Month: June 2005
this is what I’ve done at my first day of work.
Chris and I have begun a story swap, but rather than create a new piece of fiction every time, we are continuing with the same story, embellishing it back and forth with our own vocabulary voice. This is my re-write of what he posted this week.
hubris justified
Sunday was an insane day for people. At first it seemed as if in among the thousands of people thronging Commercial Drive for Drivefest, Dominique and I were not to meet anyone we knew. It was fascinating to walk among so many and not have our names called out once. We were beginning to feel odd, in fact, as we were almost at Venables before we discovered friends. I was bolstered, however, by the unexpected pleasure of encountering David Garfinkle at the Mad Hatters Tea Party. (Matthew and I had arrived in time for tear down, missing the show entirely, but with time enough to gather up Dominique, Rowan, and Anna.)
David is an old friend, originally an associate of my mothers, who I’ve known since I was ten or twelve. Later I met him again as one of Bill’s best friends, (he being the catalyst for my meeting Bill), and I suspect that he and I get along better than he and my mother. We lost touch when Bill and I had our common law divorce, as I have with a few people, so when we met at the park, (he played the King of Hearts), we immediately sat down with smiles that tried to touch our ears. I’ve got a number for him now and I’m going to call him after work tomorrow for tea. It will be a treat to catch up. The notes of the dial tone and number pad, they are music. They are rings in water to grasp onto and kick.
I met another member of the Tea Party later, a girl named Burrow, who by coincidence is staying with my friend Kyle. Incestuous City Syndrome hits again. We ended up at Kyle’s place, the two of us, and he and I stayed up attempting to watch the Dr. Who that James gave me until three:thirty in the morning. (They were too badly scratched, so we only made it through one episode. We gave up when Kyle was literally losing the gift of speech.)
I met Marc on the street as well, which was a Joy Incarnate TM moment. It’s unlikely that anyone who didn’t know me last winter could understand how giddy I am that I’ve collected again this member of the Lost People. I invited him to Korean movie night. In my life, Marc’s been missing for about a year. It took a lot of effort not to bury him in kisses. He’s brilliant. We would go for long walks and discuss too many movies. He was Placebo Cine, but some time last spring his e-mail address changed and he stopped answering midnight pebbles at his window. I’d assumed he’d moved, leaving me with his camping tent and favourite shirt. However, it seems that he hasn’t changed address, only rooms. Apparently it is no longer his window, but Paul’s. I am genius.
this is your fault
Gravity plucks
the apple from the tree
easier than any hand
from flesh to divine
it’s all memory
the contest
the days next to water
She spoke quietly, looking out a window that was really a sheet of rain, her eyes painted electric green. “We didn’t have to talk at all. This town, the lights go dim when I press the power button. There’s a gasp, a sigh, and the energy inside collapses. You into me, relationships wearing coats of particles over wire. Tonight I miss you. I remember my name from your voice, how the inflection was different.”
The phone is a bare sliver of plastic, silver and blue-lit from within. “No, I can survive like this. Bare walls aren’t as taboo as an affection lapse. I felt like that bed was a refugee camp, finally I could stop running.” There’s a cup in front of her, slowly being stirred. The spoon is tarnished, antique and ornate with a dipped rose on the handle.
“I don’t know what makes you beautiful. When you reflect off my eyes, my heart eats you as shadow, intrinsic but ethereal, to live off later. Every moment with you feeds me, satisfies hollows inside me which say, ‘we have gone hungry long enough, there is no turning back’. I can’t help myself. Your eyes shone with a light that was devastating. It was converting, a religion of only you and I together in a little nameless room.”
She smiles, a new expression. She looks cut out of time. A glossy magazine spread featuring smooth lines and gray.
