over half a year since I last felt it necessary to post a new blog. That is almost sad.

Since March I can't say I have accomplished anything. I went to Halifax twice to visit AJ during the long two months he spent filming there. It was a very beautiful city and I am so thankful to have been given the chance to spend so much time there. We went to peggys cove, cooked on the rooftop bbq, walked through the park and surfed on Lawrencetown. We both fell in love with surfing though AJ is much better at it then I am.

Other than my trips to Halifax its quite daunting that I can't boast about a single thing. I have been writing some music here and there but nothing that is going to top any charts. I still work at the Keg and am lifeless and numb doing it. too corporate and stuffy for me. I despise serving in general. It has rendered me completely useless in society really.

About a month after AJ got back from Halifax I started getting really dizzy and found it difficult to concentrate. It hasn't stopped till this day and it seems it might never stop. Its chronic anxiety. I find myself less and less happy about things that used to love. I don't like being in public places, I can't remember things nor do I care to. I don;t look forward to anything and I feel sad that I don't even have anything to look forward to even if I wanted to. I am numb!

I'm sure in time something inside me will change. I just miss New York so much and I miss the person I was.

Before I moved to New York I dreamt I would move there and had so much energy and gumption that I made it there. Anything I used to want, I felt I had the mind to get it. Now I dont feel like I want anything. I dont know how I ever made it to new york. I could never achieve that again, I'm too cynical.

Time to go to work and continue on with my life as a zombie.

Jena

coast in the east coast?

9 garbage bags full of laundry and STILL not done. Exterminators are coming on Wednesday to wipe this place clean and to prepare for that ive been instructed to clean every piece of clothing I own PLUS all my linens. It's a nightmare. I also have to clear out all the kitchen cupboards, book shelves etc... you'd think we were moving again! I wouldn't even mind moving again... I'm not sure this apartment is on my side...

speaking of moving again... these last two days I can't stop mulling over whether or not its a good idea to move out east with AJ. There really isnt anything holding me back here in Toronto accept this apartment and the fact that I really love living with Amber, but I still can't decide if I want to pack up my life ONCE again. This might be a great chance for me to take a break from life and figure out what I really want. Out east I can learn piano, take time to write music, think about my future and enjoy the ocean.  I wouldnt have to pay rent and I could get a job doing whatever the hell I please... it could be nice. Then again, do I really want to move in and make that type of leap with AJ after only 6 months of dating? Would I regret it? Would I miss the hustle and bustle of Toronto? Will I feel set back from ever evolving in the music scene in this city? I just dont knowwwwww.... :( Plus I don't want to leave Amber stranded... we JUST moved into this apartment. I can't even believe i'm considering this but I AM!

It has not even yet been CONFIRMED that AJ is going so I shouldn't even be thinking about it this hard... but I like being prepared mentally... its the only way to preserve my sanity.

Decisions, Decisions...

Now I'm off to go hang out for another 4 hours in the Laundry room. I felt bad yesterday because AJ and I walked in and this dear eldery man was walking out. I think he just stopped in to say hi to his friend but he had set his little bag of groceries down. When he walked out he forgot the bag and we didnt notice in time to tell him. Poor man was likely too old to remember so it sat untouched. Ice cream, gatorade, chocolate bar, lettuce, cigarettes... (circle the one thing that does not belong. haha...) is that what i'm going to get to eat when i'm 80  years old? Lots to look forward to! Poor man, I wish I knew where he lived... I would have taken it to him. Alas, it will remain a mystery as to whether or not he ever went back for it. 

On a funny note. AJ tried to lighten up the situation by putting a big sign on the living room wall saying BED BUG BONANZA 2010! I forgot it was there when the building manager came in to inspect. hahahahaha She must think we're freaks... then again... we sort of are!

-2 degrees in March... nice

x0

sleep deprivation or hangover?

the last few nights I have been reduced to sleeping on my air mattress instead of my once comfortable bed as a consequence of the creepy crawlers that may or may not have infiltrated it. AJ and I have been waking up with these strange mosquito bite like marks on our arms and hands which not only makes me never want to go near my bed again but also makes me quite curious about the building I live in. I can't actually SEE any physical bugs in my bed which is driving me absolutely mad! It just does not make any sense. I just called the management office and she was pretty unsympathetic about the situation. she told me if I had bed bugs I would be able to see them and if I can't see them then I don't have them. Waking up with bites from bugs I don't have in my bed means something supernatural is happening to me and my boyfriend... let's call national geographic! 

