Outside of my citizenship pursuit, this week has been extraordinarily bad for news. Other family is wounded, with one, very young member missing, a girl of thirteen. She has been taken, yet gone voluntarily, and it is destroying us. The authorities tell us there is no hope.
Tag: death
living on small tragedy street
Word of the day – Gesamtkunstwerk: the total work of art, or rather, the idea of design for the totality of an object instead of individuation of its parts
How do you tell when you’re overly tired? I have certain mental tics that arrive, stupid songs that play in my head, this shit is bananas, simple, repetetive lyrics I would never otherwise be conscious of knowing, b-a-n-a-n-a-s, and I hold little conversations with myself, dumbed down to the point of ridiculousness, where the words like “yo” and “dude” and terms like “for reals” feature heavily. It seems that on the point of exhaustion, my brain dissolves into a ten year old internet pixie, the sort that spells “you” with only one letter. Not quite lolcat, but something similar, insidious, and slightly worse, as if a children’s television show producer has snuck into my skull and started scribbling on the walls in mile high luminous letters completely devoid of meaning.
I have so reached that point. In fact, I reached it a couple of hours ago, back when it was still yesterday, but instead of curling up in my giant cozy bed like a person who has good ideas then follows through with them, I have been fighting with my printer. My amazing, life changing, totally bonzo photo printer. That I love. When I do not hate it. Like I do right now. Because the damned thing, (though I coddle it as if was alive and cute, squalling like the useless infant it so obviously is), ran out of gray ink and will not go.
If it was only the printer that was giving me a hassle, I would have simply gone to bed upon this discovery with the full intention of getting up tomorrow, purchasing some ink, installing it, then letting it all ride wild, but no. My computer, as well, is refusing to run. I spent four solid hours using it yesterday, and let me tell you, it’s a freaking joy to work on, that screen is like staring into the caring eyes of some technocratic deity, and then it asked, ever so nicely, for a reboot, as there was some update that required such and oh, won’t it be sweet when I restart and everything is shinier? I figured, alright, sure. I need to pop out and pick up a tuxedo anyway. So I saved everything, hit restart, and head out the door. Upon my return, what did I find? A dead black screen.
My body, at this point, actually filled with dark, cold dread.
It seems that it did shut down, but failed to properly restart. Trying again begat identical results. Awful, terrible results. Running all the diagnostics possible brought me to the same dead screen, without even the comfort of a useless blinking cursor. Rolling back the boot failed, the memory test failed, the safe start failed, the whatever that other thing I found that I guess comes with Win7 failed. Everything. Failed.
So that was three hours of my life.
At which point, I finally turned to my laptop, though as photo editing goes, I’m not sure if there’s anything worse to colour correct with than a laptop screen. I figured, ah well, I will do my best, and my best will save me, it will be enough, and this project will lift from the ground and soar, even so. Hooking it up to the printer proved a bit of a chore, as at first it didn’t want to take directions from such a paltry machine after knowing the full glorious might of my desktop computer, but after a bit of a wrangle, I won, and it submit to my tender ministrations, as gentle and pure as a metaphorical lamb. By midnight, I was ready. Course, as soon as the pictures were all settled up, the printer joined in the technology hate party, mocking me with a dull red refill light, even after I was so damned nice to it, head cleaning, running a re-alignment, all of those things you do when you’re starting up such a beautiful machine after a sad month of sorrowful neglect. Which leads me to now, after two a.m., deciding upon the third recitation of the stupid banana song, (who is responsible for that terrible thing, anyway? I refuse to look it up. Or know.), that it is time to abandon my original plan, and instead go tomorrow and pay filthy dollars to some dime store clerk and have them do all my printing for me. Out of spite, you ask? No, out of worn to the bone exhaustion. It’s the wedding rehearsal tomorrow, the wedding the day after that, yet my rent needs be paid, and so I stay up and up and up, though I don’t have time for this. I don’t. Nor do you, probably, so I wish us luck and good night!
like hearing that pitter pat after a dead line of silence
Enjoy yourselves, whatever it is you’re doing!
