopr yure6hjnfgnvbcxbcvmbv mcxvnxzbxchbvjgfi gyfktfikygkihgjfdnsadgqdfFv BHBFDNGNJK DFGJKDGHJFKDGJKKJFK

decode this motherfucker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i m thinking of running off to cheat on you w/ a first year.
fdjgherjkgthiuoertgheujkrgjdfklgjdfkj!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i love my bubble. and i laughed until snot came out of my nose.

charming image, isn't it?

your love was a lightbulb hanging over my bed

tuesday and i just finsihed watching that classic nineteen eighty-seven piece aliens starring the talented and slightly freakish sigourney weaver.

i'm forced to ask: is ellen ripley or that wicked mother-alien the bigger bad-ass?

my vote is for hicks.

i'll take away from you the things you never knew

after sleeping for countless hours following the red wine, beautiful conversation, lefotover chinese food and day of two exams, i woke and really, didn't so much feel like doing school work.

but i started, amassing and filling out all the vocabulary for my latin exam next thursday. that, however, didn't last so long as i had made arrangements with liz to go and see a house with her. a fourth year in our program had sent out an email because of its extreme proximity to carleton and its apparant goodness.

now, this house is currently occupied by four boys. i understand that perhaps boys have a different conception of what is acceptable when it comes to the level of cleanliness expected when people are coming to your house and maybe considering renting it. i know this isn't true across the board- take the boys for instance, i mean, their house might be messy but it certainly wasn't the same kind of squalor that liz and i proceeded to march through.

nice location, the house needed more love than the ghetto i'm living in next year.

liz and i wandered back to carleton where she stayed for a bit and then, after she left, i ate macaroni and cheese out a pot and pretended to work more on the latin. mostly i spent my time searchingfor macrons to make funny accents over letters, but it was related to latin, so i think it's justifiable....maybe.

and then- i called kate and we made crazy wicked plans to go downtown and see sahara after visiting the bank and having falafell for dinner.

this didn't exatly pan out- while we were walking downtown we stopped to see what was playing at the mayfair and saw to our secret hidden joy that lemony snickett's a series of unfortunate events and finding neveralnd were paired up, so we decided that this was obviously superior to seeing the good-badness that is sahara.

so- we went for a stroll, i carried around three hundred dollars in my wallet, i showed kate my ghetto house, we ate falafells and got iced mocha drinks that probably were horrible for us, we chased ducks, got strange looks from parents for playing on playground equipment obviously meant for very small children, went imaginary house looking and watched both movies and ate popcorn.

and yeah, i still perved over johnny depp's hands instead of embracing and savouring the dramatic lovliness of the end of finding neverland

heh.

don't worry even if things end up a bit

the man who once told an entire table of us that we "put his children through college. seriously." starts wiping down those same tables, suddenly bumping into my chair and only mumbling an excuse.

this morning, after an meagre four hours of sleep, i propped my eyes open and began officially what is known as cramming. however, this only lasted about ten minutes before i was given the advice to guzzle a litre or three of coffee, eat some toast and spend the rest of my free time dancing on the rooftop. [i checked- bedside dancing was not allowed. but i did it anyways].

proceeded to master the religion exam. well. maybe. but who cares. dragged self back here with liz and tried my damnest to eat some more because i just. hate. food. right now.

[i think that says something, but i refuse to comment on what exactly it means because i just don't really care to. just know that me hating food pretty much means usually that the universe is about to implode].

then, i spent the afternoon re-mastering kinda sorta roman civ terms and listening to pink floyd's the wall on repeat at volumes that i am sure breach every aspect of the res contract i signed in september that pertain to noise.

