we were getting a cab somewhere far. halfway through the long drive, i leaned my head on your shoulder and we fell asleep. then we decided not to go to the far place after all, but the cabbie said we'd have to pay him the 80 dollars anyway. so we figured we'd stay in the cab for our allotted time. we got him to pull into the parking lot of the sydney shopping center, piled high with snowdrifts, and snuggled in the back of the cab as the muffly quiet snow fell all around.

i was singing a song, it was awesome (i can't remember it now) but it was OUR song, and you said you never used to like it, but now that you had your old job back, you liked it very much.

it was very warm and cozy.

i gave birth to a baby girl.
she was amazing. i already had two young boys, but i didn't care for them much. this, this was perfect. she was so small and beautiful. it didn't hurt at all and only took like 5 minutes. i delivered her myself. i was worried i left the cord too long. no words could describe how much peace and happiness i felt when i looked at her and held her. she was so small, and pink, and she never made a sound.

i couldn't decide what to name her. the whole time i was thinking. the best i could come up with was "helen" or "alice". but even then, i wasn't quite satisfied. no name could be as pretty as she was.

the father was my ex, dan. i called him up to let him know, even though i didn't want him to be in the child's life. he had his own life going on. i went up to show him the baby, and clayton took two pictures of my crinkly foot and one of me with the baby and posted them on locals. i looked really happy in the one with the baby.

then i was playing a show with mike o and j-vo in the cb highlands. after we were done i told them i'd given birth earlier that day, and i couldn't wait to get home to see my baby. they were pretty impressed. i think mike announced it over the P.A.

then i had to decide which way to go home. there were two routes, one on a regular highway, the other went through these crazy spiky mountains that were packed super tight. it was a windy trail with wooden ladders. i started walking that way while on the phone with my dad, i told him the ladder i was on ha some snow on it and he told me to come home the other way. i agreed.

i was trying to sing the song "goodbye rubberhead, so long boob" by stompin tom, but i couldn't remember the words in the middle. my mom couldn't remember either.

i was grocery shopping. i fit all the pop in my bookbag, two different sizes of bottles. it was a tight squeeze. it was a miracle of physics, actually. it was only when i got near the checkout that i realized i'd have to take them out to scan them and then try to put them back in. i knew i'd never be able to do it.

the checkout was weird. these long blue conveyor belts, so long that you couldn't tell if there was a cashier at the other end, were spinning very fast. you put your food on the lower belt and it zipped away. so i put my food, some apples, bananas and green peppers, on the belt.

the food started coming back to me, all sliced up. at first i was mad, but then i realized the king was standing next to me, and he wanted the veggies for a sandwich.

i bought a plane ticket to bermuda on a whim.

when i got there, i mostly stayed in a room with some people who were cooking potatoes and stew. they kept trying to feed me huge plates. in the next room over there was a piano. i could see the beach from the room but it was dark out.

i looked at a map and tried to decide where i would go on my next trip.

i looked out my window to see a group of people standing in the yard across the street, looking up with awed expressions on their faces. when i looked to see what they were looking at, i'm sure my face took on that same expression.

there was a large black man in the sky. he was swooping from side to side, like a giant leaf, defying gravity, and slowly descending to the ground in graceful arcs. every once in a while he'd throw in a flourish and go up a bit higher before starting to descend.

he neared the ground, and the arcs got shorter. he came impossibly close to the ground without touching, but finally, with an impact-absorbing somersault, he landed on his feet to the wild applause of everyone around him. i found myself applauding too, in my house across the street, even though no one could hear me.

the people were talking to him. i knew what they had to be saying. and sure enough after a few minutes, he crouched down, and leaped up into the air. the leap itself was incredible, i've never seen anyone jump so high. he began to contort and stretch his body, pumping the air with it, until he was up above the power lines. it wasn't magic or anything, he just knew how to exploit the air pressure, like a giant bird. he didn't go as high this time as he did the previous time, but it was still amazing. this time instead of staying in roughly the same place, he travelled through the air, ending up on my side of the road. when he landed i clapped again, and no one heard me.

i felt like i should go over and see him, i walked to the store, but i was too embarrassed to talk to him so i just sat on the step. he seemed busy, there were other people bugging and bugging him for autographs, i don't think he liked it. then they all started walking down the street in a big procession, the man included, and i watched them leave.

---------------------------------------

a kid came into my store. he looked upset. he told me to call 911, tears welling in his eyes. no questions asked, i dial the number and hand the phone to him. i can hear the operator's voice coming out of the receiver as he takes it in his hands. the kid holds the phone out away from him and won't tell the operator what is wrong. i said "tell her what's wrong!" and he shakes his head. i took the phone and explained the situation to the operator "this kid looks upset, he said to call 911, but now just won't say anything". the operator explains the kid probably didn't have a real problem (she was probably right), and they were going to charge the store 50 bucks for the fake 911 call.

-----------------------------------------

i was at a function of some sort, in a large city. there was lots of confusion with getting lost, getting separated from others in this big mall thing. i tried to take my mom for sushi, but the restaurant was almost closed, and the guy gave us something totally different from my order. i was very disappointed.

so then i had to go in the big auditorium and hear the speech. i was acting the way any teenager would act in this situation, bored. i found a seat on some stairs next to a cute boy i had seen earlier in the week. we had to sit really close together because there were so many people jostling to sit down. he started talking to me, he told me he had just turned 17. i decided he was way too young. but he was trying to hold my hand. we talked a bit more, then one of the supervisors came over to shush us. it was the actress who plays cally on grey's anatomy. i mouthed the words "oh my god! i love your show!" to her, and she nodded and smiled and moved on.

we were in the many storied building, kind of like holy redeemer gym, to see a rapper from the 80s. a smattering of crowd, but then everyone had to move out of the way. the horse race was coming through. it was the slowest moving horse race in the universe. they looked like they were running full speed, but in slow motion or something.

i went upstairs to look out the window, in a small corner office room. there went the horse race, around the block and then back into the building and up the stairs and through the little room i was in.

-----------------------------------------------

i was playing a show with tom fun. i ordered some sushi at a restaurant before we played. i got a huge meal made up in a styrofoam container. two dragon rolls and a bunch of other stuff. i was so excited to eat it.

we got on the stage, which was the highest stage in the world. like 19 feet high. in this huge room. there was no one in the crowd. literally. darren was standing in this giant empty room. he made us play a few songs anyway, i suppose to fulfill the contract.

so i swung off the edge of the stage, hanging down, and then let go and dropped to the floor. it didn't even hurt my feet. as i walked toward the place where my sushi was supposed to be, i had a sinking feeling in my stomach. i forgot it at the restaurant! like 100 bucks worth of sushi i was looking so forward to eating! the others were saying not to make a big deal of it, just go get more. that's what i was going to do anyway, but i wasn't happy about having to spend that money again. obviously i was pissed.

i was in the bathtub.
just having a normal bath.
suddenly i blink, and things are in a slightly different position. i know exactly what has happened. someone has been in here. i was made unconscious somehow, and woken up again.
but they weren't careful enough. i know that shower head was a few inches to the right.
i am in full panic and fear and discomfort. someone was in here. why?
and if they have the ability to knock me out without my even noticing, how come they were so unskilled as to not leave things in the same position? maybe they wanted me to know they'd been in here. that i was always vulnerable.
i started searching frantically along the walls. and right there, by my head, in an obvious place, was what i was looking for. a bug.
it looked like a watch battery and was stuck to the wall with a little rubbery glue.
i picked it up in the palm of my hand.

i knew that this wasn't the only one. there was no effort made to conceal it, so it was clearly put there to distract from the real bug. i had to decide whether to pretend i thought this was the only bug and i'd found it. i felt that since i couldn't find the real one, there was no sense in pretending i was falling for their plan. it seemed too simple anyway, almost insulting. they'd know i knew. there was something else going on.

so i screamed for help. no one paid any attention to me. i had to run down and show them. i cut the bug into tiny pieces with a pair of scissors as i explained there was definitely another one around here somewhere.

i had no idea what else to do.

my house
occasionally disappeared and reappeared somewhere else
and looked different every time
i only knew
it was mine
by the front door
which stayed the same

but now
so completely comfortable.
why did i lie down in the dewy grass?
because it was worth it.
i saw you
through the mist
squinting a bit
with the sun on my eyelashes
and your arms wrapped round me
giddy, joyful, glowing, comfort, content

we were going up and up a million spiral stairs in a cylindrical clock tower, or maybe it was a windmill. the higher it got the more nerve wracking it was, the stairs were rickety, and the tower jolted from side to side as the mechanism in the center, a large wooden pole with perpendicular poles for counterweights coming off at odd intervals, swung around and around.

once we got to a certain level, our friends were there suddenly. after walking and walking up all these stairs, we demanded how they got there so fast. they pointed out an "elevator" which was actually a bucket on a rope. i was just about ready to get in the bucket to try it, when i saw a group of people going up to the very top of the tower, higher than we were planning to go, because we weren't sure if it was safe. these people looked like a group with a tour guide and everything so i went to follow them. i really wanted to look out the window.

the walk up was very difficult, i kept being thrown against the railings by the swaying of the tower, which made me feel like i would fall over the side. at the top of the tower, there were huge, furnished rooms, almost like you'd find in a victorian era mansion. the people were gathered around the tour guide, near a big window. i couldn't feel the movement of the tower any more.

