Pictures from Linda's Wedding

I'm not photogenic.

Which part of the human body is featured on the front cover?

One of the best books I've read in a while. The writing style is impeccable - full of interesting scientific insight applied to everyday social occurances. It's not the kind of story you can rush through, but it leads you on the painfully slow process of human decay with a subtle twist of irony so artfully drawn out by this talented French writer/poet.

I'm no book critic, but as a fellow avid reader, I found that though it was slow paced, it was such a facinating tale, I actually read it to the very end. Perhaps it was just morbid curiosity that kept me going because the characters were not loveable or even relatable, they were perverse, a little evil, and mostly pathetic, but I wanted to know if there would be a point. And there was! There really really was! And WHAT a point! I'm still reeling from the balls on this guy... the kind of prophetic stuff dreams are made of.

Now that I'm finished it though, I need something else to read. Any suggestions?

SCHOOL SUX

I feel like a complete moron. And I share this with you, blog, because if I sit here with it brewing inside me, I'm going to start crying (again) and I'll be embarrassed because it's not so bad, and I'm really more upset with myself for being so retarded.

Basically, my school called me today to tell me that I can't graduate because I took the wrong gen ed course in fourth semester. I should have taken an English course, but instead, I took Myths, Dreams and Consciousness, which is a cultural course.

I honestly had no idea that... I thought I had to take six gen eds to graduate, that's what everyone was saying, so I took whatever I wanted. I already got my graduation picture taken and my mom's boyfriend is coming in from New York to attend the convocation. It's more embarrassing than anything.

I honestly don't care whether or not I get that diploma because I know I graduated and I'll put it in my résumé regardless, but I hate disappointing my mom. Again! All she's ever wanted was to see me graduate a post-secondary institution. Sure she'd prefer it were a university, but she'll settle for college if she has to. I'm just so angry that this stupid system is going to rob her of even that.

I'm going to fight this... but in previous experiences with fighting soul-less systems, I know that there's only a slim chance that they'll make an exception for me. What sucks is that I paid for this so-called education. What sucks is that my GPA is 3.8. What sucks is school. SCHOOL SUX.

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY BLOG

I can't believe I've been blogging for over a year! To make up for my tardiness, I've blogged THREE times today. That's special.

Great big ole hairy armpit to the lot of ye!

non-Sense;

I was late getting to class (cuz i can never find my art stuff when i actually need it) and the class was full. i kind of knocked on the door and they pretty much opened and closed the door in my face. fucking rude cunts. i admit being late is one of my worst qualities, but they don't even know me!

oh well.

I ended up painting just to spite them. I've been playing around with an idea for awhil, wanted to paint this little one eyed monster (no, it's not a penis) I've been doodling since high school. always used black ink though, and wasn't sure what colour he'd be in real life. turn's out he's purple. but that's just for now. i think i need to buy paint.



The reason why I was late was mostly because I went shoe shopping. Yes, I went to the Eaton Centre because good shoes are too expensive. I ended up at ICON where I got these for $80. My other choices were all $100+. Were shoes always this expensive?



I'm sure there'll be lots of pictures from the wedding. Everyone from Ryan's office is invited so I think it'll be a lot of fun. I miss working for a fun company, although advertising isn't that bad (not like a bank and doctors are worse). But there's a certain freedom you get from being in porn that's just not there anywhere else in this civilization.



This is me breaking in my new shoes while smoking a post-creative jaab. That's my new word for it. The "j" is pronounced like in Sveden. Ja!



Peaches you dirty little whore!

Everybody makes their own fun. If you don't make it yourself, it isn't fun. It's entertainment.

I've been putting off posting because I did a drawing over the weekend and I wanted to post it, but I keep forgetting to upload the image from hoem and I tend to do most of my posts from work now, so it just keeps getting forgotten and forgotten...

Well, fuck that, I'll post it when I remember.

I started doing The Artist's Way again because I've been so depressed and for some reason, this book really helps. I think it's because my life is so completely out of my control - always waiting for someone else to tell me what to do, waiting for the summer to end, waiting to do real job interviews - and it frustrates me and turns me into a bit of a hateful old blob. But when I'm working on The Artist's Way, I can focus on something I CAN control - my creativity. When I'm focused on being creative, everything else seems less bad. And I find I'm overall more aware of my surroudings and other people, which helps my social awkwardness.

I must sound so crazy with all my spiritual self-help books. But between The Artist's Way and The Art of Happiness, I hope to find some inner peace. I was a really calm, zen-like kid growing up, and shit didn't hit the fan til I was 16 up til around 20. Almost like I woke up one morning with hormones raging and life was just one big drama. Everything from cheating on too many boys, morning-after pills, clubs, drugs (just a little) or screaming fights with my mom... in retrospect, it all feels like a bad dream.

Even when I met Ryan, I was quite different then than I am now. I was modelling for Miss Behav'N then and still extremely dramatic. We used to have fights where I would run off for hours and walk around Parkdale at night fuming over some minor misunderstanding.

