a little piece of reply broken off with my teeth

It could have been one night, but instead it was one day. Something I knew would happen, all the way down to the fact that it wouldn’t matter to me afterward. As an illustration, it marked the harsh lack of chemistry while remaining kind. When it’s right, I cling. I am buried entirely. Ahead of time I know. Ahead of time I decide that the best I can do is try. I know it’s going to hurt, that some delicate thing is going to rip out of my inability to prepare. I’m aware that I’m not going to shake. My illusions weren’t shattered, the pressure was enough to shred unwilling membrane, a debt paid over again but I’ve done similar before, even lived with someone for six months where I paid almost daily but couldn’t gather interest. I let them captain the ship through horrible storm, haunted by violence and spoken words of You’re Never Worthy For me. Now I’m not as young. I’m acutely informed that there has to be a seed for there to be a blossom.

He’s since fallen into the sea, washing over deck into a body of addiction. We think he’s dead now, meth burned and vanished.

Regulators in the US could soon be asked to approve a human trial of gene therapy for cystic fibrosis that uses a hybrid of the HIV and Ebola viruses. In spite of my sketchy grasp of such technology, I can’t see how this is anything but a wretchedly stupid idea for a new Michael Crichton novel. The robots what run on blood might like it: Enter Hero Scientist, enter Military General. Hilarity Ensues. As does Much Bleeding From The Eyes.

wrapped in the warmth of you

I rediscovered an artist the other day through a boingboing posting and decided that this time around, I simply had to remember to share. His name is Dave Devries and he creates rich realistic paintings based on the scrawled drawings of monsters that children draw. There’s a certain beauty in them that captures a little sense of something ethereal and creepy. It only takes a minute, go give it a look.

In other news, dolphins have taken the next step toward being worshiped as gods by the New Age crowd by carefully crafting situations where they will be found using tools, proof evinced. This is extra good timing on their side, as just this week we’ve learned to breathe underwater as fish do.

However, they have not managed to make the useful as sexy sleek as Tsaya has. They make strap on wallets that look as if they were designed with an everyone-wearing-black mexican stand-off in mind that involves cell phones instead of guns. The idea is to replace the handbag with something you can wear and be active in. A pity, I think, that so far it’s only made of black patent leather, though I’m certain that has it’s own built in market.

Speaking of design, actually, I found that Dream Designs, the place I had my interview at, has a website. I highly recommend giving them a decco if you’re looking for quality fabrics. As part of my interview, I asked what their policy was on corporate consumption and confirmed my suspicion that they’re firm supporters of organic and natural products, a stance that only bolsters the respect I had for the company. I sincerely hope there’s a strong possibility that I get a chance at this. To work what I call ‘a real job’ in a place where my skills fit and I have the opportunity to continue learning, it would be such a gift. Theater became tiresome, too many egos. The networking was an aspect I didn’t mind so much, but the petty things that one had to remind oneself of constantly were wearing. This is a small city. This actress loathes that director who dislikes that actor who won’t work with this costumer who’s dating the first woman mentioned. Reliable employment, full time, is exactly what I want.

I’m feeling a little snow-blind lately. My week has been flurries of shredded newspaper information and I’m finding now that it’s becoming hard to keep track of who has read what into my incruental sacrifices.

Curiosity, does anyone know who this artist is?

actually damned impressively me

I went to bed with light in the sky. Then the phone rang. It’s still early morning, but I answer the phone. The Crown has dropped all charges laid against me.

I’m free. No finger-printing, no crim charges. Dance Dance Immolation.

Also, I’ve a job interview this evening at Dream Designs, a delightful interior decorating shop that’s only a few blocks from my house.

This just might be the best news since a possible breach of contract was the only thing what marked my birthday.

To celebrate, here’s a piece that Nicholas wrote that is pure Jhayne-mockery: Strawberry Sickness.

Serves me right for letting these people into my house.

I’m leaving pictures until Andrew returns from the East Coast. This has been a run of bad timing Saturdays, everyone’s been busy. It doesn’t help either that I’ve been too preoccupied with the ridiculous packets of stress that have been landing on me to kick anyone’s asses. Of late, there’s only been varying degrees of more and more.

I still have to write my letter to Bill offering the baby cradle that’s taken up residence in my home.

there’s a narrative with the pictures too, because I’m like that

Yesterday was spent in the Emergency Ward. It didn’t start there. First, I was home, waiting on laundry and having tea with Tyler. Chris had been with us earlier, but he was angry with the world that day and left to save us his company. We were concerned, but not overly. Not until the phone rang. It was Chris.

