Parce que si je termine pas ce texte ce soir, je le ferai jamais et que j'aime trop l'idée générale pour le laisser se perdre.

There once was a frame there. A frame with a photograph in it. And it felt like anyone could tell.

The other objects had been moved around and technically, the void had been filled. Sometimes, though, she got the impression that it was still there for everyone to see. It was as if this space had been meant and carved solely for the frame - but it wasn't, no, it wasn't.

Still it felt like no matter how she'd cover it up, any passer-by would know that the frame and the photograph were missing - wrongfully thrown away, burnt to ashes, buried at the foot of the fourth tree from the left - and really belonged there.

At times it felt to her like the concealed void was as clear and visible as the frame had been. Maybe even more so because one could miss the photograph, look at it without truly seeing it - but nobody could ever miss the void.

She had never known if you let objects in a specific position for long enough, space and air settled around them.

A few weeks ago this would have ended here, but if I may add -

Unless, down the line, the photograph and the void never were separate, distinct concepts.

This is to expand on my new poll above.

At some point last summer, the hot topic became exactly that: what would you do if you were granted a day that you could spend doing whatever it is that you want and not have to face the consequences of your actions?

It was gathered that for the most part, women 30 and over would spend that day eating ice cream or fries or whatever that had a lot of sugar and/or saturated fats in it. Which is, well, sad.

Women 30 and under, for the most part, as it turns out, planned to spend that day engaging in sexual activities with someone(s) other than their significant other or someone(s) whom they lacked the nerve to inform that they'd like as a significant other.

Men, on their part, mostly wished to turn that day into a live version of Grand Theft Auto: shoot people, rob banks, etc.

As for me, my first idea involved murder. However, after analysis, it was deducted that if our actions had no consequences, it meant my victim would still be alive the next day, so it would be pointless to commit the murder in the first place. So I needed to find another idea, but I never did and I'm still trying to find one.

Anyways, I thought this would be an interesting poll.

A. I waited 20 minutes in line at Canadian Tire but it was worth as it's gotten me a new coffeemaker. I plugged it immediately and set the clock so if I drop the damn coffeepot on the floor again, at least I'll have actually done something with the thing before.
B. While I was there, I also got myself a Christmas tree along with a few ornaments. The fun things about this is this is my second first Christmas tree.
C. En allant chercher ma cafetière dans les rayons, j'ai vu que les moules en silicone étaient en spécial. J'ai donc été obligé de m'en procurer deux. J'avais pas le choix !
D. Today I really need to clean up the mess this appartment has become. I begun doing so this morning and there's already a good difference. I still have empty boxes in the kitchen that have been waiting for me to put them away in the locker. I also need to unpack my CD's and DVD's. I have one box filled with thing-a-ma-dings to unpack. I also have three boxes filled with books that are yet unpacked, but I still don't have anywhere to put them, so those are gonna have to wait some more. But generally, I've been here for almost two months now and maybe it's time it started to show.

Bizarrement, j'ai comme de la difficulté à trouver la motivation de partir de chez moi pour aller faire la file au service à la clientèle de Canadian Tire pour aller échanger ma cafetière...

D'accord, j'arrête ça ici. Fuck la semaine bizarre. Je suis en train de faire beaucoup trop de drame avec ça pour ce que ça vaut et ce que ça implique de mon côté.

Je suis la même personne. Je n'ai pas changé à cause de ça.

Je n'ai pas besoin de chercher de réponse psychologique et compliquée à la simple question "pourquoi?". Parce que, c'est tout, merde. Pas besoin de chercher plus loin.

Dans Ally McBeal, Billy se fâchait contre Tracy en s'écriant: "How dare you trivialize this?"
Tracy lui répondait que tout son problème à lui était justement que ses principes moraux le poussaient à accorder une importance démesurée à des trucs qui n'en avaient pas.

Au fond, tout est clair. J'ai appris et compris un bon paquet de trucs inattendus cette semaine mais là, ma vie continue. Comme si de rien n'était.

Alors voilà : je suis de retour !

The one conclusion I have come to is if this has to mean I'm poisonous too, it's fine with me.