i asked to use the washroom and was directed down a long narrow hallway (how did this fit on top of the narrow tower? i had no idea). the washroom was weird, the toilet was really low and had a plastic covering that kept coming off because it was overflowing water onto the floor. i couldn't sit on it and it soaked my jeans. i saw a small ring or something on the floor and picked it up and put it in my pocket. i was a small dark-skinned girl with long long black hair.

when i came out of the room the place was in an uproar. the tour guide was looking for the jewel i had, and i got the impression that no good would come of it if i gave it to him. i tried to hide the tiny bulge in my jeans pocket, but the tour guide's female partner noticed it. she pretended she hadn't, and said "oh look at your wet jeans! i have another pair you could change into, just your size! come with me".

it was dark,
we were going to the mall.
devon, me, my boss's brother, and one or two others.
we were all dressed in our fancy clothes.
it was winter.
i tried to go into the mall but the lights were off, or the doors were locked.
it was the biggest building i'd ever seen, this mall. huge doors.
i came to a door that was open.
it was blocked by ice. a big chunk of ice suspended in the middle of the door by several thin filaments (how did it form? did someone put it there?)
we were determined to get in,
so i wrapped my arms around the chunk of ice and pushed it forward with my chest and belly.
the icicle strands broke and i dropped the chunk on the floor.
at that moment, donnie and his friend strolled by outside the now-open doorway.
he was dressed really fancy, maybe he was wearing a top-hat.
it was all very casual.

we were opening for oasis i guess.

we had to walk through this giant crowded mall to get to the backstage area. we didn't have our passes. we somehow figured out where the secret door was in the mall that let you go backstage. as we went to open the door a uniformed lady stopped us and asked to see our passes. we talked our way past her.

under the mall were long, maze-like corridors. the walls, floor and ceiling were concrete and painted blue. there were no signs. it was really confusing and a little scary, because i wasn't sure i could find my way back to where we started, and the corridors were so narrow i felt claustrophobic.

finally after walking for what felt like forever, i came out onto this metal framework thing, hanging in the air. i realized i was over the stage. on the lighting rig or something. i was trying to figure out how i'd get down off it. the drop looked pretty short at first, but on second glance i was REALLY far from the ground. i imagined the shock and pain in my legs if i tried to jump.

just then the stage manager came out. i thought i would get in trouble because i wasn't supposed to be there. but he wasn't mad, he started talking to me. he thought i was his new apprentice i guess. he pressed a button and the thing i was on lowered slowly to the ground.

---------------------------------------------------

somehow i ended up in newfoundland by accident. i don't know how it happened, whoever i was with ended up going to newfoundland while i thought we were going somewhere else. so there i was in st john's. i met up with the hey rosettas, and they were kind of showing me around, but one by one they had to go off and do stuff on their own. me and whoever was left were thinking about going to a restaurant. then i realized i could call ruth, i had her number. this was awesome.

but then i realized her number had one too many digits in it. it was like 757-08765.
i didn't know which number was the wrong one. i tried a few combinations but none of them worked. so i called 411.

i explained to the guy my problem. he seemed really confused. he didn't really want to help me. i had to bug him to do it. "just look up RUTH S in mount pearl. i can even tell you if it's the right number by looking at the numbers i have here". he seemed to think it was a privacy issue.

but finally he put my call through.

oh great, i wish someone had warned me. i came here expecting to see a band i liked and now this is happening.
now here i am, totally vulnerable, embarrassed. i don't want to be here. and now SHE walks in. the worst person to ever see when this is going on. i feel guilty, i feel angry, a little scared. her sister looks at me with hate.

oh well, at least all my friends are here. wait, where is everyone?

i recognize a friend walking in the door. i wave enthusiastically, but... his sarcastic mocking face is strange to me. how did i think that was my friend? that guy is a complete stranger.

i am upset. i go to the washroom. HER sister is in there. she tells me, in her low way that i had better watch out, because she decided it was time i got what was coming to me. she said she had a friend, who would go to my house some day and kick the shit out of me. i told her to send him over, see if i care. but it was an act.

i need to get out of here. i walk toward the door and FINALLY see someone i know. she told me everyone was on the other side of the building watching yvette play. i am relived. that is where i belong, not here. i set off.

--------------------------------------------------------

something terrible happened to HER. she was attacked. i was consoling her. we we chatting like old friends. i knew everything would be all right as i was asking her if she still had the same phone number.

--------------------------------------------------------

i was somewhere that looked like ashby, but it had insane geological formations like nowhere else in the world. i was walking down near whitney avenue when i saw a grassy area. i walked toward it and i saw a mound of rock, inside a plane of smooth rock, like a fried egg shape. the mound of rock was GUSHING water. i somehow knew how it was happening, another smooth plane of rock under the ground was creating pressure. the mound of rock in the centre was actually a column of spongy porous rock, so the pressure caused water from below to shoot out.

i had to go and get the others to see it.

SHE suggested we stop at the bakery which was in the temple on whitney ave. it was a really fancy bakery. she bought the biggest donut i had ever seen in my entire life, it was more of a cake. i asked for a bite, she was reluctant to let me taste the icing but i insisted. it was delicious. the cake-nut had a trough in the top which held a ton of icing. really great icing too.

i wondered if i should get a donut-cake too, but i looked around a bit. there were glass cases with the really fancy cakes in them. the glass was very dirty and scratched. in these little glass dishes there was some sort of thing with fluffy pink stuff floating beneath a smooth surface covered in what looked like cinnamon.

i saw some little poppy-seed cakes that looked like they were baked in a soup-bowl. they were on display on little stands, rounded side down, at an artistic angle. the tops were cut into pointy, windswept shapes. they looked a bit like flowers. i thought i'd get one of those.

i couldn't believe how dirty and scratched the glass was, though.

my sister and some other people and i went to see david suzuki in an arena thing. at one point everyone put on roller-skates and there was some sort of competiton. devon either won or was on the winning team. i wasn't even trying to win, i didn't understand the game.

i LOVED my rollerskates though, they were bright red. i decided i would keep them. i went to the washroom with my bag and folded the rollerskates up and fit them in and changed my shoes. my shoes were bright red too. almost immediately someone started questioning me about the rollerskates. someone was defending me, and i said i had already returned them, so i figured they had no way to prove it. i hoped they didn't ask to search my bag.

i was somewhere with dave and another person. their cell phones went off at the same time. the way it worked was that when a cell phone rang, it became huge, and you got on it and jumped around as if it was a pogo stick while it was ringing. i did not find this funny, but the ring tones they were using for their phones cracked me up so much, i woke up laughing.

my cousin's wife, karen, requested to be buried alive on the right side of our house. of all the ways you could do yourself in, i wondered why she would choose this one. but we complied.

a few months later we accidentally dug her up. she was still alive. very thin, but otherwise not really upset at having been buried alive starving to death for months alone in the dark. she seemed fine, emotionally, other than having decided against the whole being buried alive thing. i wondered if she previously had an adverse reaction, screaming and so on, but we just didn't hear her, and now she had come to accept her fate and yet was pleasantly surprised at her good fortune.

i called 911 for two ambulances. i don't remember who the other one was for. i remember thinking the other person probably didn't need an ambulance, and wondering if i would get in trouble, and who would have to pay for the ambulance if i called it accidentally. the guy on the 911 line told me to stay on the line, but once i got distracted by those thoughts i hung up without thinking. i was happy to see the ambulance pulling in for poor karen though.

----------------------------------------

i somehow convinced my parents to come traveling with me. we went to dharamsala, which was a small island in the middle of what looked like a river on the map but was actually an ocean. india looked alot like siberia once we got there, the people were all dressed in russian clothes.

we were in the hotel lobby, i smiled at a chinese man, and he said "i speak english". i said "i was just smiling", as if he had insulted me.

the island was beautiful. there were breaking waves along the cliffy shores, and actually a clear green glacier dipping into the ocean. the glacier was lit from below by spotlights under the ocean, so it glowed. it looked amazing.

we ran into the production crew from one of those action adventure shows. the premise was that a young boy would brave the elements and swim across the cold choppy water to get to the island. i was very worried about him. the waves pounded against the cliffs very forcefully.

i suggested to my parents that we go see the taj mahal the next morning.

i was at a park with jack and dan. we were watching frisbee / basketball. a young thin will smith was the star of the team.

then we left the park, dan realized he wanted to get a special burger you can only get in the park. the concrete was slippery and covered in fine sand.

we ran into a friend of jack and dan's, she said she'd drive me to the pier, but first she invited me in for supper. her parents and two younger sisters were there. they were having the most delicious looking salad for supper.

i was watching the younger sister feed the baby the salad. the baby had one of those cone things around her neck (the ones that dogs get when they have an operation), except hers was a glass bowl. it was almost filled up with salad dressing and water. the baby was immersed in it, but would crane her neck to get out of the water to breathe or get another bite of salad. i was upset by this so i tipped the salad dressing out of the baby's neck bowl onto the floor.

the salad had real eggs and fake eggs in it, and i was cleaning the baby's face with paper towel that wasn't made of paper.

somehow i had a closet full of magic dresses all of a sudden. the dresses were all made of this very thick material, like as thick as a comforter. i put one on, and i felt better, but i couldn't figure out how to wear it. it came with these thick satiny boots, and a hat. every time i tried to go out of the house i realized something was wrong with my magic dress. i wanted to wear the hat, and i wouldn't be able to take it off because my hair was all wispy and unwashed. so i walked out the door with it on, and then realized it wasn't on anymore. i wanted to wear a sweater under it but i kept accidentally putting on other people's sweaters (they were even different colors than my sweater). also, i had a full moustache. i wanted to girls to agree to stop and get some facial waxing thing. i could see that one of them had a blonde moustache too. i couldn't believe we never noticed we had full whiskery moustaches before.

we were in the car, on the way home. my parents were in the front seats. they seemed upset. "are you going to tell her?" they asked each other. i demanded to know. they told me that since my female dog, sady, was now obviously pregnant, they had my male dog, jake, put to sleep. they said he was bothering her and that they wouldn't trust him with the puppies. i was incensed! surely there were other things we could have done... we could have given him away, he was a beautiful friendly dog. or we could have even kept him upstairs in our house until the puppies were grown up. i had the feeling they planned to put him down in this event and kept it secret from me the whole time. i felt so frustrated and betrayed and sad.


