my dad the psychotic penpal, episode two

Remember that little note I e-mailed to my father right before my birthday? I forgot entirely about it until today. There are, so far, four replies.  

To refresh your memory, here is what happened last time.

LETTER ONE

RE: Hi dad, it’s my 25th birthday this week – Uhmm …‎

 
Sent: May 30, 2007 5:36:47 PM
 
whoever you might be

This is XXXXX* Holmes alright but if you are JXXX* Holmes - you want to
ask yourself what kind of people would prevent you from a single
conversation with your father in your entire lifetime. These people don't
want you to know who they really are or uncover the lies you've been subject
to - which includes ripping you out of a $100,000 education in the arts.
I have 'never' achieved a single conversation about a child of mine
from anyone in my life. In fact, it's Vicki's only criteria for association
- anyone who would be willing to destroy my kids. In case you want to waste
your life even further ... try to find a Canadian office that will publicly
advocate Parental Heritage. They have never asked or answered a single
question about anything and like Vicki, they never will. Don't confront
Vicki about anything ... she's extrememly dangerous.
Those Gibson's seriously hate talented musicians. There are a great
deal of insanely jealous people around and I was/am tired of people trying
to kill me and my friends (they have killed some). Vicki is that kind of
person but she was very young so I tried an experiment with her and dropped
all my friends (who are all in the Hall of Fame) to see if I could get her
to appreciate something in life. As you can see, I've had to run for my life
... yours too ... if you would've exhibited any natural talents, they would
have killed you.
I will not have any personal contact with you as long as a Gibson, or
anyone who has anything to do with them, has access to you. Period!
They ARE capable of killing you. There is no doubt that you are
entitled to the truth and I can assure you that half the people in the Hall
of Fame will verify everything I say. I DON"T LIE. Every person in your life
has been lying to you. If you want the truth - you drop everything from your
past and go into hiding. Have a professional courier deliver a phone to XXX**
East Pender Street Vancouver and we'll go from there.
If you can assure me that NOBODY knows about this email communication -
I may respond a little further but the reality of the situation is you are
not climatized (trained) to withstand the enormous amount of brutality that
has been dumped on you. It will take the rest of your life to understand and
possibly a few years before we can even see each other.
For what it's worth, the main reason I took Vicki on is because she
would be dead if I didn't. I have a bit of a phychic hook and get radar on
bimbo's who are about to die. I met Vicki shortly after a girlfriend of mine
was killed in a car accident - exactly how I told her she would be killed.
Vicky was living with a girl named Mary who got herself murdered. Vicky
would have been with her. I know a lot about girls because I lived with a
half a dozen at a time for most of my life. I taught and managed them when
NOBODY wanted girls to do anything but have babies. Anyway, I have at least
50 kids who've all been stolen & ripped out of educations. They are
souveniers and the gov't backs their snivel without a single question
because they they are a guns and drugs industry in need of gullible,
uneducated meatloaf to drug and kill. 50% of N. American children are being
designed by the #1 demographic for ignorance & poverty. You got a huge
amount to learn, Toots. Ta.
I figured you'd make it this far if I stayed far away from you. All the
best.

*I don’t want this to be easily indexed.
**Perturbingly close to my home and that of many friends.

 So that one letter pretty much re-caps the general themes of the last batch – the corrupt and evil government that is out to kill him is working in collusion with my vindictive mother to brainwash me and destroy my talents. It’s evident that he hasn’t gotten any medical attention. He is still, yes, bonkers. 