I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand.

The present isn't all that hard to face, actually, except that the new light it sheds on the past is sure as hell unsettling to me and damn it, I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand.

I am not hooked on what people have recently seemed to feel I am hooked on. It's absolutely unbelievable how certain people become of your actual thoughts when they do their fucking best to remain miles away. I am not hooked, I am free and this is probably the one thing I am sure of right now.

I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand.

Where have I been?

Si je veux demeurer saine d'esprit, il faudrait bien que ma semaine bizarre s'achève ici.

J'ai tenté de revenir à la base en sortant de l'autobus ce soir. Du genre : j'habite en Outaouais. Je travaille à Ottawa. Ça n'a pas été un succès, malheureusement, c'est un autre truc fort éloigné de tout ce que j'aurais pu imaginer. Ça n'aide pas, c'est trop irréaliste. Si j'arrive pas à assimiler ma propre identité, je vois mal comment assimiler les trucs déstabilisants qui m'arrivent...

Je vais donc commencer encore plus par la basse.

Je m'appelle Quartz, j'ai 23 ans et j'existe.

Si vous avez des trucs à proposer pour enchaîner, ne vous gênez pas.

Moi qui ai toujours pensé que Descartes était un imbécile d'avoir tout renié ses acquis pour arriver à la certitude je-pense-donc-je-suis...

Jodie wears a hat although it hasn't rained for six days
She says a girl needs a gun these days
Hey, on account of those rattlesnakes
On account of those rattlesnakes
She looks like Eve Marie Saint
On the waterfront
She reads Simone de Beauvoir
In her american circumstance
She's less than sure if her heart has come to stay in San Jose
And her neverborn child haunts her now
As she speeds down the freeway
As she tries her luck with the traffic police
Out of boredom more than spite
She never finds no trouble, she tries too hard
She's oblivious despite herself
She looks like Eve Marie Saint
On the waterfront, she says
All she needs is therapy
All you need is love is all you need
Jodie never sleeps 'cause there are always needles in the hay
She says a girl needs a gun these days
Hey, on account of the rattlesnakes
Hey, on account of the rattlesnakes
She looks like Eve Marie Saint
On the waterfront
She reads Simone de Beauvoir
In her american circumstance
Her heart's like crazy paving
Upside down and back to front, she says
Oh, it's so hard to love when
Love was your great disappointment
On account of those rattlesnakes
She says a girl needs a gun these days
She says a girl needs a gun these days
Hey, on account of the rattlesnakes
Hey, on account of those rattlesnakes

Note to self: need to change contacts.

Did I mention I got my coffeemaker over the weekend?

I did.

Do you know the first thing I did with it?

I cleaned the coffeepot with the rest of my dishes and threw I fucking dropped it onto the floor and broke it.

So now I have to wait until my mom (who paid for it) sends me the receipt so that I can be a bitch and bring it back to Canadian Tire, claiming it was broken when I got it.

Which means that I still don't have coffee.

Dimanche soir, j'ai survolé mon exemplaire de Marie-Hélène au mois de mars, ma lecture-culte d'auto-induction de déprime.

Et cette fois, c'était différent.

C'est un livre excellent qui raconte une histoire d'amour (vécue) qui s'entrecroise avec la dépression nerveuse du personnage principal. C'est dur, ça frappe, c'est fucké - et j'adore ça.

Pour la première fois, dimanche soir, j'ai focussé sur l'histoire d'amour au lieu de la considérer uniquement comme un fond à la douleur et à la panique décrites par l'auteur. Et pour la première fois, j'ai été capable de garder une distance par rapport à ces descriptions, justement.

Et même que la plupart des passages que j'avais soulignés en orange parce que je trouvais qu'ils mettaient vraiment trop dans le mille, ceux-là m'ont à peine touchée.

C'est un peu de ça que je parlais quand j'ai dit que certains trucs arrivent par eux-mêmes.

Un petit deuil.

Life. Don't talk to me about life!
(The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

It is sad but so is life, really.

People hurt you. People are deceitful. People are selfish. People walk away. People always mean to be better, but they never are.