---------------------------------------------------

my dad and i were walking the perimeter of a newly sown field. parts had plants sprouting, and parts were just black, tilled earth. it was night time, but there was bright moonlight bathing everything. i felt totally peaceful. i was walking along these 2 wooden planks that were on the edge. i wanted to walk around the whole field, but we came upon a house and my dad thought we were on someone else's property so we turned back the way we came. i touched the black soil and it was soft and cool and light because it had just been turned.
we came upon a shed and dad made me go in and use the CB radio. i was making an announcement, but i don't remember what it was. he said it was my chance to make him proud.

i wanted to go to a festival in newfoundland. i just decided to go. i was at the college, i thought they could probably rent me a dorm room for the duration of the festival. i ended up in the baby area of the college. just tons of soft mats on the floor, kind of like baby corrals. babies everywhere. i was waiting and waiting at the counter for the lady to answer my questions about the dorms. i saw zach atkinson, he was in charge of the festival. he didn't seem to recognize me, though. then someone told me the festival went on for a whole month. that was upsetting. i didn't have that kind of money. i had to take the programme for the festival and sit and think hard about which bands i really wanted to see.

i was on an airplane with aaron corbett. it was a happy feeling. the plane was very spacious. there was entertainment on the plane too. i couldn't wait. then andrew from share came running down the aisle of the plane with his shirt tied around his waist, strumming a guitar and singing / screaming nirvana songs. he was clearly loaded. later in the flight he threw up on one of the seats.

i wanted to go in the back part of the plane, it was almost like a veranda, you could get a breath of air and it wasn't cramped back there at all. i started walking back but the air hostess gave me a dirty look and said i wasn't allowed back there because of what my "friend just did". i was pissed. i barely knew the guy and just because he was drunk and threw up all over the plane didn't mean i was going to.

----------------------------------------------

i was in my new apartment. i was trying and trying not to make a mess because i felt so lazy i didn't want to clean anything. the apartment was grimy and dingy enough. i invited some girls over and tried to pretend i wasn't annoyed that i had to give them glasses to have their drinks in. all i could think of was how hard it would be to clean up. also the apartment was really quite dirty.

then i was in a car with a british girl i met overseas. i was trying to give her directions to get to my place but the roads were very weird and the buildings were tall and i couldn't see past them and she was going super fast. it was down on bentinck street by daniels, and it was familiar but when we got there i could barely remember the directions and there seemed to be more streets than i remembered.

then i was at my house. my dog was about to go up the stairs, because i forgot to leave the gate up. i was upset because he could get to my new apartment by going up the stairs even though my apartment was across town. one of the girls had broken the tiny custard cup that i gave her her drink in, and i was afraid my dog would eat it.

---------------------------------------------------------

we went to see the oracle or fortune teller or clairvoyant or whatever. we saw him on the grassy plain. he told me a lion would be coming after me. i was super nervous because lions are the most terrifying things that exist in the entire world. i went in my bedroom and left the door open a crack and looked through the crack constantly. i could see the hallway and then the rest of the house was just like a savannah. the lion was coming towards me.

today was the day the final 2 crocodiles had arrived. a man brought them on the back of his truck in green plastic garbage bins.

my dad was keeping weird and dangerous animals in my garage. he had 2 boa constrictors, 4 crocodiles, a lion and a panther in my garage.

my dad kept getting me to come in the garage and admire his "pets" but naturally i was scared witless. i was constantly trying to tell him that if one of the snakes squeezed through a crack in the barn door and made off with a neighborhood child he'd be in big trouble, but he'd have none of it. not to mention that these animals couldn't possibly be in a pleasant state of mind, hanging out in a dark tiny barn all day avoiding the other dangerous animals.

but i went in to see because my dad insisted. i ended up in a compromising position, where the panther started stalking me around the barn, the faster i moved the more eagerly it followed me. i ended up having to flick the flashlight in my hand to distract it and get it to stop following me. i got out of the barn as quick as i could.

my main concern in all of this was my small dog. i was sure one of the snakes or crocs would eat her.

there were people looking for me. the police were involved. there was a reward for me, dead or alive. it was for something i didn't know would make me a fugitive, reading a book i wasn't supposed to read or something. the posted a sign on my front door, saying there was a 1000 dollar reward for catching me (it was a poor neighborhood). they didn't know i was still in the house, because every time they came, i hid in the top part of my closet. but one day about 50 people came in my house with rifles and they saw me in the closet and pointed them at me. the jig was up.

-------------------------------

i was at an amusement park with my grandmother. i was wondering what ride she could go on that wouldn't be to scary for her. i figured i shouldn't take her on any, because she was really old and senile.

-------------------------------

we drove through a town. we were looking for a certain building. the first part of the town was crowded with shitty looking houses but we didn't see any people. as we were nearing the normal part of town, we saw two people lying on the ground, right next to the road. they were dead. there was a baby nearby. i tried to call 911 but the call wouldn't go through. i tried to call 411 to find out the emergency number, but they told us a cult leader had instructed the cult members to kill themselves the night before. we wondered if we should take the baby with us.

i walked through a town and into the giant boat. it was like a coast guard boat. they said we had to pick a bunk before lights out, but the one i went into had two strangers in it so i went out, and the lights went out. i couldn't find anyone.

i started cutting my hair in the bathroom using a knife. it was an insanely sharp knife, it cut through the hair so easy. i walked out all proud of myself and i said to someone "look! i cut my own hair, with a knife." and they said "yeah, i can tell. it looks gross."

i was heartbroken.

i killed 6 people, but they caught me. jian gomeshi was doing the lie detector test. i thought i might be able to get away with it, since no one actually suspected me. we were near mt. sinai. i wondered if a priest could forgive me, or if he'd just call the cops and tell them what i had done.

this crazy cougar-ish lady kept showing up at the office. she was the most obnoxious person i had ever come across before in my life, and she refused to leave. i finally figured out she was only coming to the office to steal music paraphernalia (there was a guy who worked there who collected old rock and roll stuff).

i called the police on her, but they were on vacation. they would only come out if the situation was threatening to someone's life. they listened to me bemusedly and then asked "and does this sound to you as if someone's life is in danger? well, then you can figure it out for yourself." i was filled with frustration. i saw her grab a bunch of lanyard festival passes off of the wall of an office.

i wanted to punch her in the face, but she was a wiry old cougar. i had plans of blowing up the office building just so i could kill her.

something about a big old rambling house, and a fun mission we were about to embark on outside in the cold crisp air. i was singing celine dion's song from titanic and "one fine day" by mariah carey and boyz 2 men as a lark. it was really fun and lighthearted.

i went to see a crazy concert in a giant building. randy curnew from c'mon was there with some of his crazy friends. i was just about to leave when i saw mike o set up to play. i went and sat as close to the front as i possibly could. i accidentally unplugged his monitor. i was embarrassed at myself for acting so familiar, when in fact we'd only barely met. but it was all ok when he started playing one of my songs in his own awesome style. i felt like i was floating above the ground.

------------------------------------

the band was playing in china. ian told me carmen was going to come and sing with us, so i decided to quit the band and go travelling in japan. morgan walked me to the airport. i realized when i got to the airport that i didn't have my passport with me. i was going to sit there and wait until they made me a new one.