 LETTER TWO

RE: Hi dad, it’s my 25th birthday this week‎

Sent: May 31, 2007 12:14:55 PM
 
Hi JXXX,

I hope you're JXXX. I just hit return by accident and might have sent
you the previous draft but I just Internet at the libray so I'll do a short
brief in case you didn't get the first one.
I haven't been able to gig because Vicki and Sarina are holding my
children's lives ransom. They don't want me to exist on any level and they
surround my children with people who hate them as much as they do. I don't
dare advertise or even play anywhere. When I play with real musicians I
attract a lot of attention. It would put me in everybody's face and the odds
of them killing my children go up. - I'm in the Hall of Fame for stuff I was
doing when I was 20. I was playing on the radio at 13 & had my first kid
stolen by the art teacher/school secretary of St Marys School, Chilliwack.
Your grandfather is buried in Sardis. DON"T get into it. Dangerous!
My health is very poor as a result of all the hate generated by
kidnappers and government personell that don't want me to expose them.
Consequently, I'm making plans to leave the country for good and I don't
intend to leave a trail ... one year away-ish. I have a few equipment issues
yet and I continually study because once I go public again - it takes up a
lot of time.
You've been raised by kidnapping terrorists who hate musicians and want
to kill their children. This is NOT a huge shining portfolio for people who
are dedicated to the arts. You've been deliberatley poisened by very hateful
people and are bound to have seriously skewed perspectives that may or may
not be addressed within this time frame. Every decision Vicki has ever made
is hate based ... she has no other capacity. The only 'genuine' passion I've
ever witnessed is her desire to destroy a musicians children. It took me 15
years to sneak in a grade 1 music through the spit. In case you haven't
noticed, there is absolutely NO MUSIC in the Gibson background but she uses
my efforts for her entire cool. What little she knows about anything - I
taught her and all she still wants to do is kill me. I'm outa here toots.
How much is anyone supposed to take in one lifetime. I've paid enough Gibson
dues to hold a few more Universes. Hopefully I cracked the egg. Gotta go.

Sarina was my step-mother for a brief period of time when I was little. She hooked up with my parents and her two kids came with her. It was neat – I had siblings for the first time. This odd family unit is where Robin comes from. Sarina had one too, named Blake. Her family lives on the Island by Parksville somewhere – I sporadically try to find them. Blake would be around eighteen now? (I wonder if my dad is on his birth certificate). This means that Daniel and Brianna would be, (I think), 20 and 21, well old enough to be reasonable conversationalists. 

I don’t know very much about my grandfather, except he was a jazz musician and an alcoholic. My grandmother loved him very much when they were young. (They had a ridiculous number of children, too). I don’t know if I’ve ever been to Sardis. It’s in the middle of absolutely nowhere. 

