My mind loves a loop. It finds something that doesn't fit, or sit correctly with me, and proceeds to circle it until it's emotionally processed, logicized, or definitively solved.

Times of secure, stable, peace are few and far between (for some countries more so than others, and globally all at once, it's never happened). Thus, peace is one of those ideas that runs as an undercurrent, as a rule: pageant queens wish for it, believers pray for it, idealists talk about it.

Humans are storytellers by nature. Even if we're not writing them down or holding court, our brains are always running in the background, constructing stories that help this existence make sense. God, who killed JFK, and what that bitch meant by what she said – it's all the same to our brains. Facts are facts, but our brains crave explanations.

With the sun slowly creeping up to a healthy, normal level, I'm feeling myself normalize as well. In fact, everyone’s got more pep in their step, both colour and pattern have returned to store shelves, and people are posting their first ice cream runs (jackets notwithstanding).

We went out to vape and smoke a joint before the show, leaving our jackets inside. The cold wind made me giddy (uncomfortable, but giddy). It felt like cigs in high school when I didn't want to get my jacket from my locker. It felt like late nights I hoped wouldn't end that had started as early days, and I was dressed for the sun.

It's been said in uh, places (gestures vaguely), that authenticity is the new currency. That people have hit their saturation point for curated POVs, and staged smiles, and now anything less than the raw and real gives us the heebie jeebies.

For many years, I considered myself low maintenance. Well, I was repeatedly told I was low maintenance, which was cast in a positive light, and I began to see myself that way. Guys called me that. I didn't have the same requirements or expectations that they, well, expected.

When I was a teenager, I loved Jim Morrison. Like, loved. Obviously, I was into The Doors, but I also read Jim’s poetry (yes, we’re on a first name basis like that), and his biography. His was the starring poster on my adolescent wall, the band I had the most shirts of, the one I hypnotized my friends to channel.

I ran through all my usual logical steps; checking situations where I'd seen potential, and seeing if it held true. Debating it from different angles, I tried to find the flaw in the statement, and simply could not. As such, I now hold this theory as truth, and pass it on to others.

My high school friendships fell away soon after I dropped out of CEGEP; I was already engaged, had moved to a different part of town, but was trying to maintain my relationships. When I got pregnant though, the old friends fell away.