Happy holidays.

Love each other.

Eat a lot.

Hug.

Dance a little. Or a lot.

Be thankful (even if it's not Thanksgiving).

Appreciate your family.

I love you all.

Had a very long last two and a half days. My tiny family took over a hotel and had a ceremony for the one person who really kept us together. For some reason, I don't find a reception, after a funeral, is the way for me to grieve. Sitting around eating sandwiches and squares, talking to people you don't know isn't that comforting to me. Same with going back to my grandparent's... well, grandfather's house, and having to act happy, at a time when none of us are, particularly. It was a really, really rough time. And I still feel as though I haven't dealt with it.

The only good thing that came of these three gross days was last night, in my uncle's suite, everyone was slightly drunk, barefoot, putting on foot cream and wearing 'toe hats' made by my little cousin that looked a lot like what toes would look like if they were members of the KKK. A little random.

my favourite prof wanted a submission from me for his magazine about my grandma. I didn't write one. She died on Friday. I'm doing alright, but I also deal with death right now by going going going. As soon as I stop and let myself think about it, I lose it. I need to be surrounded by people, accomplishing tasks, and right now I've done it all. There's nothing left to do, to distract me from thinking about the years this woman has been in my life, and what this loss means to me and my family. It's quite huge, no matter how long we've anticipated it, due to all her illness.

Anyway. This is what I wrote, on Saturday afternoon. Life is weird.

I didn't want to write anything about my grandma, because thinking about her made me sad. She died really early this morning, I heard my dad (her son) bolt out of the house at 3 am. So I am writing, because she's all I can think about. She has been sick the last five years of my life. Sick sick. Sick as in "this'll be grandma's last Christmas," and "this'll be the last time she sees you in a play." I heard that a lot, but it never was. Well, until today. She was a very tough individual, with a damn strong will to survive.

I think what I would like to write about her mostly, is that she was really cool. She loved the Blue Jays, made hand knit toys, traveled all over, froze little birds that died after flying into her big windows (for a local bird museum. I said cool, not crazy). This is all while she was attached by a tube to an oxygen tank. It didn't stop her from being a dynamic individual. I think I'll never forget the day my eighteen year old friends were visiting the cottage, and I came into the living room to find them all watching Antiques Roadshow and enjoying it.

I watched her deteriorate slowly, I guess. Her memory faded a bit, and she would tell me the same stories over and over. She went to the hospital semi-regularly. She overcame cancer. She overcame all kinds of things. There would be times that our family came from all over Canada, thinking they were saying goodbye, when really it was just a temporary setback. Having her in the hospital was so regular, in fact, that I hardly felt anything when I found out she was back in a hospital bed a few weeks ago. Her death, while sad, has been coming for a long time.

I'm the eldest grandchild. I'll be asked to say something at her funeral this week. What do you say about someone who has lived so long, and had such a neat life (a nurse in Britain during the Second World War, an immigrant to Canada, a family of pilots and traveling...) but who I've only known a few years before her illness? I loved her dearly, yet I've been missing her for awhile. The moral of this ramble? If there is one, it's this: grandmas are important, and deserve to be known. I'm so glad I knew mine.

harassment

I honestly feel violated by all the pop-up ads on my parents computer. I don't want to play poker online, I'm ALWAYS the 100 000th visitor to your website, and I finding dating online extremely sketchy.

If pop-ads were people, I would issue restraining orders left right and centre. Back off pop ups.

christmas shopping sucks

At the mall:

-people watching a frying pan demonstration. because, come on, everyone wants a new frying pan. Now with titatium. Not a typo, oh no.
-'here, ma'am, I'll help you purchase a skateboarding shirt for him, by picking up everything off the rack and showing it to you. Because you can't do that yourself.'
-the t-shirts with the whack (!!!!) sexual inneundoes. it's wrong and offensive.
-no, t-shirt stand. I'm not interested in tshirts with large aggressive fonts and clipart pictures. You're not funny.

The good thing:
-the little boy that stopped, sat down, and rolled down the wheelchair ramp. Awesome.

this morning

I did an intense stretch session on my living room carpet, a la performance class I didn't like. Guh?

plans plans plans plans plans

It's so much fun to sit around a pub with your ex-drama teacher, his awesome girlfriend and some super ambitious friends and talk about stuff that could just as easily happen as not happen.

New roommate?

Scares me a lot. We clicked quite well, I must say. He made me a pros and cons of living with him list.

He was honest. I think. Unlike the last one.

And I am a lot more appealing of a roommate then the man who had stuffed animals in chairs facing the television that he called children. I didn't tell him about the horse.

Confused, but okay with that.

Well, another play is finished, and another temporary community in my life is kaput. I hated a lot of this experience, but am very glad I did it, as I met a lot of great people and learned a ton. The thing I will miss the most is dancing before the show to the hand drums and the shakey things and just loving everyone and having a space where I am free to not talk and be me.

It took over everything, though, and I felt that I was constantly sacrificing something, either school, or friends, or keeping in touch with my family. I don't like that feeling.

My best friend here and I have been together pretty constantly (she was the ASM), and I'm so so so thankful that she shared this experience with me, and that I've had her to chat with about all the shit we took. She also helped me a lot, particularly over dinner on Saturday, to figure out what I think about certain things and offer her (particularly biased) ideas and advice.

Then, last night, her boyfriend who I adore almost as much as her, made me completely change all the decisions I had made after the dinner the previous day. And then she agreed with him. I like that guys will usually be completely honest with you even if it's not the nicest thing.

Anyway, life is good. I'm pretty happy. Tamara leaves tomorrow, which will be a big change, but our friendship survived living together (I'm told that a lot don't) and I had a great time. I took a walk in the gorgeous snow with Dave Matthews on the discman and realized that I do have a life here now, which I couldn't say at this time last year. I have people who I love and I have places to go. I am independant. I won't live here forever, but it finally feels like a home.

Now... what to do when I grow up.

And I'm spent.

Oh, theatre and development, let's never fight again...

Why I love my program:

-as per usual: credits for getting and giving massages, rolling around on the ground, and making crafts for two hours.
-my playwriting prof is an asshole that I love anyway, who said yesterday in a conversation with me, "wait, I haven't finished belittling you yet!"
-being told by people who are actually quite influential in the Canadian theatre scene that I am good at what I do.
-instead of exams, doing: a scene, a workshop with kids, a giant play, and "apathy house", a creative collobaration that takes place all over theatre house (the profs house, it's awesome. Here theatre profs, have huge offices with fireplaces, and a basement with leather couches and a fucking runner on the dining room table. Oh, and Harry Potter-esque stairs! and a sunroom! and here! a secret passageway! oh! and a balcony!) I'm going to be a theatre prof.
-Robert: "upp", 'please', "take your head for a walk", 'use your periphical vision', ripping his shirt off and throwing desks for emphasis, stroking Cara's face, 'feet over your head', three second jumps... oh man.
-having a professor not blink an eye when a student brings wine to class, and proceeds to drink it out of the bottle.
-not knowing what the eff I'm going to do when I graduate, but loving it so much that I don't care.

I had a really good day.
I'm liking this play now.
I'm happy.