I have to admit that this December wasn’t looking very good. Bad luck was piling on bad luck, until I felt like I had somehow started an invisible count-down to an early grave. It seems, however, that everything was just clearing out of the way, leaving space to celebrate new, better foundations. There has been a bright side to every disaster. Because I was let go, I’m able to spend the holidays with Tony, who’s been saving up his use-it-or-lose-it Microserf vacation, and go with him to San Diego to see our friends, Mutaytor, perform with Rabbit In The Moon on New Years Eve at Evolve. Because my life crashed down all at once, I have been surrounded by love and care and support beyond my wildest dreams. I’m currently wearing a little silver frog ring and a pair of swooningly soft groverskin socks from Karen, for example, who sent me such a beautiful treasure package that I came down with a mild case of the weeps as I was carefully opening all the enchanting layers of ravishing colour and glee.
on the heels of the inevitable “I’m not in love with you” phonecall which always makes me spit black
Also:
To whoever it was so thoughtfully tucked the pair of condoms down next to my bed?
same week as the anniversary of the nuclear age
James Doohan, the man who played Scotty on Star Trek, died Wednesday.
It’s thirty-six years ago today that our species managed to touch booted foot to the moon. I remember framed newspaper articles on the walls of motels of that moment, the same picture of Armstrong next to the lander repeated in aged yellow in hundreds of small towns. I was never old enough to remember it, never could be, but that didn’t stop me from reading the words. “THIS DAY IS A MARKED DAY IN HUMAN HISTORY” Headlines all echoing each other, reverberating from dingy bar to dingy bar. One stool always patched with worn silver tape.
Let’s theme tonight’s party, shall we? People who arrive with tinfoil on their heads get extra style points.
Happy birthday Sarah. We love you.
the picture links to the SimNuke photopool.
trying to make tinsel with forks in a blender
I thought it was a helicopter but it turned out to be my hard-drive.
My computer is officially going to explode. My mouse is wire-short suiciding in sympathy.
This is more than slightly worrisome. There’s no more pretending that a full wipe is going to fix it. Anything that grinds that loud, enough to give the illusion of blades chopping the air thirty feet above my building, is on its way out.
forgive me for the sirius pun
I am reincarnated again. I am a lost love repeatedly, a concubine clean, a dead child who didn’t waste her life through her veins. Fate tells me like a skein of sparkling thread, but I am bound tighter than any trinket, harder than any stone. This is Merlin’s tree and an offer of freedom. He takes the Crows commission and takes it for his own, twists it to take me, this forbidden fruit to innocently taste.
It started with dinner, looking out over a strangely private slice of the city from the Cin Cin balcony, red blood pooling on the plates. The music, incongruous renditions of a certain look at classic rock, was at one point an insouciant pop style rendition of Moondance with italian singing. Actually it started before that, with meeting someone on the street and deciding on Robson street. Preceding that was my apartment and asking hard to answer questions like, “where do we go for dinner?”
The staff treated us like we were honeymooning. Careful bowing out just on the edge of vision. Our waiter whisked plates away and laughed with us like a delighted friend. Dressed in black and matching again, outside alone in the cold, our silverware not warmed but inconsequential. I had a query to answer about travel. Would I go with, if circumstances permit. It’s across an ocean, it’s across a language. Culture rift, a plane a raft. Somehow later they were surprised when I offered them a key to my apartment. Logic failed a little there, I think, but anything it might occur to me to need was met. I remember Marissa listing out her haves and have nots. “He must be smart, have a car, and have brown eyes. No idiots.” I never could list my own, I would try to make up things to placate her. “Er, long hair, intelligent, um, a sense of humour.” I guess it was a date, but I think too, that we skipped that part. Six months in two weeks, like last time I was in love, but better because we trust each other.
I’ll never find someone quite like you again.
This was a living inkwell of liquid pain, searing in my fingers and bones. A painful dream of needing to touch you. Attraction unhealthy, wanting you to slide with me. This is your name tattooed on my skin over and over and over again. It won’t let me alone, not alone, not without you. It’s history stained needles bright with Procyon heat, it’s a binary. Spinning in tandem, serious as the brightest sun in its divine constellation, you burn me. An animated tremor of painting my cusp with your breath, you inhabit or reside within as such a spirit, force or principle that it takes me and blinds my tongue as deaf as my eyes. When you stay it is a carnal victory, an unexpected reprieve from trembling in darkness, curled in a ball. This is a heart implant, a sighing beating force of body breeding and delicacy thrown away. Archaic temptation satiation, driving spikes into my mind. The sweetest stigmata craving release into blood in the palms of our hands, all curling fingers and sweaty seer visions. The sound of arms bending in unconscious ballet grace to knead you closer in to me. After a while the word with becomes to.
