Brianne

That is all.

=)

I ran away, again.

I ran away to take a break from the life that felt like it was breaking me. Yes, even the life you love can break you. So I stayed up all night and hopped on a bus that took me to an airport that led me to a plane that took me south, to the desert, where I got on another plane to take me east, to this city that I came to love in June. I spent a lot of time alone, wandering or drinking coffee and writing or drinking coffee and watching people or eating cupcakes and writing. I found some amazing and inspiring places to spend my time. I fell in love with New York City, this time. It was like finally falling for that friend you'd loved for years.

Tomorrow, I go back to that life that felt like it was breaking me. Many things will be the same. It's possible almost everything will be the same. I will not be the same. I will go back home, and I will feel like an artist, even if no great art has come of this trip. I will go back home, and I will feel optimistic, and at peace with myself. Hopefully, this will bleed into my surroundings, and I will feel more at peace with what's happening around me. Hopefully I will have learned how to take better care of myself, because I've realized that taking care of oneself is more than eating right, getting enough sleep, and having good personal hygiene. Hopefully, when I go home, I will learn how to remove myself, temporarily, without leaving Vancouver.

So, I'm a nineteen year-old, pierced, tattooed, pink faux hawked girl. You all know this. I'm also neat, conscientious, respectful, mindful, caring, helpful, sometimes forgetful or slow, and never ever trying to hurt, inconvenience, or disrupt anyone in any way.

Last night, after work at around 11 or so, I had Warren over. We ran into each other on our ways home from work, and decided to hang out. We watched Pan's Labyrinth on the TV in the living room, at what seemed to me to be a reasonable volume for the late hour, considering I was on the first floor, and sleeping people were on the third. Warren slept over, and we chatted a bit in night-time voices on the second floor. At no point did I think that we were being too loud. So when I got a facebook message today telling me that we need to talk about noise and come up with some solutions, I was shocked. I feel as though I was entirely reasonable, largely because I usually am perceptive enough to realize when I'm doing something to disturb someone or being unreasonable. But of course, now that it has been brought to my attention, I feel guilty, like I have done something wrong. My heart tells me so, even though my logic reasons that I shouldn't feel guilty.

( Not to copy Maura or anything... )

Riding the skytrain home, I see someone attractive sitting, facing away from the doors, at the front of the train. I sit so I have a good view of them. This person is incredibly androgynous. I can't identify them (but really, who can identify anybody?). I predict, naturally, that they will get off at Broadway Skytrain station (now known as Commercial-Broadway station, since the new station at Broadway and Cambie popped up, even though it's referred to as City Hall station), the same station I'm getting off at. I decide, on a whim, to ask for a phone number. If they don't give it to me, I lose nothing. A complete stranger is uninterested. No big deal. If they give it to me, I get an attractive person's phone number. So, I prepare myself to ask for it. I'm prepared to stand up and ask for it real quick, in the event that they get off before Broadway, and I'm prepared to spark a quick conversation, should we both get off at the same stop. Time is passing, stations are passing, and as we're approaching Broadway station, they pull out some sort of paperwork. This is a bad sign! People don't start paperwork right before the station they're getting off at! And so, they don't get off, and I do. I missed my chance because I was too shy to go over, interrupt their listening to music, ask if they could move their bag off the seat beside them, sit down and ask for a number. So I leave the skytrain, disappointed, but elated at the thought of just how prepard I was to ask.

I walk home from the skytrain station, and pass a guy on a bicycle. I see his face, fleetingly, and he's making a familiar expression. About to walk right by and forget the whole thing, I remember how strong I'm feeling. So I go back. It's not who I thought it might be. But if it had been him, who knows what might have come of it. For going back, for checking, I feel stronger.

So, maybe I have an "I Saw You..." 

And maybe I didn't see who I wanted to.

And it's okay.

And I'm happy. And I don't know where it came from, but it's good.

That weekend could not have come at a better time.

It was amazing. Life changing, or at least that's how it feels right now.

It was the best weekend I've had since that weekend exactly three months ago, today. Comparing the two, they're actually quite similar. A long weekend in a provincial capital city, spending every waking hour as a pair, at a multi-day festival. Three months ago, with someone I barely knew, and this weekend with a different someone who I feel like I've known my entire life.

I wouldn't trade the three months in between for either or even both weekends, and I'm so fucking appreciative that I don't have to.