I keep a very clean apartment so if there is a flea or bed bug issue then I have to blame this building. Not to mention the neighborhood. Gross! I am NOT a fan of the 12 square blocks that surround my building. What a mistake!

With this existing "plague" that seems to have stricken me I can't say i've had a decent nights sleep in well over two weeks. I had a massive outing on Friday with the girls at work. We managed to convince the GM to let us bring cocktailers in from other Kegs around the city to work our shifts so all the lounge girls could have it off. We rented a limo, went bar hopping, had dinner etc... it was an over all fun night but left me with even LESS sleep to run on... Whats funny is I felt SO hang over on Saturday but could not sleep in my bed... 3 am i finally got to sleep on my shoddy air mattress and woke up Sunday completely sleep deprived. I don;t think there is  much of a difference between NO SLEEP and a nasty HANGOVER. The saaaame thing if you ask me!

Apart from that my boyfriend is 95% sure he is leaving the province and moving to Halifax for 5 months VERY soon to film his show. He has no choice but to go.  I am not sure how to deal with this news. It's horrible! I'm pretty needy and the thought of 5 days kills me. He has invited me to go with him for 5 months and live rent free in his hotel but I cannot imagine myself packing up my life again. I have been though this SO many times in the last 4 years.  I also have nothing in Halifax. The only reason it sounds great to me is that I love the ocean, I wouldnt have to work as often and I could spend more time learning to play the piano so I can come home to Toronto and plays shows without having to rely on ANYONE but myself. It sounds good in writing. MANNNNN oh MAN... my life is like a rotten box of chocolates. hahaha or those really shitty cherry filled ones. I always hated grabbing the wrong chocolate out of the box at christmas time thinking it would be caramel centered or hazelnut creamed only to take a huge bite of CHERRY or COCONUT! grosssss!

it's sunny outside today and -1 so i'm going to stop sobbing! 

go team Canada!

Can I resuscitate this blog?

I'm not sure what the life span of an idle blog is... does it die after so many months of neglect or can it be revived with the right combination of words? At this point i'm less worried about who is reading and am more concerned about completing the task in which I personally delegated to myself.  I also get the odd the shout out from time to time from old friends (Kelso ;) ) to keep posting so I ought to do just that!

I'm not sure how interesting my new posts will be now that i'm not sitting at some quirky cafe in Manhattan but alas I cannot go back for 5 long years so all I have is retrospect. I can certainly recount moments but the majority of what I barf out onto this blog will have none to do with that old life and more to do with here ... now... toronto 

I'm living with Amber who I have known all my life as a good friend of my older brothers. When I got to toronto I stayed with my brother and Amber. She and I got close, so when the time came to get a new place is seemed perfect to get one together. We scoured the city and landed in a decent apartment building with good light.  I'm not particularly stoked on the neighborhood and sometimes I land in the same elevator as the creepy man next door and get a little unnerved but all in all the water is warm and the the bed is soft so I can't complain. Actually, with Ambers decorating abilities and my new cleaning habits I would say it's the nicest place I've ever lived in. I remember my place in New York as a lot less cozy considering I slept on a pretty shoddy futon every night and I never knew what color of water the faucet would spit out. It's interesting to really sit and consider the concept of mind over matter. There, in Manhattan, I didn't pay any mind to the roaches scurrying around the kitchen nor did I pay much ado over my sleeping arrangements... none of that mattered when I woke up in New York. I dreamt of going there all my life and if it meant sharing my apartment with bugs and waking up with a crooked spine then so be it. I just spent less time at home and more time in Cafes. The very first time I lived in Manhattan was almost worse. I slept in a room the size of a modest walk in closet and my window looked into a tall shaft between two buildings. It was small, uninviting and I had to share it with two guys. What is interesting is how little all THAT bothered me THEN and how NOW I am bothered by the smallest pile-up of dust. Mind over matter really. I'm in Toronto now so there is no excuse for disarray! 

I sound condescending towards this city but I really don't mind it. It's cozy and the most I explore the most I find. What I miss most, however, is finding a routine inside a neighborhood. Because New York is so FULL, every little burrow or square block almost feels like a little neighborhood and one can easily pick and choose regular spots to frequent. I had 'Cafe Pick Me Up'... 'Avenue A' book store, 'NY PULL'...'Bua' and tons of other little spots on my way to and from home that I loved going to all the time and I started to know people who did the same thing in the same neighborhood. Toronto is nothing like that at all. Here you get your friends together and walk 45 minutes to some random place on Queen W. There are too many weird homeless people lurking around the best spots in the city to really make it feel like home. Downtown toronto is really small so everything good AND bad is concentrated into one area. 

