I've been having dreams about Canada. I know nothing about Canada and I always have a sense that the whole country is exactly like Portland - which is unequivocally wrong. I've been thinking about going to Canada and finding myself there exactly as I was before, totally unchanged. I've been thinking about going to Canada and finding myself there exactly as I was before and moving there only to discover it is just Chicago or just Stamford or just New York or just Iowa City/Sioux Falls/Cedar Rapids or JUST BOISE. I think, "What's the difference between Toronto and Montreal?"

And my attention slips.

I'm interested in chewing on my fingers - as an academic discipline. Naming differences between tastes of certain fingers, textures of certain nails, cataloging hangers-on or little pockets of pus. Taxonomy of tearing at my cuticles. Families and subtypes. Breaking it down to a very specific science - how many categories could I think of in all? Hundreds on an okay day filled with sleepy eyes and thousands if I pushed it. Of other people's fingers I cannot muster the courage to ask.

I'm bored. And boring. I tire of my own sentences half-way through (imagine for a minute how many words I have already deleted). I just want to hear other people talk and ask questions that lead them to rambling monologues. I want to wear a shirt that says, "Ask me no more questions, tell me no more lies." Is it acceptable in this day and age to hold off on talking for a little while? Try a day or two days, see how it goes, if it saves me any trouble in the waiting out of whatever this is.

Dear-oh-dear, as my grandmother might say. Go have a cigarette.

Fanfare for Ms. E. F. C

Meine Dame Und Herren und everything in-between or beyond that spectrum,

I give you Em Le Fay
Erstwhile Englishwoman in the County of Fyfe (after the Thane thereof)
Scholar and Soon-to-be Asset Manager
Cross-Atlantic Nomad
All-Around Encyclopedia of Minutiae
Former Co-President of the Dramatic Society
Receiver of a Glass of White Wine
and
my friend, Former Citizen of My Heart

Quoth the Economics Student, "It's not like I'm going to be happy anyway, so I might as well do a job that makes me a good deal of money. Then I can retire and do what I like." Quoth the Follower of Dr. Johnson and Adam Smith, "It's hard to do a thing you love, why ruin it? Get out, while you can." Quoth she, "No one around me has got their head screwed on right."

I give you Em Le Fay
Wearer of Sensible Winter Coats and Good Jeans
Attendant of Assessment Pools
(which I gather are rather like group auditions)
Applicant to the Financial Giant J.P. Morgan Stanley
Half of Matt and Emma
Recaller of the Tiny Details of the Political Machinations of the Alma Mater
(and Extensive Recounter thereof)
Drinker of Blue Drinks
Giver of Earfuls
Former Partner-In-Crime

I can't really remember half the people she mentions in conversation. My mind is going is my excuse. That time I puked so hard vessels burst in my eyes cleared away most of 2004-2005. Don't mind me, I'm listening.

She says, "You know, [insert favorite teacher here] once told me that she was worried about you. Sort of unsure of where you would end up. Of who you'd be." I open my mouth to speak as this is news to me, but these days it's hard to get a word in edgewise. The last time we saw each other, she was but two days out of the removal of her wisdom teeth and still talked my ear off for nigh on seven turnings of the hour. I think, "We're not all that different, you and me, scrabbling for happiness on this unhappy plain."

I think, "Remember the evening when we were at school late and no one was around and it was pouring (like it is tonight) and we ran out onto the field made of ASTROTURF and dumped cans of Coke onto their precious and expensive lacrosse/field hockey pitch in an act of nascent radical violence? Before we knew those words? And how we howled in the night and ran giggling back inside to the stares of our less-bedraggled classmates and winked at each other for the offense we had committed? Do you remember? Well, do you?"

Exit Em Le Fay
Helena to my Hermia
Shylock to my Bassanio
One Half of a Pair of Strange Little Girls
Citizen of My Heart

BAO!

PUDDLE BRAINS UPDATE

TODAY, MY FRIENDS, ETHAN (AKA TOAST) BECAME A HERO.

HE SCREWED MY BRIDGE PIERCING BACK TOGETHER WHEN I MADE IT FALL OUT FROM FIDDLING WITH IT TOO MUCH. HE EVEN TOOK SOME NICE LITTLE CHUNK OF DEAD SKIN OFF OF THE SCREW.

INDEED.

Puddle brains: a fairytale

I want to post because it's been a whole whopping two days since someone wrote something and this blog should writhe like the tentacles its named after. But, I'm sleepy and it's very cold outside so my brains have denatured (oh you say but heat makes things denature not cold - that's why this is fairytale obvi) and I can't think of much to say. Other than:

I saw Toast's doppleganger today near Millenium Park.

I want to be in Edinburgh so badly right now.

I wish my hair were a duvet so I could fall asleep in it at work.

And with the sandwich of thoughts, I have a question! Are there any signifiers, archetypes, characters, totems, or historical figures you heavily identify with? This inquiring puddle mind wants to know.