------------------------------------

i thought i might be pregnant. i kept throwing up in the bushes. but the pregnancy test was too vague, it was like "light purple if you're pregnant, dark purple if you're not". i couldn't tell if it was light or dark purple. i thought it was a pretty stupid test.

my mom and i stood on the beach, watching the big waves break. i loved the moment when they curled over and turned white, and the perfect arc broke into foamy clouds. we waded out, felt the strong push as they hit our stomachs, and the pull on our legs, sinking our feet into the sand.

the waves kept growing bigger and bigger, almost knocking us over, so we walked closer and closer to shore. soon the waves were taller than a person, and we were intimidated. they rose up, and cast long shadows on the shore.

the first one to go was christina from grey's anatomy. she was standing on a car in the middle of the beach. she was the only one out so far. she thought she was tough, thought she would dare the waves, but she wasn't looking behind her. she didn't see how high it towered up. it was as big as a house. it had a frightening power. like a solid wall. it moved so quickly toward her, we didn't even see her disappear. we knew she'd get caught in the swirling undertow.

the next wave came from very far away. all of the water sucked back from the beach. it soared up into the sky, higher than a skyscraper, blocking out the sunlight.
my mom and i started to run, we had to get off the beach onto higher ground. i was trying to figure out where to go, would the buildings fall down? should we try to go on a roof? on foot there were not too many options of escape.

even with this terrifying wave, i scanned the top, needing to see the moment it turned white and started to break.

we had a bit of time, so we were rifling through our belongings in our dresser. i tried to put on as many layers of clothing as i could. i knew this place would be under water if i ever came back. my dad put on his raingear, and i put on thermal socks. it was freezing.

i was on the road, somewhere, and i found that someone had read my journal. they left a little note in it, i didn't recognize the handwriting. it wasn't such a big deal, because there was nothing in it, but the fact they did it and were so mean about it was totally unnerving. i was too upset to do anything, so i asked albert to drive me home. morgan was in the car too, and he and jenna found what happened really funny. it broke my heart, and i felt sick to my stomach. we stopped at a light and melissa was outside of the car, leaning in and asking albert if he had a cigarette lighter. she smiled at me mockingly.

when i got home, i thought i would hide my journal away, planned to lock it in a locked box. but when i got home, i found that the box was open, and all my other journals were scattered about, and the lock was missing. that was insane, this person broke into my house to get to my stuff. i looked in the diaries, and there were notes for me there too, detailing horrible things i've done, calling me a horrible person, saying i deserved to be miserable. just brutal stuff. they even started to get more violent and threatening.

it was a terrible nightmare.

i was going to jam with mike o'neill at his house, which was on taylor street. which was for some reason really long. we drove up and down the street, unable to find his house, even though i'd been there before. finally, i saw him in the window. all the houses looked exactly the same except one, which was white with faint purple speckles, or polka dots, and of course this was the one he lived in.

when i got there i brought way too much gear inside, 2 guitars, 2 amps, and i accidentally brought the left-handed banjo in with me. there was a party going on downstairs, but we were going to jam up the stairs and on the landing in front of the second floor.

mike came down to the living room as i was bringing some more stuff in, and said he wasn't able to jam after all, but that i should enjoy the party. some people were playing guitars, one guy played a song that jack macintosh had written. it had beautiful chords and weird lyrics. i realized that lachie was there, and i was so excited. he had gotten a haircut, and was totally clean shaven and looked really young. he was there with rachael gurstein. i asked lachie if we could jam, and he said he didn't know any of my songs, but i had meant we should jam horses songs.

henry from the show ugly betty was there with his girlfriend. she was this pig nosed lady who always comes in my store to buy papers while reeking of pot. she didn't like me at all, every time i would knock something over or something like that she would yell out "alicia's knocking over your things on purpose. everyone keep an eye on her, she's up to no good!"

later henry and i were watching a movie in my spare room, and i realized he had put his hand in my sweater pocket, so we were holding hands through my sweater.
and that was the end.

i was making myself some toast when i noticed right next to the toaster a package of toast-flavored french fries.

we were at a restaurant, and for some reason i ordered a hot dog, on a subway bun with just mayonnaise (and lots of it.) it was one of the grossest things i had ever tasted.
i also stole a plane.

a terrifying nightmare:

something had broken into the house and ripped open my friend's mom's body. i walked in and she was white, her stomach was gaping, blood spattered all over the room. i was paralyzed with fear, unable to breathe.

at first i thought it was some kind of paranormal beast or spirit. that is the kind of thing i can't deal with.

but later i realized there had been a strange cube shaped object in the room. the same object that was now in the room with the three of us. we figured out that it could give off high pitched frequencies that were capable of doing any number of bad things to a person. as we talked it over, looking fearfully at the object, a switch flipped over and it started to tick.

i ran for the door, followed by the other two. after i crossed the threshold, they stopped running after me. i was sure they knew how important it was to get as far away from this thing as possible. i looked back to urge them to hurry, and they were not in the room, and there was no other exit besides the door i was standing in front of. i felt like i was going to throw up.

first, there were a bunch of people in my backyard, performing some sort of ceremony. i don't know what it was, but it reeked of reality tv. all i remember is holding hands and kissing someone. his hands and lips were very dry, and it was awkward but i really liked him.

then we were traveling home from somewhere not that far away. we really needed to stop for a bathroom break so we did. for some reason you had to walk through a great big mall to get to the gas station with the bathrooms. the mall seemed to go on forever, it was all hippy textile stores with hand made hats and things. sidney was there and she was so excited because of all of the wool stores.
finally we got through to the other side, and we noticed right away that there was a lineup of like 100 people waiting to get in to the gas station, because all of the bathrooms were broken except one. notwithstanding how disgusting that one bathroom would be by the time we reached it, we just couldn't wait that long.

we went across the street to see if a different store had a b-room. it didn't look too promising. but then a big fat local asshole who was sitting there started insulting me. i was in such a bad mood i started screaming right back at him, and before you know it, it was a full blown physical fight. all of my punches and kicks were less forceful than i expected them to be, but i still think i managed to hold my own. all i wanted in life was to hurt this guy.
after the fight he and his two friends came over with their pants down, and acting all macho, said "see this honey?" and i said "NO, I CAN'T ACTUALLY, YOU'RE TOO FAT!" and then they went away. haha.

we ended up in the shop, which was selling food, and i couldn't hear at all out of one ear, because he had punched me. i could feel blood trickling down my ear, but i covered it up with my hair because i felt cool from being in a fight and didn't want anyone feeling sorry for me.
in the store, waiting for the food to be ready, i was sitting next to the boy again from the first part, and he awkwardly and slowly took my hand again. it felt just the same - very dry. but then he turned into someone else, and he made a comment about how MY hands are dry, but he was going to get some of this awesome hand cream and make them very soft.

if we went to level 7 of the parking garage, it was an archaeological site. set up like a mine. we got in trouble because when everyone goes in the parking garage they have to sign in, and we didn't sign out because we were sneaking onto level 7 so people thought we had disappeared.

a new sport was happening in certain places in the world. it was called 'rolling'. certain beaches had rock structures under water that affected huge waves in a certain way. once the waves formed a tunnel, they sucked underwater and created an inverse wave. people were surfing in these incredibly dangerous phenomena.
i was telling someone about it on my cell phone, while driving along the crest of a wave in an SUV (as long as you drive really fast, the waves were so compact you could drive on them. you just had to be careful not to fall in the hole).

later, the band was staying in a cabin-like hotel. we were too loud so someone called the cops. darren and albert went outside to deal with it.
then we were in a mall, and we saw a book about what had happened written by a french guest of the hotel. it was typed out in a french accent, like "zen we were in zee 'otel". it told the story about the female cop beating darren up outside of the hotel. i couldn't believe someone could make a book and have it on the shelves in like 2 weeks.

we were playing at a big festival.

i was with shane selling t-shirts in this little shack.

after a while, i realized i could hear the band playing. as i went on stage i tried to pretend i was late getting there on purpose, for effect, but i could tell they were sort of pissed at me. (no one came to tell me we were playing. they all knew i was selling t-shirts)

the show was pretty terrible, we were getting cut off way too early. the next band was on the stage as we were playing, setting up their stuff. one guy walked by me and i yelled at him to get off the stage because i thought it was darryl. but it was actually the drummer for the other band. i was embarrassed but i don't know why.

for some reason it was so quiet on the stage that i could hear people talking, so i told the guy i thought he looked like darryl.

then i walked over to the opposite end of the stage to say something to the sound guy, and when i was done i walked back out to my spot, but then i realized no one was on the stage. they were all clumped together on either side, and darcy was on stage dancing with his shirt off. it was awkward, but i pretended i did it on purpose again.

as the set ended, rory came up to me and patted my knee, saying "that was a very brave and stupid thing to do" and then he walked away.

i was in purgatory?

people who were in a hurry in life fell into quicksand and couldn't get anywhere fast.
people who were evil turned into blank shells like zombies.
some people went in and their lives were pretty much the same, except they had to walk 50 miles to be closer to the people in their families, if they wanted to see them.
i was paddling around in the quicksand, but my paddle had no traction, it was almost smooth. very ineffective. still, i used it to swim out and save my friend who didn't even have a paddle. i found all the punishments to be ironic and very fitting.

i had grown a thick, black mustache.
i also had no money.

so i was going around to various spas seeing what their rates were like for waxing a mustache. everything was too expensive.

one of the places i went to was a crazy 10 star hotel. i ended up wandering into a room with all kinds of liqueurs hanging up on the walls. on a table in the middle there was a book with all the prices in it. like, if you wanted an extra knife or fork sent to your room, it was $4. i thought about how rich the guests must be to afford crazy things like that.

as i was leaving the room (obviously the mustache waxing was WAY too expensive), i bumped into something and one of the bottles of alcohol poured a shot into a glass automatically. a worker walked in and said i would have to pay for it. i decided to make it a double. it was called courvoisier. i had to pay the girl $16, but it was quite yummy and worth it. i brought it into the lobby to let my friends taste it.

