dear dad

when the weight of your absence hits me it's like a punch in the gut
i sit in your car and listen to dire straits and cry
sometimes at night in that still secret place i wish i could be with you
just to see your blue eyes and kiss your cheek
hear you call me "princess" again and give me a hug
i miss your jokes
i miss your strength
even when you'd get frustrated at me
when you'd be politely mean to telemarketers
and always tell mom and i that our meals were great
even if they weren't
i miss driving places with you
the mall
williams
swiss chalet
i miss planning trips
hearing your advice
even when i didn't want it
going downstairs in the morning to see you in the living room
you in your big green housecoat
newspaper on your lap
cat on your chest
coffee in your hand
i miss your smile
your silly faces
playing guitar hero with you
and singing "slowrider" afterwards for weeks on end
i miss you so much dad
i say goodnight to you every night
tell you i love you
always hoping you can hear me up there
that you just somehow know
maybe one day this will hurt less
but until then i miss you
i love you
til we meet again,
danielle

we miss you, dad.

LAING, Alan Murray
Passed away peacefully at home with his family at his side, on July 14, 2008 in his 61st year. Alan is now with the Lord after a valiant battle with cancer. Alan will be greatly missed by his wife Caroline and his loving children David (Tory Westbrook) and Danielle. Lovingly remembered by his parents W.A. (Al) and Agnes (Daisy) Laing of Thornbury and Caroline's parents Marcel and Georgette DuPlessis of Quebec. Greatly missed by his sister Faye Young (David) and his brothers Bill (Diane) and Jim. Fondly remembered by his niece Katie and nephews James and Joe. Alan retired as an Air Canada Captain after a long aviation career and was extensively involved in the betterment of community organizations and the Air Cadet Program. Friends will be received at the Graham A. Giddy Funeral Home & Chapel, 280 St. David St. South in Fergus, on July 17th from 2-4 & 7-9 pm. Funeral Service will be conducted at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, 325 St. George St. West in Fergus, on July 18th at 1:00 pm. Memorial Donations can be directed to the Air Cadet League of Canada, cards available at the Funeral Home
(519) 843-3100 www.grahamgiddyfh.com

throw away this wrinkled map

each morning is a mess of tubes, the steady pump of oxygen and the overwhelming heaviness of illness. i'm tense until i get to work where at least for seven hours i can pretend to do something other than worry, other than ache to my bones with hopelessness and fear and sadness. at the end of the day it's still there and his heart still beats and i'm ashamed of my despair because he's not gone yet, he's in the bed and i can ask him if he remembers this trip and that concert. he's confused and asks for water and all i can do is cry and grieve the loss of conversation and memories and the strong, proud, intelligent man he once was, now lost to the blur and murmur of pills and morphine drips.

embro

today was the embro highland games - we placed third (out of four, haha) but as cliche as it sounds the important thing was we had a really good time. or at least i did. after a few beers and botched attempt at lead tip during the final massed bands. needless to say it was a fun day, i got lots of sun and texted old friends and didn't have to think about anything painful for a very long time.

my dad's coming back home at the end of the week. we're getting a hospital bed and other necessities tomorrow morning. we've moved around the living room to accommodate these new articles of furniture and it feels weird just being in that room now, even without the new bed and everything else. i can't picture seeing my dad in his bed in there at all. i feel guilty because part of me wishes he could be in palliative care just so he'll be taken care of 100% perfectly and smoothly, any little problem can be fixed immediately there. with him at home it's like always treading on thin ice, anything can go wrong at the drop of a hat and suddenly it's panic central, like maybe he'll be in pain for a long time til we can get a nurse or doctor in the house. that scares me so much. at the same i need him to be home so there's some remote sense of normalcy and so i'll be able to spend as much time with him as i can. i hate this whole situation and even having to mentally sort out things like this. nobody should have to go through this.

friday night we did the relay for life. we were rained out at 2am but everything leading up to that was amazing - the luminaries, the laps, the good conversations with old friends - all of it. i'm glad that i could be part of something bigger than myself, and do something proactive instead of just watching my dad get progressively weaker and weaker. at least i feel like i can have a little bit of power over this, raising money to help find a cure. maybe my dad won't ever benefit from it but if i can contribute to saving somebody else's father, mother, grandma, brother, friend, whatever, then it's so worth it.

back to work tomorrow afternoon, bunch of stuff to catch up on but i can't seem to wrap my mind around going back to the every day, mundane tasks that need to be done. one foot in front of the other.

