life – Page 5 – Dreampepper

We all stand like angels, every one of us, wings folded against uncertain futures, a string of decisions defining our wake. We stand like angels as we live, individual, unique. I want from you, you want from me, motivations building opportunities for happiness every day.

Someone shouted at me from a car earlier today, calling me a hateful bitch when I responded to his catcalls with, “You’re being rude.” But you know what? I try to live well. I recycle, I use my purchasing dollar to support fair business, I pirate media but introduce it to people I know will buy it. I send TED talks out to everyone possible. I fight for science, literacy, and higher quality education. I encourage small, easy changes, like only using cold water for laundry, as well as the more difficult ones, like refusing to back down when people ask “what’s the harm in holistic medicine?”. I believe in equal rights, supporting charity, and changing the current paradigm with better information architecture. Plus, last time I heard, I’m phenomenal with the kissing. Guy in the car? You’re an ass. Go suck rotten lemons.

I’ve got a lot of bitches to plow

2010 To-Do List

0. Get out of debt. 1. File taxes 1999-2009. 2. Learn to drive. 3. Finish highschool. 4. Get new glasses. 5. Take a dance class. 6. Learn something new.

Expanded:

1. Filing taxes requires having paperwork that I do not have. The government will provide them, though not right away. Once the paperwork is provided, I should be able to file the entire ten years all at once. Task mostly requires patience and obscene gobs of waiting, as well as calling numerous tax office help lines. (Cost: unknown.)
UPDATE: I have an appointment on April 26th to request my T4s.

2. Obtaining a driver’s license in BC is a multi-year process. First you must pass a written knowledge test, which I have no qualms about, and pass a vision screening test, which I am almost certain to fail, as my current glasses are scratched to a fog. This gets you a Learner’s license. After a year has passed as a Learner (L), you are then allowed to take your Class 7 test. When you pass the Class 7 road test, you’ll be given a Class 7 Novice (N) licence. You will need to display an N sign and obey the N restrictions. You will remain in the N stage for at least 24 months. After 24 months in the N stage, then and only then may you take the second road test. If I were to pass a written test tomorrow, I would not have a proper drivers license until I was thirty. Yes, it’s ridiculous. No, it does not B.C.’s roads any safer. For the record, I passed the written before, but it expired before I could do anything about it. (Cost: $15/written test, ?? – $1200/driving lessons, $50/driving test, $31/two year N license, $75 actual license.)

3. The General Educational Development (GED) is a set of five multiple choice tests in the areas of language arts writing, language arts reading, social studies, science and mathematics. The language arts writing test also requires the writing of an essay. By passing the tests, GED certificate holders demonstrate they possess academic abilities that are equivalent to those of secondary school graduates. Specific knowledge, however, such as mathematical and scientific formulas, specific literary works, etc., is not tested. Lucky me? They are only held seven times a year, on very particular dates. The next testing date is APRIL 30/MAY 1, which is my one year anniversary with Tony. The next one after that is JUNE 4/5. (Cost: $60/GED test, $10/Transcript of Marks.)

4. Thom, the fellow from LastWear, pointed me in the direction of Zenni Optical, as a reliable place for cheap on-line glasses. He swears by them, and his eyes are almost precisely as wretched as mine, if not worse. They only need your prescription and pupillary distance, the distance between the pupils of the eyes, center to center. This is significant, as last time I got glasses, my lenses alone cost approximately $350. (Cost: $75-90/eye exam, $20-$90/glasses.)

5. I felt I had to throw something on the list that didn’t feel dire. The Drive Dance Center just up the road has some nice looking mid-week classes I’d like to take. I’ve been feeling like a whale lately, a pale, soft creature, blubbery as protection against cold, and exercise can only do me good. Plus, dancing! I love dancing! You know what I don’t love? Sit-ups. And that none of my clothes fit. (Except for the most recent batch, in size large, that I bought so I would stop feeling like I couldn’t leave the house). (Cost: $145/11 weeks of progressive 1 hour clasess.)