someone kept leaving things in my trunk. in cardboard boxes, with little notes on them. just little things, but it gave me the creeps that someone was around leaving random objects in my trunk. how did they get in there? there were several of us, and there would be a note for each of us. one day i went and opened my trunk, and there were two giant boxes in the trunk. these boxes said they were especially for me. my stomach turned as i lifted the flap of one, and saw the top of a person's head. i knew that there was a person's body in the other box too. at first, i was sure the person stalking us was a random stranger, but i began to panic more and more as i realized i couldn't trust any of my three friends, the two girls or the boy.

i was at smooth hermans in another city.
i had had 2 beer before i even got there, but once i was there, and throughout the whole show, i drank water.

dave was getting rowdy and the bartender kicked him out. then they tried to kick me out too. i was so furious, because their reasoning was that i was drunk and rowdy, and i was in fact neither.

i screamed my head off and made a giant scene. i refused to leave. they eventually just stood by and waited for me to leave, and i took my time, even though i knew i was going to be kicked out eventually.

as i left through the gate, i saw the bouncers letting one person at a time out, and searching their bags for drugs and alcohol. i was insulted that they would think to do something like that to me.

i slipped through the gate as they were checking someone else's bag, but they caught hold of my arm and tried to search my bag and my clothes. once again, i made a giant scene. i was so angry i was shaking.

the bouncer pointed out that there were cops right behind me and he was going to let them take me to the drunk tank if i didn't co-operate.

i felt like the only way i wanted to leave there was in the company of the cops. i would demand a blood test for drugs and alcohol and the bar would have to write me a letter of apology. plus i'd have an awesome story about going to the drunk tank when i wasn't even drinking.

i woke up tense and insanely angry.

a ship. a large majestic ship.
and as it pulls away from the dock, i begin to realize that my decision not to bother untying the ropes was a poor one. there are people out in the fields and i wonder which way the ropes will snap, and if someone is going to get hit. or die. or anything.
but no one does. or at least i think.
but something happened to the ship. i don't know if it was my fault or not. but we slowly started to sink. thank goodness the water was only about 3 feet deep.

my garage was a guitar show room.

then we walked out onto the balcony, and it was a giant glass room, revolving like the orbiter, but insanely huge, overlooking the crazy bright city lights. when we swooped toward the edge, it looked like we were about to fall off, but then it would swing back around. it was supposed to bring people from one path to another, but the person who owned it was showing it off to us, like a crazy ride.
i felt that my life was becoming surreal.

we were in japan, and everyone was crazy about us, a young girl brought a few bathing suits for morgan to try on. he actually did try them on.
then we were in sweden and we were playing with a cute little rock and roll band who looked like the hives. i was quick to dismiss them, but they won me over. i even flirted with one of the members.

at one point i was convinced there were spiders all over my pillow.

i was thinking about going back to college.

i signed up for some courses that were continuations of the courses i took last time. i procrastinated alot and i wondered if i was even going to go, until i finally decided to stop thinking about it and actually do it. i was super stoked.

until i got to school and realized courses had been going on for a month, and i didn't have a schedule and i was way behind in all of my courses.

even that would have been fine, but when i went up to the cbc room (?) to get my schedule i found out i had all different profs than i had last time, and half the reason i signed up for these courses was to get the same profs. if i had a. reynolds, he would definitely take the time to explain the parts of the courses i missed.
i went up to a course or two, and it was too intimidating.

as i was leaving, a. reynolds pulled up in a sportscar and offered us a ride. it was nice to talk to him, i explained everything that had happened, and he was sympathetic. in addidion to this, he was not really wearing a shirt. he had one wrapped loosely around his shoulders and i could see his arms, which were covered in tattoos! i was very surprised by this, as i would never have guessed he was the type.

----------------------------------------------------

next the band was in a store in a city, with a big vaulted ceiling. i was waiting to make an order, when a tall bum looking guy came in with a stack of papers. he handed me a pamphlet or something and i went to take a copy of the paper he was holding (i thought it was a free one like the coast) but he yanked it back because it was some sort of newspaper you had to pay for.

he left, and we were waiting to order our food, and kind of being jerks in the restaurant, touching things we shouldn't touch and yelling and stuff like that. so of course we get kicked out of the restaurant. albert had a bad attitude about it, couldn't believe we were getting kicked out, but i thought our behaviour was stupid and we deserved it.

as we were leaving i saw the bum looking guy again and i was trying to apologize for trying to take his paper, and he kind of forced me into a big gross smelly hug.

we didn't realize there would be a policeman outside. he called us back just as we were leaving.

albert then went over to the door of the restaurant and started peeing on it. the cop was very calm and sort of crouched down next to the door to show albert that he could see him peeing, and then ian, almost reluctantly, put his foot up on the cop's shoulder and started peeing sort of on the wall next to the cop, but he also sort of peed on the cop's arm.

none of us tried to run away, because we knew we were all definitely going to jail.

i took my nieces to the movies and found out that kanye west was a robot.

one of the best i ever had:

he took a bunch of us to the "public library". it was not a regular library, it wasn't just for books (though there were a few). it was more like a museum, or a park, it was a repository for knowledge on subjects, mostly cultural things. it was laid out like a park, some rooms were big and vaulted, with cubbyholes in the walls, tagged by subject. sometimes, you'd walk through a tunnel into an open air area, with more stuff. it had a room about music, and i found a hank williams section and you could look at all of his cds, articles about him, photos, letters, and important objects.

i couldn't believe i didn't know about this place, as it was about the most fascinating and wonerful place i'd ever been. people dressed up to go there on fancy tours, but you didn't have to dress up. i was sure you could go in there for hours and days and still never see the end of all the stuff.

at the end of our tour, we all sat in a little greenhouse and were served a wonderful meal as someone came and showed us a few cool facts we might have missed. he put tiny little studded pins into his collar, and told us how old they were and where they were from. they cost 20 thousand dollars each.

i decided to take my sister there for her birthday.

on the way home, we took a little fancy carriage thing.

i was chasing / being chased by lord voldemort. it was actually quite scary. i would disappear and reappear and he'd be there waiting for me. i finally ended up killing him, once i was ready. my reward was a couple of lobsters sitting in a basket in the maple leaf all day (editor's note: sick)

------------------------------------------

my whole band was in a plane. i wanted to sit near the back. me and like 2 other people were there. the plane crashed, and the nose of the plane scraped across the ground, and just wore away like a pencil. everyone died except me and one or 2 of my friends. most of the band was dead and c. and thomas were dead. i remember sitting next to shane and wondering if he was sad that he couldn't even play in his regular band anymore, because they were dead.

then i was at a movie set. i was trying to make a post on a website that had to do with the movie and tf, about how traumatic the experience was. i started typing but then the director came and shushed me, because they were taping.

later my dad came to pick me up, and i forgot my clothes in this giant mansion, and me and the two girls who owned the mansion had to row across the river to get there. i tried to take a picture of the mansion but my camera didn't have any batteries.

later we were on a boat in the day time, a rather large boat, and we were zooming down the river. the boat was too big to manouvre easily, and my brother in law was going way too fast. we fell into a big hole in the river and had a hard time getting out. then we followed the bouys, and they led us over a waterfall. i was wondering how we were going to get back up the waterfall when we came back, but apparently you put a big log in front of your boat, aim it at this spot on the rocks and swing yourself back up like pole vaulting. piece of cake.

ian and i were in a macdonalds. i was telling him how long it had been since i was in one of those. there were bits of lettuce on the floor.

then we noticed the comfy section: every macdonalds now had a section with reclining chairs like you get on the ferry to newfoundland, or in first class on an airplane. every seat had free wireless internet, and they delivered your fries right to you. ian was so incredibly excited, but i was still grossed out to be in macdonalds.

dozing off

dreamt i was in an old, familiar house with lots of wood. i had dirty pictures ripped out of a magazine and i just wanted to find you and make out, but you weren't having it. i woke up frustrated and laughing.

tf was playing a big show. it must have been near my house. it had the same feeling as the festivals we played in england, it was a big busy outdoor show.
we finished playing and i walked through the crowd to my home.
just after i got home someone came to get me because the band had decided to play another song for an encore. it was so long since the show had ended i thought it was silly to go all the way back. at first i rushed around, but then as the time got longer and longer, i stopped rushing. it was such a ridiculous time to come back and play one more song anyway, a few more mintues wouldn't make it any more ridiculous.
so i sat on the step to slowly tie my shoes. my laces were great big squares of fabric, and very hard to tie.
he sat on the step behind me. when i was almost finished, i could feel him touching my neck gently and playing with my hair. he said something like "can you believe i'm doing this?" and i (still tying my shoe) said "imagine that". i wished i knew how to be less awkward about it, because i was so happy on the inside.
i wondered how i could manage to kiss him, with the awkward way we were sitting, and i wondered if we would hold hands on the way back to the show.

i was walking through this little deserted town with like 4 other girls. we were looking for a washroom in the college and they were all full, so i brought them up this set of stairs, and here we were in a deserted town. this was what we were looking for, though, because the town was almost all washrooms. some of them didn't have doors though, or had several toilets in each one. i kept saying to the girls "this is just like a DREAM i always have! i can't believe how much this is like my dreams! they are recurring dreams and they look just like this!"