I really should not compare and contrast what was and what is because that will not make anything change. I have to make Toronto what I want it to be. I have a boyfriend here who I love and spend all my time with and that is helping me deal with my sense of displacement. He's an actor and has his own T.V show on YTV so I get all the entertainment I need from him on a daily basis.

I really hope I can get my music going soon. I've been in somewhat of a slump. I still write a lot but most of my projects go unfinished and I just get frustrated. I met with a band a few weeks ago and we rented out a space to jam but it didnt go very well. My quirky melodies and "Sia-Esque" singing didn't match with their mostly dark tones so we decided to go our separate ways. That sort of thing is a tad discouraging but there is another band ive been talking to that wants to do a sort of guy girl band. Sort of like the Dirty Projectors with less noise. I went and met with them and they played a few songs for me. They sounded great so I am going to try and get that ball rolling. In the meantime I want to get really good at playing the piano so I can be independant and start playing some shows on my own. I need to get out there or I am going to find myself slowly dying inside from lack of LIFE. I need this music thing to work for me because its all I know and all I want from the world. I can't imagine my life any other way.

I work at the Keg uptown. It's a good job, made lots of friends and am certainly working a lot harder than I am used to but I like it on the whole. I am so sick and tired of the mundane life of a waitress but its up to me to change that so I can't cry until I take a long hard look in the mirror. Its just so easy to lose motivation when everything in life starts going wrong. The desire to keep trying for something slowly fades when nothing comes in return. Who wants to sow seeds they may never reap? That's the risk in following dreams... one never knows what might be at the other end... it's the journey that makes it interesting. 

God, I sound like the god damned Dali Lama. I should go... I want to write some music now that i've been thinking so much about New York... I get ideas... 

I promise to be more interesting and funny in my next post.. I just wanted to get back to date...

thank you thank you for reading and especially thank you if you listen to and enjoy my music... x0x0x

LOVE

Jena

huh

since the last post i've...

gotten a job...

met a boy

moved into a new apartment...

briefly reconnected with estranged father...

suffered lack of interest in the universe...

got more serious with boy...

watched the band of brothers series...

got even more serious with boy...

started painting...

wrote more music...

dropped a waist size...

debated going back to school...

longed to be back in New York...

spent time with friends...

spent even more time with boyfriend...

got a new job...

I guess I can keep going until this list becomes boringly long but instead I will simply say that it has been a slow and alarmingly fast 5 months. Slow because nothing HUGE has happened in my life and fast because I revived myself quicker than expected and have adopted some changes that make me wonder where the time went. For instance... I am now in a relationship that happened so fast I can't even explain its birth. 

I think about new york every single day and I image what it would be like to be back there. I picture the streets I walked down every morning and I suddenly love the neighborhood I once hated. It always goes like that. Have something taken away and suddenly the desire to have it back swells and swells and almost starts to sting a little. A LOT actually. I miss new york so much it hurts!

but here I am... in Canada... in toronto.... in my apartment... wondering how the hell i got here and where the hell i'm going....

c'est la vie

one stop shop

Currently in my dark windowless room listening to my roommate have sex with her boyfriend. I've given up on being mad over this. I happen to reside in a home that was not built on the architectural principal of noise prevention. Thus, I am forced to sit in on the sexual escapades happening on the other side of the wall... not to mention months and months of having my sleep constantly thrown into confusion, my privacy inadvertently invaded and I myself inadvertently invading the privacy of others. The good news is I am moving out very soon into an air conditioned apartment in a high rise for 1 month. My room will be quite barren for said month as I am not bringing any furniture with me... but this is the price I pay to reside in 3 different cities in less than 1 year. BARRENNESS! Oct 1 should hopefully find me in a better place with something more permanent but for now I flap in the wind.

