copycat (not my idea, but it felt like a good one)

The sense of risk one can hear in punk is a distrust of the punk moment itself. It is the will to say everything cut with the suspicion that to say everything may be worth nothing.
- Greil Marcus

2000 - i was married. i was unhappy. i knew something was wrong with him but i couldn't put my finger on it (partly because he lied, a lot). i spent a few weeks in montreal alone, doing what i do, and loved it.

2001 - still married, unhappier still. visited my brother in vancouver in august and discovered that hydrangeas (kinda) grow on trees.

2002 - had a tiny and meaningless affair with an astrologer. split up with my husband on labour day weekend, the same weekend both my brother and my best friend went through major breakups. was booked that weekend to go into the studio to do what i do but i gave up. a man i had admired for years told me to "keep walking in light."

2003 - in late january, my (now ex-) best friend's ex called me just to chat. we fell in love that night. he was a skater, a photographer, smarter and more ocd than me. i went to ukraine with my mom to see the land from whence all my grandparents came. i finally understood myself in the context of the other people on this planet. my only uncle died in the fall, the second person in my family to suffer from dementia to the end, at least in my conscious adult lifetime.

2004 - i moved in with the love of my life. we were going to make art together. the name of our company was going to be "joint failure." i suppose the writing was on the proverbial wall. during this time i developed a passion for art theory.

2005 - i decided i wanted to be a jungian analyst but you need a masters to apply plus one of my mentors died and his family gave me all of his archives equals i applied to grad school and was accepted (even though i never did an undergrad degree because i went to art school). just after my birthday, my ex-husband called me from detox. he had just almost died from a massive drug overdose. i was terrified, and relieved. it explained years worth of things i had not been able to name or explain. soon the inevitable "how could I have missed that?" breakdown began. my "the one" decided to leave in spite or because of this. but he semi-stayed. the next year was one of the most horrible emotional traumas i have ever lived. i thought i was going to - or wanted to - die...the only time in my life i have ever truly felt this. around this time i was told there should be a ban on boys from my hometown. i did not listen. my cat died (though i think her ghost hung around for a while). school started in the fall. i distracted myself from my misery by starting a chain of affairs in the name of academic research. it began with an eccentric anthropologist who was missing his left ring finger.

2006 - i continued my affair with the anthropologist, which enabled travel to new york city in the spring and vancouver in the winter. in june i met a much older designer and photographer i had crushed on for years. i introduced myself in the guise of needing to interview him for my thesis. thus began what we would later christen the "world tour" of our affair - it began in ottawa and was followed by winnipeg and montreal in that year. very late in the year after a relapse or two, my ex-husband was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. as his friend, i pulled "wife" rank to insist that they keep him in the mental hospital long enough to find this out. for the record, our mental health care system leaves a lot to be desired.

2007 - early in the year, my own mental breakdown of sorts began. a drunken email spiraled into a slew when an imaginary creature responded to my ramblings. my head exploded with theory at school. i teased my hair (!). i fought with my prof in public. i may have even developed a crush on a student. my affair with the "old man" continued. later i would have a revelatory conversation with my brother in which we decided that studying the mind and/or outer space in any conceptual depth is a surefire way to crazy. in the summer i visited seattle and made some awesome new friends. i also smoked cigarettes at the west coast kitchen table of a rockstar. i chatted with his best friend and played with his dogs while he folded laundry and ignored me. the evil magic of facebook-instigated closure began. i re-met the skater stoner crush of my youth who was one of my first major, er, experiences. we bonded fast and hard through the electronic sharing of words that hadn't been available to us as kids. sadly, he now lives several thousand miles away and is married with children (two plus a step- then, four plus now). soon after, i began an intense relationship with one of my heroes, also a much older man, and a poet.

2008 - it turns out the poet was also an alcoholic, and had several personalities. it ended badly in the spring. my affair with the other old man continued after a brief hiatus in the name of monogamy. i was discovered on the street by a young man who is now my hair stylist. he asked me to model for him (a secret dream realized, lame as that is). in the spring my ex-true love's best friend made his move. nothing happened, but it still ended badly for all, and i have lost any faith i ever had in religious men. i presented a paper in st. john's and discovered that the east coast makes me claustrophobic. a quick jaunt to ottawa. in july i started this blog and through it i met a soul mate (i no longer believe that we have just one). two men started blogs to share their secret thoughts with me. i had an airport layover hotel liaison. i re-met another high school crush and started trying to get out of our bizarre relationship from somewhere around the second date. i can no longer stomach tom petty because of this. my mom began to disappear inside her own head.

2009 - i fell in fantasy love with my good friend's boyfriend. i fought to be released from work so that i could take a short contract in vancouver that gave me the opportunity to make a bunch of cash and gain some closure in a number of areas of my life. i met my stoner skater friend's children (but not his wife). nothing happened, but as karmic punishment i returned to a serious mouse infestation in my home. i went to new york city and spent an unexpectedly platonic weekend with the old man. i found out two months later that he is now single but didn't know how to tell me. i still do not know what to make of this (he lives in another city, there is no future to avoid). i met my blog stalker (as he is affectionately known to my friends) in central park. i travelled to california for the first time. i went out with yet another guy from high school, one i regret not having been nicer to back in the day as he has turned into a handsome, rich world traveller with a history and habits as messed up as mine. for the record, i have not been as drunk as i got that night since i was sixteen. my ex-best friend found me and forgave my transgressions. i re-found one last teenage love, the one i should have chosen when i hit that fork in the road. i sat in a crusty basement with some crusty punk rock legends. i got a cool new roommate who tolerates my neurosis with a smile. i finished writing my thesis (two and half years overdue, but done). i met an alien and we went out for drinks. i got a new office at work. i may have driven the old man away, but not the mice, who returned in the fall and have been here for the last two months.

Whatever have been thy failures hitherto, ‘be not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to thee what thou has left undone?’
- Henry David Thoreau

there is only one (the big one) left unfound.

and i still have no cure for my insomnia.