I have an atrocious head-ache and it’s all my fault. I bought my dinner at Grade A Restaurant, a place on Grandville somehow left over from the early seventies, and without thinking, I ordered something with meat. Only fictional gods know what was in it. The Grade A Restaurant specializes in Chinese-Canadian food, like you only get where the railroad was built, greasy and cheap. It’s all formica topped tables, prints of hay bales, and prices five years lower than I feel are safe. The only consession to this century is an ATM machine in blue plastic that looks like it was designed in 1989. I love it there. It is never empty, but I am always the only woman and possibly the only customer under the age of Old. I don’t mean a number, like 16 or 35 or 50, I mean Old in that shabby craggy face sort of way, where hair only comes in two options, thinning or insane.
Day: April 15, 2007
like hearts swelling
Betty Hutton, once the favourite doll of Hollywood.
Transparent as sound, we are pieces of the human engine out of old mythology, pet children decanted from bottles of blood. After the boy is blown from this city, I will stand alone by the side of the road, and even if he does not look back before walking through the gate, my legs will continue to hold me up, I will continue to breathe.
That was always the worst lesson, that I will remain alive in my chemicals, wrapped in nerve endings, a collective rumbling of infintismals, (creaks, exhalations, needs), no matter how much my offerings to the gates have been smashed. The modern world is very bad at silence – cities do not hold their breath except in the moment before a bomb falls – but there are occasionally words I feel I should almost kneel to speak.
I’d like to say our first kiss was a special thing, a low slung howl of discovery, but it’s never been like that. That road’s been washed out, (if there was ever order there), replaced by brittle grass made straw in the sun, such-a-shame at-so-young-an-age blame-yet-another-hotel-room-romance damn-those-older-men. I almost don’t care anymore. Instead I count first glances, first realizations, that pause between what I know now and what I knew then. What is more important? The date we met or the amperage of comfortable electricity that ran through my fingers the first time I touched the middle of his back with bare skin?
The proud cities I have built with people, some of them are still standing, giant proud machines of words that circle the globe like air currents of what colour my hair, how long this correspondence, I had a show, they had a child, no, yes, you can’t come visit now. We are stories, novels, little threads in vast pleasing shapes. None of my relationships have been film-noir construction kits. We meet in cynical places badly lit, smoke cigarettes we take from small cases. This is just another connection, another spirit made flesh in the network. All we’re missing is the small confession of where we were the morning of September 11th, year 2001.
This morning he was beautiful, a misplaced dream left over from 1985. Sitting on the bed to put on his boots like having Lost Boys on the record player; leather jacket, long hair, I used to clean my saddest house to that soundtrack album. No one wears slimmer dark blue jeans. In my head, “I like my body when it is with your body” and the memory of his eyes flickering from mine to my hands on my stockings like they do under his lids when he’s dreaming, conversation not missing a beat. This is our generation gap, that I can write this here, display my day, my meaning, my worth. I grew up here, on-line. He didn’t.
I can barely believe how much I still want to go back to L.A.
One of these days, I’m going to have to learn to find a home.
I know this is a little late, but it’s where I wish I was, so here goes anyway:
Johnnny Frem & Dave Horswell have finished installing another roof in the James St. neighbourhood, so they’re putting on another rooftop circus, which includes a chimney headstand, (inspired by Steve Galloway’s book, “Ascension”), as well as a parade, some skits including very young talent, magic tricks, kid’s songs, clowning, fire-breathing and fire-spinning.
Where: 4505 James St. @ 29th Ave, The Jang residence, SouthWest corner of 29th Ave and James St. (2 blks West of Main St.)
When: 7:00 – 8:30 pm, Sun. Apr. 15
(Rain Date: move ahead one wk. to Sun. Apr. 22)
With: Johnny Frem, Musicians: Ross Barrett; Brian Siver; Dan Vie, Clowns: Naomi Steinberg; Jacques Lalonde; Dan, Celia and Ruby Vie; Matthew, David and Nancy Jang; Dave Horswell, Magician: Brandy, Fire-breathing & acting: T. Paul Ste Marie, and Fire-spinning: Josh
Doing our laundry, I feel this is a few tiny steps to being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen
Reminding me of Chia Pet McKenzie’s computer: (from moosl via treehugger), Lloyd Alter writes:
We have an Asus notebook, and like their modular design where you can pick your own CPU and hard drive and assemble it yourself; ours had a tragic fall last week but it was easy to swap out busted parts. Asus also tries to differentiate itself from the others by doing silly things, like a leather notebook, or very sensible things, like the new Ecobook. Its case is covered in bamboo, which I suppose is a statement, but the real show is inside. All of the plastic in it is labelled and recyclable; it is lined with cardboard; there are no paints, sprays or even electroplating used on its components. It looks like it is designed to be easily taken apart for self-service and easy upgrading of components, usually the downfall of notebooks.
The release date is still approximately a year in the future, but by then, maybe I’ll be able to afford one. At any rate, it’s just about damn time someone made something like this available to the market. A sustainable case will go miles toward reducing the staggering amount of plastic in landfills.
Remember how I was writing about the mysterious vanishing bees? It turns out it might be because of cell phones.
I feel somehow this is appropriate, except that we can’t yet blame it on Monsanto and I really want to.