Hope you liked what you read.

The type of day that makes you listen to warbly chanteuses and troubadors pour out their melancholic hearts through your headphones. You ache for times past and friends that live an ocean apart.

Time was soft then. We were smart and cooler then we knew. Spurred on by the blind mission to be different.

Polaroid dreams now. Climbing buildings. Dance parties. Easy laughter. Gang wars. Fearless with a smile. Waiting impatient for the day we’d be free from the John Hughes tropes.

But the layer of humidity falls off sooner then expected and cloying memories evaporate. It’s time to begin again and live for the clear and ever present now. Trying your damnedest to stay focused while ambition and clarity are clouded by late night anxieties. Answers aren’t locked in photo albums or treacly blog posts.

But we try to escape the grasps of reality through celluloid dreams, six word stories, second guesses and procrastination. Perhaps this cocktail of evasion will work its magic but for right now … it’s fueling a healthy habit of misdirection.

Sounds like adulthood to me.

“For the good?”

“For the better”

“What was I before?”

“Blue”

“And now?”

“…You’re better”

I was all sloth and contempt. Self inflicted wounds courtesy of cabin fever and a Vitamin D deficiency. If this were the fur trade I’d have been the first with scurvy. I was clawing for answers. Living with my head in the past – stuck in dank and humid memories refusing to see what was right in front of me. Clear as day.

~~~~

Looking at the skyline I sighed.

“It’s beautiful right?”

“Yeah…I’m almost starting to like it here.”

She bit her tongue. She wanted to say: “Well I’m here.” She didn’t out of fear of seeming needy. Don’t show weakness the rule books say. Be independent. Don’t open up. Don’t expose yourself for being anything else but a wry maven with wit in spades. Protect yourself … bite your tongue.

He looked at her silhouette in the stillness of an urban dusk and sighed. She laughed at his weariness. They stuck their feet in the water and let them sink in the quick sand as water lapped against the shore.

Their silence was easy and the space between them warm.

“After six years…I gotta say. It’s pretty damn beautiful”

“It’s a hell of a view.”

“It sure is”

Inspiration can eat away at you sometimes. It can corrode your well being and suck clarity out of the ether that surrounds you. To put it simply. Inspiration can cloud your judgement. Wallowing in self pity can lead to great prose but after those words have flowed out of the tips of your fingers and on to the pad of paper it needs to be expelled. Move on. Find something new. Something sweeter that confounds and compels you to sing. Lingering can bring you no good. Only heartache.

Keep moving. Push yourself. Seek it out.

I sound like a self-help guru.

I haven’t posted in a while for that very reason. My inspiration stagnated. I held on to what I thought was good stuff until it was rotting in my hands. Limp and petty. My anger had gone. So had my need for clarity and closure. There comes a point when you just can’t live in the past anymore. It’s debilitating. Yet when you live in a fog memories and it’s comfortable, calm and sweetly melancholic it’s hard to just say: fuck it. It’s hard to understand why you’d leave.

Then after one too many night of licking your wounds alone on the beach at night. Or telling the same story. Or reading the same passage you realize you’re fading. Pale. Sallow. Weak. That aint no way to live. Worst of all you’re at a loss of words. And that…you’ll think is never a good sign.

So with confidence, conviction and commitment you let bygones be bygones and breathe a sigh of relief and move the hell on with your small, slightly insignificant but nevertheless entertaining life.

SlutWalk was the brainchild of two Toronto based activists; Sonya JF Barnett and Heather Jarvis are both self-professed body positive feminists. Despite their collective experience neither had attempted to organize a protest on the scale of SlutWalk. With knowledge that upwards of 80% of women who are sexually assaulted do not report due to humiliation, and 51% of all Canadian women have experience at least one instance of sexual or physical assault – they knew they had to do “something”
“You don’t have to be a seasoned organizer to make change,” says organizer Sonya JF Barnett, “We felt that we’d had enough of attacks on human rights and on marginalized communities across North America this past year and we felt that enough people would feel this way too and want to join us on the streets.” As Jarvis, a York University student and sexual assault survivor, notes: “The reaction alone from students across University campuses and the dialogue generated among the general public is a good indicator that many folks felt the same way as us.”
After only six-weeks spent organizing the event – three thousand odd bodies filled the lawn at Queen’s Park. Banners with homemade slogans – scrawled in poster paint or etched in permanent markers: “Sluts R US” read some, while others were unnerving confessions – “Christmas 1984, 14 Years Old, Bundled up … did I deserve it?” The Network News trucks idled on the sidelines, reporters roved and quiet yellow-coated bike police officers stood on to the perimeter. Despite organizers asking participants to come dressed in their “slutty” finest, only a few protestors dared to don sheer tights that exposed their g-strings or traipse about in smutty rompers and roller-skates. The scene was a considerably tame, “un-slutty” one; yoga pants, jeans, spandex and steam-punk trench coats were all on display.
