Tag: life in general

as if anyone cares about this stuff

According to the June 2007 Discover Magazine, the internet weighs 0.2 millionths of an ounce.

I count my skin as fingerprints, distant voices traveling through wires, places I lived that are only names on highway signs where I am now, and the paper pamphlets collected from endless hands on corners, islands of passion in the middle of seas of uniform strangers, all stars of their own films, to which I’m barely an extra. I count my fingerprints as netted truth, minutes caught together in information and joy, the small symbolic poetry of crossing an invisible finish line, arms in the air.

Yesterday I was out of it, eyes dilated, responding to my environment as if my nervous system was watching from outer space. Sounds felt tinny, like my tongue. It started after work on Thursday. Thursday night after my phone-call, I curled up in my duvet nest of bed, (the other half of my mattress is stacks and piles of books), and stared at the ceiling until I was willing to be crazy and simply get up again. Trying to sleep was about as effective as talking to a wall, which meant that Friday began a little loose around the edges. I had red bull and blue curacou for breakfast, and then for lunch, as I helped Silva set up her yard sale, which is when the edges completely fell out and the world began to sway in careful patterns.

It didn’t help that my evening then became the I Braineater gallery opening where my friend’s father randomly accused me of having a birthday soon and then, just as suddenly, ceased to talk to me; explaining, in detail, how one goes about safely blowing up 100 televisions; mildly hallucinating while standing on the corner by Tinseltown, having a deep personal conversation with a man I barely know; wading into a thrashing metal mosh-pit in a dark dirty pub full of kids with ironic Aerosmith t-shirts; possibly breaking some teeth of a junkie who wanted my bag then sitting with a hippie pan handler, tears tattooed under his eyes like a harlequin, to help him tie his shoes; ending up at Organix and finding it full of drunk brazilian boys, (since when did anyone have alcohol at a psytrance night?); finally having to hurt one of them too, just to be left alone; being given a Bjork ticket by a best friend’s ex-boyfriend’s roommate, (the same man who left me to wake up next to an unknown naked scotsman once); then realizing, when I’m home after dancing until I couldn’t walk and barely see, that the machine-gun sun was coming up and I had to be somewhere in a couple of hours. (I suspect that I sent some worrying e-mails to various countries then, but I haven’t the energy to check the damage yet. Nor will I, so fess up.)

So Friday became Saturday, where I got to ache, have more blue curocaou, sit a lot, try not to haphazardly cry, (being a rational human being has no place in such matters, apparently), and be mildly rained on at the yard sale. Saturday I finally slept, but not until something that wasn’t quite 2 a.m. I’m still burned out, but it’s more of a flickering scorch than a hospital ward stay. Such things do not actually “get better” but the machine, after hiccoughs, smooths itself out. Tonight Brian is picking me up after work to help me recover, tomorrow Keith is yanking some of us out to a random island for photos, and I’ve got dinner with not-the-conspiracy-theorist Merlyn. Should be fun, (or at least distracting).

arguing the worth of starshine doesn’t get me hired


picture by livejournal user seafoodmwg (more in her journal)

Someone plays two chords on a guitar as they pass my window then stop, their hands become busy elsewhere or maybe they are still. I don’t know, I can’t see them from here, my place on the floor, between my computer and the foot of my bed. It feels like a visit from my ex-husband, as if I could go to the window and see him there. Red pants, shirtless, a guitar on his back and his long brown hair getting in his eyes. My vision gives me the way he looked when we went to Vancouver Island and visited Robbie, the summer before Robbie purposefully walked under an ambulance on Boxing Day. My vision reminds me of when I had faith. The sun was perfect, blaring down, a rock concert of light, heavy-handed and meaningful. The neatly kept streets were full of tourists who tried to put coins in my coffee cup. We slipped into the change room of a store with a dress we couldn’t afford, just for a breath of air conditioning, just so he could take it off of me.

I suppose this means it’s summer. Spring has slowly crept away, a child uninterested in conversation going outside to climb the glorious trees waiting there. It makes me miss Toronto, this atmospheric humidity reminiscent of an afternoon I slowly poured a glass jug of icy water over my head outside the Black Bull on Queen street as if I were in an eroticized shampoo commercial, the way the water coldly pushed my clothing onto my skin like a textured tattoo, the way my hair dried into curls not five minutes later. I felt like the first pages of a book newly opened, a story about to be told by a fresh new author. Now I feel unwritten, like I had a story but it got lost along the way. Like words left unspoken that were meant to fall from some lips I missed meeting. I feel displaced, conditioned to not have a home. A modern gypsy denied the dignity of reason.

The masquerade has a Flickr Pool: Masquerade Ball.

Michel posted a new page of Jesus Monkey Pants in Space.

