Month: May 2005

orgy of the dead


I can’t believe
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

How erased can one life manage to be in one week? I was under the impression that I had some sort of job security. I thought I was a rather invisible citizen, someone who was rained on in the evening, but not a person of any note or worth to the eyes of the law. I had a lover, but I could be a recording now, a phone number with no one to ever pick up the poisoned phone. Three zero two… This is a bowed back week, a mortal weight that presses my eyes like hands. Instead of girlish reactions, I’m gathering tears in my lungs, little water droplets that need to be spit out. I suspect I need some laughter. I’ve skinned my knees on the blacktop this week, but I don’t need to be kissed better. I need to tear up the playground and let grass grow. Something new and a different texture.

Does anyone know of anywhere hiring?

This was my reply letter to my now-former employer,

It seems more than reasonable that a period of employment lasting over a year would be granted more notice than “effective immediately”. If the job I performed was under review, I would have preferred to be informed of this especially considering that this is my primary employment. While the terms of this employment seemed contractual in nature, and therefore no notice is technically required, given my long standing positive relationship with this company I expected more than four days notice.

I feel I must comment as to the inappropriate and discourteous nature of this termination and believe it is more than reasonable to expect some form of severance pay to cover my expenses until the end of the month.

My received answer,

Jhayne. I feel that my notice to you was very courteous. As a contractor there is not any termination policy. We regret that things did not work out for you here at Kidzworld.

Good luck in the future.

Regards,

Allen

Far too rote for my tastes, but that’s where it ends. I have been lucky enough in that Adrian has sent me a KW schedule that has my name on it, giving me proof of employment, (which otherwise I would not have), and I fully intend on photocopying the cheque I’ve to pick up still.

more good news

Would you believe arrested and fired in the same week?

Jhayne. I am writing to let you know that we will no longer require you to be a chat monitor for Kidzworld on the weekends. Changes within the company have led to our making some personnel changes that unfortunately do not include you.

We thank you for your past efforts of behalf of Kidzworld and wish you well in the future.

Regards,

Allen W. Achilles
President
Kidzworld Media

intelligence and wit

  • Successful Nuclear Fusion
  • Subvocal Speech Development

    I was on the patio of a coffee shop, the one where all the local artists come to see and be seen and write long flowing novels about their poetic rediscovery of religious epiphany, with someone I’ve known for a long time. He was smoking a cigarette, the gray little waves catching the light and reminding me of Kubrick for reasons utterly unrelated to the situation. damned cottonmouth smokers. He looked at me, blue under gold, and asked, “Well then, shall we be lonely together?” and I didn’t consider before replying, “I don’t see why not.” We’re not sure what we’re doing here. We’re sprawled in black netted chairs, he’s leaning on me, one arm draped over my lap, my arms on top of his. The sun went down an hour ago. “I don’t know if I’m in love with you.” he says. This is the culmination of a handful of parties, a thread running through all the conversation tapestry we’ve been weaving. I’ll sit with him when he’s present, and I’ll crash with him when the sun comes up in the morning. “Why not?” I tuck a curl of hair behind his ear and he lights another cigarette. I try to take a photograph of the quintessal smokers moment, that drag on camera, that american dream gesture of removing the fag from the mouth on camera to let smoke curl from the lips like a film noir fantasy. The lighting is right, but I fail. He can’t let it drift when I’m paying attention. “If I knew that, then I would know if I was in love with you or not.”

  • Nowhere Girl
  • comics zen

    • how would I explain this to the children

    how to get free parking downtown Vancouver: If you use Future Shop gift card on the Impark machines that accepts credit cards, the machine reads it as a credit card. Input whatever time you want, the card isn’t affected at all.

    Six o’clock Sunday morning is when my body decided to punish me for Saturday excess. Twitch said a muscle and my eyes slammed open to agony, thumb burying itself in my ankle suddenly turned to stone. I’m starting to get used to this, expecting it even. I danced from nine:thirty to three in the morning. I only sat down twice.

    Also upon waking, I had a crushing realization. I forgot to hit up the secret swing when I was in Toronto. I lose. I lose like children eating paint-chips, like an incredible miracle which never had any witness, like crayons with stupid names like Cheyenne Umber. I lose out like a soldier missing his last kiss before he goes to war.

    I was not exactly happy stepping onto the plane, but I was pleasantly surprised by the in-flight movie. “My polluted heart could not help but laugh.”

    No one told me that Phantom of the Opera was a comedy.

    I’m ready to let rivers wash over me

    I want to say I’m sorry, but I have no reason to. It’s just ingrained on the system chip like biblical stories in the midwest, plains of bitter recriminations because their god was too puritan for England and faith requires less discerned thinking that fact. I don’t know what I’m wanting, but I catch myself looking at my hands and marveling that these simple things come in so many shapes. I remember fingers with a slight nettle sting, I remember fingers that brushed my lips when I woke up in the morning. This morning actually, as if to off-set this delightful treat of a bloody summons to court, my lover chews my heart and spits pieces in my face. It’s a weakness, allowing him to continue to hold it. I’m doing my best to tear the connections off, sticky bubblegum thread by bubblegum thread, but it only takes one word to tie me up again. Smoke and mirrors solidifying around me, but then I’m told I’m vicious, that my words are ashes instead of fire and suddenly, like a switch has been flicked, yes, I remember why I walked away, why I felt that my waking moments had so far been a lie. I push my plate away from me, too sick to eat in spite of my stomach knawing itself out to my skin in acidic starving layers. I’m going to have ketone breath soon if I keep up this unhappy. Unable to keep anything down, unable to bring myself to taste anything but what this person used to be like on my tongue before I found out how they thought of me, how they didn’t understand the words I didn’t think I had to say.