part 1
my parents were getting ready to kill themselves. my mom had cancer, and they wanted to just get it over with and not have her suffer, and my dad felt he couldn't live without her. i was trying to come to terms with the idea. i wanted practical advice on how to live on my own - what happens to all the bills, how could i afford to live in this house. i suggested maybe i'd get a roommate, my mom said "no one can sleep in this house, it's too noisy"

part 2
i was a young boy, i was just settling into my room at keddy's. the whole hotel was empty, and an old lady walked down the hall with me and showed me where it was. it was a big suite, with several rooms, beds and closets, but all pretty bare and everything was made of wood.
i went outside just as a bus went by. i flagged it down and tried to hop on. it was a tour bus giving details on medieval history of the area (never mind that there was none). i thought it was something i would enjoy, and i had the 5.50 it cost. i was only worried it would take me too far away from my destination.

part 3
we were getting ready for a big show. we got there and everyone was dressed up, and i realized i couldn't wear what i was wearing (a t-shirt or something). the show promoters suggested i just go into the mall directly behind the stage and pick something out. i went through and picked out a few skirts, white ones and some had pink triangles on the bottom. i also picked out a few shiny sweaters and t-shirts. i remember every article. when kristy and i went to try them on, though, the girl behind the counter was closing over that metal wall thing. she said not to worry because someone would be along shortly to let us try on our clothes. and then closed over another metal wall on the other side of us.
we waited there for hours and hours for someone to come back.

glenn died. i was crying uncontrollably. he and someone else i knew died the same day, but i couldn't think about the other person, i was so upset. i kept thinking about the last time i went to halifax and how i could have hung out with him, but i didn't. i had to break the news to everyone.

instead of daniel's, my brain went here.

part I: singing a famous song about canada with the tom fun orchestra. it was very patriotic but most were just singing it as an excuse to sing pretty harmonies (read: me, alicia and morgan).

part II: at an outdoor folk festival where old man luedecke was soon to take the stage, tom fun congregated outside and some decided to enjoy the 4-wheelers on such a sunny summer day. uninterested, i went to use a bathroom where i had to wade through a tub full of water to get to the toilet. my pants were rolled up, the window was open and the boys raced by on the stupid machines. i realized the tub was full to the brim because of a constant drip in the tap. i wondered why no one had pulled the plug... so i did and waded out of the room as it drained.

outside, the stage was being set and albert met me in the parking lot to explain that although ian was deadset on making it home to cape breton in time for his weekly worship, albert had decided we weren't leaving until both tom fun and OML had played. i nodded without caring too much. the boys pulled up on 4-wheelers, some hesistant to approach me and some fun-loving.

part III: carly martin wrote on my facebook.

three of us were in jail. the jail was sometimes on a ship. we had our instruments with us, and also a giant foam cup. we thought we might be able to use the foam cup as a boat.

we finally managed to escape somehow, i don't remember if it had anything to do with the boat or the foam cup. we were driving away through the pier really fast. we knew everyone was looking for us. i ducked down because my uncle was driving by. we thought if we could get out of cape breton we'd be home free. but it was really hard to get out of the pier.

we holed up in a house, cops came in and i thought it was all over, but we invented some crazy and confusing scheme to trick them into thinking we were someone else. i pretended the other girl with us was my mother. we get the cops thinking that one of us was a criminal, but not all of us, and the proof was buried in the floorboards. that ought to buy us some time.

we found a mummified body in the vacant lot behind my house. we went out every day to look at it, so much that we wore paths in the tall grasses. i knew there was something to learn from this bog-man. i lifted him up (very improperly - there was a tense moment when i thought he would break) and the body curled up on its side, almost in a sleeping position. it was then that i saw the treasure chest. he was laying on it, but i couldn't figure out how to move him without breaking him (mummified bodies are very brittle).

it was a large brown mansion. really really huge. we walked in through the giant oak doors.

once we got in we knew something was wrong. there were people walking around like zombies. they were wearing old school academic robes, and they had a greyish hue about them. one of the girls i was with noted that she could see others, barely visible, almost floating through the halls.

i knew that if i didn't give myself a task, i would fall asleep like they had. so i decided i needed to find ron hynes, because i knew he had disappeared inside this house. most people thought he was dead.

i started going through the house. i went into each room methodically. it was hard to concentrate. in one of the rooms an old man sat at a large desk and stared off into space. he said "this house is larger than you think, my dear".

i went out of his door, and sure enough, there were more and more rooms branching off of hallways. i saw staircases leading up and down, many of them near each other and leading in alternate directions. it didn't matter, i knew i could do it methodically.

i got to one closet-like room, and almost fell through a hole in the floor. but wait, no i didn't because the hole closed over. every time i lifted my foot it would open, and every time i went to put my foot down it would close. i reached down and pried it open. there were lights like on a stage underneath a sliding door. it had a girl's name on it. then i realized that some of the translucent people weren't people at all but holograms. i wondered if they were once people trapped in here, and made into holograms once they were dead.

i knew what i had to do. i went to the main room with my friends (i was fighting back the grey mist that swam before my eyes, denser and denser every minute). they were sitting around a table looking at a bottle. there were labels all over this bottle. i peeled one off. a man in front of us vanished. i peeled off another, same thing happened.

i knew that this bottle was at least going to help me distinguish between people who were living and trapped in the house and people who were holograms. i hoped that r. hynes, standing next to me, would not vanish.

i watched a dark cloud roll toward us. i could see snow falling, in a sheet from the edge. it swept over us.

i walked through the security gate into the enclosure. there they were. story book monsters, hairy ugly beasts. but somehow they were beautiful to me. if anyone could understand them, it would be me. some were birds like giant ostriches, some were blood red wolves. at first they were frightened of me, and wouldn't let me pet them. but gradually they started going about their business, and allowing me to lightly drag my hand against their sides or backs as they walked past. they eventually all started going to sleep.

i felt so bad for them, they looked so sad. i went to pet the one that looked the saddest, he was a blue beast, i couldn't tell what kind of animal he resembled. he got up angrily and started walking away, muttering about how they are always patronized, how he didn't want to be petted, just left alone. he wanted to be treated as an equal.

i followed him. he got out of the compound somehow and suddenly he was a great hairy giant. he had a big silver ball which started bouncing down a gorge. he started chasing after it. i wasn't the only one following him though. i wanted to see where he was going, but the man who followed him wanted that ball.

i followed him until he went up. i came face to face with a crazy sheer rock wall that i knew i'd never be able to climb.

we drove the boat past the whirlpool and onto the island.

i was stealing money from the missing boy's wallet as his parents walked up behind me.

just a little sleep, please.

i dreamed that she mailed me a stack of letters you had written me about your love for me. along with snotty notes written in jealousy.
i dreamed another lady was on your mind and in your eyes.
i dreamed of a car crash beneath an overpass.

my mom was having a hard time figuring out which streetcar to get on. we were in a yard full of streetcars. they were all shutting down for the night. mom ended up getting on one that looked like a milk truck, and i thought it was the wrong one, but she seemed confident.

i started walking back by myself and this creepy little old man started coming up to me and saying creepy things and trying to grab at me. he was really short, with a bald head and a beard and a bulbous nose, like a dwarf from snow white, only homeless and smelly and lecherous. i had to hit him in the head with a rock repeatedly. he kept following me.

i was massaging the back of a handsome korean man.

we were walking through alleyways. the girl i was with kept trying to get me to eat these curled up apple peelings with sugar on them. they were soaked in LSD. i kept trying to explain to her that i didn't do acid. she was even trying to trick me into eating them, but i was just exasperated.

then there was a giant baboon coming up behind us, with the weird colorful face and everything. i was terrified. the guy i was with was into animals so he thought it was cool, but i knew that baboons were very vicious. i threw it the banana that was in the bag with the apple peelings. it bounded up over a fence and was gone.

i wanted to get out of the alleyway. i couldn't stop thinking about the monkey.

we were going to a concert, and we had to walk through this weird lodge building to get to the stage. but we went very slowly, because we had been summoned by a shady character, and there was a chance we would be sucked up into an upper storey room to talk to the lead alien (also lead singer of the band) and we couldn't quite tell if the top part of the building was actually a spacecraft.

we eventually went in, and bought a few cookies, and continued on through to the other side, where there was a field and a stage. we climbed up onto a ledge and rested our arms on the stage. i was still a little wary of the lead alien, but my friend brought us all some melon flavored shooters so i quickly forgot about it and enjoyed the band.

kim oulette died from a fatal illness. it was insanely tragic.

i was playing with a toy that belonged to my niece. it was a fisher price loom. but it didn't weave anything, it was just some string attached to pieces of plastic that moved up and down in a plastic case thing. i thought it was weird that fisher price made a toy loom.

my sister and i were driving up to a toll booth. she had seen my brother in law go right through a toll booth once, without paying, so she decided to try it out. she drove wide around the end of the toll booth. she thought we had gotten away. i kept telling her it was a terrible idea.

at some toll booths they have spiky strips on the ground that come up and bust your tires if you drive right through. this one had lines on the ground with holes in them, and they shot flames up at your car. we were going too fast for them to melt our tires though.

