mick had a point.

You can't always get what you want.

So stop trying.

That's the motto that seems correct, like one to live by.  Even when you think you got what you want, you're wrong.  It's impossible.  Something always turns up to change your mind, change what you want, change what you think you want, change what you got.  There's an outcome you didn't see coming, a change of heart that tosses a wrench in things, something, something, that ruins it all.

Maybe it's you.

Maybe it's them.

Maybe it's no one at all.

But knowing what you want is the first step to getting what you want.  And who really knows that?  Maybe it should be "you rarely know what you want so you won't ever get it".  That seems to inspire less whimsical belief that even though you can't always get what you want, maybe sometimes you will.  That's just false advertising.  People get sued for that shit in the real world.

Anyway.  I guess my point is we will never get what we want, so maybe we should just settle for wanting what we get.  This is where I am now, this is the life I have and the choices I have made, and I am okay with that.  I am happy with that.  How wonderful would it be if everyone felt that way?  Not constantly dwelling on what could have been, but accepting and loving what is.  Knowing it may be different tomorrow... or it may not.  Loving what we have instead of coveting what we don't.

Sadly, that's not in our nature.

Human nature.

We are destined to forever want what we can't have, dwell on the what could have beens, and forever regret our choices... our lives... our pasts.

You can't always get what you want.

Or want what you have.

Forever human... forever dissatisfied.

collage.

.it was in the morning when i made up my mind.

i want you staple-gunned right to my side all of the time

don't cringe, don't clench, don't look, don't flinch, don't know, don't go, don't leave me

don't leave me

don't leave me

you're directing me

your eyes focus like a microscope

you're dressed up

i lose my grip, my focus

make those eyes at me

i lose my grip, i lose my focus

the chemistry between us could destroy this place

four ways to collect what we say and what we save to discard and discover a brand new way

i know you feel it too

these words get overused

so i’m drinking, breathing, writing, singing
everyday i'm on the clock
my mind races with all my longings
but can't keep up with what i got

i hope i don’t sound too ungrateful

.i’m wide-awake, it’s morning.

.all hail the heartbreaker.

i had the notion that you'd make me forget the world

but your indecisive mind shows me that you are "just another girl"

i had the feeling that those looks you gave me were real

what if i ripped your heart apart at the seams

maybe then you'd know how i feel

but that day will most likely never come for me

and it's just my luck

to end up getting stuck

to everything you are

so tonight i'll sit and pick apart your pictures

and overanalyze your words

i will sleep another day

i don't really need to anyway

what's the point when my dreams are infected

with words you used to say

i will breathe in a moment

as long as you keep your distance

i won't want to go messing anything up

i'll let you get the best of me

because there's nothing else that i do well

i'll be the giver and you'll be the taker

i guess that's how this one's gonna go

you've got me down on my knees and i proclaim

       ...all hail the heartbreaker...

-The Spill Canvas (2003)

she.

cares loves grows knows learns conceives understands concedes listens speaks loves stays goes stops goes pushes halts listens comforts softly touches listens goes kisses knows touches touches touches halts conceives learns loves informs understands goes comes goes stays leaves softly urgent loving smiles hugs softly softly tries grows adjusts understands knows loves loves loves

                         loves loves loves loves

                                                  loves loves loves

                                   loves loves loves loves loves

...softly.

She. stays.

her.

lies.

ties. to you. to me. to her. to her.

her.

forever her.  forever you.

fornever me.

always the same.

split into...

torn in parts.

the great divide begins.

and ends.

the same.

.fly away from me.

titles are beyond me.

DO NOT WORRY!  I have not died of a broken heart!

(phew!)

Though I can see why you might think so.

Thankfully I'm still here. Still kickin.  Still taking up oxygen.  Still recycling carbon.  Still... I dunno, whatever else we human's are good for.

I'm here.

And I'm...

well.  I'm here.

For good or for ill... I'm still here.

(is it just me, or did an eminem song start playing...)

Anyway.  I'll do better at being here.

(no, no... it was goo goo dolls.)

honolulu, kathmandu

When you think of a broken heart, what do you think of?  I always thought a heart would break in one instance... like a great event would cause it to break so noticeably you couldn't possibly miss it.  Like there would be a huge surge of pain, followed by an inescapable throbbing that wouldn't stop.

But now I think differently.

I think a heart breaks slowly, a little piece at a time.  Chunks break off a piece at a time, until all of a sudden, before you know it, the damage is done.  One day you wake up feeling great, and something small takes off one last chunk... and suddenly, it's broken.

