Tag: friends

we’ll all float on all right


fireworks finale
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

Two days and two misapprehensions. Happy birthday Chris, you’re twenty-four now. I think that’s to mean something, but for the life of me, I don’t know what. Have this link, at least, it’s word heroin. It’s been a hard spring, burning into a difficult summer. There’s redemption somewhere, we just have to figure out where to find it. I’m sitting in my home, armo(u)ring myself with unlikely colours, with the strength I have in my body that a writer gave to me. I am hoping that if harm befalls me, if my heart stops, if he is there, it will set my blood to boil and I will flower into flame and burn again. Twist my hair around my finger and speak some magic words that will lighten the weights that drag my feet from dancing again.

I’m not allowed to love you. It’s the same script, all over again. Audience of one. The evening is just beginning and I’m thinking of brake-lights, red glow into the distance. How cars will trail in long snakes through the mountains away from here. The freeways of L.A. were like that, incredible embers speeding past and forward and always going, just going, flying between yellow lines and white. There, however, without a vehicle of my own, I was lost, a child trying to catch up with little tiny steps. My legs were tied, my sight unable to see unless I was near the ocean. Here there is water, there are mountains, there are miles filled entirely with trees. In a way, it’s a cage all the same. I’m tired of it, I’ve done this place. My precious people, I want to shake their roots free of dirt and set them walking our of here with me. I’m glad James got away.

Navi is asleep in my bed and Ryan‘s out fetching supplies for SinCity tonight. I’m alone with a rabbit and a ferret, though they’re kept separate now. We’ve found proof positive that rabbits are genetically food for ferrets. It won’t matter if they’ve seen one before or even know what to do with one, it will try to drag it away and eat it. The rabbit, Kitty, has escaped unscathed, but perhaps not so me. Now I know Skatia can attempt to be sneaky, I want to see it again. Again, the thought occurs to me to fetch him a mouse from the shop to have.

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).

    • hold the wheel



    Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

    I saw you and looked down. I changed the subject of conversation. You walked past like silver, as if I could touch the air you had just walked through and feel solid flesh.

    I counted my lovers the other day, using myself as one unit. My body, my bended bones and muscles, an abacus bead. Click, like this, and he slipped in here and my back arched taut, hips drawing the strings of shiva’s bow. She bit me once, hard, at the bus-stop, one of the first times we kissed. I’m at twelve consensual, my friend at thirty-four. I thought about water falling, how many times I’ve held hands in rain. The contrast of skin colours, how I loved to see my white against the wood colours of tanned skin, how I loved the white of my skin matching the belly that I kissed. I would like to meet a boy this time who wants things I’ve never thought of, tells me the secret names of roses, tells me that he likes touching me in public. I would like to not be shot through with sacrifice.

    There’s a girl sitting alone in a room, her music is as lonely as she is and she can’t find anything else. Her clothes are piled on the floor among too many books and papers. She’s scared.

    Newly minted life, that’s another thing coming. Bill and I were talking about technology the other day after fireworks, and I felt for the first time in a long time that I was aware, like I’d been roughly shaken from a trance. He argued that new things weren’t that, only the newest illustration of an age-old idea. I pointed out that new species only come from previous iterations of animal, that everything comes from somewhere. The system self-propagating. The New finding you because you’ve put the settings that way. I know enough for two of us. The trick is in the procedure, the knowing how to act with it, the finding out what to do next. I feel distinctly unintelligent because I have so many tools, so many pieces of information, yet no ideas.

    for a girl named A


    Automatic Sadness
    Originally uploaded by
    seejackrun.

    When you turn your face, I see the most beautiful girl underneath invisible scars. There are lines there, drawn in an ink that’s never been put to paper, tracing everything you’ve ever seen, everything you care to remember and some things you don’t. When you turn your head and smile, the maps crinkle in the corner of your eyes like secrets that kings lost before history was written down on anything but flesh and I smile back, because yes, that’s exactly how that song used to go, back when we were smaller and less aware of fear. You have the name of the only girl who was ever nice to me in grade seven. I don’t think it matters, but I thought you would like to know.

    When you hold your hand to the light, I see a dancer there, poised with rhythm and waiting for the exact moment to drop her handkerchief, eyes smiling at the irony of it all. The bones are soaked with vitality and glow through only where they should, rather than before, when they did not, when they were apparent. Knuckles white, knuckles kissed, it’s all the same after. You’re loved and should know it. The form and frame are balanced, a painting waiting to be found under an old student whitewash.

    I posted and seventeen people arrived, let’s see what some warning may bring


    Celebration of Light – Canada
    Originally uploaded by beccabug.

    The lovely medousa has offered her place as a downtown meet-up for the Saturday night fireworks. Anyone interested should meet on the NorthWest corner of Barclay & Thurlow by the fire hydrant. The time to do so, however, is up in the air, as I don’t know what anyone’s plans are. Is there going to be another conclave on the beach? More skinny dipping? I’ve not a clue, so tell me. Where and when have people been discussing?

    edit: Meeting at 7:30 – 8 with beginning to walk at 8:15. Good?
    edit: just in case you missed it, party at Reina‘s tonight.

    this is the first time in a long time I’ve been left alone with a screen


    DSC06059
    Originally uploaded by gjohng.