The past three months have been surreal. I've done so much smiling and laughing, so much crying, and so much loving. So, so much loving. I've been so in tune to my emotions, and they've been so strong. I've been so incredibly happy to be home, so appreciative of this place that feels more right than any other place I've been, and I've been so incredibly sad to be away from the place that feels almost as right as home.

http://vancouverisawesome.com/2009/09/10/vancouvers-most-awesome-dan-mangan/

I just found this via a link on the facebook page of a girl I met this weekend. She just linked to "Vancouver is Awesome" and I found and read the article and played the video of The Indie Queens Are Waiting, and cried. So read it, and watch it. Both are awesome. You probably won't cry. I'm just like that sometimes.

( ... a meme. )

 I am so many kinds of emotional.

As few words as possible to mention a friendship that didn't last, that neglect to inform the reader of said friendship, neither written by nor about me, and my chest fills with anger and sadness and a desire to cause A Scene, or whatever is closest to one on the internet.

A single letter on a survey, filled out on nearly the other side of the world, and my heart is bursting with love and appreciation and regret that I am so far away. That we are so far away.

A paragraph that speaks of family, and I remember how much I am a part of something, even if I go weeks without contact, even if I'm living my own life away from all that, even if I'm happy here, despite that they're far away. A stuffed, three-toed sloth named Passionfruit Ezekiel who is sitting in the chair across from me is enough of a reminder, and when he's not with me any more, the memory of him and of them will be enough.

Several hash tags read on twitter on the skytrain on my way to work in the morning, while listening to an album that, in one year, hasn't changed my life, in and of itself, but has definitely acted as something of a catalyst for many huge events, and I'm brought to tears, surrounded by complete strangers.

A story by a local, cross-dressing queer woman, Ivan E Coyote, recited alongside the heartbreaking song, Basket, by amazing local musician Dan Mangan, and I'm pouring tears and sobbing in a room filled with strangers. A story about her family, and their reactions to her sexual orientation. A story that captures the beauty of the love and acceptance given to her by each family member. A story that reminds me of the days when I could say that "coming out" was easy. The days when I'd talked to my father in the past three weeks. And as much crying as I did in those three weeks, this was the first time I consciously cried about my dad.


"Coming out" was something I had always regarded as an obstacle that I overcame with relative ease. I appreciated this fact. I knew how lucky I was, how hard this experience is for so many queer people. The reason it was so easy for me, well, you see, I was never "in". Or so I thought. I mean, I told my dad that I was dating a girl, and that I also like boys, in December. And he was okay with it. And life went on. Until it didn't, really, any more. In the longest short car ride of my life, my dad told me that my family is asking him "uncomfortable questions" which I coaxed out of him to mean the big "is Brianne gay" question. I also coaxed out that this made him uncomfortable because "a father should be uncomfortable about his daughter's sexuality" and "it's hard to know what to answer when [I] told [him] that [I] could just as easily fall for a man, but then [I] came back and it didn't exactly look like [I] was trying to attract men." So I let him know that I'm not trying to attract anybody, and that if he's uncomfortable he should just tell them that, and ask them to talk to me about it. Oh, but "they're uncomfortable talking to you about it." And hey, guess what, "you're making your little cousins uncomfortable and they're not sexually mature enough to understand why." I pointed out that they're mature enough to understand that mommy loves daddy, and mommy can love mommy and daddy can love daddy and that's enough. They're not sexually mature enough to understand sex. And I was never uncomfortable around The Gays. Oh, but that was because he "raised [me] to be tolerant and accepting." Oh yes, all that raising he did on Wednesday evenings and the weekends which we always spent at Nana's house, before Nana died of Cancer that nobody told me about until two days before she died. Papa was there too, and oh yeah Brianne, by the way, in your Nana's eulogy, let's drop the bomb that your Papa isn't your dad's biological father! But by that time I was twelve and, even though only I knew about it, The Gay had already gotten to me. Oh, and speaking of Papa, my dad decided to speculate to me that he "hadn't called [me] because maybe someone in the family said something about it (THE GAY!) to him and he's uncomfortable." And you know what, maybe that's the reason why, now, three weeks later, my dad hasn't tried to contact me. Maybe he's uncomfortable.

I
Write
Slam
Poems
Throughout
The lengthy
Stretches of
My days at work.
I never finish them,
Because it gets busy
Or managers are around
Or the horrid music steals
My inspiration, or I decide
That working at a sports
Store is a bleak life
For what must be
A bleak woman,
Incapable of
Writing a
Single
Good
Thing
Worth
Reading
To anybody,
Except herself.
And so unfinished
Poems end up in the
Trash cans, in the dumpster,
In the landfill, where the receipt
Paper they live their inky lives on
Disintegrates. Disappears
Beneath plastic bottles
And disposable
Diapers and
"Sanitary"
Napkins.
Containers
For fluids of
Both natural
And synthetic
Origin, unnecessary
Waste, unnecessarily
Wasted petroleum products,
Including the slightly glossy slips
Of oily, inky receipt paper filled with
Words that I won't share, simply
Because I didn't have the time
Or the drive to finish what
I
Started.