Enter the inescapable throbbing.

Heart break.  Heart broken.  Heart ache.

Now comes the hard part... if it's broken one piece at a time, how can you find the cause; the culprit; the one to blame.

Can you?

Can you hang the heart break on one person; one event; one cause?  Or are we all to blame for our own heart ache?  For allowing these small hurts, betrayals, jabs, lies, promises, loves, events to add up.  For letting them take a piece of us, however so small.  For allowing them the luxury of our tears.

Our pain.

Our heart.

Can we stop breaking our own hearts?

Or is this the price we pay to feel loved... to more often then not, not feel loved at all.

the deepest well... i will i will i will...

.i can't get no.

I give up.

Nothing I do can satisfy you.  Nothing I say can fix it.

Nothing I do is enough for you.  No matter how much I pay for it.

I try to make things better for you.  I consider, I stress, I change.

But nothing I am is good, or true, or sorry enough for you.

I don't know how to make it better.  I'm not sure how much more I can cry.

Each day I do my best to adjust myself; take the criticism, the opinions, the complaints.

I submit, I cater, and change who I am.  I think and rethink and rethink.

I tip toe, I'm careful, I try not to displease.  I do it all with a smile.

One of these days it'll be my turn.  You'll call on me, with no reply.

One of these days I'll consider only myself.  And you'll wish there had been a goodbye.

It won't be 'til then that you'll see all I try, all the things I do just for you.

Not 'til then that you'll realize all I am trying to do is love you.

And love you.

And love you.

drink from the cup.

Sometimes the most beautiful examples of human kindness come from days filled with sadness.

Thank you for being such an amazing species.

<3

hiding out in the big city blinking...

Sometimes a song is able to say so much of you.

life is a hell of a thing to happen to a person...

Ever feel completely and totally lost and like nothing is in your control even though you know it is, and sometimes you just have to make the choices you don't want to, so you don't, but you know you should?






...I haven't.
     ...I was just curious.

 .....

*swoon*

Yeah, that's right, I'm already addicted.

*sigh*

everything I say, I say to me first...

I feel incredibly confined today.  Like, I'm being surrounded on all sides, and all parts of my life are creeping closer and closer until they will inevitably squash me into a square compact version of myself... somewhat like the garbage cubes Rosie made on the Jetsons.

I have an overwhelming desire to run away.  Like, actually disappear into the sunset or something.  I don't know where I'd go or what I'd do, but all I can think of is picking up and taking off and starting over somewhere else.  Sever all ties, y'know?  I'm not really sure what that would solve... but that's the feeling I have today.

I feel like I have this huge circle of people who are my friends, my acquaintances, but none of them feel like my confidant.  The one person you can talk openly to about anything and everything or nothing at all, and not ever have to worry that they're judging you, or care if you sound selfish, if you've talked about something too long in one conversation, or brought it up to many times, not have to worry if you are being "dramatic" or whatever... It makes it really hard to sort through things, get through your thoughts, if you have to worry the whole time that you are saying too much, or boring someone with your problems.  They start to get bigger and bigger the more you try and shove them down inside of you... and then suddenly there they are, crushing you from all sides, turning you into a tiny, condensed version of yourself... completely encasing you in issues that probably shouldn't even be issues, but you've avoided them for so long you've given them power by pretending they don't exist.

I guess I don't even know what my point is.  I feel alone sometimes.  Alone with nothing and no one to keep me company, just the looming, anxiety-based 'walls' that are creeping closer and closer with each passing day...

I heart this song <3

lavarephobia?

I have a very strange need to always use the same stalls in public washrooms.  If I've used that washroom before, chances are I scoped out my "favorite" stall, and from here on out, that's 'my' stall.

I think it stems from a long line of bathroom phobias I've had over the years, including (but not limited to):

• peeing outside:

I cannot do this.  I require an outhouse at the very least, although these scare me too.  It took a long time and an intense love for drinking beer while camping to accept outhouses into my life.

• conversations in washrooms:

I'm PEEING.  Why are you talking to me?!  It's incredibly awkward when the courtesy 'hi, how are you' in the sink area of a washroom picks back up over the walls of the stall.  I'm sitting in a small room so that I can pretend you aren't here!  Why must you ruin the illusion for me by drawing attention to the fact that I can hear everything that goes on in your little room, and therefore the reciprocal is true??

