Tonight someone asked me what I do when the pain becomes too much and I didn't have the heart to tell them the truth.

In which Riot tries to gather her thoughts long enough to make sense and structure of them

Ok, so this is kind of weird.
Not any one thing in particular, but pretty much my entire situation right now is a weird one. Maybe not to someone else, but I feel like I'm off my game. Not that it was such a great game to begin with, however.
I just don't feel like myself, and I've been trying to sort out what that means. When you're used to yourself, you understand certain actions and your emotions are easier to sort out.
This doesn't make a fuck of sense.
How do I put this.
I have no idea who I am or what I'm doing!
I feel like I'm finally start to live the kind of life that I want/should have, but now that I'm here I can't make sense of it.
I'm making music. A LOT of music. The fingers on my left hand are actually swollen from the amount of mandolin I've been playing. We finished recording our album yesterday. I broke a string today. Didn't I say I wanted to grow up to be a rockstar? I guess a fairly popular folk busker is kind of like being a rock star. It's probably as close as I'll get.
I just got back from a month long tour with a really good band that I have an incredibly minimal part in. I honestly feel like I got away with something by being on tour with them and that the only thing they really gained from having me around was another driver. Self depricating, I know, but it's more like everyone else was so amazing that it was really hard to keep up.
This tour....affected me. A lot. Usually when I travel I have a really amazing time, but really can't wait to get home. This time I was dreading coming back to Halifax.
I love Halifax so much, and I really can't see myself living anywhere else, but I guess I just wasn't ready to see it again.
I'm going to go ahead and say that it was probably because I wasn't ready to see Laurie again, and that being in another country and swooning over someone else was really really refreshing! The trip definitely helped me get over Laurie. I didn't have to see him for three weeks!
But now I'm back and he's around and even though it's so much easier to relate to him and be his friend it's still really hard not to fall for him all over again. It just makes me want to keep running away.
So I just keep taking little trips out of the city and keep thinking little thoughts about someone who's far away and worrying a little more every day about not having a job.
Weird weird weird.

In which Riot makes no excuses whatsoever for her online absense

I am really fucking tired.
Like, I'm so tired that I've been sitting in front of the computer in my mother's office since 10am because I can't work up the drive to walk the 20 minutes home. I've got the now empty carafe of coffee sitting in front of me, the only proof that I've consumed caffeine today because I sure as hell can't feel it.
It's my day off, so one would think my natural solution would be to take a fucking nap already, right? Sleep is the best cure for exhaustion. But have I ever mentioned that I hate sleep?

OK, that's a lie. I don't hate sleep. It feels good, and laying around in bed (especially on a sunny morning) is really wonderful. I just can't seem to convince myself that getting myself into bed for sleep is a good idea.
I really hate waiting to fall asleep. I've always had this uneasiness with the thought of losing consciousness and control over my mind, which I credit for how long it took me to try drugs/alcohol even though I was totally surrounded by it.
It's the waiting for sleep to come that creeps me out. Not only do I have no idea when I'll finally fall asleep, but I can never stop thinking about all the shit I could be doing! If I could just use that extra 20 minutes or so to finish sewing a patch or binding a book or playing with the kitten, and then fall asleep instantly it would totally work for me.
But I can't, so I end up sewing patches and binding books and playing with the kitten and talking to friends and writing songs and just sitting around longing until 3 or 4 in the morning, then drag myself to bed and try not to think about what kind of dreams I'll be having.

The upside is that since I can't sleep in, I'm so under-rested that I don't think I even have any dreams.

In which Riot calms down, settles in, and gears up

My house is a very, very, very fine house.

Well, it's more like a flat than a house. Maybe an apartment, but I'll stick with flat.

I'm living in a brick building with a nice big stoop and a wroght iron spiral staircase in the back. It's beautiful, and it's doomed. The highway, of which my bedroom window provides such an excellent view, is falling to pieces. Because it's such a pathetic piece of shit, it needs to be rebuilt. In order to rebuild THAT highway, they have to build TEMPORARY highway. The temporary highway will run straight through the Quatier des Tanniers.

