I think that once upon a time...
I believed that one day you would just grow up.
You would wake up... and be mature, and older.

The more I watch friends, the more i watch myself and the more i learn about the people i spend the most time with...
the less i believe that at all.

I don't know if its possible to really grow up. Because you will never really be grown up, or at least I can think of a few examples of people who have proven you do not have to.

Merry Christmas.

Tonight, like any christmas eve was a night spent in Church.
The children of our family, youngest being me, have a tradition of going out for drinks and food to any food join we find that is open. Last christmas was a de-bockle at the Green Room, where we found ourselves and some family friends 6 shots deep at 2am wondering who the DD was at the beginning. This year was different.

The crew was shaved down, as many of the usual suspects were off and way on other family ventures around the globe. Myself, My brothers Mike and TIm and my Sister in law, Yuko, went on a mission to seek out a new place. We found a little korean BBQ that happens to be open on christmas eve... little Korea is a safe bet on Christmas and easter because they do not usually celebrate the holidays.
The place seemed nice enough to walk into... really exciting tables with the stove top in the middle. The man came and served us immediately. He told us 4 people had to order 4 dinners, which was okay because we were hungry.

As we were waiting for our food we heard a ruckus in the kitchen... yelling... then a woman ran out and yelled in broken english for us to call the police...
we were suddenly sober.
She was immediately followed by the man who served us, telling us that the restaurant was closed, he was so sorry, merry christmas. We all stopped for a minute and asked the woman if she did indeed want us to call the cops and she didn't answer.
We walked out and stood outside wondering what to do next.
Tim then saw the man push the woman into a chair and that spurred our re entry to the restaurant... this time Tim was yelling.

We asked the woman is we should still call the cops and she did not answer. It seemed she was weighing it out... perhaps he was her financial support, perhaps she was not a legal immigrant, perhaps she had no one else...

We stood between her and her partner... him now sitting down and eating a meal at the front window, still yelling at her in Korean. Eventually she held my hands and told me it was okay, we could go.

What a tough situation.
If you leave... you risk letting her take more abuse... or even worse.
If you stay... you just prolong it.
If you call the police... you blindly involve the law in business that is not yours to get into.
We did not in fact see him "hurt" her. Everyone fights...
What is the gut feeling here?


As we walked out I walked up to the man and put my hand on his shoulder and tried so damn hard to look straight through his eyes and see what he was feeling... but i couldn't do it. I couldn't read her either.

I hope they are OK tonight.
Last words exchanged as we left the building were " Merry Christmas".

Be here or leave.

It is 2 in the morning.
I am lying awake in bed.

and all i can ask myself is...

What am I doing?

All the restlessness and anxiety of being unemployed and in Toronto has finally built up into wednesday, December 23rd at 2:13am ET.

I have some questions at the moment too, like... is it just me? who is constantly thinking second guessing myself?
is it my generation?

Is that the weight of opportunity? that you always feel as though you have not lived up to what you could be/should be doing?

I need to travel.
Why aren't I in south America?
Why aren't I on an Adventure?

If i am not out there now... who is to say i will ever be?
what time is better than NOW????

Lately ( tonight) I have been imagining possibilities... talents and drives in your life to resemble fading stars. When you are born, everything shines brightly... as you grow, your parents make decisions which focus some stars and allow other to dim. You are then left to make your own choices...

You Focus. collecting all the stars in a certain area and trying to make them shine the brightest.
Which allows some of your possible paths to dim and fade till they are gone.


What am I allowing to dim? what is already gone? Am i holding onto paths which were never that bright to begin with?

The Control Room.

The way I see it, it is like the bridge in Star trek. You have the man in charge, and then the rest of the room is divided into jobs. The Man in Charge sits in his thrown and stares down at all the workers, who bring to his attention the important things. Most of the time the screen is on showing current sensations etc...

These are the main sections of the Brain:

The librarian … little old man in the back… when you are trying to remember something… this guy is sent around on a mission, pulling out books and making sense of dates. Once n a while something will happen.. and he will quietly put that book away into a lost corner. He won't find it for you. He knows what's best. And sometimes you ask him to put books away but he keeps "accidentally" leaving them places they shouldn't be... the engineers and the dreamer trip over it and it is remembered more frequently then one would hope.