LETTER THREE

Wishing Well, Toots – missing ya huge‎
Sent: June 3, 2007 1:36:44 PM
 
This idea of trying to have something to do with you is pretty much just
wishful thinking, JXXX. The math doesn・t add up ・
There・s nothing left of me JXXX. I・m absolutely terrorized at the idea of
having Vicki start to attack me some more. My health and finances are so
pathetic that I need all my time and money just to blow this pigpen. There・s
no way you can be salvaged and educated anyway. Whatever programming a child
encounters in youth draws the lines for life. Government・s know that and
deliberately helped Vicki rip you out of a $100,000 education but now you
need $100,000 worth of therapy too. Vicki knows you would have been a huge
success and she・ll kill you before she allows that to happen. I surrounded
her with most of the Hall of Fame ・ you can・t get a better education
potential than that. She PREFERS to hate them because they can play and she
can・t. It・s pretty much like dealing with a three year old with a loaded gun
that can・t be taken away because so many lowlifes find it convenient. Be
very quiet ・ leave sleeping dogs lie.
At any rate kid ・ you・ve made two attempts to communicate in fifteen years
・ that・s one sentence every seven years. Maybe we・ll let one more Universe
go by and you・ll be up to speed for a normal conversation. Mind you, that・s
two more attempts than Vicki・s made in 30 years. Have you ever seen her make
an attempt to have a conversation with me about anything under the sun? Has
anybody? It doesn・t exist and it never will because everything she does is a
lie. What can she say?
Unfortunately, the people she recruits to support her lies are
themselves liars and don・t have the slightest concern for anybody・s welfare.
Why would anyone give a three year old more bullets? ・ Blowjob? ・
Bloodmoney? ・ Uhmm ・ what else would she be good for? Duh ・ let me think ・
no, that・s about it ・ anybody?
You know, there・s a simple telltale sign that distinguishes people who
care from liars ・ Question ・ that・s it ・ you actually have to ask a question
to get correct information. Did I spell that right? Now, wasn・t that easy?
JXXX, have you ever met anyone that understands what a question is?
I・ve never achieved a conversation in my life about anything at all.
Wouldn・t it be reasonable to conclude that my children have been killed for
a blowjob and blood money? Oh gosh, we haven・t even established if there・s
anyone around that knows what a question is. I・ll come back in a universe.
There has never been a person in your life that cares if you live or
die, JXXX. Vicky wants you to be the stupidest, biggest airhead meatloaf in
the Universe because you are Danny・s kid. It makes her feel important to
show us educated people how important she is. It・s her life・s passion and
work.
There・s absolutely no way that I could ever impose her on anyone in my
future. She did a good job kid. You・re the exact little piss ass bimbo that
comes downtown wanting to play with the big kids and gets killed. That・s
exactly what she wants.
You haven・t heard anything yet ... just the tip of the iceberg. You
won・t want to hear how Robin was almost killed because of her hysterical
tantrums ・ how many lives and careers she・s destroyed ・ how one of the best
drummers on the West Coast was murdered since I saw you last ・ simply
because he wanted to play with me.
If I said duck ・ you・d piss yourself for a year.
How about when Sarina was staged to be murdered by a jealous lowlife
that I had to hire regularly to play with Vicki because quality musicians
can・t stand her and how Vicki・s tantrum levels went through the roof when I
explained what I had to do about it. She wanted Sarina to be killed ・ same
jealousy that・s being directed at you.
Gosh, Jane, there・s not a single person in your life that wants to
know a single thing about the forces trying to kill you. Are you getting
this?
I would also need to go into hiding if I had anything to do with you.
Do you have enough money to hide us both for a year without any engagement
but the task at hand? ・ Grow up fast or back to a frothing Gibson. Not good,
but I can・t let you jeopardize the safety of the people I・m going to.
Incidentally, you used to love the road. You were always the first one in
the truck. Owners of clubs used to parade you around and give you money.
Everybody loved you and, of course, that・s why Vicki hates you.
We have that in common Jane. The last time I saw my dad, I was ten. He
was a great musician and everybody loved him. He tried to teach my mom but
she hated him into an early grave and he died when I was ten. My mother・s
birthday is exactly the same as Vicki・s. She killed me when I was a baby ・
same jealous streak as Vicki. She suffocated me to death. I was pronounced
D.O.A. but the hospital brought me back. She said it was an accident but
didn・t tell me about it until my mid forties. Anyone concerned for my
welfare would insist I have that information to watch for complications,
right? I watched her spend her whole life spitting on my father to the
younger kids that weren・t old enough to know him. None of them acquired
educational interests. I did manage to teach them some music but they never
made much of a living with it. It・s because I couldn・t cut through my
mother・s spit. My dad had me promise to look after them because he knew I
was the only one who would ・ so I was busy buying them a house and
instruments when I was young. Also, like you, I couldn・t relate to such a
degree of violence in people who were claiming love. I didn・t go to her
funeral. She・s like Vicki ・ the biggest contribution either of them could
make to the arts would be to commit suicide. Also, I・m the only one who ever
truly looked after either of them ・ Vicki would be dead ・ let・s not forget
that I・m also the only one with enough guts to table the necessary and
inconvenient truths required to stop future killings ・ if only I could find
a Canadian who cares ・
Even at ten, I knew she hated my dad to death. That・s why I wanted to
see if I could cut through with Vicki but it will kill me too if I don・t get
out of here ・ it・s been 30 years of life threatening suffocation and its
life or death for me, hon. I cannot take another drop of Vicki Gibson ・ I
will die like everything that has ever crossed her path.
What the hell is a little peanut like you gonna do about this stack of
shit?
Get everybody killed? I・ve been shot by a jealous cop ・ my buddy was
shot by a jealous groupie ・ I・ve been rammed of the road at highway speeds -
vehicle a complete rightoff - guns in my face - knives at my throat -
vehicles sabotaged for accident potential - everybody trying to frame me for
anything and everything (like Vicki) - attacked just walking down the street
including some of Vicki・s sniveling buddies. I had to run away so I wouldn・t
have to put them in the hospital. I could fill a book but stupid shit gives
me a headache. I just try to teach everyone music. A couple of Canadian
Universities asked me to teach when I was twenty five but I was always
living with a lot of girls and it freaks the standard Christian Canadian
culture out. They get pretty violent ・ jealousy. Otherwise, I might have for
awhile.
I seriously need to get back with my own kind and I・ve got to go to
another country to completely get away from Gibson・s and their poisoned
children.
I・m just so sorry JXXX but these people are never going to come clean.
As a safety precaution, I・ve placed this story, in triplicate, on every
News Desk on the West Coast, half of Canada, United Nations, several global
humanity groups and a small novel in my files at the Hall of Fame. If anyone
(who has been in the presence of a child of mine without my permission)
crosses my path, (anywhere) we will continue this conversation on the front
pages around the world. Good idea? ・ or will more people need to be killed
to keep those wholesome reputations in the doughnuts?
Meet ya next universe kid.