It's really hard to imagine that this space, which has been SO FULL of so much life and excitement over the past few months, wont even exist this time next year. Instead of being a home to some of the most beautiful, strong, and intelligent women I've ever met, this space will have thousands of cars TEMPORARILY re-routed through it.

It really is something special, to be living with such incredible people. Not that I don't love or respect the people I've lived with in the past, but I feel like my eyes have opened wider and my pre-dispositions have been challenged, possible destroyed.

Last night I watched Danielle, clothed in her pretty red dress and big rubber boots, jump into a dumpster and fish out a kings ransome in spinach.

Today I watched Marina feed the spinach left overs to the tub of worms in the living room. She cooed at them, and apologized for having neglected them over the past month.

I missed the screening, but Wednesday Devo showed her short animated film, "Beer is cheaper than Therapy".

It's only the first weekend of June, but there's already something very different about this summer. I can tell that I'm a different person now, and that I'm stronger than I ever have been.

Since leaving Halifax, two of my past lovers have slept in my room, and I had drinks alone with another.

Not even tempted.

Not only am I totally in love(!), but I feel like I'm past the point of needing physical intimacy in order to feel wanted, welcome, worthy, etc. I feel confident that I can interact with people on a level now in a way that doesn't require attraction (physical or otherwise). I can just be friends. Just hang out. Just walk and laugh and cook and talk and sleep (really sleep) with people. No tension, no assumptions. My legs and my armpits are furry, I haven't put anything on my face other than water in months, my clothes are filthy and I eat out of the garbage. And I'm not afraid, not of what they're thinking at least.

Maybe this time I'll get it right. Maybe now I can be by myself and really thrive. I do find it a little hilarious that in order to finally be succesfully "single", I had to find the right partner.

I miss home a lot. I'm definitely doing that thing where in my mind, time in Halifax is standing still. I imagine that I'll go home and things will be exactly as I left them, but I know deep down that isn't the case. Things are moving on without me, and it will be weird, but I'm still so excited to get back to Halifax and step right into the swing of things.

I have big BIG plans!

In which Riot is a big, bougie hypocrite

we're sitting in quite a chic spot in the most beautiful neighborhood in Montreal. You can tell this place has class because everything is decorated in black & red, and the curtains are velvet.
Here we are, in Montreal to celebrate with friends, learn and teach, and patronize the 10th Anarchist bookfair. He we are, drinking coffee, playing chess, and using a laptop in a high class cafe in a sickeningly gentrified neighborhood.
How many punk points do we lose?
I feel like maybe I should be sleeping in a bush to balance out for this. Sort of like buying carbon credits with your air plane ticket. Maybe I'm over analyzing this?
Laura Bee is writing something beautiful on a napkin. Laurie and Peter are playing a beautiful game of chess, and I am at ease.
Maybe this city isn't so bad?
Maybe I can overlook the fact that in the last week in Halifax I found both a sushi dumpster and an ice cream dumpster?
Maybe I'll be so alone here, but since it will have been my decision I wont spend 3 months resenting my self and my mind. Maybe instead I will embrace and expand my mind, learn to love myself, and develop any sort of latent potential I've got.
Maybe I'll go crazy and bail and go running back to my daddy.
Shall we take bets?

In which Riot takes the first step toward recovery by admitting she procrastinates

Well that didn't quite work out now, did it?
I'm such a Tigger. I always start things with such zeal and then let it all fall to bits.
Maybe I'm just a shitty writer? I mean, of course I'm a shitty writer, and here's your proof. But maybe I'm just not meant to log this shit away? I'm a shitty photographer, too.