Motor skills- Guys in the front row. these cats are the engineers. They make sure things are working... when things are not working right they alert the captain... but sometimes they forget. In my brain they are often "shh" ed until shit really goes down and i am truly injured. But these days they are piping up a lot earlier.

The little girl…This kid has nothing to do with rationale. She does what she feels and tries to make unrealistic things happen... she often has temper tantrums when things don't go her way. Once a month she gets really cranky and runs around pressing buttons and playing with switches... This can look rediculous to the outside world.

Security… try to keep order, control or distract the little girl and maintain goals. … these guys are underpaid.

Night Shift… clean up crew… if you are still awake when these guys start their shift… things get a little messed up. They don’t really know what they are doing, most don’t even speak English and they see buzzers and signals and they kind of just… ignore it.. once n’ a while they are tempted to press buttons but it rarely comes out coherent.

Mathmeticians and rationalizers- constantly crunching numbers and trying to make sense of it all. Often called upon but rarely prepared to give a solid answer.

Socrates … the what if guy… questions the word “ cant” questions why. Wants to know what is up.

The dreamer… ( often gets along quite well with the what if guy.) This one keeps control of the screen savers, writes the stories… thrives off passionate, meaningful experience. Often ends up creating his own reality. Sometimes he can even convince the rest of the head that he knows what hes doing too… sometimes it happens. But not without a constant fueling of the fire. He listens to the little girl and tries to use her perspective where he can. This is often the reason the rest of the brain thinks his ideas are a load of crap.

ten year-

Ten year plan.

I just had this mini plan spring up. I imagined myself in 15 years, living somewhere natural perhaps, with a horticulture and a mini greenhouse.
I imagine myself teaching high school and once n a while inviting kids over for potlucks.
Kids could come and cultivate with me, I would run a WOOFer program in the summer time.

Wow that sounds amazing. One Day. ... its funny how the short form for "One Day" is OD....



no it's not.

DREAMT by the full-time dreamer.

Unlike most dreams of late; related to lovers and friends and conversations i wish i was having with people i was refusing to let myself talk to...

This one came right out of left field.

To the best of my memory, it began in a theater, which will later be comparable to the North Toronto Collegate Institute's music theater where i used to watch many many of my brothers's concerts. But in this case i was watching my Dad's Welsh male voice concert. I was thinking about life whilst this concert was going on... daydreaming of my usual dreams with the background of these welsh males... Then a new act came on, new musical background to my thoughts. Not important really.
Every now and then the angle would change to third person birds eye view of the audience... i was doodling and thinking still.

Then there was another stage change... it was a symphonic ochestra and Tim and Mike ( my brothers) were in the band... everyone in the band was under the age of ten ( including them).
As soon as these kids started playing.... the audience started getting up and leaving in hords. I was appauled.. ( at this point it became apparent that my voice was horse and i had a cold...sidenote). I turned around in my seat and watched and willed these people to stay... which didn't work.
so i ended up yelling out at the top of my lungs " SIT THE FUCK DOWN... THESE ARE YOUR CHILDREN... THIS IS YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD... SHOW A LITTLE RESPECT. "
and immediately the crowd sheepishly sat down and shut up.
the concert ended with this little boy standing up with a mic and thanking people for coming, but during his speech a large clipboard-paper-stand-thing fell on him and the curtains closed.

As we were all standing up to leave, my brother mike ( now his real age of 32), turned to me and said " wow Laur, I have never seen you so comfortable infront of an audience before..."

Then my brothers ( little again) got told they had won a toy.. it was a preschool style car battery with buttons on top, and wheels.... There was a very destinct theme song for the toy... and the commerical advertisement which appeared infront of us involved the capture of whales, and damming rivers in northern quebec... from a birds eye view of our self destructing planet and the car battery song chimed through the whole thing gleefully.

I woke up singing it, realised i had never heard the song before, and immediately forgot it.


so strange...

Weeks end.

Lessons:

- Never publicly display important information that can go to shit.

- Never assume anything will be easy just to make it easier on yourself to do something.
You just end up smacking yourself in the face, if your friends don't beat you to it.

- DO NOT forget that everything is still OK.

I've spent a lot of time this weekend trying to figure how much of my freewill gets compromised by the things i am passionate about... and how much of that is a problem.