I left her at the bus station early this morning, and her mom drove me home. I came inside, undressed, and slept.

I dreamt that my piercings were falling out. I was searching all around me for o-rings and barbells and beads. Tiny pieces of myself were getting away, slipping through my fingers.

I dreamt that I was at some sort of outdoor event. Lots of people I know were there, and bits and pieces of the dream are floating at the tip of my tongue and nearly breaking the surface of my mind. Things were colourful. The only part I remember solidly is staring intensely into the eyes of a former romantic partner. She was beautiful, and we connected, and I was reminded of how things once were. But that was the end of it, nothing progressed, as is logical, I suppose.

Anyway, I don't miss Fiona yet (any more than I miss her any other time we aren't hanging out), probably because I'm not comprehending that she's not in the same city as I am. I do have a headache, but that's probably from sleeping in until one in the afternoon.

I got up and my infected shoulder thing, which was covered with an adhesive bandage, had overthrown its covering. So I cleaned it up and then took the first proper shower I've had in ages. I came downstairs and set up a pillowy, blanketed space for myself to lounge. I did some internet stuff, ate some chili, and now I think I'm going to read, as soon as I clean up my shoulder thing, again.

What is it about certain girls with certain guitars and certain voices that can touch me, break me, fix and improve me, simultaneously?

I got home not long ago from the house of one such girl. I walked in my door to discover good ol' Spock doing a back bend from his position facing away from anywhere that I might see him out of the corner of my eye in the dark. I wonder what action prompted his bend, or if he's been approaching the fall slowly but surely since the last time I ran into him.

I put on my friend Amy Bronson's CD, the CD with the songs that, when performed live, leave me reminding myself that I'm not romantically interested in her at all. There's just a feeling I get when she plays that very few musicians have ever given me. I'm now romantically involved with one of these few musicians, one who some time ago played music that tricked me into thinking I had feelings for her, that I had to talk myself out of. Now that those feelings are there, both in and out of the context of music, there is no more talking myself out of it. I don't think I could talk myself out of it now, with her.

Delicious vegan chili with buttered toast and a mention of Will & Grace on twitter, and I’m thinking about someone who meant a lot to me for quite some time. At least, what feels like quite some time to my young heart that is inexperienced with breadth. I’m wondering if her heart fell during our phone call on New Years Day like mine fell during a phone call early this morning. The situations are very, very different, but for an instant, I suspect we felt the same.

 

Anyway, I mentioned on facebook a couple days ago that I’ve been writing a bit. It’s kind of like bloggy stuff, poetic a little. Mostly it’s been on the bus on my way to work, so it ends up a 5-page text message draft. I’ve written a couple, and I’d post both, but one is a little too close to my heart for comfort right now. The other one is pretty damn close, too, but I feel far more okay putting it out there, so here it is:

 

There’s just something about 8am. It’s inarticulable. I think I made up that word. I know it’s not the quiet of the world around me that I’m ignoring via the Skull Candy noise-cancelling earbuds stuffed in my ears. And I don’t think it has to do with the significance of my T9 suggesting “nz” before “my” while I write this on my mobile phone on the way to work. Maybe it’s something about knowing that any of my friends who have a choice are asleep right now, except maybe the ones where it’s 11am, or the one where it’s midnight, just the cusp of tomorrow. When I wake up before 8, I get to exist in the same day as one of my closest friends who I rarely get the chance to speak to any more and won’t see until February. This is nice for me, even if she’s unaware...

 

That was supposed to continue, but then I got to work, so it leaves off a little abruptly. The other is better, I feel, but I want to add to it and develop it over time and then maybe post it when it’s finished, if I don’t forget about it.

 

I realized, after the fact, that Briar and I only exist in the same day until 5am, pacific time. Which is even sadder, but it does mean that I’m geographically closer to her, so it’s kind of okay. Plus I’ll be there in six months.

 

Right now, I love the world, I’m sad that Soly is leaving, I’m nervous about this party we’re going to in an hour, I’m so, so happy to have the amazing friends that I have, and I feel kind of creative, which is wonderful.

Just fell asleep, had a dream, and woke up in the span of 30 seconds, while reading my friends list.

Thoughts: I think them.

like, where is Soly? Oh, here, she just got here. Right on time.

So, I'm planning on getting up in five hours. I need to go meet Alex in seven. But instead here I am, writing.

