Month: February 2005

I found it to be heartening, the way we talked intimately with strangers. I’m accepted more as family every time I arrive. Hard times ahead because they’re going to be so easy. Faith required, assumption distraction, pulling me into temptation of the very best kind. I like to be where I am, I like that I can walk through this with a swagger and be justified. This is my people, this is my place. My hands can roam where they need to, where they want to, because there will be no hand against me. I slipped words to the roommate, I talked my way into a room full of people and scattered doubts into everything important. The cheesecake wasn’t half as bad as reports led us to believe.

Maybe I need a PrayerBot.

I can’t believe it’s been so many years. With my mask on, only three people recognized me in the two and a half hour SinCity line-up. One of them was Jason Brandt, which was a little bit disconcerting, (he and I have never quite gotten along), until I remembered that he’s seen me with lighter hair before. Ross knew me by my dancing and Shane’s known me since I was sixteen. Odd how it’s possible to have good friends you only see once a month for years. We keep vague track of each-others lives but never really interact. I’ve drifted out of contact with so many people simply because they never use their e-mail or show up on messenger.

Friday Robin came over and we head out to meet Andrew. We climbed the red Q of the North Shore Quay and sat at the top over looking the city and eating Beaver Tails. I blurted my knowledge of Ottawa while we were ordering, “now we should go outside and watch the hot air balloons drift over and away.” Our eyes met and I realized how long it’s been since I’ve been back east. Almost five years since I left my life behind in Toronto.

After the sugar dissolved between our teeth and into our bloodstream, we caught the SeaBus back downtown and made out way to Tinseltown, home of the worlds emptiest shopping mall. The place is a dead zone, there’s never been a shop to thrive. They have a half life of six months and then they’re gone, vanished as if they’ve never been, leaving behind paper taped to the doors of the slots they used to live in. WE HAVE MOVED with no forwarding address attached. I feel sometimes like raising my hand to any store in there, pressing it against the glass and intoning, “go back to sleep”. The dragon danced and blessed every business in the building yet even when filled with so many people, you can feel the place in unfortunate. A hollow warehouse, shallow with decor trying to fill the blind screaming space. There’s faux Tiffany lamps under one set of stairs and uninteresting couches in many of the open floor spaces. The only place I’m rooting for is the art gallery upstairs. Sometimes there’s beautiful work, student and established both. Magical glimpses of imagination and creative growth. There was a particular piece once, of birds, that I was taken by. I wanted to bring it home with me. It would have inspired me to keep myself in a better place.

Chinese New Year was being celebrated. We think we just missed the parade, but we got there in time for the stuffy part of the ceremonies to begin. Suits on stage one after the other, “and here we have the Mayor of Coquitlam to introduce our afternoon with a short speech!?” in a strange sea of oddly existential kiosks selling little bits of stone and flea market pillows. We ditched that after taking some pictures instead going to Wild Ginger, the William Gibson-esque restaurant I’m in love with on the second floor. It hides in plain view in the food court, a brilliant place with delicious decor, food, and atmosphere. We were there for over an hour, talking about life and the possibilities of romance. We taught Robin to use chopsticks almost successfully and Andrew played a nasty trick on me, pretending to call Matthew with an embarrassing valentines confession.

We did eventually call him, on our way from the restaurant to Granville Street. We’d decided to meet at Golden Age and spend some time with Mike before catching Ong-Bak, another in the new breed of martial arts movies, though this one is almost unique in that there are no special effects. No wires, no stuntmen. The film is thrilling, a dance of movement and laughter. I was and remain thoroughly impressed. “This man does things to gravity that she doesn’t want to know about for they are far too intimate and sexy to be shown so publicly.”

Mike wanted to go but had an unavoidable hour and a half of work left. Matthew met up briefly to make plans for the evening with us then vanished into the bus on Granville street after screaming orgasms into the crowd with me. “It’s alright people! It’s fine! Just National Orgasm day! You! You there! Have an orgasm today!” Then we crossed the street crying out. Alicia‘s annual Valentines Sux party started at nine, but we got there at eleven.

“This week marks the anticipated run of the experimental performance poetry show we’ve all been waiting for, “That’s My Brain… And You’re KILLING It!” — the most fun you can legally have with six mouths and an accordion. (I know, sounds kinda like something outta Revelation.) Choice cuts, beefed up for a stage setting, from the tongues of Al Mader, R.C. Weslowski, Matthew Glick, Rowan Lipkovits, Fernando Raguero, and Martin van Steinburg all on stage at the same time — come to see which one cracks first! Tuesday through Saturday, February 15th to 19th, only at Havana (1212 Commercial Drive at William, across the street from Grandview Park.) Every night is different, and a dollar from each $10 ticket goes to the CKNW Orphans’ fund.“

xinit is giving away tickets to the Vancouver opening of The Animation Show. Making yourself eligible is simple.