• using other people's washrooms:

My washroom is incredibly sacred to me.  Using other's washrooms is strange for me, and I feel like I can't touch anything... not because I expect people not to touch anything in mine, just because I feel like I'm violating a private space.

• foreign washrooms containing things such as hoses instead of toilet paper, or holes instead of toilets:

I don't think I need to elaborate here...

• single room public washrooms:

you know the ones... like in Safeway for example.  An enormous room with a toilet and a sink in the far corner, and you're never sure the door is ACTUALLY locked, but it's too far to hold shut with your free hand like you would in a stall with a broken lock, and the floor is always wet.

There were people in both of 'my' stalls at work today when I went to pee.

I held it.

leo/virgo cusp.

Being on the cusp of 2 astrological signs can get a little confusing.

For example, I am quite thankful I read yesterday's horoscope today, or else it may have thrown me into an infinite loop of total confusion...

Leo:

If you are going to be forceful, if you are going to get tough, then in might as well be today.  You'll do whatever it takes to get your way - and then some.

Virgo:

Try not to be too pushy today.  You could easily go over the top.  If people seem to be avoiding you it could be because the are scared of you.

Holy conflicting predictions!  How would I know what to do?!  How can you be forceful (but not too forceful), and get your way (but don't scare people)??

At least today's are saying pretty much the same thing:

Leo:

You may not take kindly to disagreement - and why should you when you are right and others are wrong? - but it will pay to be a bit more tolerant today.

Virgo:

You should find it a lot easier to understand opposing viewpoints today.  That doesn't mean you will agree with them though.

*phew* thank goodness!

It's a good thing I don't believe in horoscopes.

shira will end me.

So I just had to take my car in.  The brakes were definitely not performing, so I figured I'd drop her off at the brake place while I got my massage 4 blocks away.

Well thank goodness I chose to simultaneously have a massage, because the initial quote was $1500.

$1500!!!  That's more than one of my paycheques!  Good lord.  Thank goodness for the mint oil, or I would be nowhere near as zen right now.

Finally we narrowed it down to the stuff that was necessary for me to safely drive home.  Safely drive home!  My car is out to get me, for real.  If she doesn't kill me in a spectacular mechanical failure, it'll be with a heart attack at the amount of money she squeezes out of my poor credit card.

*sigh*

Anyone want to sell me a car for free? (haha)

i get by with a little help...

I am happy today.

I'm not sure why that is, or if there even is a cause, but I am happy.  I've been productive, positive, peppy, and some more awesome 'P' words all day!

I wish I felt like this every day... if only I knew what was put in my coffee this morning.

I am working on getting registered for classes this week for my upcoming return to university in September, and as exciting as it is, it's also a little bit scary.  It's like, my entire future knowledge base is up to me now, even though I couldn't be trusted with that for the first 12 years of schooling, and I don't feel I was given any tutorials on how to do it now... Obviously I would love to just take the most random and interesting things, but I somehow have a feeling that would be missing the point.

But what IS the point???

*sigh*

I've created/nurtured some fantastic relationships in the past few weeks, and am feeling pretty fantastic about that.  As uncertain and scary as this whole school thing is, the knowledge that I have such amazing people around me is like a security blanket.  Like, even if I "do it wrong" (which is what it feels like), these people will all be here to laugh with me, tease me for my mistakes (kindheartedly, of course) and then help me on to the next step.

Things always seem a little less scary when you have someone to share it with. <3

**ps** Abbey is perfect and lovely.

**pps** .......She told me to say that.

abbey adores me.

Even if she tries to tell you otherwise.  It's not true.

snow day!

So there's a huge winter storm here today (yes, winter storm. yes, it's April 29) and I got stuck for the first time ever in my life.  Luckily, it was 3 blocks from my house, and on my way to work, so I ditched my car and walked home for a wonderous snow day.

Ever notice how when you have a unexpected day off, you always think you are going to get so many things done because, well, you're already awake, and there's so much day left!
...Ever notice how on these days pretty much zero gets accomplished?

That was my snow day today.  And although it was wonderous, it was so very unproductive that I almost feel guilty.  Which is silly really, because it's not like there was anything I NEEDED to do... but for some reason I feel like I wasted this day.

....I can't wait til I get back to school so I can have weeks upon weeks of wasted days....

That's the life.

PS I rescued my car, all is well!  The Princess of Power is triumphant again!!

lesbian minute!

