Saffron, Age 16

Diary:

I'm Saffron Jensen-Lefevre. F*ck you.

Hold on. I'm sorry. I keep getting angry. You're just a notebook. You didn't do anything to make me talk to you like that. I'm so sorry. :(

The school counselor recommended that I get a journal, so my mom did, and so I'm writing in you.

Dad ODed on heroin a month ago. I feel like a f*cking idiot for not even knowing what he was doing or why he was spending so much time away from us. The doctors or whoever said that he got addicted to the Oxycontin he got prescribed after the car accident I got us into. People tell me it isn't my fault. I don't know if I believe them. I let him down an he got hurt so bad that he had to go looking for f*cking heroin. My face got smashed against the steering wheel. They had to cut it off-the steering wheel, I mean- to get me out. They put my face back together okay. I can't smell all that great anymore, and I've got this big f*cking scar across my nose. It'd look kinda cool, if I was a Tekken character or something. I'm not. I'm 4'10", and my great big boobs just make me look fat, thanks to having a huge butt to go with it. I'm like a weeble-wobble with a dent in it.

Mom keeps gritting her teeth and leaving the house to smoke. I didn't know she ever smoked. I mean, like, I kinda knew she smoked pot back in the day. I'm named after a Donovan song, for Pete's sake! But... not like cigarettes. Anyhow, she says that she and Papa hadn't been getting along for a while. She tells me it isn't about me, or the accident, but I can tell she's tired. She might be lying, or she secretly blames me. I don't know any more. I don't know about anything anymore. This is too f*cking much.

Saffron, age 16

Mom keeps saying that I'm working too hard. I kind of don't want to stop the roll I have going. I have my black belt test coming up, and everyone's calling out at work, and I'm getting all kinds of tips to buy up fabric for getting my sew on. Oh, I bet that has nothing to do with the alterations I did to my uniform at all! ;D

I dunno. I just don't want to stop and think about what's going on with Momma and Papa yet. I know I'm gonna just crash out and cry for days on end, but I'm not going to let that happen until I'm done with everything at work and until I'm finished with all of my sewing. Three weeks, tops.

There's this girl at work, Erin. I end up getting louder whenever she's around. Not like, volume loud, but like, I do things with a little extra-extra to them, I make more jokes, I smile more. I think I might like her. Like, like her like her. I told dad at the last visit to rehab, and he almost seemed too pleased, like he called it, or something. It kinda freaks me out, like he's really happy that he doesn't have to play some weird pre-fixed dad kind of role where he chases off the boys with a shotgun. It's not like he's really there for the worst of that kind of stuff, so I don't know what he's so worried about. Mom isn't taking the Erin thing too seriously, but like, not because it's another girl so much as it's a crush. I kind of like that about mom. She can pick and choose what she's going to give a f*ck about. Alright. I can't make words any more with my pen. I've drooled on a corner of the page. Saffy out.

Saffron, age 16

My black belt test is in a few days, and I'm really nervous. I've been working hard on getting my jump kicks down. I really hope I don't have to break any boards or sh*t like that while I'm twirling around in the air. I hate it. I'm not ever going to use a 720-degree jump-spinning wheel kick in the middle of a fight. Sandy Jankovitz and I got into a fight after school when she tried to touch my scar. Her friends got involved. I hope I didn't break anything of theirs. Their boyfriends suck, and I'm still new at school, and I'm just a walking f*cking target for their sh*t. I don't want to keep hurting people. I know that I can do better, but I'm not smart enough to say the right things. I don't know how to talk to them. They all like boys and designer clothes and just... stuff, like stuff really matters. I wish I liked stuff. I wish I liked makeup and boys and pop music, but I don't. I like cartoons and hapkido and riot grrl. One of them is going to tell on me, I just know it. Their parents are going to sue my mom and we're going to be in big trouble and I'm going to get expelled and I won't be able to test for my black belt and I'm going to let everybody down. I'm such a disappointment to everyone. I'm sorry.

I haven't sewn anything in a while. I hope that making something will help calm me down. Papa would be proud of me. I don't know about Mom. She's been really irritable, lately, especially when I bring up dad. We meet up for dinner, but after that we just go our separate ways. I go to my room, she goes to her office, and after that, we mmmight pass each other on the way to the bathroom, but that's it. I'm really alone in all of this, aren't I? No one's going to have my back, and I just can't rely on anybody. I'm going to fix my do bohk's seams. Saffy out.

Saffron, age 16

Had another weird dream. I followed a white-furred animal down into a hole. We were in the forest, and everything was kind of blue. Maeve from Irongods was down there, but she was in pain. A hook-thing was stuck through her hand, and she couldn't get it out without taking her hand off with it, and this would kill her. Durga was there, and she was curled up in a corner on her hands and knees. All of her armor was around her, and she had sores up and down her back, and she was throwing up a thick black goo. Maeve said that Durga was trying to save them, but it wasn't going to work. The goo came alive and jumped at Maeve. Then, I saw Papa with a gold disk behind his head. He pulled it off and held it in his hands to look at it. A lady's hand took it away, and he shot away, like he was yanked, in to the dark.

I think something's wrong with Papa, but that's not how dreams are supposed to go. I think dreams usually mean something that has to do with you yourself, not the people around you. I think this one is different, though. Second Test went well. I get my belt tomorrow. I wanna call Papa when I'm done, but now I'm scared to. Sandy and her boyfriend got in a fight after school. I think she saw that I saw it and things are going to go bad. I wanna write good news in you, but all I can ever think about is the bad. It's gonna get better, right? Someday?

Saffron, age 16

Why do I want to do the right thing all the time when there's nothing right about anything I do?