PS - JXXX - if you confront gov・t. about heritage genocide or Vicki about
anything ・ especially having anything to do with me, factor in some serious
illness to your schedule. People with low IQ・s don・t have the courage to
stand up for anything and get very angry at anyone who does. Hate kills.
It・s planet Earth・s #1 killer. Not just war, but disease and, of course,
peaceful emotions don・t sell guns and drugs. Who ya gonna call?
You can・t go halfway ・ you have to get out of Vicki・s thoughts before
you can regain health. I・ve been through so many personal relationships that
I・ve noticed a trend where I begin to assume the heritage illness of the
person I・m with and it・s directly linked to the stresses they undergo from
reaction to their perspectives. It can take years to shake it off but
typically you have to get away from them until they stop thinking of you.
You can see for yourself that there is never anything but hate coming from
Vicki. I mean, not a single conversation about my own children in an entire
lifetime? She wants me dead ・ real serious dead. How could any health crawl
out from under that?

My friend Blake put it best a few years ago when, over dinner in Victoria with the other One Yellow Rabbits, he kindly asked, “So when did your father fall off the edge of the world?” 

LETTER FOUR

RE: Hi dad, it’s my 25th birthday this week‎
Sent: June 5, 2007 12:39:23 PM

 
JXXX - I just want to point something out and I’ll get out of everybody’s 
hair, ok?

You DON”T ASK QUESTIONS! That’s what going to get you killed. Like I
said … you have to know who’s who in a hurry to survive and there’s only one
way to do that … ask questions. Never mind what anybody says about anything
… ask your own questions. You’re surrounded by chickenshits who don’t ask
questions because the results would expose their lies but I can assure you
that there’s a whole army of lowlife’s who fully understand what the
government does to peoples kids. Keep in mind that 50% of N.American fathers
have had their children's educations destroyed by this system. Also keep in
mind what kind of a society this is as a result of century's of intelligence
genocide.

The lowlife's prowl for bimbo’s constantly. They know exactly how to
feed you what you want to hear and will feed you that bullshit while they
clean you dry of anything they can get out of you before you catch on. Most
of them are hardcore druggies and are typically in some kind of strained
financial/social problem. They wouldn’t give a second thought to set you up
for anything at all ... just like Vicki & her lowlife's. They don't want you
to ask questions because they'll be found out and they don't give the
slightest damn that they're dealing you an attribute that's going to get you
killed. They just don't care.

A common example for a bimbo setup is ... stolen drugs return a dead
girlfriend. They look for Bimbo’s to take the heat. . That’s what happened
to Sarina. I’m not going to give you details because Vicki doesn’t want you
to know anything about me except her version but it’s the most common reason
bimbos get killed next to being a hooker.

Vicki wanted to be a hooker with Mary. Mary was murdered with a rifle
butt to the head.

The people in your life just want to waste your intelligence on Sunday
school and fairy tales and the guns/drug dealers behind this ‘compulsory’
Christian culture make trillions off the carnage. Religions generate
climates for conditioning people to obey important sounding tones and
costumes while presenting non logistic intelligence as acceptable doctrine.
When authority tones and costumes are presented in government, people obey
without questioning the logistics. If you question the logistics of N.
American moral code you will see that it’s entirely Christian. Remember
Christians? … murdered over 600 million people.

Television propaganda glorifies guns/drugs and hookers. Most bimbo’s
are small town/suburban types with religion backgrounds. Believe it or not,
most druggies and hookers are too. Kids that grow up downtown get the
unvarnished versions and don’t go there.

Good luck kid – boy are you going to need it. I used to tell you when
you were a kid that the Christians are going to get you. How can you even
tell if your communication is not being sabotaged. I would fully expect
these killers to redesign or remove intelligence from you. That's all
they've ever done. I'm just obligated to try and get something vital through
to you anyway.

By the way - I ran a soup kitchen for hookers for 3 years. It was a
pretty stressful gig but I wanted to glean more info on the subject matter
... typically about 30 girls. I kept a few from getting killed but some are
killed ... usually before they reach twenty-five. Very few make the news.
Christian women hate them because 'Johns' are typically their husbands and
lets face it, Christians are the government. The gov't. kept trying to stop
me. They make huge dough on the murders. BC's murdered girls are way over 1
million apiece so far.

