Irrational is my middle name... I've been plagued by weird thoughts all day. It all started when I woke up and started thinking about my great-grandfather's brother on my mother's side. My grandmother told me a story once about him that sort of traumatized me. She shouldn't have told me, and I think that if my mother had found out that I knew it, she would have been fairly upset with my grandma.

Aunt Mary sat in the kitchen with the new baby, rocking it gently back and forth as the crowds of company bustled around in the living room, occasionally darting into the kitchen to grab more tea, or a set of spoons for the music that would be played later by all the uncles with their violins and guitars. Everyone was there in anticipation of seeing the tiny new little girl that nestled quietly in Mary's arms, as she and her mother had just arrived on the Island after travelling from Alberta. Time passed and the baby awoke and looked around with her wide dark blue eyes. She was a very alert and watchful baby the nurses had said in the hospital, always looking around, afraid of missing something in the cold environment she now found herself in. All of a sudden, a towering man crept into the kitchen. He was a brand new grandfather, and as proud as could be of this tiny little thing that could fit into the palm of his hand easily. She was small now, but she'd be tough when she was older, he'd boast.

"Jacob's drunk," he said tersely.

Jacob was his father's brother, a man that no one had ever known to be sober, even in his early twenties. They imagined he'd just never learned how to cope with misfortune properly, or that his irish blood was too thick. They'd laugh when they said the latter, but exchange grim glances when they saw his hands shake at their doors in the morning, asking, begging for money. He was branded by family members as a born loser, tolerated and floated around out of respect for blood.

The grandfather reached for the baby and gently lifted her out of Mary's arms. She'd raised him alone when his mother had died suddenly of polio during the epidemic; his brothers had been shipped off to another aunt and uncle. The baby cooed delightedly as he settled her into his hand and gave her a bottle that his daughter had exhaustedly handed him. Jacob staggered into the kitchen.

"I hear there's a new arrival," he slurred softly, looking towards the grandfather and the auspicious bundle of wrinkled pink skin in his hand. Though Jacob was many things, he was also harmless, along with being a coward and a fool, and the grandfather knew this. He held a finger to his lips and gestured for Jacob to come take a closer look.

"Be careful," he warned. Warnings from the grandfather were not to be taken lightly. The oldest out of the three boys of his father's, he was the one that held the family all together as his father grew older and less able. Jacob leaned closer and the baby gurgled as it finished drinking from the bottle. He quietly examined the baby, gently gave her his finger to hold. And then he started to cry. He fell down onto his knees and put his head in Mary's frocked lap and tears flowed from his eyes like rivers as the grandfather and aunt looked on with horrified looks of confusion.

"Jacob, what the hell is the matter with you?" The grandfather asked in alarm.

"She's not right!" He moaned. He cried and cried, and repeated that sentence over and over, much to the horror of the young mother and all the dinner guests, maligning god, maligning nature, and finally asking what the mother had done to herself to deform the poor dear baby.

Upon hearing this story about a month or so ago, I realized that no one really has to know everything about themselves. Certainly not every circumstantial thing linked to their existance anyways. I would have liked a little more mystery anywho.

At about this time is where I jump in with the irrational fantasy I've been playing out in my head all day. I wondered how easy it would be for me to just drop everything and leave. Just go somewhere and write.

My comparative literature prof was talking about writer's exile last week, and it intrigued me greatly, because we debated whether or not exile would be necessary for someone to write their completely honest memoir in. And I fought that it was. I don't think I could write objectively if I was around everyone else that I knew. If I was far away, in an unfamiliar setting, I could write anything though. When I was in Katimavik, I wrote like there was no tomorrow. I've never been as productive now at writing as I was then, and I miss it. And it isn't just because I have no time. It's because I have all these fears of people I know reading it when it is so far from ready to read. But my family is the bane of my existance when it comes to gaining privacy at anything. Anyways, there's a bit of an explanation to be had before I get to the actual explanation of the fantasy.

I went to my aunt Harlot's house today, because her daughters and their respective husbands were all in town. And I love them all dearly enough that I was willing to sacrifice being under the watchful eye of Harlot to see them. Not so much watchful lets say, as demoralizing and fault-seeking eye howbout. And we had a good visit, but of course this always means me smiling as I listen to the friendly and funny banter of everyone else, throwing in my two cents only occasionally, but since they are such delightful people, I love to just sit and listen to them anyways. And this brings me to the fantasy- their lives are so exciting. They've always been exciting, all the way from the get-go, and I feel like I'm just wasting mine when I hear what they've been doing. And then I wonder if I am wasting it, and doing what I really want to do, or if I should just follow the impossible dream after all, and just be a writer? Basically, I question myself, and everything that I'm doing, and wonder if I am doing any of it right, or whether I am just flying by the seat of my pants, blindly informed about whatever guides me, and missing out on bigger and better opportunities. But THEN, my cousin informs us that she's pursuing her PhD now, upon her recent completion of her masters, and I wonder- how the hell did she fit that in with all the travelling and the high life? What are they in on that I am not? Where the hell do they get money to do this? So by the time I got home, my head was just spinning with doubt, worry, or irrational plans. Irrational plans were infinitely more delightful to think about though, is what I think I decided.

Depressed, I sat on my bed and conjured up a plan as I skimmed through the USA Daily that my parents brought me back from New York: I would finish my semester, paying only for the one, rather than both, like I'd originally planned. Then, I would take the remaining (if not paltry sum) $2200 plus money saved by eating only rice for the next three months, and hightail it outta here and start over. Either jump a cargo ship as a crew temp, to Europe, and get a job there, or go down to the States or Mexico. I could afford to live in Mexico I think, very easily. Next, buy a typewriter and hole up in my skidgy apartment that will probably be overridden with roaches, as the old cliche goes (the old type-writer and roach hotel cliche). And of course the cheap red wine for inspiration. Truthfully though, who doesn't have the romantic notion of starting your life completely anew, sometimes? Anew, and with one clear purpose of writing something worth bringing to print. God, with impossible amounts of reading to get finished, as well as two essays in one night, this is so much more appealing sounding than the prospect of staying in school. I need to get out of here, and while last week I was thinking I just wanted to go to my parents house and hide under my old bed, I think I just need to get out of this city. And it sucks, because I don't have any good reason to be unhappy right now, but I just am. I have good friends, I do good in school without trying, I live in a nice place (albeit not my own), and I'm not starving. There must be something wrong with me. Cue to angry and badly spelled emo poetry...

  ¶ 8:16 PM