Sandy came back for me in the parking lot after work, while I was getting ready to walk home from work. She had a knife, and she went for my face. She didn't get a single hit on me. Her arm... she's probably not going to be able to use it again. I don't know why she had a knife. I don't know what I did to make her hate me that much, but now she has every reason to hate me because I f*cked up her arm.

I don't remember getting home, or if I called 9-1-1 or what. All I know is that I have skin under my nails and my jacket was in my room when I woke up and it smells like blood. I remember seeing a fox eating something, like a dead raccoon. I might have dreamed that. This is so weird. I don't want to go to school tomorrow, but I don't want to stay here stuck in my own head all day, either. God, I don't know what to do.

You ever talk to someone and everything seems fine, but underneath everything, without anything you can really pinpoint, it all seems horribly, horribly wrong?

Papa seemed like he was doing really well. He was actually in shape, and he seemed calmer; not grousing about random sh*t or rambling focus like he usually does. Mom was all swelling with pride, and they even kinda flirted. I should be happy, like I was, but it's like, when I look in his eyes all I see is a trapped animal, like one of those circus elephants that's dressed up and painted and miserable, but has to act happy. It wasn't anything they were giving him there; the doctors are pretty great, and they don't take a lot of sh*t.

I talked with one of his nurses, and even she's pretty weirded out by his whole transformation routine. She asked me to keep an eye on him, when he gets out. She doesn't trust my mom to see objectively, and I don't blame her. He's getting out in two weeks.

Mom's arranging for him to stay in Downsview Dells for a year after treatment, and she's talking with her lawyer about visitation rights.

I think Mom and I traded our giddy and our tired somewhere back there. I don't give a f*ck any more, and I hate that I feel that way. I love my Papa, and I'm being selfish. He needs help, and he needs support. I just don't f*cking care anymore. Am I going crazy? I can't talk to anyone about this. It's like, whenever I try, people shut me down so that they can talk about something lighter, or treat it like some sunshine-y greeting card saying will fix it all so that they can feel good about having said something, and just... not just sit there with me. The guidance counselor's swamped because of a knife fight last week at the lacrosse game. It's like everything wants me to go off the rails.

Can I write something good in you, some day? I really like playing .hack//GU. I wish that the girls in it were better, but Alkaid is muh girl! Bordeaux is kinda hot, in that Crazy Girl way, and Pi just looks like a bunch of fetishes smacked together, but I like that she's a fist-fighter and not with like a bow and arrow or some spell-slinging doofus, like Atoli. I wish that I could see more male healer characters and more female tanks that aren't like... uber-sexy. Those pigtails would get Pi f*cking mauled in a fistfight. I mean, all that said, the main dude's alright. He's a prick, like everyone is in games after Final Fantasy 7. Y'know who I liked? Zidane. I don't like the sexist game mechanic, but the character wasn't an entitled prick about stuff, and he seemed to be less into himself and his own problems and more into having adventures and everyone else's stories. Final Fantasy 9 was awesome. I miss games like that. I'm gonna play that, tonight, just for a little bit (yeah right!)

Saffron, age 17

Hey Diary,

Just found you again. How have things been under all of my Sandman trades? Hopefully good?

Had my birthday with Bernie, Kara, Lucy, Louis and Collette last week! Louis is a good sport about hanging around a bunch of girls and letting Bernie win at Smash Bros. She's soooo very, veryvery bad at that game. Ssssobad. It's cute, though. She tries really hard, and she picks the characters she thinks are the cutest, or look lonely to her, and she hides when they get hit too hard. She gave me a vintage poison ring with a bloodstone in it, after everyone left, and it had a little note folded up inside. She dropped the L-bomb, and I'm trying not to get too wound up about it, since she's going to uni in Pittsburgh and I'm staying here and going to Ryerson. I applied to Drexel, and I got accepted... but I don't really wanna go there. Even if I'm closer to Bernie, it's still six hours away. Also, I think that maybe we're too young to be doing this kind of thing or taking it seriously.

But, for now, whatever. She's cute, she likes cartoons and hentai, she's kinky, and she makes me feel like I'm the tough one, instead of treating me like a delicate flower with big boobs. It's pretty fun, for now.

Papa just finished up on a miniseries with Edward Wiles, and he's been doing a lot of storyboard work for Cartoon Network and Ubisoft. I've been pretty happy with other people that he's working, but to be honest... I don't like what he's been drawing at all. It's good, for sure. It's better than what a lot of people have been putting out there, but it feels like it's trying to cling onto your feelings, you know? The eyes seem big and cutesy, but they aren't expressive. The hands seem like baby hands, and it makes the parts in Eddy's story seem creepy when they aren't supposed to be. Maybe that's what Eddy's going for, but it seems so weird coming from Papa's previous stuff. He's never going to do another Irongods, and I'm okay with that; I think that he got high because of working on that series. Even Kirk has been doing more formulaic stuff afterwards, and he and Papa barely even acknowledge each other, let alone talk.

I've been seeing a lot of Irongods merch lately, and a lot of blogs of people who used to be on the old message boards have been popping up, too. It usually takes more time than this for something to happen. It's not a big thing like Batman or V for Vendetta where people just glom onto it mindlessly, but it is getting a ton of attention. Ogun and Maeve just got action figures, to go with Skanda, Typhon and Eset. I don't know if they're going to do any for Durga and Kwan, yet. I've been seeing some Skanda-themed gene-mods pop up at Kensington Market. Not functional ones, but the iridescent eyes and purple hair on boys has become popular, and I've seen a few sunglasses styled like his, too. I'm not sure what it means that I'm seeing more of this now than I did when it came out.

I think I'm going to go out back and practice my staff form. See you!