Warning: there is much friendship sap ahead.

You know when you’re a kid and you make that ONE great friend who likes all the same things you do and then you end up keeping them for the rest of your life despite them moving across the country and not seeing them face to face very often? Yeah, well I wrote a sappy poem-song about mine. Clearly I’m just trying to embarrass myself, but it’s absolutely worth it. Also – I am not a poet so this is most likely rubbish.

This is an accurate depiction of how our friendship started and still is. If anyone can pick out which books are referenced in the poem-song I’ll give them virtual brownies! ( I promise it’s probably not that hard to figure out – brownies for EVERYONE).

The Heart of an Open Book

Rainy day; school library
Eleven years old.
Stuck inside, but I don’t mind.
This story untold.
You sat down right beside
Me on the floor.
Nose in a book, I took a look
I’ve read that before.

Now we’re wrapped up in conversation
One that took us by surprise
Magic and swords, knighthood and wars
A squire girl with violet eyes
Finding common ground with fantasy
Made our friendship start to bloom
When the bell for class rang at last
I didn’t want to leave the room

Sunny day; school library
Seventeen years old
Time passed and up we grew
Our friendship no longer new
Still reading side by side
Our minds out with the tide
From the pages our eyes rarely stray
Until one of us has something to say

Suddenly a whirlwind conversation
That no longer takes us by surprise
Magic and charms, lightening bolt scars
A wizard boy with bright green eyes
Our love of books brought us together
And made our great friendship last
Best friends through the good and bad
Who knew time could fly so fast?

Now we’re twenty-five
With our own lives
There are provinces between us
And the distance made us wise
Now too many things take up our time
And books have taken the backseat
But now and then the phone will ring
And on the other end –

An enthusiastic conversation
That makes us pleasantly surprised
Dragon tattoos and family feuds
A girl who played with fire
Books keep us glued together
Even when we’re far apart
Friends like us will last forever
We know it in our hearts.

PS — It’s Banned Book Week and this is an awesome thing! Everyone should read a banned book at least once in their lives and this is the perfect time to do it! Go out there and fight censorship, WITH READING! How amazing is that?!

PPS — Did anyone else meet their best friend in a library? Or was it just us? We’re a bit weird so if it WAS just us then it wouldn’t surprise me.

PPPS — Happy October! Halloween is on the way and Autumn is here and that means that I can drink all the pumpkin spice latte’s that I want without getting strange looks!

Because I will be the picture of discipline.

For one reason or another I seem to think that buying material things will make me happy, and they do. For a VERY short while. A new laptop, Blackberry, or purse is NOT going to fill the void in my heart. It’s like I’m justifying the purchases by being convinced that this next new item will do what the other item didn’t. It will make me happy and somehow fix whatever is wrong with me. NOPE. Not even close. Despite knowing that it won’t actually help, I still listen to that voice inside that tells me to buy these things. I think it is most likely because I still get that small rush of adrenaline when I purchase some new thing. Endorphin’s create a small bit of happiness that I keep clinging to. Honestly, that type of happiness is like the one-night-stand that tries to get away without waking you in the morning. Fleeting satisfaction.

Books though! Books are fantastic. New books bring me ACTUAL joy. They fill the void a lot more that anything else seems to. They wake me up. They pull me past the sludge of reality and into something wondrous. Until the book ends. Less one-night-stand; more summer-fling. I know they won’t actually help fix me, but it’s nice to pretend. Distractions help get me through.

 

Know what else helps get me through? Amanda Palmer.

And in my mind
I imagine so many things
Things that aren’t really happening
And when they put me in the ground
I’ll start pounding the lid
Saying I haven’t finished yet
I still have a tattoo to get
That says I’m living in the moment

Book babbling.

As a budding novelist and an avid reader I usually find myself picking out phrases that really speak to me in someone else’s writing. I’ve taken to tabbing those phrases within the book so I can go back to them again and again. Trying to work out how the author made me feel that way, what words strike me and I try to learn through their writing how to better myself, in my own style. I enjoy it – it’s quite fun and the books I own are more colourful for it.

When I started reading The Fault In Our Stars by John Green, I had to stop tabbing because there ended up being two to three tabs per page. I decided not to tab-attack TFIOS because the whole book was simply amazing. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me borderline hysterical and I frightened my cats with my laughing/crying madness.

It was wonderful and brilliant and I was an emotional wreck for two solid hours after I was finished reading it. I am recommending this book, with great love, to everyone reading this humble little blog. As an adult who reads Young Adult literature, I can absolutely say that this book will be greatly enjoyed by anyone who picks it up.

Reading is one of life’s great adventures and goodness knows I wish I had the time to read as much as I did in Middle School. If I spent that much time reading now, I’d have no job, money or food. Darn those necessities of life.

And it goes on, and on, my friend.

I’ve managed to get the winter blues this year and it’s a first for me. I think Joline’s death is (obviously) the main reason for that and the fact that we’ve barely had any snow this year. I love winter and I love snow. My parents used to joke that I was the only true Canadian in the family. This year I’m having a lot of trouble keeping my optimistic personality in place without it cracking.

I dislike negativity and people who always focus on the bad things that happen to them. There’s a woman I work with who can’t stand to see other people happier than she is, and she’ll go out of her way to drag them back down to her level. I’ve never let her get to me before, but recently she’s just been driving me up the wall. I’m more than sure that I’ll be fine, but I don’t like the idea of someone else thinking they can control how I feel. She’s so negative it’s incredible. She enjoys seeing other people’s pain and it’s slightly disturbing.

There are a lot of things that help me focus on keeping my positive nature, and I’ve decided to share a few of them.

MUSIC. Loud music. Anything from happy show tunes to kick ass battle sequence instrumentals. If it increases your joy by even a tiny bit – listen to it. Frequently. I walk to and from work everyday so I have twenty minutes to get myself into a positive and motivated mood. If you drive to work, crank that shit up in your car and drum along on your dashboard.

READING. Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction; whatever your favorite genre – read it into the ground. During the days following Joline’s death I’ve managed to finish reading three books and I’m halfway through a fourth. I shouldn’t really promote escapism when trying to deal with the unpleasantness of life, but I’m pretty sure there are worse coping methods out there. An example would be alcoholism or shooting heroin or both. So if you escape into books to get away from life, that’s a-okay in my book. I do it too. (John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars, Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood and Terry Pratchett’s Guards! Guards!, would be good places to start.)

MY CATS. They are ridiculous and funny and they will make me laugh until I, almost, pee three times out of five. If you have pets, let them love you, or watch them do stupid things because they don’t know any better, or let them fight each other for space in your lap because, being needed makes you feel better even though they’re using you as furniture. Having a constant companion (or three in my case) can bring you joy just by scratching an adorable set of ears.

So there you have it. Some tricks for surviving the winter blues, and negative coworkers. Deep breaths probably help too, but I’ve found humming “This Is The Song That Never Ends” under your breath works better.