I was lucky to have been invited to a very fancy-schmancy dinner party Friday night that I myself could never co-ordinate even if spoon fed instructions as clear as paint by numbers. I simply lack the desire to entertain large amounts of people. My friend, however, is moving to New York (ouch!... tiny stab to the gut) not to mention turning the ripe old age of 23 so this called for celebration! Her parents were kind enough to lend their home to us and what a home it was. Winding staircases, contemporary art... SAUNAS. The home I grew up in would have looked like the storage garage had it have been built adjacent. But thats not the point of my story. It's the journey TO the dinner party that stands out most for me. It begins with my menstrual cycle (ew, did she say menstrual cycle?). Being forcefully attacked by PMS I stressed out about what to wear to this dinner party because honestly I have been putting my wardrobe by the boards as of late and own nothing all that pleasing to the eye. My eye anyways... which is all that matters! This being said I took a stroll down queen street and bought myself an outfit. Its quite cute (had to chop off my left arm and leg for it, but I always wanted to ride in an electric wheel chair so it balanced out. Plus I can ride in a cute outfit ). I ran home, peeled myself out of my daily attire consisting of ripped jeans and a t-shirt, morphed into someone who looks like she has a remote sense of style then flew out the door. Once I finally made it to the TTC I got on northbound and had to stand for the first few minutes... a seat finally freed up beside an elderly gentleman so I shoved some people in the abdoman, karate chopped a blind man and launched myself into the seat before anyone else could. Within seconds the man turned to me in his kind raspy broken and old sounding voice and said "I would like to compliment you on your outfit, where most women these days parade around in ripped jeans and a t-shirt, you actually took the time to apply some style.) I of course just acted as though dressing that well was a daily occurrence all the while laughing in my head. He continued to talk and eventually delivered some useful information. Two pieces of sound advice I will now pass on from a man pushing 90 and on his way home from the gym. 1. "never lose the boy or girl in you" 2. "Live in the moment, forget what may exist in an hour or a week from now, rather, enjoy the small moments as they come". AMEN! I replied. Though I have not the slightest interest in religion... it just sounded agreeing. He then spoke of his career as a writer and his published works etc then ran off quickly in order not to miss his stop. He waved me off as my train slowly drove away and I smiled at both the pleasure in meeting him and the satisfaction of having purchased something actually nice. The women who stabbed ribs to get his seat started talking to me as well and thats when I knew I had to go shopping more often!

Brown in town

Why do I feel like being intelligent is in affliction? Maybe being ignorant really is bliss? 

It's 9:46 p.m and I think I am going to go buy myself a box of dark brown dye for my hair. I have not slept very much over the last 5 days as I have been drinking unreasonable amounts of liquor and celebrating life in a manner in which I don't believe to be typical of most 22 year old women. I am, however, not ashamed nor regretful of my actions I am rather more intrigued as to what it is that makes me happy about all this...or if it even makes me happy at all. Is it the drinking? I really don't think so. Then what is it?  For one, I am unsure of how I feel about the people I live with and my job gives me the same sort of sensations one might experience while watching a clock alone in a tiny monochromatic room filled with nothing but air. I have been writing a lot of music lately but nothing I feel proud enough of to put on formal display. This being said, I am need of elevation and change. This is why I am heading on the College street car to pursue a box of dye. 

9:53 p.m- Exhausted, somewhat delerious and even more so determined...I am heading off.

11:02- Home! In possesion! Getting in comfy clothes and putting on Noah and the Whale. i think they might eventually be my favorite band!

11:17- Dye no longer in its plastic container, instead... it is on my head...wrapped around every strand of hair I have...

While I wait for this toxic dye to annihilate my blond strands I guess I can try to explain this sudden urge. I say try to explain because I don't expect anyone to understand. It all started when I downloaded Wes Andersons "The Royal Tenenbaums". I watched it tonight for the first time. I fell in love with the characters and their individual personalities. I love idosyncratic intense behavior and complete radical acts of passion. It excites me the same way flowers excite my mother. I sometimes wish I was more into flowers myself, flowers seem easier... but since I just don't see the appeal in a traling vine I downloaded one of the most eccentric movies of my time. There is one scene where Luke Wilsons character shaves his head in an act of loveless rage. He shaves off all his hair and then subsequently shaves his beard off. I figured since he could do it so could I. I don't have a beard, but I do have unnaturally colored hair... so here I am 11:29 sitting on my bed with a soaking wet head and the promise for change!

11:30- Going to rinse as directed. I am out of my mind. Or just in touch with it? hmmm...

11:31- just realized I can't tell time. 10 more minutes. 

12:21- blow dried and newly dyed! It looks awesome. I really like it. I do. Of course I am going to want it blonde again come the next solar eclipse but I am glad to have something new to look at in the morning! It'll be shocking for the first little while but like everything, I will get used to it.

I miss new york a lot. I had to mention that because its always on my mind. 

As for the rest of my life well, I am having fun... making mistakes...learning from those mistakes...making them over again... and then learning a lesson even harder. I'm not much of a sponge when it comes to lessons but rather I am the lesson itself. Does that make any sense? Does to me... I think....

I am going to play around online a little. Maybe read up on whats happening in politics... I can't keep up these days. Obama has us all spinning....

night! xo