He said, “Hello,” and it sounded like panic. I quietly turned to Tyler and said, “Get your shoes, get your coat on, I’m going to need my things, we’re leaving.” Chris said there was blood everywhere, that he’d done something stupid. “Breathe boy, tell me what you did.” Seems that in his distracted growling at the world, he’d gashed himself. “Do you want me to take you to the hospital for stitches? Do you want me to put some in? Tell me what you want.” He was mostly inarticulate, “Um, well, there’s a lot of blood.”

It was decided that I would go alone and approaching the house, I wondered briefly at the wisdom of this. What if I had to break in? He might be half conscious in a widening red pool. By the sound of things, he’d hit veins. Instead, I was greeted at the door by an abashedly blood smeared boy, right hand awkwardly wrapped in a black t-shirt that was already visibly soaking through. There was a pile of glass rubble on his computer keyboard and more piled in front of his monitor. In spite of the obvious effort he’d put into cleaning, there were still daubs of blood on the floor inferring where it had splashed earlier.

My first impulse was to re-bandage the hand and then sweep up the glass, but Chris pulled me aside, asking me instead to sit on the couch with him. He then poured out everything as to why he’d been angry and what he’d done to hurt himself. Nothing that particularly bears repeating. He’d been frustrated, furious some, and had smashed his glass into the desk. Also, by default, his hand. Not the most clever of moments, he conceded, and I finally had a chance to peel off the sodden t-shirt he’d wrapped himself in. It was a mess. His hand welled with blood in three or four places, the worst cut on his thumb. The lacerations on his fingers were bad, but that was dexterous hand turned to meat, swollen and requiring three or four stitches. Six altogether, I guessed. The smell of iron was thick on us, enough to set my stomach to starving. I demanded scissors and cloth. I cut strips from an old cotton shirt, and bound his hand properly, pressing apportioned pieces of flesh back together and slipping a pad underneath to keep pressure steadily on. My hands were red to the wrist.

I licked my fingers and laughed.

Angus was on the street outside, half a block away, talking with friends. We were grinning as if we were mad when we talked to him. We said we were on the way to the hospital and not to worry. His face lit from within with “Fuck you, I love you.” and then we ran into Keely on the Skytrain platform, who straight up laughed. We were just as guilty, taking a delightful take on the entire proceedings. There wasn’t a line at the hospital. They asked the usual questions, “Do you have an emergency contact? What’s your middle name?” and had us follow a yellow line down some twisting hallways to another waiting room. They put Chris on a bed within ten minutes, though we had to wait closer to twenty before a doctor came. We unwrapped my make-shift bandages and I sponged up the blood as he looked over it. The doctor was incredibly kind, I’m sorry I don’t have his name. He tutted, glad of my cloths and wincing a little as he injected freezing, which sprayed. Chris lay down, unable to bear seeing the needles, and listened to the man who was talking on the other side of the curtain that was next to us. Words came through the green cloth that were like scripted eco-friendly motivated poetry. The man sounded so kind that it was charming. He actually used the phrase, “Bless your kind heart.” to a nurse.

For the stitches themselves, well…

I took pictures.

I love the colours (from jwz)

“Takahiro Takeda, postgraduate student of Japan’s Tohoku Univ., dances with Partner Ballroom Dance Robot (PBDR) at a factory of Nomura Unison robotic venture company in Chino city, 200-km west of Toyko. The prototype dance partner robot, developped by Japan’s Tohoku Univ Professor Kazuhiro Kosuge, enables them to move in all directions with three special wheels by predicting how its partner will mobe with a sensor.”

“Robots on the market include a machine that looks like a machine dressed in bright colors programmed to converse in just enough small talk to stop the elderly from going senile and a doll that articulates the needs of a five-year-old boy.

In January, a Tokyo University engineer unveiled a humanoid that can shuffle its feet and wave its hands to preserve a traditional Japanese dance falling out of fashion among young people.”

what I did today that did not involve leaving a trail of dead

I would love to work as a Funeral Home Attendant, but I lack a drivers license. This is disappointing somehow.

The Vancouver Lawn Tennis & Badminton Club is looking for a receptionist. In their advert, they claim it’s a “Fast-paced environment”.

However, a gelati shoppe is asking for counter attendants and there are few things better than daily take-home gelati left-overs as a summer perk.