I stripped today with acrid chemicals. Took the hours back to truth with a sea bowl of foam change, stirred with friendship and the fan on full. The fumes otherwise might have killed us.

When work ends, I’m leaving for Jenn’s house. It’s Steve’s birthday party tonight. I won’t be there for long, I’m due at SinCity later. Valentines SinCity, I have been warned. I forgot it floods this month. I’ve dressed up and I’m looking forward to running into people. It’s going to be an interesting night. I’m going to be yelled at minimum of once.

*popcorn*

Andrew, Robin, and I are going to take on the China Town Year of the Rooster Celebrations. I’ve never been to it in Vancouver, I’ve missed it due to varying stupid factors over the years. While looking this up, I found out that The Secret Machines are playing Richards on Richards on Tuesday. I very much would like to go, is there anyone else? Tickets are $13.

Leaves are coming back to the trees, the seasons are spinning visibly again. The clouds are blowing away to be replaced with sharp blue sky which cuts like a knife. I can see us together, us being you and me, any number of you, and me with my purple hair contrasting with whatever colour you turns out to have. I’m singing about Love and we look out to the ocean and see rippling waves broken by a sailboat with furled sheets. “The Vancouver way of sailing, using only the engine.” I can see us laughing quietly at some private joke born months ago. It’s a strange sensation, knowing you, holding you. I expect to be blinded by the sun off my glasses and finding you gone in that tiny blaze of light, scattered to ashes made of memory, because this is too good to be real. I meet you on the seawall and we grab eachother not into a hug, but a little moment of soft shoe before we finally take a moment to clasp bodies properly. A tiny tango of hello, a spark of amusing connection. I tell you that I don’t kiss and tell and we grin, it’s a conspiracy. In my pocket I’ve brought us jelly-beans and we eat them as we walk, comparing the unexpected flavours we’ve found in the day-glo colours.

It’s something to think about.

It has even been estimated that one in 10 Europeans are conceived in an Ikea bed.

I have never been so intimate with vaseline in my life. I have petroleum jelly in bad places. There are little greasy sensations, visceral muggings, that distract me in unusual ways in spite of two scathing hot showers. I have vaseline trapped under my arms. Do not, boys and girls, put vaseline under your arms. I wanted to protect my fur. I protected it. I only lost one hair. It may not have been worth it. A severe coating of petroleum jelly is an experience. Not terribly a pleasant one, though not precisely unpleasant either. More of a slimy null feeling until you realize that it does not wash out of hair. Then there’s sort of panic semi-exasperation.

It felt strangely normal to be naked on a strangers living-room, like this is the nudity I’m used to. The nudity which doesn’t matter, that’s simply being naked because it’s needful and no one pays attention. We started late. Matthew had come over appropriately early, but promptly snuggled into the warm bed with me and we slept in. My bed is a trap. A comfy trap. The Monty Python Spanish Inquisition could have used my bed. Eventually I stood against a plastic sheet covered board propped against a fireplace after Matthew helped me slather on the jelly to the tune of too many australian tainted Austin Power style “oh BAYBEE!”‘s. My left arm crooked on the edge and the other resting on the top of my thigh, I had to stay still for an hour. My hands fell asleep and my sensitive joints wanted to give out, but I persevered. I refuse, at this point, to bow to certain of my injuries.

The casting went well. It peeled off perfectly and set against my skin to the grain. I hadn’t moved a tenth of an inch in spite of the odd position. We’re going to do another one soon, after he fills out the negative into a positive and sees what it looks like. He’s uncertain if he made the right decision on the placement of one of the hands. I got fifty bucks and a seriously tacky t-shirt. I was first given a rather tasteful light blue one with a Pacific Lifecasting logo neatly printed on it, but I declared I was going to go home and write if you like what you see, get a copy of it at (phonenumber) across the chest in permanent black marker. He said that I obviously needed to see the old logo. He was right. I traded mine in.
t-shirt pictures – it doesn’t get much classier than this

Tomorrow I get up at the tightest crack of dawn to travel half across the city for the dubious honour of being smeared in vaseline and home repair goop. His idea is to pose me in such a way that he may construct a facsimile of my form entwined with another of myself. Should be delightful. My favourite quote from the website advises me to bring my own music, otherwise, he is told, listening to his choices are the most painful aspect of the proceedings. Thanks be to T.V. On the Radio. My only worry is that I’m pretty certain I’m going to lose some curly hair.

reminder to self: no underwear tomorrow. underwear = pantylines, but bring some in a bag.