i was telling her "nicole, they saw you drive through the toll booth, they're going to send cars after us. we'd better stop" but she wouldn't. she didn't even seem nervous, she wasn't driving any faster than usual. cop cars kept pulling up next to us, and i'd think she was about to stop, but she'd drive onto an exit ramp and go onto another road. there were more and more cars showing up every minute, and i was wondering if i was going to get into this ever increasing trouble, even if i was just the passenger.

we were walking along a road next to a building. the road was actually a race track. but it was ok, it was night time and winter and there were no races. but oops, there is a race happening. someone notices us, and makes us get off the track, just before the cars come zipping past. whatever, we think, we will just go across. so we cut across the middle of the track, and cross at the other side. the cars were way on the other side of the track, and we crossed without a problem. but they are pretty fast. i didn't realize they's get so close so quick.

we walk along the side of the track. we have to get to halifax. the side of the track is all slushy, deep as our ankles. we get to the end of the oval track, and start crawling through a hole in the wall. most of the holes have grates, but we can fit through this one. there is snow on the inside. we jump out, and once i do, i am waist deep in slushy water. it is freezing. but it's ok since we are now at the halifax race track.

i see vic eating little lumps of sausage from a vendor. the vendor doesn't want anyone to find out she sold vic sausages, because she'd get in trouble.

waiting for vic to finish, i sit down by the wall, shivering, and watch the race cars zipping past high above me. they are on an elevated track, and i can't really see them because of the wall, but i can barely see their tops. and i can see the effect they make on the sky. they're going so fast they are making the sky turn purple and pink and different blues. it is one of the prettiest things i have ever seen.

i was at a cafe in sackville. the whole town was preparing for a big event.

jimmy from shotgun and jaybd worked at the cafe. when i walked in he was super excited to see me. both him and fred gave me hugs, but jimmy's was much more enthusiastic. i thought to myself "am i on hugging terms with these guys now?".

jimmy showed me a pamphlet for the dance later that night, and then he asked me to promise to dance with him. he was so nice and sincere, that i said i would even though i was worried about not being able to dance.

---------------------------------

later the cops pulled over all of us, the college kids, who were in vehicles driving through fields. there was something big going on, a plot of some sort. someone told the cops i had seen everything, which i hadn't really. but i knew what was going on. if i only knew the names of those 4 ringleaders, i would have turned them in, because as much as i like illegal activity, these guys were dicks. but i didn't so the cop went away. then the ringleaders came over and were trying to intimidate me, in that super annoying way, "uh.. you didn't tell that cop anything, now did you alicia. we know you'd never do something like that" *glare*. i told them i didn't give a shit about their plot, and i didn't know their names anyway, because they were losers. i wasn't afraid of them. they went away too.

my dad was crying, and my mom wouldn't tell me why.

i was in ian's mom's basement. ian's mom lived way down at the end of the pier. her house was beautiful, all plush white carpets, comfy sofas, glass and chrome. we were practicing for our two shows that night.

i had to use the washroom, and i couldn't use the one the boys were using. so i had to go upstairs into ian's mom's giant restaurant. it was a really fancy restaurant. people had to put down a 300 dollar deposit just to eat there. she made me have some soup. she had a weird accent. the soup was really good. a girl came in, she looked just like this girl i met in newfoundland, but she was from kiev or some crazy place, and she had a strong accent. i told her about our show later, but after she left, i realized i forgot to tell her it was at bunkers.

so off we went to our first show of the night. it was in this huge crazy bar. i don't know if it was bunkers or not. there weren't enough inputs or something, so i sat at a table and watched. scott boudreau played acoustic guitar and he was playing my parts. i was delighted by this. everyone in the band was sitting on stools.

i was at a table with that girl i met in ian's mom's restaurant. we were doing a crossword puzzle, the clue was "rats and mice" i really wanted to put "savagogement" but she was like "no, silly, it's 'rodents'". i felt dumb, but still secretly thought the right answer was savagogement.

tf was still playing, but it sounded terrible. no one knew what they were doing. i went up to sing harmony with ian, but he would hold the microphone really far away from him, so all you could hear was me singing. then he walked off the stage and all i could sing were the harmony parts, so the song sounded really weird.

i was at some sort of all women's event. melanie and ashley were there, as well as every girl i know. everyone started singing the old bluegrass standard "i'll fly away". i was stoked because i've been listening to it alot on the o brother where art thou soundtrack. it was all girls singing, so everyone was trying to sing really high, and i had to sing really really low.

when it was all done, and everyone finished clapping, melanie announced that it was the single from some girl's newly released album. i said under my breath "yeah, hers and everyone else's" and the girl was standing right behind me. she was wearing a purple pantsuit. she just kind of laughed as i tried to apologize for being rude. i said "i just make jokes." and "it's just because i have been listening to the o brother where are thou soundtrack alot lately".

i was with an old man, it could have been my father, but he was too old.

we walked and walked down this dirt road in the woods. finally we came to it, the salvation army junkyard. it was a creepy place. the old caretaker (even older than my father), came up to meet us. his clothes were the color of rust, just like the old scraps of metal lying in the yard. he told us we could have anything we found but to be careful.

he started telling us about a young man who went inside the building and found an old college book, and started reading it. but he just continued to read it, on and on, and never showed the slightest signs of putting it down, day after day, night after night. i didn't want to go inside the building to see if he was still there.

then a young boy came, dressed in the same rusty clothes as the old man. he started telling us a story about the junkyard dog. it had the same creepy feeling to it. the junkyard dog just went round and round in circles and never stopped, not even if there was something in its way.

my parents and i were going on a trip. the way we travelled was to sit in laundry dryer cylinders. it got very hot in there. my parents accepted the tradition of closing themselves into their dryers and turning them on. it was very hot in there, and very uncomforable travelling, because the dryers were twirling. i decided to leave the dryer door open, and that way the cylinder wouldn't turn.

we were in new york city. we were at a small, very prestigious school. i found out about a mystery involving the school. then someone put a bomb in the school and blew it up. i drove away from the school thinking that it was my fault that the school blew up. the CN tower stood in the distance against the cloud of smoke from the burned out school.

i was in a laboratory. there was a rare and poisonous species of frog. i was worried it would get loose.

could have been worse

after a night of complete havoc, i grabbed joe o'toole and dragged him into an oversized tv cabinet. i closed the doors and we made out, a lot.

everyone decided to cut watchmaker and thieves from the record. i tried to reason with them, but no one would listen to me. ian was being a huge jerk. he made me cry.

i went to a bar that looked like baba's and everyone knew me there. some weird guy kept trying to buy me drinks. then ian and everyone showed up, and none of them talked to me.

we were waiting for a train. it was night time. i realized there was a dane cook autograph session going on in the train station. it was terribly exciting. he was autographing brightly colored folders with nothing in them. i got him to make one for me and dave. i was so excited to meet him, i kept saying the stupidest things. he was also selling t-shirts for 5 bucks. i ran out of the room to the bank machine, but then i realized i had money in my pocket. when i got back they were packing up, not many people were left. i felt awkward.

i asked for 2 shirts. his t-shirts were just blank t-shirts, already worn and with mud all over them. he wrote his name on them in pen. he got me to write some of it. my handwriting looked nothing like his. i bought myself a blue collared work shirt, it fit nice and it wasn't covered in mud. then i told him to listen to my band. he wrote our myspace down, but said he was on tour and alot of people wanted him to do things like that, so he wasn't sure when he could check it out. i felt awkward again and rejoined my friends.

we were still waiting in the train station, i told them that osheaga festival was going on later tonight, and we could go because it was only 6 bucks to get in. i didn't know who was playing.

later, me and sidney were walking over the last bit of the over pass and onto the terminal road. i told her it was a shortcut. the wind was so strong is almost blew her over. then yvette suggested we take the train tracks all the way to the mall, in the other direction. we started going, i was worried a train would come. there was a paved walkway on one side of the tracks, i started walking on that.

the walkway gradually got higher and higher off the ground, and ended at a straight wall. the walkway was now part of a building. it was too high to jump. i wondered how yvette got down.

so i started going through the building, which was filled with tourists and school groups who were looking at the train tracks. i kept going in rooms, but they never led me down and outside. finally i found this small room, like a cylinder with a ladder in it. along the wall there were indentations, only a few inches deep, but this was the ladder you had to climb to get down.

when i got to the bottom, i could see people walking past a frosted window. i was afraid i would get in trouble, but when i peeked out, i was where i wanted to be. on a second walkway on ground level.

yvette was there with bags and bags of fireworks. he mother got them for her, and she wanted to set them off on the train tracks. i was worried someone would get hurt. a big crowd of onlookers had formed but NO ONE had a match or a lighter. darren and mikey were there, with a bunch of our friends, they were rolling stuff, but they had no lighter either. we saw a guy smoking a cigarette and started forming a complicated plan to ask him to borrow his lighter. the man didn't really want to lend it to us.

oh, and a few nights ago

we were at a festival (with andrew, too!). we went for a sunny afternoon walk. we were walking through a parking lot of a school near a flagpole when you stopped and took a contraption from your backpack. we hooked it to our backs like a parachute and it allowed us to hover for brief moments of time and control our direction. two old ladies looked on and talked about how silly we were. then i looked into your zipped open bag and saw a cassette tape case. inside was (like a matchbook) strips of LSD. david bowie lsd that you said you got in edinburgh. that's when i realized why you were so crazy.