Keep in mind also that 'ALL' gov’t health situations have to sell you
drugs to make money. You will not find any support for emotional health.
Their shrinks are typically Christian suburban’s who also sell drugs. It’s
ALL guns and drugs. ask! ask! ask!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I’ve found in there so far. A continued obsession with my mother, her (dead? fictional?) roommate Mary, my ex-stepmother Sarina, the christian government that wants us all dead, and a very strange note on hookers, which may or may not imply my father spent time as a pimp. Rock on.

So, what was your childhood like?

We live in a silent convocation of decisions.

I sent a letter to my father this morning. Yes, my violent, clinically psychotic, paranoid schizophrenic father who I can only hope is now old enough to be toothless instead of terrifying. (There’s a long shot, wow). There is always a chance the e-mail will bounce back. The address I have for him is very old, from five or six years ago. Here are the results of our last correspondance, from 2004.

Subject: Hi dad, it’s my 25th birthday this week

In truth, I don’t know why I’m sending this, given what or last communication degenerated into, but somehow I feel that 25 is one of those vaguely landmark ages, and I wanted to try to say hello again, and at least let you know I’ve made it this far.

Course, there’s always the possibility this will bounce back. This e-mail address is from a newspaper clipping from many years ago. The paper’s gone yellow and brittle, easy to tear. I’ve kept in one piece, though, not even sure how. It’s just been one of those things where every time I clean my apartment, somehow I manage not to throw it away.

I hope you do get this. It’s been a very long time. I haven’t seen you since before I was ten or spoken to you since I was twelve. I hope you are feeling better since our last letters, and have gotten some medial attention. I don’t usually recommend little coloured flakes of chemical to anyone, but there’s always new pills on the market, you know, maybe some of them will help.

At any rate, good luck in your endeavors, whatever they may be, and happy birthday to me.

Sitting at home wondereding where everyone is drinking

Flickr launched a new feature this week, something they call Collections. It’s a way to create sub-sets, (folders within sets). This means that I could, for example, create a collection called Local Events and fill it with sets like Avery’s Video Game Party, Ikea Adventures, and Flashmob Croquet. It’s likely going to be a long and tedious process for me to switch everything over to the new system, (I have an inhuman amount of photos), but I expect it to be worth the effort. Now if only they would announce, like Livejournal, that permanent accounts will be available for sale soon.

I watched new parents on the Skytrain today, smiling, as all three were young, attractive and happy. Suddenly, a brass thought ship-wrecked whole in my mind – “My father was never that young.” It surprised me, but it feels true. He sprang into the world fully formed at age 35 and only got older from there. I remember him smiling, but even before he went mad, he always looked tired.

Imagining my mother young is easy. I am almost the same age she was when she had me. I thought of standing at the bus-stop, hands on my belly, feeling a hard curve there, cradling The Word inside me, and I knew that she felt happy where I would feel trapped, as if my feet had been pierced through with tent-pegs. She has never been hungry the way I am, her aspirations have always pointed in a different direction, but still I can see her in my mind, thin, almost conventionally pretty, and tenaciously practicing the same six chords on the guitar until her fingers bled, until she grew callous, then bled again. The first day I kicked in her belly must have been a small personal miracle, like branches swaying Yes after you’ve asked the sky a question.

It’s my brother Cale’s 17th birthday today. She named him after J.J. Cale but got the date wrong on the birth certificate and they made her fill it out again. We are not the most cohesive family, but biology links us together irrevocably. He is stuck with us, carries us on every official document he’ll ever have to take the time to fill out and carry. See, I gave him his middle names – he’s Cale St. Patrick Gibson – and wear green every year in atonement.

doing things to her that belong to you


Elephant Three
Originally uploaded by anavrin.

Ever speculated on how much of a bad idea something would be, then jumped off the bridge anyway, inevitably changing everything and quietly saying “oops” under your breath, almost as if you meant it?

I’m beginning to think it’s simply how I run things. I can’t escape my name, my natural anthem of love’s disaster. Missing chances to death, walking strong and emotionally detached, I want it to end so much that it hurts bone deep. I feel like a stranger to my own body, to my own needs and choices and liabilities. Upon my breath, Sunday morning I was flying enough to let my impulses die a steady slumbering death, but today, in the smeary hour of midnight, I didn’t bother to keep myself in check.