“I don’t know if I can explain. I knew I was flaunting something when I came in, that I was changing rules with my behaviour, but I continued onward. Before there was you and I feeling awkward, admit it. I was pushing past and forward. I was right on track until I was derailed by your eyes. Crash and burn and this is love in a manner I’d never encountered. Suddenly I was your salvation. I was every epiphany in the middle of the night over your entire life. You were the metatron and I the heaviest mote of light to have ever been dropped spoken from your lips. You made me think of fire, of flying.” Her long hair has fallen into her face and she pushes it back with one hand as she leans back in her chair, adjusting her skirt and crossing her legs at the thigh. Her stockings are black.
“There’s many nameless rooms, I know, I’ve lived in them, but they were not that one, they were not right there. That was a flowered wallpaper sheath for power in the middle of the night, that was a terrible fire that blazed in the softest little colours. You want to know what I thought? ‘This is permission,’ I thought, ‘for anything I want to do with you. This is something I have never seen before. If I am lucky, I will see it again. There will be no furnace falling from the sky to consume you, there will be no front page accident hurling metal like rain to dash brains into the pavement.'”
I think I’m on an up-swing.
Dream Designs called back this morning. They’ve filled their sales associate position. However, and this was a boost of luck, last week they suddenly lost their wholesale assistant.
I start tomorrow.
I want to write something real, but I’m far too tired
You know what I realized today? There are no pictures of anyone in hand-cuffs. There are no pictures of me especially in hand-cuffs. This impresses me. Not only did I dance with Avery in hand-cuffs for almost an hour, I was at one point hand-cuffed to a chair. My wrists, in fact, hurt. They are circled with abrasions and badly bruised. That I didn’t notice until many hours into consciousness may be a telling sign toward my level of exhaustion. I managed just over an entire twenty four hours awake on something like four asleep and then proceeded to sleep fitfully for only another three.
Ridiculously, I am awake still and the world is turning in the direction of yet another day. I found an answering machine message on the phone when I got home. Dream Designs has called me back again. I harbor a hope that this means that I’ve landed the job I’ve been crossing my fingers for. I’ve been in for two interviews and though the second was dealt in an impromptu manner, I can’t think why else they would have phoned me a third time.
Translink has finally sent me an in-voice and it bays an ugly cry of two hundred fifty, which is approximately half as loud as I was expecting. Still a blow, but a lighter strike than I imagined. This I should be able to roll with sooner than later, though it hurts to have such an unexpected chunk torn from my budgets. The fund raising party is still under consideration, complete with colour-it-in thermometer to measure distance to goal.
as evinced by
Party Pictures have been made available. Please add tags and names where appropriate, as I have yet to go through these. I’m not even certain which pictures are off of which camera as I have uploaded not only my camera, but Chris’ and Patrick’s.
the collected entries: beth’s description, angus’, and derek’s. rick and an unidentified lump which I suspect to be tristan are still passed out on the floor and tim and chris have gone to the farmers market. I’m going to take this opportunity to have a shower and steal clothes in which I do not look like a hooker.
edit: as Flickr pro accounts have an impressive capability, please send me your pictures of the evening to add to the folder.
Also, Pat is trying to have sex with my shoulder.
As the sky begins drifting into navy blue from black, we have thirteen people still awake. We are the elite? Not just a little hard-core. There’s still dancing, and there’s many puddling people in shoals against Chris’ couches. I have so many incriminating pictures and I’m worried that there may actually be some of me. (or at least me on a table in a very short skirt, which for me is daring, as I don’t believe anyone took pictures when I was pinned against a wall wondering what to do when a boy gnaws on one’s neck. I decided the first step was obviously to put down the scone and after that.. not a clue. I think I need more practice.). I suppose a peruse of Flickr tomorrow will be illuminating for quite a few people. I’ve remained sober the entire time. I might be the only one. However, with dawn arriving, conversation’s spreading like flowers on a vine and most people have sobered up enough to carry intelligent dialogue without slurring.
people are asking me to touch them
It is official, we are down to merely one person who has not made out with someone.
Somebody needs to neck with Bill.
who is this man who has me pinned against the kitchen wall?
This may be one of the most shirtless parties I have ever attended.
Also, people keep biting me.
Plus, biting me.