INFP

If you haven't taken this personality test yet, you should give it a shot. When you figure out who you are, (what a profound statement) Google your results. It might make your brain explode.... Just a little warning.

I'm an INFP- Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving personality. Either these people have been following me around for 21 years or they really figured out some crazy things about the human mind. They have my number...to minute point of RIDICULOUSNESS.

Yesterday, I got in a fight with mama. We've been at odds lately, under different stresses, so whenever we have an argument, the points go back and forth like the ping pong championships of the WORLD...fast and ridiculous. We were fighting about insurance, about rent, about debt, going to school, Telly's relationship with the new carpet on the stairs... (He likes scratching at it), even about flossing my TEETH.

BUT, you know where it started? The epicenter of this bloody every-thing-you've- ever-done-wrong-to-me fight? She told me I was no longer allowed to use her car to go places and do things if I had laundry all over my floor.

Exhibit A:

"When it comes to the mundane details of life maintenance, INFPs are typically completely unaware of such things. They might go for long periods without noticing a stain on the carpet, but carefully and meticulously brush a speck of dust off of their project booklet."

SAY WHAT.

Follow that up with how completely shaken I was about Jamie Hubley, and you can top it off with THIS:

"Healers care deeply about the inner life of a few special persons, or about a favorite cause in the world at large. And their great passion is to heal the conflicts that trouble individuals, or that divide groups, and thus to bring wholeness, or health, to themselves, their loved ones, and their community."

The other fun thing about this test is that...I feel like if I have a personality type such as this, I can't be the only one. There are people out there who are just like me... and that's cool. That's way...way... far out amazing. It also makes me feel justified in..wanting to, needing to write...as a calling. Wanting to work in charity, it seems clear and justified now. Changing my life. I don't know. It's reassuring.

I have to go work out now. I'm trying to get back on the healthy life wagon. The regular exercise wagon. The fruits and veggies wagon. Rebekah and I had a long awesome talk after my 10K the other day. She brought up a lot of thoughtful points about my weight loss goals. How it might be easier to focus on small goals, like five pounds at a time.

She also pointed out that maybe instead of thinking INEEDTOLOSE50POUNDSZOMG. I just keep losing in small, small, small ways, until I feel happy with my body.
Which totally makes sense. I don't want to be a stick figure. I LIKE CURVES. I just want to be happy. And this is a way more positive way to think about things. I'm going to try very hard to make this time different.

Re-invent!

The Hope Speech

I saw this story on the news today and it broke my heart. I sat with tears streaming down my cheeks, crushing Telly in my arms, unable to find words beyond anger and cutting sorrow.

I wish I could reach out to every single kid who ever felt alone, unloved, rejected, or trashed out. I might not be gay, but I’ve been there. Bullied and watching all of your friends fall in teenage love? Fuck, sometimes I feel like I’m still stuck in that state of mind, left in the dust. When I think about the person I was at 15, that girl was worlds away from who I am now. She had a lot to learn, a lot to become. I have become and it makes me so sad this boy never will have that chance.

I think these are feelings EVERYONE goes through, in different magnitudes. But for someone so young to be so mixed up with medications and circumstances that death at fifteen is their only option? It’s crushing. I’m furious. I’m destroyed. As a former suffering teenager, as someone who has lost a good friend to suicide, I’m moved.

One of my greatest wishes is for these kids, these lost souls, to know they have options. They can have freedom. They can have all the love in the fucking world, it’s out there, it’s waiting. It’s pounding in the hearts of a million people who will love them. My heart being one of them. Every time I hear something like this, it becomes more and more important to me to live a life guided by spreading love. That’s all I want. I want to give love.

Harvey Milk, one of my absolute heroes, said it best: “The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. You gotta give ‘em hope.”

In the Long Run...

I'm submitting this to Travis, but y'all deserve it here first. <3

Follow Up
Confession: I’ve been slacking in my training lately.

Confession: Because of this lack of motive to go on and on like a run on sentence, this running out of steam, I’ve never run 10 kilometers before today.

Confession: I did it anyway.

8AM arrives as early as anything when you’re equating the sound of the alarm clock screeching to the sound of the starting gun. Once it wakes you up, there’s no going back. Once you’re off, you can’t turn around or stop.