[again- no comment on the wall. if you know you'll understand].

then i mastered OR NOT the roman civ exam and proceeded to do the adult thing and go to mike's place and drink my face off. with jon. and we talked and talked and talked and it was one of those conversations that ended up being entirely memorable not because of what was said but because things were said.

upon my slightly-drunken arrival home i meet ryan who has chinese food and is sharing it with our suite because it's thursday. it's midnight. we're all here and we're all alive.

we'll all float on because it's all ok.

give me one more chance

you know, i think i might be a little bit pissed off at all of this. i told my marmee it was ok, that i would be ok, but she was right when she said that it would be hard, that it's going to be hard. maybe i'm sick of trying to play the adult and maybe i want to be five again, getting tucked into bed. maybe i want to have a life where none of this had never happened. maybe i want to say i'm sorry. maybe i'm more than sorry. maybe i asked for too much, maybe i didn't ask for enough. maybe it'll all be ok?

regardless, i'm going to do the un-adult thing and shove it to the back of my skull, pretend like i give two fucks about the qumran and cyrus the great and listen to bono croon and then maybe just maybe i can believe in maybe.

even if maybe isn't true or enough or really believable anyways.

maybe i need to just know that.

i've got money in my pocket

last year during first semester, kate and i lacked funds so when we did laundry we would generally turn good old forth stormont into a veritable laundry house with clothes hanging off of every and any possible surface available to be used as a drying rack.

we even set up two clotheslines.

our room smelled like cheer mostly, because that's what we used. cheer or tide, and clean and wet clothes and, when the window was open, crisp and good and like something entirely indescribable.

i did laundry today and am drying a good portion of my wet things on a rack set up in my room on good old forth leeds, and my room smells like cheer and good and crisp and something entirely indefinable.

dreams of you all through my head

last night, while walking home in my sweater and my fashion challenged outfit pretending that it was much warmer than it really was eating chocolate covered raisins, i was entirely distracted by the moon.

it's just starting to show after being hidden. the sliver that appears stretches from the north eastern hemisphere down to the south western. however, the rest of the moon was entirely apparent, hidden in a semi-haze of darkness but showing just the same. i like to think that this means sixteen hours ahead of me, someone is getting a simply beautiful-gorgerous sunny day replete with deep shadows and the possibility of sunburn.

as a bonus, i only walked into one pole while staring intently at the moon and thinking this.

but we know it's just a lie

somehow, despite my wishing it with every ounce [which is a lot of ounces] of my body, i just don't think that willing my coffee maker to brew the black liquid faster really has any effect on the speed with which coffee is produced.

neither did me begging it outloud.

blast!

if it keeps on raining, the levee's going to break

i'm not the world's most spectacular driver.

when you get into a car with me, i'm afraid. i'm afraid that i'm going to kill you, or in the case of melissa and mot, give you wicked bad whiplash. or in the case of my sister, freak you the fuck right out. or in the case of the deer- paralyze you and leave you to die in a ditch. or in the case of my mother- well, actually i'm usually not that freaked out with mom. i just worry about my road rage coming out.

but one thing i do pride myself on is stopping.

i don't understand why it's so difficult for drivers to come to a full and complete stop at stop signs. or to slow down and yield at yield signs. or to come to a stop if the light has turned yellow.

however, i do understand the necessity i have a pedestrian to master the art of what i would affectionatly like to call fly'n'leap- you know, that massive spring-hop-leap you do to get out of the way of something big and steel and metal and killer hurling at you?

i really got to execute it today.

car- zero. megs- one fucking lucky bastard.

to be a rock and not to roll

so, let's see, where shall we begin?

two bottles of merlot. ridiculous turbo-drunk. i mean TURBO-DRUNK. one bottle consumed the rest poured out into the glasses of sundry others. bunny missions to feed her crackers. talking about love with evan. showing first year dave my gold-lameé bra. telling kiersten she was on the top ten of the most beautiful people in the program. nearly passing out in a chair. not spilling on myself. no first years. discussions in stair-wells. planning a stripper routine which included cutting fishnets off of myself with rusty scissors. getting drinks spilled on me. remembering people's names [eric, junior and shannon]. keeping my clothes on.

however- i have to say that the real clincher to the night was my spectacular and intense passout in peter's bed before two wherein i repeatedly told everyone that all i needed was just ten more minutes. yes. ten more minutes that lasted until ten o'clock this morning. whoops?

just call me the drunken-bed-appropriator.

we'll just have to adjust

thursday nights around here are very predictable- ashley and caitlin, after getting dolled up, consume either small or copious amounts of alcohol and then head off to the campus pub. anna has class ad then returns home, and i go shopping.

it's been like this all year.

