n: vb: the spice of imagination
The wife of one of my best friends just went into labour.
(No, we’re not blood related, but that’s superfluous with my family structure.)
It’s their first, so this is super exciting.
We might spend the night at the hospital. Wish us luck!
*does the auntie dance*
Dear lazyweb, I am in need of some internet/codemonkey skills.
I am in the midst of designing something I do not know enough to build. Would anyone like to help out in exchange for some writing or photography?
I’m toying with a shop, a mapped gallery, and some other things which would be easy for someone who knows how but night impossible to for me figure out without wasteful hours of limping code.
In Finnish, “onni” means “luck”.
I think of them in metaphor. Black doves, shape changers, the old stories of Prometheus. I lick my writing from the taste of their skin, my words from the twists in their gestures. By the woods of our correspondence, a river flows. From the shape of their hands, I can place every single one against my fingers, the places I truly call home, and leaf through our fingertips touching. Encapsulated interaction, catalogued small details that I can carry later. Preferences. Coffee, cigarettes, tea.
“Here.”
“What’s this?”
“That’s a hundred dollars to cover a taxi to get you into town and back.”
“What? That’s too much. I can’t take that. You know most men give flowers or chocolate or, like, earrings.”
“Well, I’m giving you money.”
“You tawdry American. You’re just buying off the guilt of leaving me.”
“If I give you another hundred, will you just get the abortion and promise never to talk to me again?”
“It only costs fifty here in Canada, but I’ll take the other fifty as a promise never to send you bronzed booties. Is that what they’re called? Those little knitted baby shoes?”
“Yes.”
They are the second generation warfare of my inspiration, prodigies, a reason to ‘take my shoes off and throw them in the lake’, the impetus I require to create, to claim the word artist as my own. Without these black and ivory dreamers, I have no focus, no lens to collect light into fire. That high holy spark. The currency of competition. Engendering wonder by twisting the world into a better configuration. The etymology of the word awesome, a sacred dread mixed with veneration, an education in love.
In Japanese, “oni” means “demon”.
Some of you locals may be interested to know that my tall friend Andrew, the musician with the bath-tub truck who carries around conversational sound-effects in his pockets, has a new weekly gig at The End Cafe on Commercial Drive. (2360 Commercial Drive) His blues band, The Lab Rats*, have started playing there every Thursday from 9-11 pm.
*don’t hold the font against him, he’s new at this internet thing.
Steady hands, voices like light waves, dark hair mirrored between the tips of my fingers, always a variation of the same kind eyes.
Backstage was downstairs, through a door to the right, then down a long nameless hall to the left so narrow I could almost touch my fingertips to each side. The room was that dark, unwelcoming, underwashed colour of the seventies that’s too depressing to be beige, with a large metal legged office table in the middle and a wall of long stage mirror with a bland formica counter running behind an open wooden slat pull-down door. Backstage was two toned, the laces of my corset reflecting behind me, our feet up on the chairs, his milk-chocolate hoodie given to him by a soundman somewhere where the ground never freezes and there’s no such thing as snow. Backstage was us and a pile of local newspapers that didn’t print our names. Taking pictures to perfectly capture his smile, making him look like a fashion model. How frightening.
When it came time, footsteps in the hall, ten minutes, I wanted the boy in the hall to be wearing a severe suit, something governmental, official, bearing the weight of strangers. Instead, he was just a boy. Ten minutes. Okay, alright. Clear plastic water bottles, a small pile of clothes about to be pushed to the floor. Rather than helping, I slipped hands underneath his t-shirt. Soft dark fur, the sweet, thin pelt of a sleek sea creature. Otters, shape changers. Let them cry and they’ll return to their previous life, singing under the waves. Ten minutes. Hide his skin. Pen tied wild in my hair, body flat against his back, I hid my grin behind his shoulder. “Are you ticklish?” He pinned my fingers, matching my pleased expression in the silver glass, and didn’t try to do anything but tell the solid truth. S.O.S.
It has come time again to call out all my readers – even you lurkers.
Announce who you are and what you do. It’s introduction time.
I want to see who it is that I talk to here, so please, post a picture of yourself to put a face to your name when you tell us your newest get rich schemes, doe-eyed claims to primal therapy, favourite recipies or whatever it is the voices inside your head tell you is important.
Whatever you like – as long as it’s true.
Most of you are lovely people, in some twisted way or another – scientists, students, artists, writers – so show off. Post links to your work! What you do! Livejournal can be a great way to meet like-minded people. It would be lovely, too, to know were you came from, how you found me, who you know here.
For those late to the game, I am a writer and amateur photographer currently living in Vancouver, Canada, who spent her last year trying to create a new venue from an old Bollywood theatre through sheer force of will and is now rather desperate for a Real Job. I’ve got two black cats, a nice new roommate, and a messy, messy room.
Ready?
Go.
That’s it, time to go victory redesign the website.