I dressed in my racing best, poked my head into my older sister’s room to make sure she was awake and went downstairs for breakfast. Scientifically, I had it mapped: carbs, protein and energy. While I ate half of a sandwich and sipped a bitter half a cup of coffee, I could feel buzzing in my veins. It was the cocktail of dread, nervous excitement, and great expectations humming in my blood. I pinned my number to the front of my shirt and laced up my shoes.

Confession: I remember thinking… “You don’t have to do this.” My sister and I headed to starting area and once again got a look at the ragtag family we’d adopted ourselves into. Old, young, gangly, stocky. Numbered like prisoners or cattle, and restless. There was an energy in the air that made everyone shift and move without ever being static… Or maybe they were trying to keep warm.

It was a cold morning, with the sun swathed and hidden behind grey clouds. Huddled masses, we waited for the starting gun. It started to rain in cold splotches. The wind blew in bursts, and I felt my muscles freezing and shrinking. 9:30, the official start time passed. No gun. 9:45, still no gun. Our anticipation burned away into impatience and anger and chattering teeth. When the air horn blew, everyone cheered. It was an optimistic start for a long road ahead.

I can’t summarize the experience of the run itself. Imagine the pull of gravity, the forces of nature and your pounding heart fighting for your attention simultaneously. The course was loaded with hills, and soon I was silently talking to myself. I talked to myself like a crazy person. Earn the downhill. Don’t ever stop. My new, personal mantra: One day I will be nothing, so right now I must be everything.

Confession: Based on my 5K time, and giving myself a little leeway for exhaustion, I set my goal for an hour and thirty minutes. I wasn’t going to set a time goal at all, because they say the first time you run a new distance, the achievement is to finish.

Time slipped by but the kilometers came on slow, and near the end, every step felt like it might have been the one to give up on. Every second tearing by felt like it was taking me further out to sea. When I saw the marker for 9 kilometers, I high fived it and burst out laughing on my way by. I probably scared a couple of the volunteers, but it didn’t matter.

I was going home. I was going all the way. I was going, going, gone. For the final kilometer, I trotted along with a frosty, weary determination. Rounding a corner I saw the banner calling out to me and my legs of lead lifted one more time to finish it all off. What I started. Committed to. Sweat and suffered and puked for.

My sister, already finished, screamed and cheered with my mom and my best friend by her side, waiting for me. I launched straight into their arms and beat my goal time by 13 minutes, clocking in at 1:17!

In the wake of the rush of joy, I was laughing and fighting for breath, and a little moved by the power of the moment.

Confession: I’m already sure there’s going to be a next time. A next race. A follow up to this follow up.

Confession: If someone told me one day I’d run 10 kilometers in the freezing wind and rain, I would’ve told them to step off…. In so many words.

Confession: I’ll see you at the starting line.

Anticipation

I'm writing a little post before I go to bed because I won't have time to do it tomorrow in the morning before the race. THE FACKING RACE. Last time I had to run a roadrace (a measly 5k, PFF...Okay it was a HUGE deal at the time-- my first race ever) I was freaking out during my pre-blog and I wrote this.

Unfortunately my sense of humor has been burned away by nerves jangling as hard as piano keys, and left in it's smoking wake determination, ashes of fear and a sense of destiny. Yeah, I'm ridiculous, and yeah, I said it. Destiny. Tomorrow is huge character climax for me, whether positive or negative. It will end the 10K story arc. It's going to change me, and I can 't wait for it.

My goal for tomorrow is 1 hour 30 minutes. I'll try and get pictures. Otherwise, the next time I post it'll be from the other side of the finish line. <3

Here's hoping I don't puke.

Sour Grapes

I had to drive out of town to pick up my little sis from school for the weekend. My friend Justin and I ended up meeting for a quick coffee, and I ended up wearing this. I would like to note at the start of my day the bun was more on the top of my head. Either way. FUN.

Right before we left to drive back to Waterloo, I asked Kacy to do me a solid and snap some photos. I seldom wear white, but I think it came together more or less as I envisioned it in my head.



Motorcycle Jacket: PINK
Crop Top: H&M
Jeans: Forever 21+
Combat Boots: Spring
Purse: Matt & Nat

My future goal is to not wear my glasses the next time I happen to take an outfit picture. They are my ultra security blanket. The end.

The Daily News...and tits.

The Bear has been on the prowl lately. I think, combined with PMS raises it and my buried anxieties about the run are bringing it to the front. It's on the 16th, so we are officially two days away. And, not to sound like someone making New Years resolutions, but after the run, I'm hoping to get back into a better health routine in terms of going to the gym and watching what I eat. I've been TERRIBLE lately... like reality TV terrible and I think it's effecting my mood and my confidence, for starters.