Life is a cycle and it goes round and round, it doesn't ever bring anything new.

You just remember that.

One day you see a strange little girl look at you
One day you see a strange little girl feeling blue
She'd run to the town one day
Leaving home and her country fair
Just beware
When you're there
Strange little girl
She didn't know how to live in a town that was rough
It didn't take long before she knew she'd had enough
Walking home in her wrapped up world
She survived but she’s feeling old
'cause she found
All things cold
Strange little girl
Where are you going?
Strange little girl
Where are you going?
Strange little girl
You really should
You really should be going
I know you really should
I know you really should
I know, I know you really should
One day you see a strange little girl look at you
One day you see a strange little girl feeling blue
Walking home in her wrapped up world
She survived but she's feeling old
'cause she'd found all things cold
Strange little girl
Where are you going?
Strange little girl
Where are you going?
Strange little girl
You really should
You really should
You really should
Strange little girl
Where are you going?
Strange little girl
Where are you going?
Strange little girl
You really should
You really should
You really should
Strange little girl
Where are you going?
Strange little girl
Where are you going?
Strange little girl
You really should
You really should
You really should be going

Call me evil
Call me tide is on your side
Anything that you want

J'ai toujours préféré les insultes aux compliments. C'est plus facile à dealer parce que ça me touche pas, les insultes. Ça me touche uniquement quand j'ai besoin de me faire donner des coups.

Les compliments, c'est une autre histoire. Ça déstabilise, ça surprend, ça touche. C'est un concept abstrait aux contours flous donc on n'arrive pas à bien le saisir.

Parfois, dans certaine situations, je préférerais carrément qu'on m'utilise ou qu'on me mente plutôt qu'on m'apprécie. Me semble que ça serait plus facile à prendre. Plus facile à classer.

Un nouveau gagnant dans la catégorie fin-de-semaine/semaine la plus câlissement bizarre : celle qui a commencé le 17, soit vendredi.

Phrase dite la plus souvent depuis : "esti que je comprends pas."

Élément nouveau : vendredi soir, j'ai ramené mes souliers propres chez moi parce que j'avais l'intention de les porter avec une jupe pour ma graduation. J'ai changé d'idée avant de partir de chez moi, alors je les ai laissé là.
Ce matin, je me lève et je cherche mes souliers partout. Vraiment partout. J'ai même vérifié dans le four et dans le garde-manger, sous mon lit et sous mes sofas. Introuvables.
Totalement déstabilisée, j'arrive au bureau et qu'est-ce que j'aperçois ?

Mes souliers.

Esti que je comprends pas.

Fuck. I just lost a long post I really fucking liked and Blogger's feature that's supposed to give it back to me won't do it.

Damn it.

En revenant chez moi, ce soir, j'ai trouvé un calendrier de l'avent entre ma contre-porte et ma porte.

D'accord, là, je viens de faire une joke de Rona. Je suis pathétique.

Avec une petite note de mon voisin, celui de qui je garde régulièrement le chat : il m'a acheté ça en remerciement ! Ça m'a fait super plaisir, je ne m'y attendais vraiment pas.

Attendez, ça veut dire que j'ai une relation saine avec mon voisin ? Yes ! Je suis bien partie !!!

I. Relationships can actually be patched.

La cérémonie de graduation était super bien. Surtout parce que j'étais allée d'abord pour voir les gens avec qui j'avais étudié et que j'ai passé le temps avec trois filles du bac très sympathiques. Je m'entends mieux avec les gars ces temps-ci (...), mais putain que c'est pratique, des amies de fille, parfois.

Bref. J'étais allée dans un but social, donc, et j'ai été extrêmement traumatisée de me faire féliciter par autant de personnes qui semblaient donc être fiers de moi. Comme tout le personnel de l'université, la photographe et mon père. Quoi ? Fiers ? Ah oui, c'est vrai, j'oubliais, je suis ici pour recevoir mon bac... Ma vie a tellement été revirée à l'envers pendant ce foutu bac-là qu'il ne me semble plus qu'une toile de fond.