I cleaned my room yesterday. I took all the small things that travelled with me and never saw the light of day out of my bags, and filed them away in wherever it is I decided they go. My bags are empty of even the most basic, unneeded objects. They are folded away in a closet. Because I'm in one single place now.

Travel was wonderous, as I'm sure you've heard me say. I had so much fun and spent a lot of time with people I love. I fell in love with this small town that some people like to call New York City, and I made so many friends who can understand without explanation. I saw a large part of North America, and I did so many things that I never dreamed I'd do. I discovered and rediscovered music all over again, and I ate lots of pizza, Subway, Chinese food, and other take out. I wasted and wasted and contributed significantly to much ruining of the planet. I'm better now. I didn't work, but at the same time I did. And I had to leave countless friends.

Home is wonderous in a different way. I love my friends just the same, and I love my city more than I could ever love New York (which is a lot). My friends here sometimes need explanation, but I don't worry that explanation will scare them away. I'm in my own little corner of the world, trapped by my lack of funds, and I'm okay with it. I'm eating primarily home-cooked vegetarian food, I'm composting, I'm recycling, I'm taking public transit, walking, (attempting) cycling. I'm working at my job again. And my goodbyes are really only for a couple of days here and there. I'm glad to be back.

But the entire previous paragraph is unnecessary. Two days ago I sat on a rock with two friends whose relationships with myself felt as strong as ever despite our failure to communicate over the past ten months. This rock is on the beach that you can get to from my house by crossing the street and going down some stairs. It's a small, fairly secluded beach. It was high tide, so the waves were crashing near our feet. Very little of the sandy beach was exposed. The horizon was ocean that gave way to mountain peaks. Several of them, huge, gorgeous, rising. We looked west, to where the sun had set moments previously. We talked quietly about the colours in the sky, backed by the constant lapping of waves. I looked from the blues to the pinks to the oranges to the yellows in the sky, to the bright white sails of the sailboats in the Burrard Inlet, to the green of the closer mountains and the blue of the farther ones. That moment was home. One of.

Why would anyone want to be anywhere else?

The summer is amazing. I love the sun, the heat, the long days, the swimming, and the abundance of so many things to do. I like to cherish it while its here. I think I'm almost too appreciative of it, because I know how amazing it is and I don't want to miss it.

I am exhausted.

I got home from Kits beach, where I hung out with friends from high school, had a picnic, reconnected with closer friends I haven't talked to in ages, about two hours ago, spent an hour on the beach right outside my house, and then hung out on my porch for half an hour with two of my better friends from the picnic. Prior to all this, I got up early with a pretty lady, went to the farmer's market, went for a swim in Trout Lake, freshened up, went to my mom's house to get water guns, went back from whence we came and further, met up with two more of my great friends, used said water guns in Vancouver's Largest Waterfight, hung out at Stanley Park for a couple hours, went back to my house and cooked, and then walked to Kits beach.

It's not surprising I'm exhausted, especially considering the amount of time I spent in the sun today. However, it is summer, and Saturday night, and a friend is having a beach birthday party, and when else am I going to go hang out on a beach that's a 10 minute bike ride from my house with a bunch of rowdy, drunken teenagers, than right now? 

And tomorrow I'm supposed to rest.

But already I'm planning a trip to my mom's house to obtain my bicycle and drop off my friend's in a more easily accessible location. I'm planning on going downtown to buy face wash from Lush that will actually improve my skin. I'm planning to go over to this pretty lady's house so I can wake up next to her again on Monday, before I go back to true real life, with work Monday afternoon.

And then there will be no day of rest for a possible three weeks.

I think my problem is I can't stay in one place. And I can't be alone. I should go to sleep right now. But that party is so accessible. And I can go and come back if I'm not having fun because I'm not drinking. It won't be a waste because I have a bicycle and need the workout and I won't pay for bus fare.

And I can sleep all day tomorrow, unless I still can't stay put.

+ I really really care about somebody, and she really really cares about me back.
+ I am in my city. I know where things are, how to get there, I could draw an entire city map.
+ I live in an apartment with some really awesome roommates who I love and who make me laugh.
- The place is a bit of a mess, and I am scared for the well-being of one of my roommates.
- It rained yesterday, and it's cloudy today.
+ It's summer, anyway.
+ I'm in the place where I feel the most whole.
- I miss so many people so profoundly.
- I wish I had been there.
- I didn't spend enough time in New York City
+ I have a Maura and she is only a city bus ride away.
+ The beach is across the street from my house.
+ MUSIC
+ I just finished travelling over a large part of North America, made amazing friends, had amazing experiences, saw amazing things, and most importantly, LOVED. I loved so much.
- I already said my goodbyes to Briar, but she's leaving the continent. And I will miss her.
~ I understand them, I sympathize, but I don't condone their behaviour.
+ I have nothing that I have to do today.
+ Solangel is coming to visit soon!
+/-/~ I am so distanced. So far away. So... outside.
+ I am alive.