    I woke up this morning like a murder victim, posed and cunningly placed to display the blooms of blood to the best advantage. I woke tired and I woke too early. Five:thirty the clock said, and how I wished it had lied. In the mirror I looked like a fashion disaster, some high couteur model with an ill chosen penchant for ice-cream, my make-up shimmering and flecked with sleep.

    I haven’t been home lately, not at all. My room is so messy that the right kind of doctor could look in and see a disaster ground zero for the terminally depressed. Saturday was Illuminaires, something I still want to talk about but haven’t had the chance, as Sunday was the day my computer caught fire. Monday was Korean Movie Night, an evening where the last people always leave at one o’clock, and Tuesday was an evening in with Nocole and my mother. We talked about relationships, three weary women of differing generations and differing points of view. We found something in common though. All three of us are alone.

    Wednesday was the first night of the Symphony of Fire, the Celebration of Light it’s called now. Navi and I were running late, having been in the forest out in Langley, our naked flesh being eaten alive by the whining wildlife. Also, we were attacked by an owl. That sort of thing tends to slow down city folk and traffic was bad, so when we arrived the show had already begun. Through the crowd we forded, finding the path and as we ran, we could look out over the thousands of dark heads and see the barge rocking with sound concussions underneath giant blossoms of flame. It was beautiful, as it always is, and our friends were where they said they would be, which is a new thing and practically a miracle. After the music crescendo, I stood in the water and stared at the ocean, watching the city reflected on the waves. My arms wrapped around me, I don’t know what I felt. I feel it now, but it’s a hollow thing. My thoughts were on the horizon, on how black the water was, how I couldn’t see my feet or the sun. I looked out and farther out, thinking, “there is light there, over that line, and how I need to see it.”

    ZOMBIEWALK 2005!!!

    Usually held in Toronto, this shambling, stumbling, flailing good time will be held in Vancouver this year! Yay us! So if you have a mild obsession with Zombies (as many of my friends do), or you simply love to get rotten and yell “Braaaaiiins” at random people, then mark this one on your calendar:

    Saturday, August 27 – starts 4pm from the VAG and 5pm from 15th and Sophia
    (near Main St).

    (a month away, so you have plenty of time to plan to be there!)
    The walk will start in two-stages as follows:

    1. All non-lazy zombies (or “super zombies”) are invited to gather on or around the big steps at the Vancouver Art Gallery no later than 4pm. From the VAG the horde will be skytrain bound. After a stumble through the mall and a short jaunt on Vancouver’s fine public transit system we will de-train at Main St. station and stumble on up to the Bethlehem Lutheran Church – 320 East 15th – two blocks east of Main. Once there, we will take a short pause to collect ourselves, gnaw on brains, and meet up with . . .

    2. The lazy zombies. A second group of zombies will gather in front of the above mentioned church (Bethlehem Lutheran, 320 East 15th, at Sophia and E 15th) at or around 5pm. Remember – zombies tend to move slowly and occasionally have problems with limbs falling off, body stiffness and possibly skytrain security officers. If you do not see any of your brethren exactly at 5pm, be patient. Mill about and look scary.

    Once all zombie factions have massed at the church it will be time to head onward and uphill to Mountainview Cemetery at Fraser and 31st. For reference, the walk will proceed along Main Street to 31st should any zombie stragglers be left behind and/or spontaneous zombies wish to join the braaiiins procession.

    Once at the cemetery, please be on good zombie behaviour – respect your brethren.

    We will linger a short while in the cemetery before moving onwards to nearby Queen Elizabeth Park for some games, brains, fun, prizes, brains and a pinata or two.

    Yes, you do have to dress like a zombie. Those who do not do so are welcome, but risk having their brains eaten by confused zombies. You have to admit – they’re not all that smart, but they know a good living brain when they smell it.

    Potentially useful things to keep in mind:

    Causes of zombie-ness:

    As everyone knows – or should know – zombies are usually
    attributable to one or more of the following:

    1. voodoo
    2. science gone astray – chemical or biological accidents, experiments, viruses and the like
    3. the apocalypse

    Of course, there are many more possibilties. Be creative. Corpses in all stages of decay are encouraged.

    For the low-budget zombie:

    1. Oatmeal and liquid latex works wonders.
    2. Food colouring and corn syrup makes convincing blood, but sticky. However, also tasty.
    3. Value Village – but I’m sure it’s hardly necessary to mention that.

    Finally: As mentioned previously – zombies are only really effective when travelling together in large groups. Bring your friends, foes, family and other loved ones.

    Nothing says you love someone quite like caking yourself in make-up, limping down the street together and eating them in the park!

    Pass this info on to anyone who might be interested – it has a bit of a ‘viral’ feel to it, but see zombie cause number 2. It all makes perfect sense.

    boom

    The Celebration of Light begins tonight at ten pm at English Bay. I would dearly like to go, but there’s no way I could stand going alone. Anyone interested? I’m going to be out with Navi on a photoshoot until an unknown time so I’m not particularly able to plan very specifically right now, but I’m willing to bet that everyone would be able to make a 9 o’clock meeting at the Burrard Skytrain Station water fountain.

    If you have her number, perhaps you could give us a ring later on to confirm or leave a comment here so we don’t wander to the beach without you.