For my job interview with Telus, I had to go to an imposing building that looked like a secret government industrial facility. I was escorted through an impressively locked security door with shatter-proof wired glass and upstairs into a small, windowless, bile-green room that could have passed for a holding cell in a women’s prison, then interrogated by two older women who rarely frowned. They read the buzz-word questions directly from papers on the table, leaving me with the impression that the entire thing could almost be left to teenagers. Once, near the beginning, the power cut, leaving us in a confusing pitch blackness. “They’re working on the generator today.” After half an hour, they left me alone long enough with an examination sheet that by the time they returned, I had corrected the punctuation of the questions. Possibly an unwise thing to do under the circumstances, but I grow depressive in silences with nothing to do. A closer examination of the metal cabinets wouldn’t have been wise, though I considered it, and there are only so many times I can read the sides of cardboard computer boxes without beginning to feel claustrophobic. I think they liked my stories of working in theater, but were uncertain what to do with me. Either way, I get a phone-call by Friday. They can’t say yes or no until after a criminal record check.

new icons when I wrote my newest resume

I barely know me. I stand in doorways, unblinking, standing and speaking words of conflict. I collapse on the sidewalk in heavy rain and half an hour goes missing. I hold him warmly close to me with a smile in my mind. I put my head to the side and try not to cry. Inside of me, things are changing. I remember compromise. You say this wasn’t your intention, I say that’s okay. You say and I say then they stood up and had too many words to say. Remember, this is what a little bit of love looks like.

I don’t like that I carry this so she won’t have to.

Every part disparate. I’m still unbalanced, so much is broken. I’m tidying now, brushing the pieces into a pile for later sorting. Which loss caused this jagged edge, which loss caused that. This year was many. I could make t-shirts. Arrested, Fired, He Lied, They Died. My humour’s the right sort. On the back would be a list like tour dates.

Which reminds me: support my Jesus Monkey Pants. I have this one. It makes me sexy like Snakes on a Plane would, which is something I meant to mention weeks ago. I have an excuse, I’ve been eating multitudes of candy bars. They’re not very healthy, really, and they’re making my thoughts shake. They popped into existence to fill the space left by the cessation of hallowe’en proceedings and they’re cadbury tasty, which is to say, not as good as pumpkin pie. I miss my pies. I didn’t carve a pumpkin this year, so I didn’t bake. Ah well, the Lesson is Learned but the Damage is Irreversible. (Also an ancient thing, I know, but it fit. You want something new, go find out about the underground city in Briton that’s now up for sale. Then buy it for me. I will send you nekkid pictures. Lolz. Now bugger off.)

I really should be in bed by now, but I’m waiting for dye to set in my hair. My hands are flecked with purple, a nice reminder of what the bathroom will look like in about twenty minutes. I’m being patient, though I don’t feel like it right now. The bed’s empty, it’s all cold tumbled gold pillows and scarlet bands of silk and I feel like the faster I fall into it, the quicker I can pretend it’s morning. Red shift myself into a different day, one where I might be sleeping next to someone. Alone is not terrific for me now, but I can deal with it. Alone without promise of company, however, is bad.

Nicholas will be here tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it. He and Esme are coming in from Victoria for a concert and dinner at Andrew‘s with me and Ray. He asked for Chris too, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen. I deked out of rehearsal today before I could ask. There were issues with my roommate James that needed sorting, and tonight was really the best time to get it done with.

p.s. world, send new Explosions In The Sky, Porcupine Tree and Bethurum. thank you.

took my forever to figure out what that was


Tattoo by John Lind
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

Circumstance, strange attempts to convey information that isn’t being said. I feel asleep briefly yesterday, half way across town. I fell down later, washed with lead, like my skin was too heavy for my limbs. I wondered if I should have let anyone touch me, if that was the key that brought down the castle walls. I talked with my mother last night, she seems to be doing well. She’s tired, but these days, aren’t we all? Everyone has too much to do, too little to live on. We’re a batch of children, looking up the sky and hoping for something better to come along and pick us up.

Tiny birds and unexpected candy are the hallowe’en aftermath littering my room. The candy will be consumed, translating well into a litter of empty wrappers. The birds will require more effort. I need to twist their wired feet back into the rail over my window, place them in positions where they might look out at the world. Inside each head, I need to replant dreams. Take tweezers and carefully insert the gleaming ideas like glass beads behind their jet black eyes. I took them out when I brought them in public, so they wouldn’t be damaged from what they saw while riding in my hair.

Today’s Breakfast at the Urban City Cafe will be held at 1:45. Come one, come all. For those not in the know, this is becoming the new institution. It’s almost daily and a bit like an antique social salon. Breakfast is five bucks for a full plate of mostly organic tasty.