Month: April 2009

My boss just walked by, talking into his cellphone, “They got the flu, hey? How many deaths?”

“Sex. All those complications, all that messiness. It’s like watching a group of enthusiasts really get into a hobby that you don’t share.”
from Sex with Ghosts, by Sarah Kanning

Last weekend I was in Seattle, Tony and I came to a silent understanding that the next time I was to go down there, it would be for A Visit, the capital letter sort, where we spend time holding hands, memorizing the sassy curve of dancing cheek to cheek, tangling our feet under tables, and generally acting like a pair of besotted fools. When I mention this to absolutely anyone who knows him, it’s like I’ve announced that we are getting married, running away to the garden of Eden, and intend to spend the rest of our days enmeshed in each other in paradise. Though I appreciate the encouragement, intimidating though it is, honestly, really very, I can’t help but notice it’s bloody well off the scale. The uncanny levels of jubilation present, a sort of incredible, “WHY DIDN’T WE THINK OF THAT BEFORE??!” eureka-congratulations, is bizarre, as if we’ve gone off and invented a new kind of light bulb that runs on wishes. I have no idea what to do with it.

That said, I am thrilled with the shape and depth of our upcoming weekend. Sleeping in and circuses, bruised lips and breakfast. It’s been confirmed, Tony and I are going to Teatro ZinZanni on Saturday, a fabulous blend of European cabaret, circus arts, restaurant, and vaudeville performed in an actual honest-to-mercy Belgian spiegeltent, (a word meaning mirror tent that amuses Tony endlessly to hear me say), and the Portage Bay Cafe for breakfast on Sunday. I’m beyond thrilled, given my relationship with such creations, and delighted and overwhelmed and all flavours of nice things. I have started counting out until I get on a bus, thinking, “less than a day away, remember your birth certificate, his smile, your house-coat, a towel, remember your book, your extra underwear, your toothbrush, hair-brush, pens, paper, and name, exchange your currency, check your camera battery, replace the missing lens cap, pick up a memory card, Robin’s music box, a back-pack, the books that need to return, a ring.” A litany of prepare, of hoping I am ready, of trying too hard not to be nervous as I sit back in the hours and wait.

thanks for the reminders, chandra. you’ve saved me.

The Erotic Anguish of Don Juan, Performance Works, (1218 Cartwright Street, Granville Island), April 21 – May 9.

“Following the 2006 sold-out hit Famous Puppet Death Scenes, The Cultch will present The Trouts’ new show, a radical re-imagining of the Don Juan legend, a refraction of the many manifestations of that old ghost, who haunts us in our dreams, anxieties and fantasies.”

The Ghost of Don Juan is summoned from Hell to repent for his sins, and to tell us the tale of his nefarious life so that we may avoid his fate. But does he truly repent? Is he a monster or a saint? He will attempt to save us from our amorous errors, and deliver a sermon of universal love. In the end, we are liberated from our fears, and what we thought would be a simple evening at the theatre becomes a transcendental orgy that will change us forever.

Most nights, anyway. Depends on the audience.

Tuesday to Saturday: 8:00pm, Sunday matinees: 2:00pm

Tickets from Ticketmaster, (604-280-3311):
Adults (+s/c): Advance: $26; at door: $30
Students/Seniors (+s/c): Advance: $22; at door $26

I’m likely going to be buying my ticket this afternoon. Tuesday, May 5th sound good for anyone?

here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life

  • The neurological basis of intuition.
  • The science of romance: Brains have a love circuit.
  • Hairdresser turns robber into sex slave.

    Social patterns like chemical reactions, like an activity series of kinetic glances timed to meet, pouring the basics of attraction and attachment, (three factors constituting love: desire, attraction, and attachment), into days fluidly bonded into a continuous spectrum of weeks, amphiprotic and effusive and damned, a full month of experiential enthalpy and entropy. At first glance, insoluble, immiscible, an unshared pair, two electrons uninvolved in chemical bonding, as out of synch as oil and water, but proven in part false, the expected endothermic endpoint nowhere to be seen.

    I dreamed of my hands caught in dark curls, as if they fell from my mouth like roses every time I said his name.

    Studies have shown that brain scans of those infatuated by love display a resemblance to those with a mental illness.

    I dreamed of his voice tangled in mine, as if his golden lion’s breath and tongue was something I could tame.

    Somewhere in this, equilibrium. Relief in small hidden places between moments, between voices. Words flowering away from the flint edges of the options given, (the punishing, complex crunch of serotonin spikes, multipath hypervigilance, stress triggered dissociation), into an interstitial place to breathe, where I can stretch my fingers to the answer in positive, (safety first norepinephrine, amphetamine dopamine reactions, oxytocin whirled with vasopressin), certain and solid, ionic attachment “more thicker than forget”, and feel the new, incredibly delicate covalent bond, though insane, might finally be okay.

    • if things go bad, know I love all of you

    I fell to my knees with a bloody nose in the shower this morning, overcome by dizziness. Beyond two potentially bruised knees, I seem to be okay now, if a little shaky. I went for a successful breakfast with Nicole, Lawrence and Christopher-Dan without any more medical anomalies, so I’m not really sure if I should be worried. Any ideas as to what it might have been?

    Also, in unrelated news, the avian-swine flu I linked Warren to yesterday might turn out to be the next pandemic, only about two random genetic mutations away from wiping out 5% of human life on earth. Let’s hope it’s too virulent to survive, hey?

    Reuters:

    Tests have confirmed that eight New York City schoolchildren had a type A influenza virus, likely swine flu, city Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said on Saturday.

    BBC:

    A new flu virus suspected of killing at least 60 people in Mexico has the potential to become a pandemic, the World Health Organization’s chief says.

    On the ground:

    I work as a resident doctor in one of the biggest hospitals in Mexico City and sadly, the situation is far from ’under control’… two of my partners who worked in this hospital (interns) were killed by this new virus in less than six days even though they were vaccinated as all of us were. The official number of deaths is 20, nevertheless, the true number of victims are more than 200…

    “the dust has only just begun to form crop circles in the carpet”

    The sunlight flares us into creatures made of dark, burned honey. We are tangled, metaphorically, literally. Marry me, he says, eyes on mine, searching past the layered blue stone for a seed, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. This feels like a moment I’ve lived before, somewhere out of reach, as solid as summer, as certain as a dream. Luckily, I reply, I’m already engaged, like a boyscout, always prepared.

    Between our lines are novels unwritten, hammered into bone with pens of situational ink. (There is more to it than this, more and enough to break my heart.) He takes my hand, I will cover your fingers in rings, one by one, week by week, until you say yes. His hands gently trace his words in the air. Hang jewels from every part of your body, your fingers, your toes, your ears, your neck, wrists, and hair.

    His fingerprints are warm on my collarbone, even after he’s taken his gesture away.

    I only have one ear pierced, I laugh. Something I can fix, he smiles.

    Anyone watching would think we’re in love. That we live together reigning as the pale sun and moon. Instead we are a melody heard over the rushing river sound of a freeway, a missed connection trying to find somewhere to stand on origami folded sand. Impossible. Improbable. All signs point to doomed.

    How many weeks would that be? We are laughing again, our serious moment passed, submerged, allayed, alloyed. At least twenty-five. My toes curl into the grass of the park, pretending to glitter. Half a year of months. Our conversation launches itself into the sky. Who could wait that long? I would die. My head would explode, fall right off. I think of dandelions, ‘mama had a baby and her head popped off’, destruction, thumbs smaller than dimes.

    upgraded from being an imaginary girlfriend to an interstitial wife


    via the wooster collective: ‘Rest of the Writer’, from Laguna in Almagro, Spain

    Lunch today was the sort of meal we all dream of when we’re six years old, a dish of thick tiramisu, the bottom chunk of a heavenly milk-chocolate easter rabbit, an entire roll of life saver candies, half a packet of Japanese strawberry chews, two bars of artisan chocolate, a Werther’s caramel hard candy, most of a bottle of vitamin water, (which didn’t fit into the theme at all except insomuch it was a silly colour), and thee, which was only one of you, so nevermind that part and concentrate on the glory that is candy. Just meditate on it for a minute, using the word Yum for Om. Yep. It was glorious. Now excuse me while I laugh at my pancreas, (and read up a bit on diabetes).

    Galaxy’s centre tastes of raspberries and smells of rum

    Attention Vancouver Bloggers

    Short notice, yet totally awesome:

    If you’re interested, we’re taking some bloggers around the BC Children’s Hospital today from 4 – 6pm. You are welcome to join us! It’s a behind-the-scenes tour. (Photos are most likely okay, but Children’s asked that it be at their discretion, depending on what the kids feel comfortable with.) Let me know if you’re in, and I’ll shoot you the details. grace.carter [at] invokemedia.com