Wearing myself out with all this sticky importance, I was in my element Saturday, not a visitor. Usually I feel somewhat out of context, a tourist in my own country, but stomping around in work boots and a corset was utterly perfect. This was the first year in five that I was also a visible performer. Pyrotech, dancer, different clothes, different steps. Tiny changes and all smiles. I almost kissed someone when they walked into a room. The partner impulse there and whole, downloaded entire into my frame without thought. Familiar and strange. I almost ruined the edges of my heart.

(Today my feet are criss-crossed with black electrical tape, my answer to the common plaster. In one place, it’s possible to see bone where I wore through my foot. Poor little toes, they will recover, but the body politic, it is not happy.)

I said I was planning on getting a good night’s sleep last night, but subtext occurred instead. I went to bed near five a.m. full of double-meant conversations, explanations slipped between words. It’s been going on all week, all before too. Supportive people, my hand being held, a place to fall to if I need it. It’s terrifying, this encouragement. I’d forgotten what it’s like.

(The mad poet, the awesome-sauce Mike McGee, wants the world to see this.)

more warning would have helped, also, a consultation


Chris Klapper‘s SWARM of insect-like baby dolls suspended from the ceiling
by cables and springs. You may safely ignore his other work.

I’m trying to round up people who are willing to help my mother with a leisurely move on the price of pizza, beer, and appreciation.

She’s rented a van from 6 o’clock Friday morning to 6 o’clock Saturday morning. We won’t be moving boxes upon boxes, more just pieces of large furniture that she and I can’t move alone. I know it’s ill-timing, what with the plans to meet here for a movie than night-market, but I’m hoping people might still have the morning free.

Wal-Mart staff ordered to search store after bomb threat.

I did not mean to slam the door. Technically, true. I didn’t mean for it to be painful once I had done so either, the first link in a chain reaction of breaking down shaking in my kitchen, almost crying on my roommate, who wanted to know what was wrong. Usually I am better than that. I hold onto myself. I am polite. I keep to myself and swallow extraneous reactions. Feeling anything is risky, it’s true. Feelings have been nothing but a useless simmering frustration for a few years. There have been no rewards that were not false, no punishments that mercifully ceased. The heart as a holding pattern, understanding that there is no space to land. Dead air. Static. I did not mean to slam the door, but for my sake, I should have done so harder, I have not slammed a door in years. When I was a child, I would shake hotels and houses equally with the force of impact, wood in wood frame. My only vengeful outlet, because otherwise I am quiet, refusing to offer what is not asked and hating that no one dares.

people keep asking how I am

Fondue was a success thanks to Ryan, Eva, Silva, her two friends, Ian, Ethan, Lung, Michael, Imogyne, Mike, Nick, Duncan, David, Beth, Mike, Alice, and Adam. At one point, the teahouse ran out of seats and I stood, leaning over people to get at the tasty treats.

  • The origin of HIV has been found in wild chimpanzees living in southern Cameroon.
    we look like we're related

    It doesn’t seem real that my birthday is so close again. Just Monday, Monday and the number clicks over another digit. Three to four. My mother got it wrong, thought I was older. It was her graduation from the University of British Columbia yesterday. I got the day off work to watch her walk across the stage to receive paper proof of her achievement. The pride that thrilled through me was burnished bright by the satisfied smile on her face. I took pictures after of her in her cap and gown, holding the blue folder that contains her degree. Then we took pictures of me in the gown on the basis that it’s very likely the only chance I’ll ever have to wear one. Driving home with her through the sharp rain on the motorcycle, I had to lean forward and hug her, the love and respect simply swelled to more than I could contain. She’s survived a ridiculous amount of harm to get where she is, and though it’s not ideal, she’s still scraping to get by, it’s a testament to her tenacity that she persevered and put herself through university as a single mother with three kids. It’s more than most have done.

    Tonight I have dinner with friends, tomorrow I have dinner with Silva, Saturday Ray is rescuing me possibly from my masque-panic hell and sweeping me about town to try and find something to wear, (suggestions bloody appreciated), and there’s (as yet unverified) rumour of a second SinCity to be held at Richards on Richards. (If there is no Sin, who wants to have a party?) Sunday I’m still planning on being down in Seattle with Eliza, though it’s looking less and less likely as the day approaches and no rides have been forthcoming. Monday my mother is bringing me to a soiree at the Mansion, and Tuesday is the last May Mandarin Movie Tuesday.