An Horse - Camp Out (in a BOAT!)

Glee is full of (not-so) secret lesbians...

 

*sigh*

That is all.


**update**
one more.

switching roles.

What do you do when you become the parent, and your parent becomes the child?

I feel sometimes that I'm so completely selfish, because all I want my mom to be is my mom. After the divorce, she continued on being that person for a long while... and then all of a sudden it's like she's 16 all over again.  Partying, poor, drinking, dating... All I want is for her to go back to being my mom.  My mom who makes chicken noodle soup from scratch when I'm sick.  My mom who fixes zippers when they break.  My mom who has dinner every Sunday for the kids and her hubby.  My mom who redesigns the kitchen just so.  My mom who can make everything okay when it isn't, and make all your worries melt away onto her shoulders.

I hate that now I am that person for her.  I have to do the worrying, the calling to make sure she's okay, the taking care.  It's not fair.  I don't feel like a grown up yet.  I'm not ready to be a care-giver... I'm still a care-taker.  I don't even know who I am as a person, I'm not ready to help her find it too.

I'm selfish.

But I'm supposed to be!  I'm the child.

I think she was happier then too though.  The party only lasts so long.  Then all your left with is a huge mess to clean up, and no one around to help.

Sometimes I feel like I need to be everybody's rock.  The constant support system, the sounding board, the advice columnist, the counselor... and it used to be that my mom was mine.  But now I'm hers too... So who do I get to talk to?  Who is left to help me when it all becomes too much?

santa monica.

Okay.  I just have one last kind of depressing post, and then I'm done with that.

I feel most lonely when buying tickets to a show or planning a trip.  Planning and purchasing for one gets old.

That is all!

On a happier note, check out the sweet shoes I designed.

i want the ocean right now.

Neil Sadaka had it right.

Breaking up IS hard to do.

But it's not so much the loss of the relationship that's hard.  It's the realization that the other person is fine without you.  Whether you are fine without them or not, the most devastating moment in the aftermath of a break up is when you realize they don't need you.  The split second it becomes clear they are happy without you... perhaps even happier.  There's nothing quite like feeling that they no longer have eyes for only you, you are no longer the center of their existence, and the world is still spinning and life is still happening for them.

It's a selfish feeling.  It's not like your world ended, or you didn't keep on living.  But for some reason, when you realize they have too, your stomach turns, your eyes water, your throat swells, and your heart breaks just that little bit more.  You go into panic mode and have these crazy ideas like, begging them to come back, forgiving all that was wrong, just to be back on that pedestal... back in the center of the universe.  You forget for a minute that you broke up for a reason, be it yours or theirs, and pretending it doesn't exist won't make anything better, anyone happy.  And the thought of them being gone, truly gone.... well it's about as close to unbearable as you can get.

The post break up whirlwind is full of confusing thoughts and emotions.  Gusts of desperation to see them again, all mixed in with the total anxiety over the possibility of actually having to see them... wanting to call but then wanting them to call you, or not to talk to them at all...  The words you want to say but wish you didn't feel... the words you wish they'd say but know wouldn't help if they did.

So maybe Neil didn't have it right after all.  It's not the breaking up that's hard to do.  It's the aftermath that will kill you.

Tegan and Sara - The Ocean
That about sums it up.

chchchchanges.

I just found out Girl Talk is coming to Sled Island this year!  Wooooo!  And Everclear is coming to the Back Alley in April!!  Best music day ever!

I had rehearsal last night, and DirT was driving me nuts.  She can be so insensitive about her tone and word choice sometimes, but is RIDICULOUSLY sensitive to how other people talk to her.  It amazes (and frustrates) me how some people can be the person they dislike in others, and not even know it.

Anyway.  Off to write a rehearsal report now.

I got a nose bleed this morning... at work.  So brutal.

**edit**

I just found out the other lady on my two person team at work is getting moved to another team... so now it's just me.  It's about time someone started recognizing who is completing their work efficiently and effectively, and who isn't... But now I'm sitting completely alone with no one around me.  I feel like an orphan!!

...Good thing I have a plant!

.part un.

