Tag: flickr

nostalgia parade in barefeet on broken glass


resting here with me
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

Summer is beginning to end, just yesterday it was possible to taste fall creeping into the weather, and yet to me, it’s still spring. My run of bad luck began then, and there I have stayed, foolishly expecting a shift in happenstance to accompany the weather. It’s basic and slightly animistic of me, perhaps. As if the world might lick my wounds with sunshine.

Ellen is leaving us, moving her family eight hours away. Her children, Kevin, Brin and Maz, are my godchildren. They call me aunt sometimes, or mum when they’re not thinking about it. I’ve known them for such a long time it hurts to think about. I’ve watched them develop personalities and grow into decent human beings from mewling toddlers, backlit by their amazing mother. Being with them makes me happy, they’re family in such a basic sense that it goes beyond friends. I’m already scheming a road trip to visit them. There’s going to be a huge gathering at their new place for Thanksgiving, Max’s second birthday. It’s a camp out deal, tents piched on thier four acres of backyard.

My reactions seem so far away from my body lately, voices are quiet, touch is remote. Everything is mild, as if I’ve grown a new layer of skin, one made of thick lucite. I feel like a widower not yet ready to crave life again, instead still lying on the coffin or holding my corpse husband’s hand in a brightly lit room. He slept here. I’ve been sifting through my memories, holding them up to my inner eye and trying to understand where things went so sideways. I remember standing, vibrating with the first anger I’d had in years. How could you? I remember standing, my body molten honey, my hands unable to stop pulling him into me. His hair, his voice. Feeling like this was just right. What have I done? I don’t dream at night anymore. I won’t allow it. I’ve thrown down my gallows, soon maybe I’ll remember how to breathe. I’ll stand up out of the dust and wipe my hands on my trousers, readying myself to walk back home. I don’t understand how you can love me so much You’re persuasive, now I don’t either.

I want a long walk off a short plank. An unexpected drop off to give me my catalyst, three months has been and gone, too long, too long. SinCity is this Saturday and I don’t know if dancing is finally going to help. My spirit wants to fly out past the edges of the cliffs that hem this city at the ocean and just keep going, out until my arms can’t help me swim anymore. Except for a brief period when I had emotional support from Matthew, I haven’t had a good week since the beginning of May, since I came back from Toronto. I think that I have friends who understand not to press me, who are kind enough not to force me to care. I’m thankful. I don’t want to call anyone on the telephone, I don’t want to leave this apartment alone. I got as far as the park today before breaking down, falling by the side of the road, a crumpled excuse for a small girl. I want a voice that I can’t trust to call me and apologize, explain, but I know that life doesn’t work so well, it doesn’t reach down a hand from over the prison wall so easily. This dream is an everyday agony.

because life continues, it has to


Down At Fraggle Rock
Originally uploaded by cabbit.

From Andrew:

“Hey Everyone,

It’s Navi’s birthday on Thursday and she demands bowling. Meet up with us at 10pm at the Scott Road skytrain station in Surrey, there’s a crazy laser bowl place she likes across the street that we’ll go to and bowl til we get bored or the skytrain stops running! No presents or sexual favours necessary, your mere presence is enough to send her into paroxysms of joy.

Please leave a comment or otherwise let me know if you can make it so we can reserve a couple lanes.”

A group of us, (you are invited to come along), are going to go to Tinseltown for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at 7:30 before meeting up with her and Andrew for whatever lazerbowling is.

Right, and I don’t care, even if you’re on dial-up, watch this video.

“You said you would show me another country, and you have. It’s right here, in me.”


isn’t she pretty?
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

There was flying yesterday. I opened my eyes in Reine’s bed, not having slept at all. Karen and Patrick were downstairs with her mother. Ten minutes later, we were driving. Smooth ska on the stereo, too early for people to be aware. Up Victoria, up fourty-first, taking the bridge past the airport and out onto highway. I held my breath through the tunnel and wished I could remember how not to be wounded. I let it out half way, feeling empty and futile. A child thought, how hollow they make these places. The way the music played made me think of movies, of black pvc.

The plane was small, familiar. Fuselage white, pale as they always are in such places. Karen and Reine looked like headset angels. I rode in front, co-pilot pretender. Once I took the handles, but all I did was steer on course, something anyone could have done. It dragged to the left, heavy somehow so far above the earth. We flew to the airport outside of Victoria, touching down and lifting back up without pause. I held my hands out with my camera on top and said, “do you think we can do it?” to Patrick. Zero gravity, it lifted and fell upward, my fingers cradled under it as it swooped for the windscreen and I could feel my hair twisting away from my scalp, it was beautiful. Enough to unknot my eyes, to pry open my muscles enough to move.