Tonight is korean movie night.

ever want something to be fiction?

I went looking for you. People get lost in the darkness of a nightclub easier than they get lost on the street. Everything is badly lit to make the patrons look better, it’s just the way it is. I found you at one end, on the platform above the dancefloor, up four steps. Your back was turned from me, as usual, and I planned on sliding behind you and holding you to me in the darkness. Your face was lit by a cell phone screen, the most charming thing I’d seen all day. I was behind the row of you, walking up barefoot, feeling the scuffs in the floor made by a thousand slutty high-heels. Next to you was a friend of ours, he was laughing with a woman I wasn’t sure I knew. My form became a denial, an uncertainty. Our friend, he saw me and laughed, pulling me to his side. Who is that? I should not have asked. Everything was confirmed. I shrugged off his arm as politely as I knew and walked fast away. I just barely made it to the ladies room. I slammed open a stall door and collapsed to the floor unable to breathe, choking on illness. Somebody knocked on the wood panel behind me, asked if I was alright. I said I had too much drink. I lost everything down to dry heaves. My throat burned.

Outside I sat alone in the hallway. I was missing for over an hour. You never came to find me. You were content to say hello when I arrived then ignore me until it was time for you to leave. This is normal, however, in spite of everything I want to scream for. I couldn’t make the nausea go away. I can’t make you not neglect me. I needed to leave but it would have been rude. So many friends were there, dancing together, making a nice evening. When you came to leave me, the same as every other time I’ve ever seen you, I couldn’t look at you. I should have moved when you spotted me. Slipped away while you got caught in the fishnet crowd. I wanted to hit you. Instead I bowed my head and waited for you to come. I wanted a reason to forgive you, to forgive myself for loving you. I almost slapped you, when you tried to touch me as if I meant something, as if you weren’t lying through your teeth again. You lied to me, you lied to her. You’re happy making whores out of all of us. I almost slapped you, I almost smashed my glass into your beautiful face.

This is what obsesses me, but very very quietly. I think I’m going to start talking about it.

I want an infusion of technology. I want my hair to have LEDs wired in. I want to snap my fingers and watch sparks fly free and blue. Tonight I’m going to go dancing. I’m going to twist and try not to break my ankle again. My shoes have snapped again, back to wandering barefoot with cardboard sandals in my pocket for that just in case and the bus-driver rules. I want a networked media pool, I want everyone in and swimming. Science fiction reaches into immortality in a way that I don’t think most other fiction does. The promise to invent the future, to weave articulation into the joints of your fingers, to preserve the other and outline the reactions required to outlive our own societal deadline. We need drama, we’re humans, we make stories out of everything. That’s what you do when you meet someone, it’s all teasing anecdotes. Reactions of instinct. Tell you what I’m like, explain my reactions through making you laugh. It’s striking. I want to dramatize the future, project a thought forward, try to give an idea to anybody who could make it real. I want my flying car and all the metaphor stands for. Could you imagine if we were the last generation to grow old? The conservative reaction wants to tie us more to the past than we need to be. The bit that’s certain isn’t that technology will progress to a point where we break that servile reaction, but that it will happen without us if we aren’t paying attention.

I think I like Morcheeba, but now I want some Moloko

Nightmares plagued sleep segues into picking up an unfamiliar cat and pressing my face into its fur. I don’t know this place, I can feel it. If someone were to touch me, my body would attack, defensive. I feel unsafe, I’m tense. The cat purrs and butts my head. I remember having a cat. She’s dead. This is not my home. My dreams are of dying, of threat. The last time I slept somewhere I didn’t know, it managed to be familiar. The last time there were ghosts protecting me. Long swathes of text that lettered the walls with palliative assumptions.

James Brown screamed Sex Machine with a moth flame intensity, but he wasn’t talking about this. Bruised with nasty rubber, cracked in places and wearing thin.

I’ve got a hot rant in my flesh this month. It’s nasty edged, serrated with every hurtful bit of self-hating truth that my life can dredge up. The only pity is that now I’m finally feeling something, I’ve no-one to shout at. I don’t understand how I could put it here in any way that would translate. I have to hit myself with this, I have to watch someone wince as I throw a chair across a room. Maybe this is youth catching up with me. That teen-period of angst that I thought I had mysteriously missed or had passed by the time I was ten without notice. I would like to suspect that it’s more the cumulative effect of everything that’s been happening in the past month.