  • when he is gone, I feel alright about nibbling on the corners of his food at 2 a.m.

    Heinrich Kley
    Heinrich Kley

    A triff trailer mash-up that hurts in only the good ways, Toy Story 2: REQUIEM.
    &nbsp &nbsp link thankfully appropriated from Andrew.

    Relaxed, she stands at the bus-stop. Watches a man exit backward, pulling a small wire basket full of fake red flowers, wonders briefly what they are for. A book is folded under her left hand. Her right hand has already fumbled in her coat pocket and found her bus-pass. She’s going to be on time for work with fifteen minutes to spare. She’ll open the store early, she decides, instead of waiting.

    In her mind are tiny snippets of conversation caught like film stills fighting against a projector. Nothing stays very fixed, it all moves too fast for words to bind. Outside there is blue sky, her eyes blandly track a cloud as it intersects with an airplane contrail. Seizures, that’s what her thinking can be like. Feelings overcoming her body, twisting her lips or her hands into a smile. Remembering when he kissed her, her eyes warmly close and open again. Curious if anyone else is doing the same, she scans the other faces on the bus. No one interesting today. A cluster of yoga clothing imitators, some people going to work, a couple in the back discussing a television series. Someone is reading a paperback novel but the cover looks too glossy, the book looks too thick. It’s an incarnation of the dime-store novel, the summer blockbuster hit parade. Empty calories and too much talk about weapon specifics.

    Her key in the new lock turns harshly. In spite of the extra filing when she replaced the lock with the hardware store clerk, there is still something uneven. An expected alarm sounds when she opens the door, a warning keen, piercing but still quiet. Enough to tell the wrong person that they’ve made a mistake. She half trips on a newspaper someone kindly slid under the door earlier in the morning and pulls the CLOSED sign to OPEN. The useless paper and her bag are deposited on the glass topped counter while she wonders why she never seems to do any of these things in the same order. Some mornings the buttons stick on the alarm console and she has to talk to stoic sounding security people on the phone. She smiles nervously when she does it, knowing she doesn’t have the passwords and not sure if she should care.

    Heinrich Kley
    Heinrich Kley

    A combination of coupled enzymes to construct a simple circuit in which enzymatic reactions correspond to logic operations.
    &nbsp &nbsp link cruelly wrenched from the bosom of darling Warren.

    My housemate, Graham, is away right now, up with his family, clustering around his grandmothers death. He says in his journal that he got to say to her the things he needed to say before she left. I’m glad for that through the commiserative sadness, though I keep a narrow sliver of being unable to relate. I know when my remaining grandmother goes, it will be barely a family affair. My mother and I will stare at the ceiling a bit, covered with the inevitable and distinctive blanket of pondering about immortality that every death brings. My brothers will ask if we’ve inherited anything and we will ask my mothers sister, Reine, who will be far more affected, the one in charge of all the necessary arrangements that accompany a death. She will tell us of something small that may come our way. Tacky jewelry from her shops, maybe, or an inappropriate coffee-table. Then it will be done. If we were the sort for annals, her passing would be the year of nothing in particular. All the known history in her head is either commonplace or inaccessible. Her drop in the sea has no flavour to leave and savor.

    I like how Graham talks about his family. They seem to be a unit, a partition of people that all carry more than just a name together.

    Ashes and Snow will be on view in Santa Monica, from Jan 14 to May 14, 2006. I want to go.

    [pj harvey – water]
    Now the water to my ankles
    Now the water to my knees
    Think of him all waxy wings
    Melted down into the sea
    Mary, Mary what your man said
    Washing it all over my head
    Mary, Mary hold on tightly
    Over water
    Under the sea

    Ashes and Snow
    &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Gregory Colbert has updated his website. &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Remember to breathe.

    I’m so sorry there are not more angels. That there are not more years for grace.

    I’m sorry I don’t have words for what I feel I want to say.

    This is a universal thing, I know, but it brings us down every time.

    May you have time to give everything you still have to say to the family you’ve made.

    You have my deepest sympathies for your sorrow.

    This isn’t enough, but I don’t know how to play the song that needs singing.