unfinished drabble

we leave our fingerprints on the window
looking out at the patio
it's cold and tired
barebone trees with white skin
gnarling against the wind
we're older now but i still remember-
fishing for perch in orillia
i played with the minnows in a bucket
and got mad anytime you hooked one for bait
i remember when we camped and got rained out at 4am
and you took me to tim hortons and i drank coffee with you in the parking lot
and it was the best camping trip i ever had
i remember when we fought and i told you that i hated you
and you didn't understand me
you didn't understand what i was going through
but it was only because you were scared
and now i know why you felt that way
i remember long summers in the backyard
hot asphalt and drinking wine on the porch
i remember when we ran through hangzhou with our shoes full of water
just trying to find a way home in the rain
and it was good because it was with you
i remember the concert when we sat in the choir loft
listening to bob dylan covers on the ride home
the first time we went to the theatre in toronto
i wore a blouse with lace sleeves and you took me for mussels
i value these seconds
when you laugh at a joke
when we watch seinfeld together at night
when we drive somewhere and i pretend to hate sergio mendez and the eagles
when you're awake at 4am and i come in and you don't tell me off for drinking too much
but sometimes i get so angry
angry at the doctors
angry at god for letting it happen
angry at you for not talking about it
angry at myself for pretending it doesn't exist-
but it does, and so do you
and so i have these moments that i hold onto
memories and most of all the present
and each breath i am thankful for
and each second i appreciate more than words
and all of this to say that i love you
and no matter what you're strong,
you're my hero,
you're the one who hooks the minnows
and takes the tent down in the rain while i wait in the warm car
watching for the sunrise

into the sea you and me

i think my saturday nights are getting progressively lamer with each passing weekend, case and point i spent tonight reading historical fiction and listening to the cure and drinking tapwater. tell me it will get better this, someone, anyone. i don't know why it's so hard for me to open up to anybody new right now or even invest myself in people i already know, it's like i'm scared to be away from home for long and i don't have the capacity to trust anybody but my family. maybe not trust in the fullest sense of the word, but more like trusting my rollercoaster emotions and fragile hopes and the big turmoil of thoughts in my head that stem from dad's cancer, to anyone else but my nearest and dearest. i don't know how to begin to go about processing the things i feel, i don't know how to relate to anyone right now - lot's of i don't knows and not enough definites. but i think the worst thing is knowing that a lot of my friends don't know how to relate to me anymore either, and that's when i feel the most alone.

john allen cameron rules

ta-da, new poster advertising the fergus scottish festival's "family day" on august 10, 08. i wanted to use the fergusson ancient tartan because it is the only one that even remotely goes with the fsf logo. i think it turned out ok anyway, it's a pretty broad audience since i had to grab kids and adults alike, as well as pique the interest of locals. i'm almost done the friday night tattoo poster and i personally don't even like it enough to post it, but whatever it's fairly striking and will appeal to the demographic that attends that tattoo. the last thing i have to do is take a picture of an air cadet tonight to put on the poster so we'll see how that goes.

i am definitely, definitely going to teach in hong kong next. i am excited beyond words for this.

big thoughts, little box

work is cool, made poster on left, doing 3 others and a few ads by end of week. /corporate

on my lunchbreak i always end up surfing Etsy putting about 50 things in my cart before convincing myself that i don't need any of them. unfortunately that only works about 80% of the time and i've already bought a tank top, jewellry, and a wallet on there. i just really like the idea of buying handmade items and supporting canadian entrepeneurs. i bought some wooden pendants from stockade in guelph and i'm going to attempt decoupaging them and, if all turns out well, trying a mixed media decoupage on a bigger canvas. this is a form of art that i'm crazy about and if i could actually make my own pieces it would be ten times cooler.

on the topic of lunchbreaks - i love working in elora because i can try out all these quaint local cafes and i find myself enjoying them all for different reasons. kringles for its buck coffee; c'est bon for its veg wraps, anne hull's hospitality and rataouille-esque french music; sante for its killer goat cheese salads; the river for michael's dashing good looks and chai tea; and finally my favourite, the refuge for providing me with 5 dollar brown bag lunches and extra karge numi lime teas. i don't think locals appreciate what our own community really has to offer as we're too busy doing drive-thru timmy's and scarfing down subway.

yesterday i did my g1 exit test for the third time. i guess i should have foreseen the result considering i lived on toronto public transit for two years then walked everywhere in china for the past year - i've only actually been driving again since march and even then i wasn't doing it a lot. i made a dumb mistake and again i had to book a test for july 9th. i hate doing the test in guelph so who knows, i may see if walkerton or orangeville have anything sooner than that. the thing about failing at something so many times is that when you finally achieve whatever it is, you'll appreciate it far more than if you got it on the first try. that's what i try to tell myself but the reality is i'm either way too tense or way too lax in the drivers seat. whatever.

my dad's doing pretty well now in terms of walking around without the assistance of a cane. he just gets easily winded and it's hard seeing him so tired and popping pills all the time but i guess that's cancer for you, slowly wearing people down. however i think my dad is pretty tough and strong and everything you need to be to fight a terminal illness. i'm proud of him for battling through it and never looking back. i hope i can be even slightly as great as he is when i'm older.

i've got the china bug back and i'm looking forward to being able to go back to teach. i don't know if i'll end up in hangzhou again - i'd really like to live in a different city for a while, maybe hong kong or shanghai, or something small like yangshuo or dare i say wuzhen. i can't stand the pollution in beijing and how cold it gets in the winter so that part of the country is out. i keep surfing Dave's ESL Cafe and getting loopy over the job postings. arrgghhh!!

i cleaned out my closet today (no, really, that isn't a song lyric)

my dad has been in the hospital for exactly a week now due to pain from the cancer that is now in his spine, some area of soft tissue, and a few other bones that unfortunately i can't recall the names of. he did a bunch of radiation treatments and is on painkillers, so he's slowly starting to walk again with a walker and a cane. i can't begin to tell you how much of an emotional rollercoaster the past two weeks have been. at the same time my family has drawn so much closer together to support each other. my brother and i talk much more, my mom and i have this amazing candidness between us now, and my dad and i spend a ton of time together. it's so wonderful to have this love shared between all of us, this honesty and this appreciation of one another, even in the midst of something so devestating and hard to deal with. each day is scary and challenging and we cry a lot but we also just get on with it and bite the bullet. i'm still working 9 to 5, still doing what i always did. i guess we need some sense of normalcy when something so close to us stops making sense. i feel in some ways that i've skipped about 10 years of my life, i have no desire to go out and party or drink or do whatever other 22 year olds are doing because i'm slowly losing my dad to cancer and its putting everything into perspective.

i woke up again this morning with the sun in my eyes

i have two nicknames, the first being stan and/or stanley which somehow got attached to me at the ripe age of 7 or so. special thanks goes to my brother for that one. my dad, my brother, and some of the people i've known since that age continue to call me that and i can't even complain anymore because unfortunately i answer to it as naturally as "danielle". nickname number two is danni and/or dani which seems to be what the americans in my life call me, i'm not too sure why exactly, is it some sort of south of the border thing? who knows. i'm not counting dtox as a nickname because it is AWFUL and an annoying college thing that sticks with you for years after (along with mismatched dish sets and weird bags).

today i went to paris (ontario, sorry no latin quarter) for first impressions community exchange and enjoyed some mild shopping and rain showers, a decent chicken wrap, and quality time with the boss-man. i enjoy my job so much it's not even funny. this week is going by way too fast.

i'm so into third eye blind again, i just adore all the songs off their self-titled album. anyone who doesn't melt at "how's it going to be" either has no heart or is donny deutsch. "motorcycle driveby" also gets me everytime. in the music vein - the new ashlee simpson cd is hilarious and i love the song hot stuff and her stupid voice, her greatness is multiplied a million-fold by the fact that she is now pete went'z WIFE. whhhaaaaaat.

my ex from a few months ago is engaged now and i guess that's weird but cool at the same time. i think that's kind of what he's been looking for for a while and now he's found that, so, you know, good on him. you have to be happy for people who are engaged, i think it says a lot about them in terms of committment and wanting to beat the divorce odds. i'm also extremely excited for my brother and my future sister in law because they're both amazing and the wedding is going to totally rule. let's be honest i'm mostly excited for the open bar.

i'm down about 26 lbs now, that's a little bizarre and i still can't see an iota of difference when i look in the mirror. my mind has not quite caught up with the rest of me and maybe because i've been chunky all my life i'll always see myself as a whale and obsess about how other people perceive me. i remember once in like grade 2 being made fun of for being bigger than the other girls - honestly i was pretty small back then so i don't even see how that worked but for most of my life i've been out of shape and stuff, never really made fun of a lot, but still. maybe this stuff sticks with you for your entire life. i can't see myself ever being 100% confident about how i look even if i lose another 26 lbs, especially compared to a lot of my friends.