It’s not a fabian policy, but basic violence. Pointing the way to greater good through biting my lips and drawing your tears in linen sheets. No strategy past honesty, past asking please. There’s no compare for my witch eyes. The worst is not so secretly accusing you of incubi, sensing somehow that it might be true. The nightmare is needing you, requiring something beyond myself and unrequited for honey tongued evenings. I have a sense of justice because I know the taste of rage. This is strings music, soft orchestra humming along to the rhythm of pride. If I were myself of a year ago, I would be ashamed.
There’s no reason I should say your name in Russian, you pull tongues from me. It’s a pun, meaning both mouse and bear depending on the language. I suppose I’ve named you. An issuant creature, mighty when it roars. Portraiture of everything that everyone else sees, like a private joke of my ability to stare past it all to look out through your eyes. I don’t know what kind of tree hasn’t any leaves or how I see the beach but I know what the sand feels like on the bottom of your feet. The tremor is abusable, but this time the shifting earth sends its regards. A richter scale heard through walls to cry out muffled into pillows and mouths. Doppler collision of breath and body. A cello sweep of hair, I said, and I stand by it. Thick like the smell of wine, I want to lick every tousled strand of white. I can never explain, not properly, though I’m more than willing to try. It’s like a practiced first, everything leading up to your moments, your lucid voice. Snick into place, like a well honed blade. There’s no ballot here for intimacy, the mannerisms married without us. In transit there is choice, but your kisses taste of storm static. Birth of the universe desire, the crackle of snow on the dead channels. White and black chaos patterns, feedback moments scientists dream of and touch themselves in their sleep.
this parade of lost souls
Yesterday I want you. Waking up early to a clear day. Cold gravel field and a borrowed black toque looking over the skyline like fall was newly invented. Camaraderie carrying cases of mortarshells and wooden triangles. A pyramid scheme delight getting closer to a climactic brawl of shimmering light. Took my pain and chilled it from me. The alcohol hate evaporating in no glare at all. Happy to be standing around, not knowing what to do. Assuming responsibility the way I like best. I spraypainted the wall behind the boxes by accident.
Home was my noon computer. Invent the wheel. Catching up skip=800 page worth it for the glory of planet information. Scintillating click click click. Umbrella showers of mesmeristic data flow. I’m sad my friends are far away. Tear me a new heart, a hole to put you all in. Keep this close.
It was dark when I left again. A deep breath of sodium lamps and the sound of the parade band coursing down the road towards our feet. A gush of far away celebration living without you. Broken song, a thud boom boom, whistle clear run across the street when the little white man says walk. This is the first time in a long time I wasn’t in the parade. Dancing in the front lines, waving to the girls with their fire hula-hoops. I can only assume that Lust, Greed, and Apathy were in their usual spots, harassing the crowd with almighty Wrath. It was strange not to be in costume. Not to drift in convenctive spirals around the harmony altars.
From above there was darkness. Creatures yelling and screaming and the murmur of a hundred throats talking. Watching my bedroom of starlit torches. At the fence twenty feet up, not in black but close, I flapped like a bat in my too-big trenchcoat. No one asked for my pass because I owned the place. I walk like I order you around. Asked to dance by the man I met in morning, I swirled in ballroom, the crowd still growing. Roman candles flaring above us, lighting our messy steps and his so strong stance. Cigarette breath, it’s different because I’m a girl. Rich night experience, like me, this language is detached. Performers curse, you can’t see the show. It’s weary, empty and grand.
I took my own insides out
My flare wouldn’t light, I sat and swore as I scratched it’s lightning eyes out. Light the skulls, with me in not my clothes. Long sleeve suddenly, red jumper heat.
I didn’t light a candlewick for Jon. I lit ten and twenty cascades of whistling light. One. Two. Three. Touch metal to metal, close circuit and DIE. Injection of the saddest joy – exploding into the air, the sky crying with it. Electric tears dripping to earth, I wanted to dance in it. Chemical fire for me, for him, for all of us. I miss you, hanged by your own hand behind your bedroom door. I loved you, you know. If you’d asked me to.