the skunk diaries

twenty years, still standing

2008-08-11T00:27:00.000-07:00

Right now is my birthday and I'm thinking about what it meant to be 19.

I turned 19 in my bare feet sitting in Scott's backyard with a 20 oz of strawberry vodka. To me, turning 19 was about landing yourself in the bathroom for two hours until 11:30 and then standing back up to dance around a firepit with Alexander Keith. It was about the invincibility of my actions. A few months later Scott and I broke up and I basically thought that things would be over, and by "things", I mean more than our relationship; I mean everything.

That winter I spent my nights at the neighbour's kitchen table, an orange and cream kitten in my lap, chronic and coffee on my placemat. A pile of powder in Community Chest. The Jamaican Hotboxes were intimate and thick, at the end of the night with the condensation rolling down my back I would feel cleansed; more pure than I would ever be again. When I met Gage he had Chalmers, a bright green Gear with percolator in his grip, thick smoke billowing from his mouth towards heaven. We watched Rushmore and bubbled Juicyfruit on the balcony, looking over the neighborhood. Made Kraft Dinner in the kitchen while border collies nuzzled their faces between my thighs. I was excited in ways that I had never been before, felt sure that I had found what would be the most interesting and stimulating relationship with anyone I would ever have. I found myself broken when it proved to be less stimulating without stimulants.

In this past year I have:

- realized what it feels like to be single, and an adult, after growing up in relationships

- realized that I knew very little about myself without being in the context of someone else, and this needed to change if I wanted to be happy

- realized that I don't like not having someone to share my life with, yet this doesn't affect my freedom to be an individual

- realized that if I'm not going to live up to what I want to be, or what I think I can be, then I am a waste of fortune and space

There is no doubt in my mind that this has been the most interesting year of my life yet, from the week-long cottage shenanigan to my winter break in Chinatown, from this summer working in the Yongesterdam family, to my increasingly beautiful relationship with my baby boy. If I had to choose just one thing to be thankful for in this lifetime, it would be the way that things happen to me. I won't deny it now, and I am thankful that I never have a moment to be bored, to be less engaged in my life than I should be. Lying in Jacob's bed with a Bob Dylan book in my lap and my toes touching his, I read:

'Well, my road it might be rocky,

the stones might cut my face -

But as some folks ain't got no road at all,

they gotta stand in the same old place -

Hey, hey

So I guess I'm doing fine."

All I know is I am 20 years old and I have the world in front of me. I turned 20 smoking Pineapple Kush on the rooftop, and the sky looked like postcards stacked against the city. I know more about myself now than I ever have. I am more open towards possibilities of happiness than I have allowed myself to be. Wherever this year takes me, or wherever I take this year, I'm on it. I'm on it like Brooke on Brad.

Here's to being comfortable in your own skin, and being ready to take on the world with words.

Thanks for reading. You guys are huge.

prometheus

2008-08-07T10:01:00.001-07:00

  "Thy Godlike crime was to be kind, 
 To render with thy precepts less
 The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen Man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Still in thy patient energy, 
In the endurance, and repulse
 Of thine impenetrable Spirit,
Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse,
 A mighty lesson we inherit:
Thou art a symbol and a sign
 To Mortals of their fate and force;
Like thee, Man is in part divine,
 A troubled stream from a pure source"

When we learned about George Gordon, Lord Byron two weeks ago and read "Prometheus", we had an argument about Byron being able to justify comparing himself to Prometheus; how any mortal could think to liken himself to the heroic figure of Greek mythology who bestowed fire upon humans. When someone argued that no human could ever live up to the greatness of a Greek hero, I asked,

"Well, if you aren't going to make yourself out to be a hero, then who's going to be one?"

You can think of this question in two ways. First, you can be a cynical asshole and skew it as, "Well, if you don't love yourself..." to which I will curtly reply, "Why not love yourself?" Second, you can realize that we are all stuck in a state of promised mediocrity. We are afraid of our own potential. What I fail to see is what separates myself or yourself from anyone successful, from anyone profound, from anyone with a vision who isn't afraid to share it. Whereas society tells us to be subtle in our changes, to incite only personal revolutions while staying in line with the fixed mechanisms of commerce and social interaction, the truth is that the boundaries set upon us are invisible; nonexistent. If you break down the barriers that we perceive to exist, then the reality is liberated: we have the potential to be anything, to transcend nothingness, to rise above the futile meanderings of daily living. So why shouldn't I have a strong presence in a room? Why shouldn't I be strong in my conviction? Why shouldn't we stand up to the challenge of heroism?