The sun rose on a grey world.  Even the pink and orange glow of the horizon couldn't bring color to the cool morning.  She awoke by the water, beneath a jagged tree, dripping with grey-green leaves.  The chill from the air was wet, soaking through to her soul, barely pausing at her pale skin.  Consciousness came slowly, like molasses from a carton, as the dreams swirled and mixed with reality, dancing a dark tango through her mind.  Slowly, she raised herself to her knees, surveying the landscape before her.  This waking world was as strange to her as the realm of her dreams. The lapping of the water on the shore seemed ominous and threatening, though soft and slow as a babbling brook.  The lake was no bigger than a pond, and likely not much deeper than her knee.  But something about this quiet, gloomy world seemed to conceal the truth, like a house of mirrors conceals the hallways of the maze.

Behind her rolled miles upon miles of yellow grass, extending to the end of the earth, or at least far enough to assume it must.  Here and there another jagged, dripping tree dotted the horizon, but never more that one or two at a time.  And none so big as the one she currently resided under.  She turned her gaze to the tree, trying to determine where the tree ended and the sky began, and it seemed to her that the height was never-ending.  The tree seemed to extend as far into the sky as the flat land stretched behind her.

A strange feeling overcame her as she stared at the tree mixing with the sky, but the reasoning escaped her.  Something was not quite right in this place, both beautiful and mysterious, calm and foreboding.  She stayed like this, eyes reaching to the sky, mind contemplating the knowledge just barely out of reach, for what seemed like hours, but was probably mere minutes.  There was no measurement of time here, no memento of it passing.

Suddenly, like a crack of lightening, she realized there were no birds.  No sounds besides the water on the shore, no movement among the grass and trees surrounding her.  The lake's slow ripples continued, uninterrupted by fish or insects.  The sky remained blank and grey, with only the faint pink and orange outline of the rising sun.

But the sun wasn't rising either.  The glow remained as it had when she first began pulling the sleep from her mind, blinking open her eyes to this scene she examined now.  She looked toward the horizon again, this time observing what she had merely assumed was the rising sun, to discover the glow was unmoving, and seemed to have no source.  The colors danced on the horizon all around her, no longer suggesting the east as the sun awoke, or the west as it settled into slumber.  Fear swelled inside her, as she began to understand this was like no other place she had ever seen or experienced, a place where the sun rose from all around you, or never rose at all.  She spun around in panic, searching, searching for something, anything, but not knowing what that may be.  Suddenly the lake seemed dark to her, inching closer with each run at the shore.  The tree seemed to be reaching for her, it's branches yawning open toward her, intent on swallowing her up, absorbing her into it's trunk, making her forever a part of this place, trapped in a darkness of roots and bark and soil.

man's best friend.

I feel unlovable sometimes.  Like, there's something about me everyone knows except me, and they all want to avoid it.  It seems there are things about me that just turn partners off, but then they can't tell me what exactly it is.

...which means it must just be me.

Kind of disheartening, oui?

Sometimes I think I will be alone forever... destined to be this lonely member of society, pretending everyday like it's what I always wanted.

Who wants that???

I need to be loved... I need to be needed.  I need to laugh and cry and celebrate with someone who knows me, through and through, and loves me anyway.

Is that really so outrageous?

....maybe I'll just get a dog.

....

ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH.

That is all.

quarterlifecrisis.

I messed up my shoulder at yoga last Monday, and have been feeling the consequences ever since.  I keep trying to tell myself it's better that I pushed myself and got hurt, than to keep giving a minimum effort just so not to feel the results.  I believe that's true in most areas of life, that you need to push yourself to find out what your capable of... you almost always will surprise yourself.  It's hard to do, and even when it ends out like this (a sprained shoulder) it's still worth it in the end.  I left practice on Monday feeling the best I've felt, feeling like I had accomplished the most yet.  But... it is frustrating that now I can't go to any more classes this week due to my stupid shoulder.

...at least we won at dodgeball.

I wrote this last week and forgot to post, so I'll just keep adding... I'm back to yoga today, hurray!

This week is going to drag by because I can't wait until Friday!  Booked my tattoo for then on Saturday, and I'm stooooooooked.  I'll post a picture.

The Olympics are over, and I feel lost without them.  My point of obsession has ceased to exist. *sigh*

I'm in a weird head space lately.  I'm so confused about what makes me happy, and what I want to do/get out of my life.  I sent in my application to MRU today for September, and my UofC one is still pending.  I'm so afraid of staying here forever, never going anywhere or doing anything.  I feel like I'm running out of time to do the things I want to do... but I don't even know what those are.  I'm scared to make a big change, but terrified of what happens if I don't.  I feel like I've had this ominous cloud of dread hanging over me for years, and I don't know how to even begin to go about fixing it.  I'm trying to do more of the things I want to do, instead of trying to please everyone else all the time.  It helps, but it just doesn't seem to be enough.  Some days I feel fantastic, and happy, and like the whole world is just right... but some days I feel like I'm spinning my wheels, getting more and more stuck in this muddy rut I'm trapped in.

