St. Clair Mare

Walking on the concrete slabs that snap at my feet like a giant crab

I saunter past 1 shop 2 shops 3 shops no; I never stop it's always go, go, go

I keep my head still, keep my eyes glued to the sky that once spilled - red, blue - I fear for the day when the heavens will look like a purple and yellow and grey stew

The new condos pop up in the spring and lay dormant in the fall

Who knows how long I'll live here; always waiting for a call

that never comes, partially 'cause I keep my phone on airplane mode; afraid of radiation, afraid of pollution, afraid of interpersonal communication

It's just another weeknight, followed by just another workday

Then the stench of cheap cologne hits me and I realize it has to be a Friday

I know that if I stop to inhale the St. Clair stench I might be led astray

Which might look like walking into McDcs and saying "hey, can I get a 10 piece chicken McNug meal with a large fries? No drink please. And hey, no worries, I promise this won't be the start of my demise"

All the while trying not to think of the chickens, the bees, the human beings being turned into capitalistic commodities

The slaves to the torment of a bygone world; is it just me or is this dystopian fantasy masquerading as a just society?

I keep walking; I curl my lips up into a flaky half smile

The kind of smile where you try and project happiness and hopefulness

and all you get back are looks of strangeness and fearful eyes

But it's not all bad; in fact it's probably a blessing in disguise

I need to know - am I a fool or thou art a saviour?

I ask Lyra "hey, can you do me a favour?

Can you keep me safe from the monster and my reckless behaviour?"

It's not that I don't trust myself; it's just that trust is hard to come by

When all you care about is the next high and not the next goodbye

When I think of her, the voice I hear is subtle

And when I hear her voice, I don't feel like living a life that's tranquil

It was hard getting cut off from my angel; so thank you Seroquel

Thank you for not lobotomizing me

Thank you for not keeping me strapped down to the beds that smell overcleanly

Thank you for keeping me numb and angry; dull and dreamy; fat and teary

Thank you for supposedly giving me a shot at normality

Now is the time to find some distance from the trauma

Now is not the time to go home crying to my momma

Now is the time to reclaim what was lost in the all the drama

So now is probably not the time to walk on St. Clair in my pajamas

Dedicated to Chester Bennington.

©GGH 2017

Duck Haiku

The ducks prune slowly

In the dawn of dusk afloat

On a standstill lake

Beetle Brad

Possiby Osmoderma eremicola

Common Voice Project

If you've been reading my blog since the early days, you might know that one of my dreams is to become a voice actor - professional or otherwise. I've uploaded a few of my blog posts in vocal form before and thoroughly enjoyed doing it.

I've met people in my life who have told me that they're totally weirded out by hearing their recorded voices. I think the idea being that the voice which we hear resonate inside our heads is not the same as what is projected into the common world for others to hear.

I've gotten over my voice sounding weird in recordings. What I haven't gotten over is the feeling that I rarely, if ever, truly speak with my voice from the heart; meaning that I often think about my conversations with people (literally every day) and how often my voice sounds "fake".
I think it's like singing. If you practice speaking from your truth, instead of from your frontal lobe, then you eventually get better.

So anyway, I randomly stumbled upon this thing called the Common Voice Project when I opened up my browser today. It's a crowd-sourced database spearheaded by the amazing Mozilla community - the makers of Firefox no less -  and they aim to build a free repository of human voices for use in things like apps and engines.

What a great way for me to practice my voice acting! Sure, I don't get paid for it and sure, I get little to no recognition, BUT I get to instantaneously listen to my voice in real time. Plus, I also help out struggling developers and new English learners, if they happen to listen to one of the sentences I've enunciated.

I encourage you to check it out if you're bored and feel like giving a minor contribution to human technological advancement.

Social commentary, social ascension

I actually have interesting things to write about. Actually, I have WAY too many interesting things to talk about.

From philosophy to nature, from pictures of food I've prepared to reflections on the state of gender divisiveness in Toronto, is there no limit to what I can blog about? Aside from laws preventing hate speech and that kind of thing (stop! hating's bad), my limit is contained by how effectively I can translate my mind's eye onto this page.

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I'm going to copy some thoughts I wrote on a friend's Facebook status just now and call it a day. The topic is social institutions (i.e. schools and workplaces), popularity, and leadership - to be unclear.

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I disagree that social ascension is valued higher than kindness, [open-mindedness, intelligence] etc. [in our society].

I've been through various school systems and have seen positive role models (and yes, lots of bullying as well...). I would argue that because cruelty is such an intense quality, it tends to get noticed more than kindness; and both can lead to popularity.

A leader is someone who encourages others to achieve their potential through empowerment rather than through coercion. I don't think a true leader can ever be sociopathic in the strongest sense of the word.

Monstres méchants et gentils servans

C'est rare que j'écoute de la musique dubstep pendant que j'écris. Jadis, j'écoutait de la musique transe car elle ne comportait pas souvent de paroles (chose qui me dérangeait un peu), et parce que il y avait une continuation presque infinie de vagues sonore.

Maintenant, en 2017, je me retrouve à écouter Skrillex. Oké, peut-être pas grand chose - juste une chanson - mais il faut dire que la chanson (dont j'ai traduit le titre juste en haut) m'a stimulé à écrire.

Je ne suis plus de l'opinion que seule la musique transe et classique sont idéales pour être créatif en écriture. Non, je dirais plûtot que c'est l'heure de la journée qui à la plus grande influence sur mon écriture: le soir, c'est la folie qui ressort. Le matin, c'est l'obsession avec la grammaire et l'orthographe.

J'écoute encore Paramore. Ils ont un nouveau album. Je ne l'aime pas encore, mais je pense que je vais apprendre à l'aimer, comme toutes leur albums précédents.

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Quelle journée superbe! J'ai jasé avec une coolchick pendant des heures. Ça m'arrive tellement rarement dans mes vingtaines qu'il faut vraiment que j'apprécie ça. Oui, encore une fois... La gratitude. C'est tellement facile à faire! Et je le fais en répétition parce-que je suis sûr à 100% que ça améliore ma joie de vivre - les études l'on démontré. C'est de la psychologie positive, chose dans lequel je ne suis pas expert, mais dont je considère important.

Bon, avant de dégénerer dans du français incompréhensible... je vous laisse avec une photo choisie au hasard, directement de mon portable: