jolene writes/gardens and leaves it here 

a blog where i can throw some writing up to keep track of my endless, unorganized google doc pages and the 2-3 journals i have in my bag right now.

the happenings

january 9th, 2025

today i'm thinking about advice i have received in my life. i have received really really good advice and i can share some if you'd like. i will update this list when i receive more really good life advice. 

1. my grade 11 marine biology teacher named mr. atkinson gave me advice about riding the ferry. i told him i wanted to move to vancouver one day, and i guess he figured i would be ferrying back and forth a lot, so he told me about his BC ferries ritual. every time he rides a ferry in the daylight, he sits next to a window and looks out into the sea, without fail, he sees an orca whale everytime. i started doing this in my senior year of highschool and 3 years later i still try to do it almost every time. i can't promise you anything, but i can tell you both me and mr. atkinson have a 100% success rate. whales are everywhere, start looking. 

2. my middle school had a frozen yogurt place across the street, and we used to go all the time after school. they had this special deal where if you guessed the exact price of your yogurt based on it's weight, you got it for free. my friend suggested that i order the same frozen yogurt every time, and surely i would come closer and closer to guessing the price right and getting free yogurt. i thought this was genius, and every day i proceeded to go over to the froyo place and get a cup, with no frozen yogurt and 3 green tea mochi. it was 0.67 cents, every single time. i got free mochi every week for 2 years, except on the off occasion where it was 0.66 or 0.68 cents, and i would watch the cashier light up with joy as i dug around my wallet for change. 

3. my grandma gave me the advice of making a cake from a box. if you substitute the vegetable oil for melted butter, add an extra egg and milk instead of water, it makes the most delicious cake of all time. she's right, i confirmed this last october when i made alexie's birthday cake and it was really yummy and tasted like a banana split. she also told me to add a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar to every pie i bake. i will confirm this one over the weekend (confirmed). 

4. when i was in musical theatre as a kid, the coolest girl in the whole group came up to me. we were rehearsing oliver twist and i was nervous to speak in front of everyone. she had one side of her head shaved and the other side was long brown hair, she wore a long rolling stones tank top with a red sports bra underneath. she told me not to be nervous, because everyone feels like this. i will say my lines and be nervous and knotted up, and then someone else will step in and say their lines, and my nervous energy will be transferred to them, and we both hope to do great, but really we can both only do our best. 

january 8th, 2025

feeling insanely grateful. i just am so grateful for my friends. yesterday i hung back in one of my classes to talk to my professor about research and when i came out my new friend had waited for me outside. it made me tear up on the way home, i'm excited for this new friendship. i'm eating lunch next to my friend bea right now. i'm writing this and she's watching south park. we get to spend a lot of time together because we have almost identical schedules. i am grateful to have someone i can be with all day and just do my own things. i called katie for a bit yesterday and we read to each other, she read some of her book to me and i read her my tarot reading from last week. it's absolutely ridiculous that i haven't grown an inch since grade 9 because i feel like i'm growing bigger and bigger every day. my heart is expanding rapidly and i can finally relate to the grinch. 

the book i'm reading right now is called animal crackers -hannah tinti, i bought it at lawrence books this weekend with alexie. it's many absurd short stories about animals and i really love it a lot. i am embarrased about really genuinely enjoying YA books but at the same time, at least i'm reading!!!! some of my favourite YA books are 'we are all made of molecules' and 'optimists die first'. i think about those two books almost every single day. in my literary theory class she asked what book has influenced us the most in our lives. i raised my hands and talked about optimists die first, which felt really dumb later because everyone brought up middlemarch and catcher in the rye and classic literature i didn't even know. i could have been fake-sophisticated but that's a lot of effort and animal farm DIDN'T influence me most. 

this weekend i'm going to bake a pie, my grandma has a secret recipe she has finally given me and i am elated, even though i know it won't be the same. we can only do our best. 

january 5th, 2025

last night i watched my friends do stand up and they were so hilarious!!!! laughed so hard and appreciated the miracle of friendship. i have had brief stints dating both of them but the universe sorted it out and i'm glad we're in this format of connection now instead. i was thinking about how i would describe my sexuality if i wasn't scared to tell the truth and it is that i'm only really 98% a lesbian and 2% is reserved for men with rosacea before i hear them speak. there's something endearing about rosacea even on the faces of men. also falling into the 2% of my heterocuriousity is for any wearers of sparkly nail polish or admitters of when they do not know something. that's it. i am missing the pink hair community. when you have pink hair you are instantly friends with everyone else with pink hair, sometimes you even kiss a little bit. the blue hair community seems to want me dead. i try to smile and wave at the blue hair people of the world and they are shutting me out and meeting me with annoyance, maybe they sense i'm a rookie? more to come on this. that's it. also i am leaving my zine around different places today which is really cool and it's nerve wracking. last night i panicked so hard about it being dumb and pointless that i shoved all the copies under my bed and couldn't look at them. then i woke up this morning and looked over it while drinking my coffee and was like wait!!!! you loser this is kind of fun. so i am wishy washy. ok so?????? yesterday i also told my friends i would sign up for stand up open mic next time we go. ask me now??? literally no way. you have to catch me in a good moment i guess. i locked up my vape and cigarettes and gave them to alexie. i hope that lasts. i was talking to myself this morning which was nice. i kind of just narrarated what i was doing to myself but it still felt affirming. yesterday i made honey garlic sausage orzo with homeade tomato sauce and oyster mushrooms and faba beans and i'm going to eat it cold in the library right now. i'm listening to some girls talk about this crazy heterosexual breakup going on in there friendgroup, bitches (men) be crazy! that's my morning pages i guess. 

january 4th, 2025

last night i read my tarot for the future (feeling uncertain) and pulled the death-rebirth card. zoë came home and told me that she pulled a card for her TSA agent and it was the rebirth card. big things are happening in the universe right now. i'm in search for a job over the summer, i want to find a position as a florist or at a nursery. two days ago i had a job at a nursery, a 5 minute walk from me. it was my dream job. i could see myself opening my own nursery one day if this life allows it, and this nursery is exactly what i envisioned for myself. yesterday i lost this job, for the second time. the owner and co-manager of the nursery has dementia and kept forgetting hge hired me. the first time i called in to confirm a time for my first shift and he completely forgot who i was and hung up on me. now i return from break and when i texted the other manager (memories intact) she told me i no longer have a position because while i was away on christmas break, the manager with dementia forgot he hired me, again, and hired someone else for my position. it fucking sucked!!!! i cried a lot and moped around my room feeling really sad for myself. i couldn't get any actual chores done so i put 7 hours into an art project... when inspirations strikes i guess? i started and finished the zine i have been planning for 6 months.... so thats awesome!! i'll post updates for it here maybe?? anyways, i was sitting in the library searching desprately for a job that i could bring some passion to, and one that allows me to wear cute outfits. i was looking at nursery jobs initally but they're pretty limited in my area and i came across a very sweet looking flower shop. i thought i would look into it because i do have 2+ years opf florist experience, however i had bad connetations with floristry because i was actually working for a drug front or something?? i never got the real details because they were really secretive but i was there long enough for them to trust me with balancing the finances and such and. i can confirm. big money laundering activities. plus they were kinda mean and told me my skirts were too short. whatever. i'm looking at the website for the flower shop and a song come on that i really like. i had never heard it before, it was on my daylist this morning.

i open my phone to figure out what song it is and to add it to my january playlist. it's called the florist -abby sage 

is that a sign from the universe???? is it the increasingly scary constant surveillance of our devices?????? i dont know but i thought it was pretty magical, i guess that means i think it's. sign. my tarot also told me it's really important to follow my intuition right now, and it will ease my stress for the future. my intuition tells me there is a divine energy in the air right now, even though the world is scary and awful and sometimes i wake up and i never want to get out of bed. the days will pass either way. feeling like sunshine. 

listening: the florist -abby sage, sexy lemon -freak slug, mangetout -wet leg, oh baby -lcd soundsystem 

december 29th, 2025

i'm thinking new years thoughts. i try really hard to not believe or care about the new year because everything is made up by men and i tend to not really trust their opinions too much, however reflection and appreciation is important. every year i get stuck on the stupid ritual of self-improvement paired with inevitable disappointment. it goes something like this: i reflect on the year i just lived, wow! could have been better! but jolene, it could have been so much worse. stop it. ok. this year is going to be better, this is going to be the year i tell my kids about, of all the fondness and warmth in my heart. two months in, something bad happens (because bad things always happen) and i get sad. oh no. this year is shaping out to be quite awful. ok. well you know what it's ok because 1. one thing 2. another thing 3. one more thing i'm waiting for, to feel happy and secure. live the rest of the year out in its natural waves of happiness and sadness, of good and evil. repeat. this year i want to make goals for myself but also leave room for the fact that i have big feelings and also, randomly have really bad luck. however i am surrounded by friends i love, i get to study plants and trees every day, i get to have gay sex all the time and not feel any shame about it. i get to play, dance, sing and move. i also get very sad sometimes and lose hope often. i am scared about the state of our world and i fear my inevitable death. these things can coexist, this is living.