Maybe this is all normal.  Maybe this is just what life feels like.

But I sure wish it felt like the whole world was just right all the time.

like water.

Today was an exceptionally long day, peppered with drama.  I can't believe the amount of created drama there is in adult life.  I always say it's "like being back in high school", but I'm starting to think that the reason there is so much drama in your high school years is to prepare you for real life... How sad.

I'm feeling kind of off today, and not looking forward to another week of work.  But when is anyone looking forward to that, I suppose.  I am looking forward to yoga tomorrow though... it always makes all this dramatic mess that is life seem better... make more sense.  Maybe it just centers me to a place where I can let it all slip off my back...

"I wanna be like water if I can, cuz water doesn't give a damn... water doesn't give a damn." (The Silver Jews)

Well.  I guess that's it for now.  Here's a completely unrelated photo I took at a souq in Kuwait.

honky tonk women

Went to Samantha Ronson last night.  It was a good show, and I am now convinced I'm in love, but Tegan will forever hold my heart.

Aaaaaaanyway.  The show was in a big bar that's usually as country as country gets.  It was pretty funny to see how hard they tried to hide all signs of it's true identity, covering the walls and awards and autographed goods with vodka posters and cheap printouts of robots.  They also hid the mechanical bull behind some flats painted in black light paint graffiti.  It actually would have looked pretty alright, if I wasn't already aware of what they were hiding under all those poor dead trees.

I was also kind of disappointed that L2 didn't show up and cause a scene... because really, we were all hoping for it, even if we didn't admit it.  Sam was pretty chill through the whole show, barely even looking up at us all until close to the end.  I do have to admit though, the couple of winks she did throw our way, more than made up for that... (oh the swooning!)

One last thing.  What is it in a male psyche that translates "lesbian" into "threesome"?  If I were to hit on a girl, and she's like, "I'm straight", I would be like, well, alright then, cut my losses, move on.  But for some reason, the phrase "sorry, I'm not interested, I'm gay", be it true or not, sounds to them like "try harder, and my 'friend' and I will totally blow your mind".  It's unexplainable.

I have had 3 hours of sleep. *yawn*.  I'm having a war with myself... to yoga or not to yoga?  I promised myself I would go 3 times a week, but I'm having a hard time motivating myself to walk there.  I was all over it until I hit the wall at 2:30... and now I'm not even sure I can make it home, let alone through a 70 min class.

Ugh my posture sucks today.

golden dreams

I'm OBSESSED with the Olympics.

There.  I needed to say it.

I never cared about the Olympics in the past, even told anyone who would listen exactly how neutral I felt about them.  But now I can't get enough of them!  I watch them all the time!  It started with a few men's snowboard cross highlights, and quickly escalated into a full day of women's snowboard cross.  Now I'm staying late at work to watch the finals, and scrounging for any live event I can find.  I feel like a junkie!  I'm even watching figure skating... it's getting out of hand.

I was taking with lil'k the other day about patriotism, and she mentioned a quote by Oscar Wilde; "patriotism is a virtue of the vicious".  While I can see how that may be considered true, I have to disagree, as I think there are 2 types of patriotism; good and bad.  Wars and terrorism obviously being examples of bad or misdirected patriotism, but I don't want to get into that negative side.  I think that the Olympics (even if they are commercialized and extravagant and usually ridiculously pricey) are a fantastic example of positive patriotism.  You are cheering for your country and your athletes out of pride, and wanting your country to do well, not out of hatred for others.  It's not about making your nation the ONLY nation... it's about winning at something.  It's 'YAY Canada!', not 'Boo France/Germany/Brazil/Uzbekastan'.  It's about normal, healthy competition... about sportsmanship.  It's about respect for the competing countries and their athletes.  It's not about killing or discrimination... it brings people together, and puts them on equal ground.

...maybe there is some sort of subliminal messaging in these online live feeds or something... but my mind has changed when it comes to the Games.

Oh, and watch for me and my board in 2014... I'll be the one winning the gold.

verbage.

So here I am. Creating my own little psychological release. Blogging was always a term I avoided, especially as a verb... but here I am.

Blogging.

There really is a first time for everything.