As people filled the grounds of the Provincial Parliament Sonya JF Barnett took to the mega-phone to give the first rousing speech of the day. Barnett whose physical slightness belies a fierce activist spirit, proudly waved a sign made by her five-year-old son (“We Love Sluts”) articulating the raison d’etre of SlutWalk: “Sexual Assault is a crime of power – it has nothing to do with the way you dress or who you are!” As the crowd roared with allegiance to this clear-headed philosophy, she asked the very simple question: “Why take back the word?” referring of course to “slut”, “because we have the power!” she cried. With a final word of encouragement and a reminder to remain peaceful … the crowd turned south prepared to make their descent to Police Headquarters on College Street. Flooding down University Avenue, the poker-faced policemen escorted the impassioned group through the streets as a Samba Squad pounded their drums as a lone trumpeter performed William Tell.
Spilling eastward along College, the crowd pooled at the foot of Metropolitan Police Headquarters. One young mother, with her infant daughter strapped to her back (bouncing with joy at the sound of the cheering crowd) and her five year old asleep in a stroller, had a smile that was contagious. “I’m here for my daughters,” she admitted, “The reasons are endless but as a victim of assault, I want to teach my kids they’re the owners of their bodies and not to be ashamed of who they are.”
Her humble sentiments were supported by a group of inspirational speakers that worked the crowd into a “shame”-shouting tizzy, at the mere mention of the insensitivity of the Metropolitan establishments. Michael Kaufman, an educator, rallied for men to take a stand and work alongside their female activists saying that, “The majority of men have not committed assault…but they have remained silent for too long.” Organizer, Heather Jarvis, discussed our “culture of rape” and the fact that dozens of women who go to the police are not initially believed. While the notable ‘Jane Doe’ called for sensitivity training for officers dealing with the assault cases. All of the speakers emphasized the simple fact that our society teaches young women how not to get raped as opposed to teaching young men not to rape.
In recent months there have been a rash of rape/assault cases across North America that have seen victim blaming at the centre of their debate. One example was the lenient ruling of a conditional sentence – two years less a day with no jail time – given to Kenneth Rhodes of Thompson, Manitoba by Judge Robert Dewar on February 24th. The evidence was indisputable but Dewar saw fit to ask the assailant to simply write a letter of apology to the victim who had feared for her life. The judge defended his ruling saying it was a case of “misunderstood signals”.
After the success of April 3rd, the movement is crossing continents. Satellite SlutWalk’s are being set up around the world! From Adelaide, to Dallas-Fort Worth, to Birmingham, England – people who are tired of the victim blaming and archaic stereotypes are stepping up and reappraising the landscape of sexual politics.
With the help of the girls of SlutWalk, we can say goodbye to “slovenly promiscuity” and hello to an age where women aren’t ashamed of their sexuality or victimized because of their sartorial choices. We’re changing the world … one slut at a time.

I wrote this awful little play once called “A Couple of Nighthawks”. It was about this ex-couple, who meet again in a 24 Hour diner. I thought it was good. It really isn’t. But the inspiration came from Hopper’s magnificent painting and my fascination with the hours when most are asleep. What conversations happen at 2 on Wednesday morning? Are hearts are being broken? Do people find happiness before dawn? Night allows for questioning – rhetorical and otherwise – it prompts curiosity and longing, because you become acutely aware of how alone you are. In my play I tried to make my characters sound terribly world weary and broken against the backdrop of the night…but who knows if it worked. Where it does seem to be working is in this movie The Off Hours. It’s simple, poetic and smart. Watch the trailer. You won’t be displeased.

The Off Hours Sundance Trailer from Megan Griffiths on Vimeo.

I’ve been asked to say a few words tonight on behalf of the English Students Society for us … the graduates. That’s a nice way of saying I volunteered myself. I know that not of all of us are here tonight … it tends to be difficult to get English students to participate in pretty much anything. Even if it is their own going away party. Anyways … in trying to write this I went through a few drafts, most of them were riddled with unnecessary bouts of cynicism. They were banal ramblings that tried desperately to articulate our collective experience as eloquently as possible, through caustic wit and self-deprecation. Needless to say they kept falling short. See, I didn’t want to fall into some overly sentimental trap that eulogized the end of our times spent as undergraduates. What could I say that wouldn’t generalize or trivialize our time at Guelph?