    Nicole: steel toed flip flops scream bad attitude, missy

    how stupid is this? very

    WHY I WAS ARRESTED:

    The door of the bus didn’t want to open, so I booted it with my foot and tried again. This is known by thousands of commuters as the way to fix these particular doors. Voila, it opened. Apparently, however, when I booted the sticking door on the bus, it seems that I missed the hard plastic edging. Now, you who are local know how minimalist my shoes are. They are tatami mat barely strapped to my foot with black thongs. In spite of that, I somehow severely smashed the glass. Being tired and not paying attention, I didn’t even notice, and so walked away. (Which leaves me in shock as to how much damage was caused, because damn, I kick like a mule, apparently). I did not run, I did not act furtive, instead I wearily walked to the corner and waited for the light to change. I remember thinking to myself that it was neat that the driver was taking his coffee with the police officers parked in front of the bus. Half a block up, a cop car swings up, tires stopping with a little screech, lights full on, blinding me. Police hurl themselves from the vehicle, “You! Stop!” and I’m grabbed, handcuffs awkwardly snapped to my wrists behind my back.

    words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup

    “Nonsense is nonsense only when we have not yet found that point of view from which it makes sense.”
    — G. Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics

    I found it when I used to go dancing. I was following the blue-light sound of back-alley music, the smash of hard skinned drums and the anguished high of a cymbal hit. It was a strange place, the DJ spinning decks on a plank hanging from the ceiling on two-story chains like a ludicrous sex swing table. Everyone there was watching everyone else with a rumble underneath that was pure conversation. I wandered from the gallery to the stairs to the hall through the main room into the kitchen into another hall out onto the fire escape and couldn’t find the same topic twice. It became my favourite place to go. A white door, a long narrow stair. It was strange and they let me in for free. They never told me why. Cover was expected at twenty dollars a trendily coiffed head. My mother would go to bed and I would lay in the dark for ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes. I would get up, flick on the lamp, find my clothing, and step carefully into the dark basement, so dark that I could never see my next step. No one would ever talk to me, I was an inviolate silent institution that would only arrive to dance. Once every night, and I never could pin down how long, everyone else would drift to the walls and watch me. I would be left in a flail of skirts, whirling alone in the middle of the spartan hard-wood floor, picked out like an emblem in corrupted gold light. It was like a game, me and the music players. My syncopated feet and arms and the languid pulse of heavy, heavy beats. Inevitably, someone would dim the lights and the music would change into a weapon, shifting for me to play with. I would spin, throwing my head back, face painted stiffly with a narcotic wild grin. My hair would whip back into me so fiercely hard it stung. I used to ask, “Were you ever there?” to blank repeated stares of denial set to repeat. These were not my friends, these were a flowing river of archetype, different people every evening who always looked the same. I tried to go back, after my accident. There is no door anymore.

    Matthew‘s just called. I’m not sure exactly why he’s bothered, though I’m glad I was here for it rather than leaving him to blather at my answering machine. I was short with him, but relationships with me end when I have run out of patience, when caring about someone does not balance everything that’s lacking grace, and he has yet to offer me anything to give me laughter again no matter how deeply I want him to. Three times I waited for him to find nothing at my door but a hollow space of betrayal. There was no hand clutching a hopeful batch of flowers. The only hands that found me were the hands on the clock ticking over to too late again. I curl up in myself at night, wanting more than this empty place inside of me where I can touch where I cared for him. Dreams of running colour taint everything my eyes rest on, wanting red and plum and accents of some escape velocity. Instead I silently scream at my keyboard, throwing out sentence after sentence that I delete because I carry something that I can’t proclaim, that I can’t dissect out of pain and hope and ridiculous female youth. Details run under everything in Vancouver these days, like I can see every thread in a weave of cloth, but the pattern is inescapably dull to my heart.

    R.I.P. Douglas Adams : one year down, many to go


    vintage
    Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

    Like sun searing, that scorch as quickly over as it takes an x-ray to click a picture all the way through every last bone in a broken child. That’s what first kissing was like, a furnace star rhythm, tongue tips askew in electric surprise where you leaned into me and I looked up at you.

    Joe Grant died yesterday.

    Meanwhile, I’m at my computer, waiting for Jeff to call, (he’s in from Japan this week), and vaguely tidying my room. There’s a Douglas Adams memorial being held at the Butchershop Floor today from noon until midnight, but I’m finding I seem to lack the impetus to go. It’s more a consideration of funds, I think. I’m back to being Too Broke For Busfare TM. It’s time to hike up my skirt and walk everywhere, which is partially why I live where I live, so I’ll survive. “Wait,” I want to tell the world, “my feet are getting a little tired, can we sit down a minute and look at everything?”

    Today might result in taking photos in spite of the dying daylight. I’m not sure what else to do. I’m feeling very alone today, like I want to wrap myself in flesh, but not the people who would offer it. I miss looking over to a cello sweep of hair, but I can’t find reason enough to call them. Standing me up twice, canceling a date, and playing the avoidant bastard aren’t positive reinforcement. “Give me back my keys. They aren’t for you. These are for my lover, the person who creeps in at night and wakes me with kisses in inappropriate places. You aren’t that person, you haven’t been in a while, if even you ever were. I want them back now, give them to me.” While he was walking away, he called me on his cellphone, “I don’t know why, but I feel happy now, relieved. I’ll see you on Saturday” and then he laughed. I felt like throwing the phone across the room. What was the point of any of that?