In many ways, Ryan saved me from what could have been years and years of meldramatic crazy sexploitative single life. Oh the trouble I could have gotten into... Chuckle. Might've made for a more interesting blog. Instead now I'm all into being a well-balanced functioning human being and my biggest complaint is about being bored at work.

Tonight, Datura (hopefully) and I are going shoe shopping because there's a wedding this Saturday - an Italian-Portuguese wedding - and I need some pretty dancing shoes! Afterwards, we're going to hit up a $7 life drawing class at The Gladstone. There's always something fun going on at the Gladstone like on Sundays, they have Open Mike Night in the Fishtank and Ryan wants to start doing some poetry reading.

I'm not so much into poetry, but maybe I'll write a good monologue or something. Often, I write poetry that goes with my drawings, but they always sound lame. Everything I write sounds lame to me. Even this blog! Which is why I'm always always grateful for the few kind people who continue to read it.

Ryan found me Thom Yorke's solo album. I've only heard the first couple of songs on the way to work, and it was pretty boring, but I just haven't had time to really get in to it. Things have been pretty crazy at work and in real life. Besides getting busted for blogging about my office (see post below), I'm also going through lots of internal turmoil. Ryan said I was talking in my sleep two nights ago. That creeps me out more than anything. What's going through this little round head of mine? What could be so mind-consuming that it manifests in my dreams? I don't remember. But I can feel the anger burning inside, and at what or at whom I cannot figure.

I've started spending a lot of time in Trinity Bellwoods after work. It's a really nice place to relax and listen to music and write and read. Nothing prepared me for how depressing being an intern can be. First off, it doesn't feel like you belong anywhere. You don't really have to work with anyone except your immediate manager. You have no credibility and no money. And you have to work hard anyway. The only things that get me through the day are the occasional Starbucks coffee, a giant bottle of elderflower greenbottle, and Trinity.

But I've been complaining about limbo for a long time. I wasn't satisfied as a student and I'm not satisfied as an intern. Maybe I'm just a malcontent? I hope not because I spent $40 on the Art of Happiness, and if I'm actually a malcontent, then all the spirituality in the world wouldn't be able to help me.

I think I just need to keep doing things that make myself happy. Stop being so sleepy. Stop worrying about what everyone else is doing. Ryan is trying to become a beefcake, and I told him he has to start obsessing about himself. Fall in love with himself a little. Maybe I need to do that too? It's not that either of us suffer from self-deprevation, but we both get caught up in each others shit because we're living in it all the time. It's no wonder we spend so many evenings watching television together, not talking because it's always the same bullshit every day.

I need to stop smoking the green. I've been saying this for a month now, and I've been semi-successful. I've definately cut down a lot. But I'm still sleepy all the time! That probably has more to do with my iron deficiency than my drug habit.

I love this drawing of Thom. He looks like how I feel inside.

BUSTED!

When I came in from lunch, Adam told me to re-sign my internship and confidentiality agreement again because they had disappeared. I didn't think twice about it, although I did read over the confidentiality component again to make sure my other blog did not infringe any of the stipulations.

I don't know if it was just a coincidence because Adam certainly hasn't said anything, but later in the day, the general manager asked me to step aside with him for a chat. Not knowing what it was about, I brought my notebook and pen. It turned out that the legal department of the agency had just initiated a web-wide scan of the Internet, which included blogs, and they came across a very interesting, insightful and brilliantly written blog about being an unpaid intern at "this agency". (Now I'm even afraid to write the name in my own blog! I will NOT however start going back and editing out past references because that's just too much work, and I honestly doubt I've said anything so incriminating.)

Anyway, so he explains to me about how the agency is a public company and that they have to protect their business and their clients, and I felt so foolish! He was super nice (he always is), but all I wanted to do was crawl into a hole and quit the advertising industry forever. I wondered how many people knew and what they thought. Most of all, I wondered if they went to see the blog?!

I'm not completely stupid, of course it crossed my mind that including the name of the agency and its clients in the blog was risky. But having a background in law and having read the confidentiality agreement (EVERYONE should read ANYTHING they sign their name to), I knew that I was free to write about anything that is public knowledge. My agency and who their clients are is public knowledge. As long as I didn't write about any of the creative or projects or ideas they've been working on, I thought it'd be ok. I was very careful that I stuck to writing about my feelings and opinions about what I did rather than what it was that I've been doing itself.

Even still, I knew the risk was there. But what I wanted was the KEYWORDS. I wanted to have the agency name and the clients in my blog because I thought that they might help drive more traffic into the site. Unlike this blog where it's completely personal, The Bottom Rung is a blog that could help other kids in this industry. I'm proud that I created it and I created with the best intentions.

The giant hand of Big Brother doesn't scare me, though. I've already taken the agency name and the clients out of the blog, and the worst that could happen is that I lose my internship. That would indeed be devestating, but I don't think it will come to that. I had written only good things about my agency, about the creativity and the atmosphere. But like all big corporations, they're afraid of the voice of the little people. Supressing the ones closest to them is about as much control they can get in this world wide web of ours.

On the bright side, the traffic to my site is up to 25 and half of them came from my company!