This is the end of something special, that might be the understatement of the year but it’s true. I’ve often said, rather cynically, that most of your education in university is outside of the classroom. But that’s a short-sighted comment, which comes from being prematurely jaded and an inability to see how invaluable and exciting studying English has and can been.

Correct me if I’m wrong but, the Study of English itself is grounded in the simple desire to comprehend the human condition through the written word. As students of that study, you sometimes feel lost or silly for being part of what has been described to me as “the most expensive book-club in the world”. But being an English student has allowed, for us, the ability to say something and mean it. It sounds trite but being able to construct an argument of substance isn’t always an easy feat nowadays. But that’s what has driven us over the past four years – a desire to learn, to learn how to decode and appreciate the human narrative – from Chaucer to Hip Hop – using whatever means necessary.

Throughout our respective experiences at Guelph we’ve engaged in what hasn’t always been the most coherent of discourses – introductory literary ramblings might be a more fitting description of the plethora of pages we’ve churned out. We have spent hours plodding away on essays that never quite attained perfection, constructing presentations that attempted to deconstruct but never sent anything toppling down, pages turned and margins noted … no matter what our task may have been we were rife with ideas. Aspring for something, whether it be originality or profundity, that was perhaps far more grand then we were capable of. But that didn’t stop us trying.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so essentialist but as English Majors we have, hopefully, attained a set of skills that aren’t flashy or overt – you might not be able to build a house or save the world with your close reading skills … but we’ve all become impassioned readers and critics of our respective environs. Critical thinking might be an intangible, specter of a skill-set but ideas and the passion that drives our individual ambitions are invaluable – after June 15th we’re all going to go our separate ways … with English Degree in hand we’ll face that inevitable question we’ve most likely already heard a million times: “What are you going to do with an English Degree?” and the answer is anything our hearts desires.

I have a preoccupation with writing about one thing I haven’t a clue about. It’s cliche and trite … but cliches and triteness are like sweat pants. They’re slightly embarrassing but damn comfortable.

I write about love (I think).

I concoct silly dialogues. I rewrite my relationships on the page like it was my job. I fixate on the “meet-cute” on things that are “unrequited”. I have created fictions that will never be lived up to by me, myself or you. How tragic you’ll say. No, I’ll say. It aint tragic – it’s armour, it’s padding, it’s my exo-skeleton. It’s fun. People want to hear about love as much as us post-collegial cliches want to pretend it exists.

If I were to write abut what I knew I’d have a very limited range. For I know very little. Lets be honest. I would be forced to write about dancing around the kitchen on a Tuesday night whilst listening to New Order or tripping over cracks in the pavement or telling a tale of how a joke fell flat.

OR, an even WORSE case scenario … I’d have to form opinions and articulate them to you in fully formed, mature-like sentances … and there’s enough of that silliness out there to sustain y’all for decades.

So I’ll continue to write about love thankyou … and self-pity. Because they go hand in hand right?

But it was safe. It was warm. It was a microcasm … it wasn’t reality.

The train would roar past my window, and I would stumble home from rehearsal giddy or bitter. Ready for beer or tea or gin. I miss that train. My street in Toronto is eerie and desolt at night. I feel like I’m the only one awake…but that train was a simple gesture, a loving reminder from another reality … that life still barrels forward.

Friendships don’t quite feel the same now either. The camaraderie of academia is gone. The begrudgingly written essays or the books we secretly wished to burn that we collectively moaned about. There are some who are still here but I sometimes fear, rather neurotically, that they simply put up with me.

I told someone once that I wasn’t a good phone conversationalist. He said that wasn’t true … impossible! he said, and I believed him and I talked, talked…talked till my ear was numb and we both nearly fell asleep with the receivers against our ear drums. But evidently I talked too much … for now my finger hovers over the talk button. Terrified my friend will see my name and shudder.

I miss the city I called home because I was confident. I knew people loved me, and I loved them. This unwavering band of merry miscreants. Clever and lovely and foolish and stunning drinkers, dancers … laughers. We could laugh. I don’t laugh as much now.

And the absolutely worst thing I could do is attempt to reassemble. Because its not the same place … literally. The gallant grubbiness of my west end neighbourhood is getting scrubbed clean for GTA yuppies and there’s a starbucks.