The Bear scares away my optimism and I crawl back into bed at 4 in the afternoon because I don't want to go downstairs and eat everything in the kitchen out of some nameless anxiety and feelings of being emotionally and physically hideous. Some bitterness. I don't know...it's not a good state of mind. I'm not looking for sympathy here, I'm just saying, that's how out of whack I get around this time. Jill and Rebekah both separately suggested going on the pill to help regulate some of my hormones, which I think might be a good idea. Except that you need to get your doctor to give you a PAP, and in my peaky, pre-PMS whiny sensitive state, the worst idea ever seems to be an old guy looking at my lady parts, analyzing them while he thinks about the bad golf game he had on the weekend.

It wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened to me.
(For those of you who aren't educated, that's the journal I had before this one. Warning: The post talks about my tits and the awkward doctor appointment where they were first revealed to the world. Yes, I said tits.)

Either way. To lift our spirits and get some stuff done, Bek and I went Halloween shopping today. I got white pants, suspenders, shoes, a wig and a moustache. My Freddie ensemble is basically complete. (Weird story: While we were at the second costume store, we saw costume moustaches made out of 100 percent REAL HUMAN HAIR. WTF IS THAT.) I'm looking forward to Halloween more and more and more. I've never even been a big fan of it...(I was traumatized by a booby trapped house as a child, true story) but this year I'm actually SO excited. My love of Freddie combined with my love of gay bars will explode into black and orange glittery love. Seriously. Bek got a lot of the stuff for her costume. GO TEAM US!

After shopping we went out for dinner and spoke about the sort of near but also slightly distant future. We spoke about Chuck Palahniuk's soon to be released book Damned, and of our prospective lives if we moved to Montreal. Nous avons parlé de l'étudie le Francais. University and work. My prospective writing portfolio. Ogling the Montreal men. Apartment warming parties. I don't know. It was enough to bring a little warmth back into my bones and lift my spirits. That's what friends are for!

Plans? Costume? Tits? TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT.

Thanksgibbin's

Every year on Thanksgiving, my family has dinner together. We invite our neighbors who only have family out of town, our friends who live alone, my sisters brought their boyfriends. Every year we have a big meal and after we finish, before the evening is through, we sit around the table, and go in a circle, and say what we're thankful for.

I want to continue this tradition if/when I get to have a family of my own. I think I would love to have people so close by to me, an open group of friends where the line blurs into family, and a moment of clarity and honesty and gratitude. Some people think about it before, some of us go on the spot.

This year, I was thankful for the life I lead and the problems I have.
I'm looking into post secondary so that I can work with a non-profit organization. Through this lense I've seen a lot of bad things. People less fortunate than I am. I know that compared to what SOME people go through, my problems are nothing.
So I am thankful that my obstacles, mental, physical, romantic, artistic, whatever...I'm glad I can overcome them. Everytime I overcome a problem, I grow a little. And when I grow enough, I'll be able to reach out to others and help them with their problems. See the bigger picture.

What are you thankful for this year?

I've been sick, with a little cold, a little nausea, a little fever.

I've been feeling pretty antsy lately too. Like there's something wild under my skin and I'm not sure how to take care of it this time.

I've been lost, looking at my options for the future and wavering on my path. Whatever path that is. Even with a list of like...15 schools Canada-wide...that's still a 15 different lives to choose from.

I think people don't hug each other enough.

EDIT: RANDOM UPDATE.

I was feeling like adding more so I decided to throw in a couple of outfit pictures featuring my lovely orange jacket. Again. Sue me. I was feeling a little like ass kicking today, so not featured in these pictures are my ass kicking black combat boots. I like wearing t-shirts, but there's a fine line between a boring t-shirt and jeans and a nicely put together ENSEMBLE. Yeah, that's a hoity toity word.

One of these days I'm going to find a better space to take outfit photos in, because I realize right now that my blog has more torsos than a serial killer's garden.

Jacket: H&M
Meanie-bo-beanie...or as we say here, toque: H&M
Sick Boy T-Shirt: Birthday present!
Jeans: Forever 21
Combat Boots (MIA): Spring

I would also like to say that I can't take an outfit picture without doing something weird. I.e. Looking like I'm A) Seeing forever B) Doing a great impression of a dramatic movie poster in the photo on the right.