8.7: She can't find the moon or the secrets I keep

There are any number of ways I could approach the beginning of this entry. When I sit down to write a new one I try to begin with a broad statement and go into detail. There are many that come to mind. "Things are starting to turn around" is bland but not inaccurate. "Suddenly finding out who is in my audience has given me some perspective on things" makes me seem a bit wiser than I actually am. "Sometimes making things happen takes a combination of action and luck" is vague and somewhat self-contradicting if not blatant obviousness. The one I'm gonna settle for?

It never hurts to cut your problems out of your hair.

I often relate the anecdote of when I first saw Alyssa after she'd come back to Oakville. She'd long since dropped out of school and shacked up with her boyfriend. When they split (weird speculation: in that entire time I haven't heard of her dating anyone, but then again neither have I. I'm just not as much of a catch) she had to come back to Oakville and was apparently quite bummed about the way her life had been going. She mused that the next thing she needed to do was get a new hairstyle. The idea came up that that sort of reinvention goes a long way toward de-stressing. I reasoned that that means that all the problems in life are trapped in one's hair. The number of stressed-out bald people walking around seems to contradict this (my Grade 8 French teacher being my prime example.)

So I'd been carrying a great deal of distress under my shaggy coif. I was crying out in boredom and loneliness. I was able to channel a lot of this into creativity. Jasmin and I have a poem contest going on, wherein we provide each other with words and compose poems to use them. It's an idea I got from Alyssa long ago (a lot of her in this entry... I wonder how she's been lately) and Jasmin really took to it. Anyway, she couldn't choose between "Umbrella" and "Story" so I decided to give her a two-fer. After some contemplation I bound the two into a metaphor representing my loneliness and despair. When I presented it to her Friday night I kinda kicked an imaginary clump of dirt and shrugged and said "It's a bit darker than I usually go but I hope you enjoy it."

Well, apparently, it struck a chord with her, and it was indeed the appropriate time because it matched how she too was feeling. Apparently a male friend of hers cut off their friendship recently because his girlfriend had become jealous. I think that's a really crappy thing to do and no way to treat a friend. I've never been put in that situation, admittedly, for obvious reasons... but I like to think of myself as a peacemaker, a compromise artist. A sly cat.

I was unwinding on Saturday morning, as has become ritual, with Amanda over a coffee and a breakfast sandwich. The previous week I had been ungainly morose, utterly fixated on my station in life. I must not have been very good company, but I started to cheer up when the two of us hit on something that might actually be a really fun project. Anyway, this week was different. Even if I'd brought the moroseness, we'd have had no time for it. Amanda, after being engaged basically as long as I've known her, (minus about a month,) has finally set a date for her wedding. After I got over my initial disappointment at not being her Maid of Honor, (or is that Made of Honor, Patrick Dempsey?) She started musing about how there weren't many good venues around and other little details. She tended to favour a sandwich selection rather than buffet dinner, which I agree with. Also, she cautioned me not to under any circumstances stand when asked "Does anyone object?" and announce that I was pregnant with her baby, or that she was her own evil twin. I guess I can live with this.

Marriage. It's a tricky subject for me. I don't think it's something you should enter into lightly, and I know Amanda and Bryan aren't. They've been together a very, very long time and have taken this inch by inch. Marriage seems to be breaking out all over the place. My cousin, I suppose, is still engaged and nobody really knows what's going on with that, we don't have the gall to ask. A friend of mine of many years (like, we met each other as very young children) recently announced her engagement and it blew my mind.

Like I said, marriage isn't something I'd suggest anyone enter into lightly. It's a serious lifestyle commitment not to mention a legal and financial one. I don't know how many people who get married are aware of or maybe care about the crushing divorce statistics in our recent era. Me, I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about them and this would keep me from asking. Could I do it? I wouldn't be able to say "'Til death do us part" with a straight face, I don't imagine. I'm capable of loving another human being. (I assume.) I'm just not capable of putting that kind of commitment onto paper.

It was after our little conference that I went to the barber. I'd been needing one for a while, although not as long as my mom thinks since a month or so ago at my birthday she suggested I did and we all (me and maybe my brother) disagreed. But by July it became obvious that the shagginess was become too much. So I tracked down my usual barber. She's a great gal, young, I talk about her every time I get a haircut. We caught up - since I tend to go about 4 months or so without seeing her - on what I'd been doing and how she'd been dieting (I didn't want to say so, but I could tell. when I admitted to this, a sheepish change of topic followed.) I fudged the facts of my life to make it a bit more pleasant in conversation, explaining the job I may or may not soon opt to have.

So the haircut is short. I always look different freshly out of the barber's chair. A new, slicker look and it gives me a bit of a slicker attitude. Maybe.

I killed the day in my usual way, searching for garage sales (nothing interesting to be found.) In the evening I wandered a long time until sunset in a brief spitting rain, in search of comfort and coffee. I found a giant-ass rainbow, which although it sounds odd, made me smile, because although it's just light refracted through raindrops, it's one of those amazing natural sights. A giant-ass rainbow. The type Thor might ride to get to Asgard.

When I got home, Cary messaged me, asking what I was up to. My reply, "No thing. Two words for emphasis" got the point across. He was in town and wanted to see if I'd be down to chill with him and CB. Well of course. We ended up playing Guitar Hero at his place until about 1. I stayed up late, writing. At some point recently I wrote most of a new chapter for Melancholy Catatonia take 2, which has finally brought some of the funny (in my opinion) back to it.

Anyway, it's gotten ridiculously late. More stuff has been going on, but I'll have to think about it later. But I've got a good feeling these days. Well, decent anways.

C'est la vie.

...Which is french for Keep on rockin'
-Scott