What I'm basically saying is that heroism needs to take the form of more spiritual achievements. We can't devalue ourselves because our goals for society are less tangible than what has been achieved in the past. Man has fire. Man has rights. Man has need for little more than the vindication of his own desires and needs, for one person to take a stand and shake down a system that feeds intellectual stasis. So who among us is going to aspire towards greatness if we are all standing in the shadow of the past? Who is going to denounce the fear that has been bred in us for years, to become the liberating voice of a rising generation? Whoever you may be, I am calling you to arms. Now, more than ever, is a time ripe enough to fight for the nurturing of the individual and collective human spirit. Ready your voice. It will be heard.

a vindication of my own satisfaction

2008-08-02T18:03:00.000-07:00

If you know me at all, you'll know that I have a very big problem with saying no. I don't. This is good when it comes to parties, adventures, shenanigans and outlandish schemes that usually land me somewhere in the back of someone's truck with a 3-paper in my mouth and fireworks in my pocket. This is not good when it comes to being hit on by disgusting old men, being taken advantage of by the people around me and being forced to wrap my life around the plans of someone else. I have always appeased. I have rarely been pleased.

So basically this summer, in the past (passed) three months that I have spent smoking chronic on a rooftop, I have probably spoken to hundreds of people. This I do not exaggerate. The rate of turnover and the size of the crowd that fills up Kindred every day is insane, and it's just getting bigger. I have never been in such a diverse environment. Not only is the city of Toronto itself populated by some of the most interesting, most outlandish characters I have ever met- people come from all over North America (and some from Europe) to see this place. I have learned more about myself here than anywhere else; to be put in front of such a wide range of people five days a week is like a lesson in self and social awareness. It didn't take long for me to realize that a) people can and will try to take advantage of you and b) it is your responsibility to make sure that they don't.

So now I don't take it when somebody disrespects me and expects me to swallow it. I don't suck it up when someone treats me as though I have nothing to do, no other purpose in my life but to serve them and to make their life easier. Don't get me wrong: I love wholeheartedly and this will never stop, I will always want those around me to be happy and to be satisfied and to enjoy their lives and whatever I have to give them. But I refuse to be taken advantage of. That's enough. I am more than what I have and what I can give, and if that is all that you need me for- if it's not my company, my friendship, or my love that you seek from me- then don't ask for me anymore. Don't seek me out only when I am of use to you; I don't need to be used.

the invincible summer

2008-07-29T11:21:00.001-07:00

First things first, you need to know about me:

I am a packrat in the least useful and quirky sense of the word; I keep everything that interests me and this is, inevitably, everything. On my desk right now: an empty mickey of Bombay Sapphire, one honey bear bong with red glass stem used as a pencil holder, five beer bottles with slate blue candles and wax peeling off the labels (the beers in question are: 2 Heineken, 2 Hacker-Pschorr Hefe Weisse and 1 Anchor Brewing Co. Liberty Ale, respectively), one tallcan of Arizona Green Tea (unopened), one Red-Eye triple hourglass bong (named Percy Willis - for my middle school principal), three vanilla-scented black candles with white cherry blossoms scrolling up the sides, one box of Batman Band-Aids, my cell phone, and a little slip from the inside of a Wing's fortune cookie. The fortune?

"You enjoy sharing your dreams and plans with others." I feel that this makes me a very fortunate person.

Moving to my bedside table (which is really a red Kashmiri footstool handpainted with baby blue swallows) I've acquired: one classic Bambi tray (complete with Yongesterdam rolling papers and broken hydroponic Kush), an incandescent 40 watt lightbulb, a bright red "party bulb" screwed into a ceramic lamp in the shape of a baby skunk, an ashtray, the viewfinder for my Lomo Fisheye II (essentially useless), The Velvet Underground (The Best Of), and a small bottle of original Astroglide with purple cap. Respectively.

If I were to go on and create an inventory for my entire room you would slowly realize the kind of person that I am, the kind of interests that I have: photographs, movie posters, comic book sketches of myself from when I was 14 drawn by Cameron Stewart - these are all juxtaposed against a bright green paint job that I did myself last September, listening to Sublime, thinking about how I would spend the rest of that night up in Hamilton pressed against Scott's thick body. It's been about ten months since I first splattered green paint across the perimeter of my white ceilings, but in those months, these walls have seen years of growth.

So here I stand, two weeks away from my 20th birthday, in a room that grew faster than I did after a long summer of keeping my toes in the sand and my heart in his hands.

This diary is about a new age. This diary is about honesty, integrity, and small moments that align themselves to create an intricate conversation. It's about an interconnectedness that is too widespread and too pure not to be translated into language and thrown back into the world. Why now? Because for years I've felt the world swelling. I've watched as the days have passed with an increasing irregularity, as the sun's dialogue with the city has become more heated, and the summers have filled with people and sweat, juicyfruit and skunk. Because in these two weeks leading up to my 20th birthday and beyond, I feel as though we are almost ready. And I'm giving myself a head start.