My entire universe has shifted in the past few months, and it's not even close to done yet. Maybe that's what life is supposed to be like - constantly getting tugged out from under your feet, and then you've got to scurry to stay on top of it, otherwise you get taken for a ride. Not that I feel completely side-swiped by recent events, some of them have been quite amazing! In fact, I truely feel that despite all the suffering I've felt this winter/spring, I am I happier person and there is very little I would change.

The plan is to take off in 2 weeks. I've given my notice at the best job I've ever had, I'm leaving my first apartment, my loving parents, and now the best damn group of friends I've ever had.

Am I fucking crazy?

Yes. And I plan on getting much crazier this summer. I want to push myself to the limit and actually EXIST in this world and feel alive and like maybe life isn't just a bunch of shit that we put ourselves through because we're too afraid to die.

One of the weirder parts is that I was excited to go off and live a new life in a new city and become a responsible adult and go to school and maybe get a job where I have to appear and behave according to someone else's standards to get a lot of money, but in a flash that's all become such an obviously crap goal! I want to go and make friends and breath air coming out of trees I've never seen before and make music and make art and do everything on my own terms.

And then I want to come back.
No, I have to come back. So many people just itch to get away from their home town so they can go somewhere "better". Maybe the reason that I stuck around here for my entire 21+ years is because there is no "better"! This is "best"! No only is it an amazing place to call home, but it's like an awesomeness magnet, and the most wonderful people in the world are coming and building and sharing and staying and HOW COULD I LEAVE THIS FOREVER?

I feel inspired and encouraged and admired and challenged and eager. And I feel love! Instead of me running away from my neuroses and fear and insecurities, I'm now prepared to go off and adventure and learn, and then bring back everything I'll gather for my friends. Extend the magnet of awesomeness to the far reaches of this country, and then reel it all back in.

Mmm.

In which Riot explores an eating disorder and how to gain control of the reins

Black coffee, vegetables cooked in water, the white of one egg, a veggie dog.
My self-deprecation manifests itself in ways that are so familiar to me. I get fed up with myself, and go about making what would appear to be healthy choices, but underneath it all it's the same game of numbers and numbness.
I start wearing long, flowing skirts. Not because I've finally decided to act my gender, but because jeans are too telling, and fuck if the ones I own even fit me right now.
Your average human improves upon itself in the summer. They become fit through activity, energy, low appetite. For me, the summer is a time of indulgence and apathy. I get lost in the world around me, and by the time I finally start to look back at myself I am sorely disappointed by what I've been reduced to.
The winter months are where I get my act together. I don't have blue skies to gaze into, I only have myself. My four walls bounce my attentions back on me, and I can't hide.
What the fuck good does it do me to be thin in the winter? When I'm covered in sweaters and blankets and locked away from everyone? It's an unfortunate cycle, and for some reason I feel that this final realization and recognition of this pattern will do me absolutely no good.
Of course, it's not like I want to stop the cycle, I just want to shift it around. Maybe I'll actually accomplish it this time. Maybe I'll finally get a grasp on myself.
I've been thinking a lot about self-exploration, understanding, and expression. I tend to ignore my own being and become absorbed in others. Cory is a perfect example of this. I'm so infatuated with him, that he completely occupies my thoughts. I think about his hair, his skin, his figure. Why would I want to think about myself when I could think about someone so wonderful?
For the past while, I've considered myself to have a much healthier outlook on life, but what if I'm completely wrong, and I've just been stewing in my own ignorance once again?
Cory is definitely the best thing to happen in my life in a long time. I've never been so understood, so respected, and able to communicate so freely. Maybe I've been taking this wonderful new energy for granted, and I've been using it the wrong way for the last 2 months.
Not that I want to use him, but I feel like he could really help me, if I knew how to be helped.
My biggest problem is that at this point, I'm not willing to sacrifice losing weight, and I don't know if I'll ever be healthy if that's the case.
Is it ever going to be possible for me to be healthy and happy at the same time? My optimistic tendencies say yes, but I feel like my body and my mind know better than to be fooled by such sanguinity.