my latest dream sequence:

a) we appear on a porch of a hotel that is $30 per hour to stay in. the room was beautiful with lots of white. we were dressed old-fashioned. the rest of the group were busy for the afternoon. then we returned to the hotel with the group and i noticed you were avoiding me to some extent. i stuck my nose in the air and went on with my day. later, you lost your david bowie tape and albert, jeff and i started rumaging with you through a clean but extremely untidy hotel room. there were piles of things i liked strewn about: books, clothes, and darker clothes. (the door and windows were open, late afternoon, summer.) we found other interesting casettes, but not yours. i wondered why i was so quick to help you after you avoided me for hours.

b) allie and i were at a concert/art show. joni mitchell sat two rows behind us and had a cameron diaz haircut (but was still beautiful). everyone from the concert was going to this burger joint/restaurant place so there were some people i knew there, but mostly just lines that were too long. while i was waiting, i noticed erin and laura chapman at the counter. they took their seats without saying hi because i hadn't noticed them looking. later, when i was about to order, i could hear erin talking shit about me to an old acquaintence of mine, trevor. i walked up to their booth and gave her the eye, to let her know i heard everything and disagreed. she shut her trap.

i went to london, ontario to visit my cousin. london was huge and filled with futuristic skyscrapers. but when i got there it was past dark, so when my cousin picked me up, and we had to walk to his place, we had to stop at the sherriff's house and get a special permit which meant we wouldn't get fined if we looked anyone in the eye. the sherriff was skeptical as to why we would want to look anyone in the eye, but i told him that on the east coast we do it all the time. the sherriff had a southern accent.

there was an electronic billboard at an intersection by a big church. it would flash messages at you from the church about all the sins in the world, by telling you what the driver of the car opposite you may have been thinking. they actually ended up being kind of perverted and graphic, and you wondered if the church people who made them up were just trying to live a little. some of the less perverted ones went like "he is thinking homosexual thoughts right now... ABOUT YOU" or "he wants to have sex with your teenage daughter" or "if he can find a way not to get caught, he will steal all your money".

then i was at a ct show... there was a "dance-off", in which shane went down into the crowd while playing and handed out free movie passes. i was wearing jeans and a bikini top and a cat in the hat hat. shane did not give me a movie pass.

wait, aren't you dead?

i was at my mom's parents house. only my family was there. the phone had rang, and when i went in the other room to pick it up, i realized that my grandfather had answered it and was talking to his sister. i wanted to hang up as to not be rude but i waited until i heard his voice again and then clumsily hung it up.

me and ian and a few other people were in a room with a 400 pound lady. she was so fat she couldn't get out of bed. she kept rolling around, and anyone on the bed would be sucked into the dent she made. she kept ordering us around, telling us to do things for her because she couldn't get out of bed. she wanted us to call a 1-900 number for her, it was a psychic hotline. apparently she was really rich. we couldn't believe it, we watched on her cell phone as the charges for the call grew and grew. as we left we talked about how we couldn't believe they could charge $3 a second for a psychic call. then we walked past a waterslide.

i was at a giant carnival. it was outside of a hotel. there was a giant production going on. they were singing songs from disney movies, dressed up in elaborate costumes. then they broke into "thriller" by michael jackson. they did the thriller dance out into the street and stopped traffic. i was amused that no one got upset with them, because they did the same production every hour. there was a black man in a sparkly suit singing, and there were three girl backup singers, whose hair was in a giant pineapple shape. i've never seen such big hair before. someone told me that one of the girls used to play bass for the smashing pumpkins. her name was d'arcy.

a small island with a rocky beach. komodo dragons were in the water, they started attacking people, and they ate a child. we knew that they would soon move onto the land.

more music upon the pillow

incredible dream.

hightlights:
giant music festival/conference
the hidden cameras being a 3 piece band with bad songs and professional actors playing out ridiculous skits in between songs ("i play with myself. i played with myself in the very seat you are sitting in earlier!")
deanna and nicole seated on bleachers
deanna agressively and repeatedly removing a naked guy's towel which was covering only his bird in front of hundreds of people
a band that was singing songs that were pretty much written for you, me rushing back to the hidden cameras to find you and tell you that your dream band is playing to no one on a platform hundreds of feet away
everyone squishing together on the bench (like when you make a sharp turn in a backseat) and laughing

we were in a hotel. we met a girl who was planning on sleeping outside. i didn't want to break it to her that is was minus 27 out. we were playing acoustic guitars in the lobby. me and melanie and albert were singing sarah harmer songs with 3 part harmony. i was really tired. i wanted to go to sleep. i went in the room we were in before, but the shaky deals were in there sleeping, and all the beds were full. then i went in another room, and every member of tf was crammed in there. there was defintely no room for anyone else. i was really upset. i tried to sleep in some tiny corner of the floor. when the sun finally rose, i went and looked in the other room. melanie ashleee andrew and jack were in there, sleeping very comfortably. i was super pissed off. i called them idiots and got in a screaming fight with andrew. he was like "just suck it up" and i said that the rooms were paid for by the band. then we went looking for food, and darren took us through the sketchiest streets for like a million blocks. he was way ahead of us, and we could barely see him. finally we caught up to him at a building by the water, with a tiny little narrow walkway. we were trying to squeeze ourselves onto the walkway when he showed up from the other side and said he and ian had already eaten and there was no more food here.

me and my two ex boyfriends were drinking in my barn. they kept accidentally setting little fires to things with their cigarette butts and i was freaking out because we weren't supposed to be in the barn at all. another girl was suddenly there and she wanted to barbequeue veggie hot dogs, but i was afraid it would start another fire. i made the boys empty out all the cans with cigarette butts in them so we wouldn't get found out.

then albert showed up and suggested all sorts of things i could do to my guitar to protect the finish, like rub it gently with a baseball bat, or take a capful of tea or alcohol and rub it into the wood. i decided i would try all of those things.

we drove very slowly down the middle of the road because there were people walking in the middle of each lane. then i was in a hotel room in a party and a doctor guy was handing out envelopes to each person. he knew who i was though and started talking about my band, and the people who were next in line were getting really impatient. but i told him about the band playing at the lord nelson and the delta at the ecmas and he left the lineup to go get a pen to write down my contact information. the people in the lineup were pissed.

good ol' northend.

we were at the upstairs which was about 10 feet wider on all sides and more open as a space. there were several acoustic acts happening, i was to play later, so i was floating around early. there were less than 15 people around, and john rae & the river were playing between sets. i was singing outload instead of carrying on conversation with those around me. deanna and nicole were there, asking why i was still wearing this bracelet with the wrapping paper on it. i said that it was wrapping paper i had bought for jenna and when she gave me a bracelet, i didn't want to remove it. then jenna and morgan walked in holding another gift for me, wrapped in the same black-white polkadot paper.

morgan and i embraced and he told me he really cared about me as a friend and that i should not worry about anything. then he told me he had pizza for us and invited me to the back of the bar to eat it. we had one bite and i looked up to see who was talking and it was an older man with a handgun. he pointed it out the window and said, "it can do this, and this-" firing the gun twice, pointing it at me- "and this.." where i got shot in the collarbone and fell to the ground.

finally up to date

march 02, 07

i was participating in a contest at some sort of fair. it was night time. we were each standing in front of a crumbly concrete wall. there was something we had to figure out about the wall. i saw a dark patch on the concrete, and i poked my finger in, and it crumbled away because there was a small cavity behind the dark patch. inside the cavity was a tiny sickly frog or fish or something. so i won the contest because i found the sickly frog.

but before i realized what i was doing, i threw the sickly frog into the first bit of water i saw. i think i thought i was going to revive him, or set him free. there was a square hole, about a few feet wide, cut out of the concrete that was filled with water. big tubes were coming out of it going to the big heavy machinery, and the water was covered in a giant slick of oil and it was really hot and nearly boiling, and that is the water i happened to throw the sickly frog into.

i realized as the frog left my hands that i shouldn't throw him into the horrible hot polluted water, but i still had hope that he'd float to the surface so i could rescue him, i wouldn't care if i scalded my hands. but he didn't come up fast enough. after a while i knew the poor little frog was dead. everyone around me shook their heads in disgust, and the happiness i had from winning the contest turned into sadness and guilt. i kept thinking "what was i thinking? i wasn't thinking. what a stupid thing to do".

bliss

i had a beautiful baby girl.

feb 25 07

zach was jamming with bonnie tyler.


feb 27 07

i won an ecma, and the next day i won a grammy. andrea c. presented the award. all i said both times at the podium was "thank you". i was really excited about the grammy, my mom and dad came down for it and everything. then i realized that the grammys were only for east coast artists, just like the ecmas, so it was pretty much the same thing. i took my mom to all the parties anyway, but they were all deserted, everyone was tired out from the ecmas.


feb 28 07

someone was trying to kill me, but they failed. later i was still upset about it, so that i ran into a guy who was wanted for beating women and i stabbed him in the heart. it went from being in a castle to being at the dump. i was wracked with guilt.