however, with the arrival of exam-schedule, there was no excuse. after weeks and weeks of excuses and copping out- ahsley and caitlin managed to drag me to the campus pub. they were estatic. they were thrilled. they were drunk.

i was quite sober and was quickly scandalized by the first year hoochie, so i didn;t stay very long. but it wasn't as bad as i make it out to be- i just like to ridicule because it's not my scene. no, my scene is a house party, a bottle of merlot and wilco on the stereo.

oh my, seems like i've just described the party tonight. muahahahah.

take the long way home

somewhere between the wake-up sans clothing [just please don't ask and i just won't tell ok?], the rainy horrible weather, the fridge clean-out wherein whipping cream that had expired over a month ago was discovered, dancing to wax mannequin, contemplating and coming to the assertation that pigeons are fucking scary birds, the phonecalls from liz and the messages from kate stu, the brown lettuce, the soda crackers and pretending to clean my room-

i seem to have lost a day. whoops?

something filled up my heart with nothing

last day. total confusion. coffee spilled on the floor in an arc of brown splashed against white. msn blinking blinking blinking and i can't type anything coherent. song on repeat and it's not even annoying. hat firmly mashed on head. there was a shoe in my bed when i woke up.

am i ready for all of this?

you know jesus used to show me the score

today is many things.

first- today my best friend from when i was much younger turns twenty one. i haven't spoken to him in nearly a year but he's one of those people who, if i needed to, i could pick up the phone and call him and we'd drop back into it just like before.

if i need to explain what 'drop back into it' means then i'm quite sorry- it's inexplainable. you'll know when you have a friend like this.

anyways-me and him- we have a history. when i was growing up, i imagined that when i got older, i would pretty much live in a faerie tale. you know, something like cinderella. i’d be slightly poor [hey, it was all I really knew] not the most beautiful and then one day, while slaving away at some heinous chore I was made to do yet did not deserve, a stunning handsome price charming would come along and sweep me off of my feet. of course, there would be a bit of a dilemma, but in the end, well, it would all be perfect. i’d have everything and anything i ever wanted, and best of all, i’d be in love.

love. to steal words blatantly- love is a many splendid things. love lifts us up where we belong [hmm, actually, i just realized because of my schooling this year that this is actually more then true, especially if you’re looking at the world in a plotinian sort of way, with strong augustine overtones]. anyways, love has always been to me this wonderful brazen shiny thing that i wanted. It was the one thing that i could never see life without- but it was going to be that prince charming kind of love.

my first brush with love came in a well known and age old form- the boy next door. well, he didn’t live next door for real. he actually lived half way across the city, but i think he qualifies as the boy next door because we were always together. we were best friends. in a summer where everything seemed to be going to shit, where everything was changing and people were leaving and coming and going and not looking back and saying goodbye, he was just there. never moving, always sturdy. in retrospect, I should have seen it coming, but when it dawned on me that i did love my boy next door, it was a shocker. it took the breath out of me. i felt ill. and then i felt more ill when i started over analysing the situation and thinking and pondering and loving and analysing some more. when we finally discussed our mutual feelings- because o lordy how mutual they were- i used Dawson’s Creek as an example as to why we shouldn’t get together and secretly willed him to just interrupt me and kiss me. he didn’t, and we moved on from there.

which was good. it's still good. so today i've been thinking about him because it's his birthday and really, i need to call him up and drop back into it sometime very soon.

today is also the last day of second year and even though i've put on a brave face, my soul hurts on the inside. not in a bad way, it just sort of crumpled when i fully realized that this. is. it.

time really does fly. my life is a personal attestment to it.

my words will warm and calm you

so, i really like going to the movies.

no, i don;t think you understand. given the choice between the movies and some other random outing, i'll usually pick the movies. there's just something about gong into a theatre, shuffling to a seat, eating popcorn, seeing trailers, sitting in the dark and immersing yourself in another world.

last night i went to the mayfair with liz and kate and we immersed ourselves in neverland and the paris opera.

however, i'm forced to question my one-track male-type sexsxsex mind because, at the end of finding neverland [which i order all of you to go and see/buy because it is simply amazing and outstanding and beautiful], which was quite sad, my one track mind focussed in on mr. depp's hands.

instead of embracing the sadness of the moment, all i could think was "oooooh. look at those."

oh me.