I miss my merry miscreants. My slap-dash family. I have volumes of minute memories: The way the sun shone when I went to the market for the first time. The ice-flows in the Speed. The moth-balls of Massey. The fog. The sideways rain. The gales. Taking my socks off and lying in the sun on the grass in the Arboretum = pure joy. The way the snow fell between us while I tried to make you like me.Pink cigarettes. Self-inflicted wounds. Stage fright. Risk. Jealousy. Joy. Happiness. Denial.

But it’s like making a sequel. Why can’t I just be happy with the present with what I have?  ”Change is the only constant,” I used to say. I should start saying it again…. more often. You too.

I’m repetitive. I know this. This blog is a sort of whirling dervish of my  garden variety anxieties and neuroses. I don’t post often because I think it’s tacky.They’re thinly veiled “essays” on my state of mind and attempts at articulating certain, how shall I say, ‘issues’. Is that the right word?

Here I am on a Monday night. Family day actually. Listening to some Wye Oak. Thinking about writing. Trying to read but getting distracted. Kicking myself. The usual. As I type this I’m thinking about LiveJournal. I couldn’t keep that up when I was fifteen, but some of my friends logged hours updating and writing post after post, drenched in high-school angst, but nevertheless lovingly created. The blogosphere wasn’t yet a fully formed living breathing beast of information and opinions. People who dared to compose rice-paper thin post about conflicts, loves and whatever popped into their mind, were taking the next step at defining themselves through electronic culture. It’s endearing now. Livejournal. It was a platform for people to create the persona they wanted everyone else in their lives, and strangers, to see them for. Thhe articulate and wry selves. Not the stumbling, inarticulate, over-thinking or shy person people had gotten all too used to.

Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and the plethora of other social networking platforms took the widespread selfconcious and  image conscious anxieties of an entire generation and have made millions off of redefining ourselves with one posted video and status update at a time.

This blog has veered strangely off of the trajectory I ever expected for it. Like I said it is repetitive. It’s shallow. Very shallow. My writings are cowardly attempts to speak my mind. I’m too nervous and dogged by the habit of overthinking, that self-destructive inner critic, to tell people how I really feel about them. Or even tell them how I feel about myself.

My public face has always been chipper, talkative…happy-go-lucky wouldn’t be much of a stretch. Whenever I dane to lower my head in introspection I get shot looks of sympathy and worry. Like people don’t believe that I’m capable of shutting up for a second or taking something serious. On the flip side of that I’m terrified that people think I just blow smoke, that I talk alot but say very little.

This past weekend I tried to explain to a friend about my current crises of not knowing what to do with my life: work, education, friends and relationships etc. In my attempt to articulate the impasse, I sounded like spluttering idiot. Incapable of dealing with one of the many trifles that life throws you. As I spluttered, ending every statement with: “You know what I mean?” Which was inevitably met with a puzzled look and “Uh … no not really”. I felt retarded. I felt incompetent. I couldn’t even confide in one of my closest friends because I was terrified he was going to judge me.

I used to pride myself on speaking my mind. On being forthright and clever. Now I just seem to be sheepishly chasing my tail and trying desperately to say the right thing. And thinking too much on what that right thing could possibly be. And that aware composition of a personality is what has made me indecisive and tongue tied.

Being aware of this is even worse then being in denial of it. Why can’t I just change my ways? Why can’t I just stop it? Stop over-thinking every detail, every laugh and observation? Just let it flow. People will notice the ease. I am confident but in an aggressive and strident way. Why can’t I just be natural? What am I afraid of?

I’m waiting for someone to give me the answer. Or for someone to be the answer. For someone to come and coax me out of my hermit shack and prove that I am worth … something.

I’m grappling here. For those of you who have braved the early-twenties angst up till this point will probably have figured that out by now.

So where do I go from here? At the beginning of the year I said I would achieve independence and clarity. But it’s still so fucking muddy. I’m behaving the way I’ve always behaved, to be honest. When I was a child I hated doing crafts or sports because I wanted to be good and the best at them right away and when I wasn’t I would give up. I was the same in school: putting all my energies into what I was good at and letting my less interesting courses fall by the wayside. Now it’s a case of happiness and contentment … if I don’t know the magic formula, I give up. It’s not very grown up is it?

But here I am with a petty little post on Monday night rambling on about nothing imparticular. Nothing of great import. Self-indulgent, navel gazing trite. I know about five people who read this blog. So what do I expect to gain from this? What is the point of posting stuff like this over and over on a public blog?

I suppose the answer would be: the faint hope that someone is listening.