Light seems different when you’re flying, like above the clouds there’s a different texture. I thought of marbles, cats eyes glittering, and agates, how I dearly wanted to walk back in time and say, “teach me now, not later, before you make mistakes.” I wanted twin handfuls of them, glass smooth and clear. I wanted them to spill and fall into the ocean beneath me, a mystery to any witnesses as much as my relationships. I miss him, of course I do. His hands hold my heart still, that burning thing. Blood, however, has left me barren. Think of burned houses, only the shell and metal remaining. Let my honour be my unwarped steel. Picture red hair and eyes like blue quick silver. My strawberry heart is useless, obviously, or else I would be able to stop my crying. I could return it home and let it flutter back into my breast like a nesting bird.

I have a doctors appointment this afternoon. A question asked of me demands it. The other women are likely wonderful people, but.

I remember trust.

Matthew called and my heart stopped

Fields of fire that passed the train
The sky is victorious but here comes the rain
Friday is taking me home again,
And I’ve nothing but you on my mind.

Grass is greener without the pain,
I think that I’m changing but I’m just the same
My sun is ascending again
And I’ve nothing but you on my mind

Sometimes I feel like I’m glad to be free,
Sometimes I still want your arms around me,
Sometimes I’m glad to have left you behind,
The Crazy English Summer has put you back on my mind.
Life’s a riot, a lover, a friend,
Pity the day that it has to end
Friday come speed me home again,
I’ve nothing but you on my mind.

Sometimes I feel like i’m fine on my own,
Fifty thousand miles from home.
Sometimes I’m weak and the past is my guide,
Summer returns and puts you back on my mind.

    • the history books never mentioned us

    Cohesion drifting: goodbye James. He’s left now, on the plane for Montreal. If he has a window seat, he’ll have already lost sight of Vancouver. Soon even the mountains will fade. Echoes and footsteps in departure hallways. We saw him off last night, Reine and Ryan and I, my friend Steve caught along for the ride.

    We wish you luck, boy, wherever you land.

    medousa will be opening her apartment up for pre-fireworks meet-ups again on Saturday. Meet on the North West Corner of Barclay & Thurlow beginning at 7:30. (By the firehydrant). Any who are inclined are suggested to drop in between 7pm and 7:30pm, and we’ll probably head out around 8ish. There’s a possibility of heading out sooner as it’s the finale and will be more insane than usual.

    edit: I’ll be attending the Leo party after the fireworks.

    I’ve been out of charactor today, but would like to mark for the record that I blame the eye-liner


    City Girl
    Originally uploaded by cabbit.

    St Peters wolf is hunting me, licking at my traces on other peoples skin. My nails ask for defenses back please, they ask for water to drain from my eyes somewhere not in public. I saw today that someone’s referred to me as an ex, and when night falls, that’s what it feels like, though I know it only as a convenient term that explains really nothing of what happened or what might have been. He kissed me, you know, when he shouldn’t have. I understand deeply, like standing under trees, that there’s been a fundamental shift, that I forced myself to remember that I am a star collapsing. In waking to myself, I had to be alone of this one, this gold skein mannerism. Otherwise, when my heart was beating, it would be a violence, a darkening room without a coloured door.

  • stencil art billboards
  • the wooster collective

    Amusing to me, I realize as I write this that I’m wearing a stolen ring. Usually a sign of solidarity, this time it means a freedom in vocabulary, it means someone I feel quick enough to keep up with. These round celtic knots tied one into the next, this band, this loop, I’m twisting it around my finger. Metal there feels right, the flesh feels righted, but the implications, the loose ties of acquaintance versus friendship, they nag at me with a peculiar fascination. In my mind, there’s something waking. A fierce creature with steady cravings, I can’t see it, though I feel it growing restless. What it is I’m uncertain, something to do with words, with expression.

  • pictures of wall
  • intricate x-wing t-shirt

    Yesterday was long, a golden musical chairs of people in and out. It began merely an hour after returning from Beth’s delightful house-warming. Navi was over in the morning, and Ryan, with James visiting in the afternoon. We went to dinner with my mother, Vicki, and her father, John, at Wild Ginger. My first time meeting my granda as an adult. It was, shall we say, illuminating. He reminded me that I’m a quarter gypsy, which is something I had almost forgotten, but that we are related to the highest placed mafia family in Canada. This is especially delightful considering that I’ve finally discovered what it is he does. It was rather surprising. I knew that he used to be a salesman of sorts but I was entirely unaware that currently my granda is a bootlegging gigolo. I swear, my family only gets better. The best part? He’s a British Citizen, has been for thirty+ years. A landed immigrant back in the day when bombs still fell in first world countries. The way the laws are, that means that so am I. When I get my passport, depending on how soon I reapply, then it just might not be Canadian. (So anyone I asked to marry for citizenship, if you’re still interested, you’re going to have to supply another interesting country or two).