Après la cérémonie, j'ai couraillé un peu partout à Montréal, allant de flash-back en flash-back et j'ai fini par partir vraiment trop tard et j'ai eu le bonheur de pogner du traffic sur la 20. C'était pas trop mal, heureusement, et ça m'a permis de réaliser qu'en quelque part, récemment, j'ai appris à conduire à Montréal sans m'énerver. Le traffic ne me stresse plus. Le stationnement, oui. Si le stationnement était aussi magique à Montréal qu'en banlieue, il y en n'aurait pas, de problèmes.

Cette journée de couraillage m'a permis de me rendre compte que j'ai vraiment bien fait de choisir une job de bureau, où on vient tellement tanné d'être devant son ordi qu'on est bien heureux d'aller diner. Aujourd'hui, j'avais tellement de trucs à faire que je pognais les nerfs après mon estomac dès qu'il se mettait à crier parce que j'étais occupée et que j'avais mieux à faire que le nourrir.

Luckily, this time around, I only was at a loss for words for 48 hours. Or sort of. My words have begun coming back to me this morning - not exactly those I had been waiting for, but others that come from a tangent. Which is good enough for me. I'm getting good at this. Maybe in a few lightyears I'll have learned to deal using tools other than self-destruction. Not that it would be something that I'm trying to achieve - but it's the kind of thing that could very well happen on its own. Anyways. Tangent, I said?

So two hours and a half is a long time. There it is, the product of that last drive (if I can remember all of it):

A. A small piece on life, which should start with a quote from Marvin, oddly enough, to be posted shortly;
B. I find too many questions for too little answers, and the ratio is beginning to make me think maybe it's not worth bothering with after all;
C. You wouldn't believe the unhealthy relationships I keep. No, I mean, really, you might think you would, but trust me, you. have. no. idea. I need healthy relationships. If you have one for sale, contact me via comments or guestbook;
D. Digging up things you had intentionally pushed at the back of your mind for a few hundred years is pretty disorienting. Comparing it to what you had replaced them with as well;
E. Une remise en question du même style que celle inspirée, le temps d'un après-midi, par le légendaire Manu, à la puissance trois;
F. A few what-if's I never saw coming and the possibility of a scary future;
G. I trust that I am in for a lot of name-calling and I could just bet they're gonna start with "young and stupid"(!);
H. Thank god for the other end of the world.

Hier, ça a fait exactement un an que je suis célibataire.

Le plus drôle, c'est que je ne m'en suis rendue compte que tard dans la soirée, et que ça m'a absolument rien fait. Mis à part que j'ai apprécié l'ironie du fait que j'étais en train de passer cette journée-là avec mon ex. Mais bon. Faut dire que j'avais d'autres choses en tête. Et que j'ai passé la journée entière à plus trop savoir où j'étais exactement. J'avais constamment l'impression d'être en Outaouais, je sais pas trop pourquoi. Ça doit être signe que je commence à être adaptée/assimilée.

Take a walk down Memory Lane with me
Past a watermelon stand on the way
Thinking I had everything we’d need
On Martha’s Foolish Ginger
You were late
How could I forget
What you said, the part about that
Love taking over your life
Was not in your plan
If those harbour lights had just been a half a mile inland
Who knows what I would have done
If those harbour lights had just been a half a mile inland
Who knows what I would have done
Through the cliffs
Out of the Bay I went
From the starboard side
I could block my visions and my passions
They keep me awake
If those harbour lights had just been a half a mile inland
Who knows what I would have done
If those harbour lights had just been a half a mile inland
Who knows what I would have done
A familiar voice
“Hi, surprise
I’ve been searching trying to find you”
I couldn’t speak
My hands reached for Martha’s Foolish Ginger
We talked until the moon came up
About how life without love
Isn’t worth very much
Then I played this song
If those harbour lights had just been a half a mile inland
Who knows what I would have done
If those harbour lights had just been a half a mile inland
Who knows what I would have done
What I would have done
“Memories that we have yet” you said
“To make like our Burning Bed”
Love, don’t mistake that it wasn’t safe
On Martha’s Foolish Ginger¯