It’s three a.m. I should sleep now. Enough waiting up for Matthew. My sympathy chocolate is all gone.

Wait, damn – this makes me a model.

*fist to sky etc*

We sat side by side on the bus and he told me a story, playing with my words. His eyes glowed as he spun this yarn, this skein of words and flow. I interjected, adding details, but mostly let it drift over me. There’s a room at the end of an alleyway, he said, an alley which grows more narrow as you reach a little door. It’s rough planking, tied together with twine, small enough to duck through, like it was made for a dwarf. Inside is a small room, filled with wires, with a small space in the center, just large enough to stand in without touching anything. It could be a hide-out for a child if it weren’t in such a bad part of town. There are shelves lining all the walls and sculptures made from twisted coat hangers cover every surface. They’re hung from the ceiling like model airplanes and tacked to the wall with little pieces of chewing gum. The floor is rough cement, though clean, but for a small drop of what might be blood, right in the middle, but it’s not noticeable in the visual jumble. The coat hangers are everywhere, twisted into incomprehensible shapes.

A person enters this door, unhooks the latch of grubby string and steps inside. He tells me this with his peculiar grin, which says there’s a joke coming. They avoid the coat hanger sculptures until they have space all around them, until they’ve found the middle. They look around and realize if they shift just right, it becomes a story, one giant picture. All the wire meshing into a grand diorama and then they look up. It’s more than genius. The coat hangers have become a sweep of birds, seagulls looking grander than the flying rats they are. Their head turns to follow the flow and one deadly piece of wire, sticking out from all the others, catches them in the eye and kills them, leaving on perfect drop of blood on the floor to match the other as they crumple and fall.

Maybe later somebody drags the body away.

I remember kissing him as I write this. A drunken evening that bled into a morning where he promised he would share and my hands smoothing his gold hair behind his ear. He doesn’t taste of storm static, but something infinitely different. There’s another layer of history patina which could be partially because he’s one of the first people I ever kissed. In the Top Ten, High Fidelity style. In spite of a unique feeling left on my tongue, it makes me think that he tastes like remembering things. A pale weight which dissolves into smoke, like the memory of a voiced idea with undertones of something untouchable, like I’m not tall enough to reach it yet.

He plays D&D and listens to George Rafferty.. Am I sick?

Jenn has canceled on me, so instead Andrew, Alli and I are going to wander downtown like youngster miscreants.

I think in my lack of sleep is wreaking destruction on my time distances. I may have double booked my Wednesday evening because I thought it was Monday today. I’ve planned dinner for seven:thirty, but I put my word in for a concert at the Cottage Bistro for eight:thirty. The musician who was kind enough to ask me said, “People dress up for it. Evening gowns and suits.” Then he looked me over, “We welcome cross dressing too.”

Now, rather than be insulted by his automatic assumption that I play drag king occasionally, I was incredibly curious as to how he knew. I’m standing in high heels and a fluffy girl rockstar coat, what sort of impression do I unconciously convey? If this were the first time, I might pass it off as an odd fluke, but this is the latest in a long chain. The places I might have been noticed are extremely few and far between. I don’t spend much time at Lick and the Drag Kings of Vancouver dissolved. They don’t put events up anymore, so this is just getting eerie. I want to know why I come across as a boy.

My certificate came in the mail today. I have until the end of the month to claim my cake. James has voted for a Diplomat and I believe I agree. Gavin will be in town in a week or two, I’m not sure when, closer to the end of the month, and I say we nab it and have a party then. I’m tentatively offering up Feb 27th as the party date.

There are always enough hours in the day. Tomorrow early morning I’m due for sewing with Jenn and in the evening I have dinner with Aubrey Bill. The afternoon is currently empty, but so has today been and I don’t seem to mind too much. It’s been space to not do things in, like whatever it is I’m to be doing with my bank and fetching groceries which are not perogies. If I were really concerned about my lack of life today, the situation could have been easily rectified with a phonecall or two. James and I are content dithering about. I’m mostly wandering on-line looking at nifty things and sharing music, he’s watching movies and sporadically popping up at my door with various odd Eureka moments. To illustrate our sort of drawn out evening, just a minute ago we had this snippet of conversation:

“I want a baby to name badly and raise weirdly.”
“Alright, we’ll get you adoption papers for your birthday.”
“Nu-uh – wouldn’t be my baby, it would be spawn.”
“We’ll put your blood in it.”
“I could put my sperm in it and it still wouldn’t be my baby.”
“..”
“I WIN AT BABY FUCKING!” *sings song about it & goes back to his movie*