    • sky question observe place fact


    silo tall cherry lake
    Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

    My sleep is crumbling, indifference mixing with a dying anticipation. I expect a signal interrupt. I wake on the hour, mental suitcase in my hand. That phone is going to ring. It makes me nervous, every sound carving the quiet of my room. My body is weary unto bones, aches and heart rate jouncing at the slightest provocation. I stretch and it feels like I’m under water, I have to push against air to move. At my desk is not so bad. I sit, I type.

    Chris slept over twice this week to help me sleep, to offer what comfort he can. Exhaustion’s been claiming me in waves, foam flecked gravity sinking my head to the mattress, but I recoil from company now while at the same time require it. A body gives me an anchor, reminds me that unconsciousness is a gift, not only a tiresome chore. There’s no one else I can ask to stay. Chris is getting better. A fragility still underlies everything, but his heart has weathered what it needed to. It is a weight lifted and, underneath my fatigue collapse, I am glad for it. Part of me considers his fever broken.

    I’m hoping for a teacher soon, a new skill to capture my attention away from myself and my silences. I’ve been catching myself crying, strange moments when I put my hand to my face and discover my cheek is wet. I want someone to talk to who has the background to understand, who can coax from me what I need to say. I think I may have found one but she’s far away. I’ve been left alone so long I’m not certain of words in person anymore. Alastair helps. We’ve closed our eyes, taken each others hands, and walked through the crusting scabs of break-up to a place where he can talk to me now. I miss him.

    same week as the anniversary of the nuclear age


    Cello… er not Viola
    Originally uploaded by DantesFedora.

    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.

    Five hours sleep since friday morning. I wanted to steal some ephedrin but forgot.


    san clemente
    Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

    Friday I was told a horrific story at a birthday party by a woman who’s using me as the main feature in her thesis on the Death Of Culture about having a fisting accident where he punched into her uterus and was caught there by her shocked body for thirty-five awkward minutes. Added bonus, apparently she has three ovaries because in the womb she absorbed a twin. He hit one.

    Our weather has been restless, torrential bi-polar syndromes daily, swinging back and forth between rain and thirty degrees in the shade. The only reason I know it’s summer has been the time the sun goes down. There’s light in the sky at nine o’clock at night. Today, however, there was sun. Hard shearing light, painful on the eyes when it reflected off the ocean. Dominique and Amanda and I went to Wreck Beach, the nudist beach, where I found Brian and let him curl up to me like a cat, like a little child, thirty years older than me, but four feet tall. All of the sudden, he reminded me of Chris. They’re skinny thin in the same ways, like the bones have been hung primarily to show off something pretty.

    Quickie Culture Night on Saturday went well, I think. It bled well into Sunday morning and I suspect that everyone present saw something new. James showed me a piece of film that left me without speech or coherent thought. I was hideously impressed. Prey Alone, it was called, and it was serrated green filter chocolate sex wrapped with an enviable plot, even better than the startlingly brilliant BMW films. Though, I must say, those were a damned treat. The one with James Brown blistered my eyes with how clever it was. You should come to our next one. I don’t care who you are or what city. If it’s possible to do, I would like to find a way to host our itinerary for people who live too far away or in inaccessible countries.

    you can see the changes


    jhayne silver curve
    Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

    My house is divided. One night, two evenings, three days, four fingers, five. A hand without you, counted every time the sun goes down and terrified of my heart. Another night, another day, that’s two more. Arithmetic on my body. My shadow on fire, blazing something tired and nameless whenever I close my eyes and don’t hear your voice. Haunted by more words than I can encompass without looking into your eyes, by letters unwritten in every pore of my skin that remember your lips. I’m not sleeping so well. Instead I dream of stars, painful pointillist versions of a city I’ve never been to, haven’t seen pictures of. Fire on top of pillars. It’s all under the same moon, I tell myself, the words like a broken bridge tumbling into a river in slow motion. Instead my eyes sting with the splinters of roses and I imagine a painful sprouting of wings from my back. Dark feathers to take me away from here.

    My fingernails are long again, white crescents I could place in the sky. I would offer to prostitute my soul if it meant that I would be able to create exquisitely as Alessandro Bavari does. His art is enchanting, captivating my eyes to the exclusion of time. I look outside and the warm air’s been pulled out over the ocean, taking the light with it like a blanket to tuck in the other side of the world.

    edit: a re-write for lj user inktea