Cramps! Ugh.
Love! So much love! Almost too much love! I don't know what to do with myself! It's insiiiide me. Even if it's not coming from the outside as much as I'd like, I'm still nearly overloaded. I like it.
My camera!
More money than I would have if I'd stayed in New York!
Cramps!
Friends!
A home-going plan!
A new song I wrote!
[greater than or equal to] Four crushes of varying strengths and severities!
A pride-going plan!
19+ years of life!
Hope!
Excitement!
Happiness!
Very little hair!
Not enough money!
UGHHHH CRAMPSSS!
Sleepiness.

This post is supposed to be about truth, in some way or another. I opened it and the first thing that came to mind was truth. So here, truth.

What's true? Love, love is true. Love is more true than anything else. And I've got so much of it and so much of it has found its way to me. And all this love I have is both directionless and pointed. I have love for the world and for society and for the places that I have been and am and will be. I have a sense of pure joy, happiness, warmth, safety, friendship, that emanates inside of me, and no other word for it than love.

I've got little bits of love that are burying themselves inside of me, nesting. These have names attached. All are friends, though there is a certain difference to some. A few are of a different colour. These are a little more forceful than the others. Not stronger, not brighter, not better. These tear a little. They create a certain instability. Though the names attached can be pinpointed, they create a general sense of what I have described as unspecified lovesickness. I am lovesick, but for no one specifically.

Another truth is secrecy. It's a concept that has been introduced to my life as of late. Withholding information. I've never felt the need to do it before, except in the interest of the confidentiality of others. Now, I have my own secrets that I keep. Mostly, I keep them unintentionally. There are times, though, when before I would have spilled the entire contents of my being, that I now just nod, keep my mouth shut. I feel that this is both a good thing and a bad thing. 

The last truth I'll talk about only briefly. And that I suppose would have to be truth. I feel compelled to create an entry in which I publicise everything that I've not said recently. Not that very many people read this, anyway, but it's so much easier to talk about things that one has opened up about, publicly.

Trees look like trees, just like they always have and like they always will, but a single tree looks like no tree i've seen before.

These are the kind of pictures one needs a camera for. The tiny distinctions that one will forget. That become commonplace.

The tiny specks of brilliant purple on a shade of green that i've become numb to. Screaming against the dark dull dreary sky.

I'm being catcalled but i don't know if amanda's lyrics would run true. I don't think i'm in the ghetto.

If i don't send these silent thoughts somewhere, they'll get lost in all the noise. I think i might after all be one of those people.

One of those people who needs to carry a notebook. Does the Denny's mean i'm going the right way, or does it mean the opposite?

Screw the right way and the wrong way. I found the sunset. And anyway, what's prettier than the sun setting over Denny's and Walgreens?

I don't know that i've ever seen yellow blend into orange into peach into pink into lavender into baby blue so beautifully. On a cloudy sky.

And even while i can still see the rapidly diminishing pink evidence that the sun was out today, the sky is black and lightning strikes.

The pouring rain is simultaneously coercing me to leave where i'm sheltered and pushing me back to delay the walk home. Lightning strikes.

The part of me that's supposed to be afraid of lightning never worked. Lightning strikes thrice. Those who get hit don't often die, do they?

As quick as lightning strikes one more time, right in front of my eyes, i decide to risk it and walk. And soak. It'll be a cool story if...

A man twice my size runs at me from across the road. I start. Something much worse than lightning crosses my mind. Lightning strikes.

He's now blocks ahead of me. I flick water off my arms. Lightning strikes, and the world darkens slightly.

I remove my glasses to wise them so i can better see the lightning and, of course, while i do this, lightning strikes.

If i had followers in tampa who weren't asleep on the couch right now they'd tell you that i've tweeted every single strike since sunset.

Lightning strikes and for once i lack commentary on the events around me.

A noise to my right scares the shit out of me, until i realize it's a turtle plunging back into the water because it was me that scared it.

Lightning fails to strike.

Until i hit send, that is.

Deleting messages because inbox is full and i hear a rumble. Lightning struck and i missed it.

I found my way home and will leave the lightning outside. Thanks for listening.

( Written for Facebook, more fitting here. So it's on both. )