6. Word.

the song of decaying carbon

I’ve been dreaming about owning a house lately. Not as in thinking about occasionally, but in the dead of the night when I’m unconscious sort of way. It’s a small house, this nonexistent place, two floors, with a bedroom upstairs that has a skylight over the bed and a golden wood floor, and solid, as the details, once discovered, do not change. Every time I have the dream, I discover new particulars. I learn them like running my fingers over the pattern of a patchwork blanket. The washroom is a blinding white, as are the french doors that lead to the back yard. We sing in the shower, there, loud enough to be heard from the kitchen. There are trees in the flower fenced back yard and a swing and books by the stairs, and sunlight, sunlight everywhere.

Is it a symptom of getting older? The reaching shadow of thirty stretching out backward in time to tease out a genetic desire to finally settle down? I feel threatened by these dreams, by how comfortable they are, how completely satisfied, when I’ve never been anywhere in reality I’ve wanted to permanantly live. They unsettle me. I wake feeling rattled, as if somewhere in my past I missed a crucial step that would have saved me, would have placed me, grounded me, given me a life I’d like to live, as if my repeated dreams are a glimpse into some trite, polished could-have-been. I refuse to give in to such quirks of fantasy. Instead I am annoyed at the notion. Why not images of a Jan Chipchase fantastic career? Or travel or amazing adventure? Why something so banal as a sweet, tiny hypothetical house? Where’s my flying car? My deregulated smart drugs? My endless supply of ferrets or fluffy kitten love?

The moment I knew I was lost, however, that this dream was doomed to repeat, is when I gave in to the myth, and lent it credence, and tried to slueth in my sleep, peering out the phantasmic windows, attempting to guess the location of this perfect fictional place.

shout out

356:2010/01/29 – trespassing

Mamihlapinatapai (sometimes spelled mamihlapinatapei) is a word from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the “most succinct word”, and is considered one of the hardest words to translate. It describes “a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start.”

I have been falling out of touch with my various spaces, posting so infrequently that my on-line identity, my journal especially, has become almost permanently paused, a silent, waiting space, the inhaled breath before a sentence held in rather than flowing as a transitory action. It was not my intention, and I hope to rectify my neglect soon. If I do not write here, how will we stay in contact? I am notorious for rarely using a phone. Without input, without interaction, I do not exist, I am invisible, a voyeur only, and do not have access to our beautiful friendships.

The silence has reason, however. In this drawn out slumber, dreams have been fomenting just off screen. I have been collecting myself, preparing to shift from being unemployed to potentially self employed, spending my time researching my knowledge and resources, collecting materials, and planning how to mix facts and skill and memory until they all blend into a new, hopeful venture. Something, finally, my own. I will have more details soon, as almost every day I finish another step towards the great unveil. Until then, I hope I have your support, as I feel that will be vital as I smack into various snags, and that going out on my own as an artist isn’t going to be something I look back on with regret.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing heavily discounted medical transcription for a Montreal journalist, typing for hours on stem cells, clinical trials, and how overseas clinics have been swindling desperate people with false claims of magic bullet cures. (It’s been interesting, if occasionally deadly depressing. Science Is A Verb Now, and it is The Future and it is Good, but holy cats are there some unethical bastards who firmly wave that flag.)

That, chance, and hard work have miraculously come together to make this month’s rent, but next month is still in the air. To that end, I’m also hoping to successfully apply for EI, something I’ve never done before. The process has been slowed for me due to how many employers it seems I’ve legally never had, but I’m trying to stay positive. If EI doesn’t work out due to some paperwork mess, then I’m feeling alright about lining up for the dole, as apparently they’d be fairly likely to send me to school, which is something I’ve been toying with lately as I have a fair handful of skills, but nothing useful I’m certified for, (my only certification is in stop motion animation), or could do for long periods of time due to my car accident injuries, (cabinet carpentry anyone? furniture refinishing?).

So, with all of that in mind, IT’S TIME FOR THE BIANNUAL SHOUT-OUT!

-::-

Please tell me your names, introduce yourself, post a picture! Everyone’s invited – friends, strangers, the lurking anonymous – especially those who are otherwise silent. Like a good house party, it’s always fascinating to see who turns up.

Tell me why you’re here, how you found me, what inspires you. Even if I know you, introduce yourself to others, and tell me what you’ve done lately. I want to see your faces, I want to read what you’d like everyone else to know. Tell us your stimulations, titillations; show us your pretty hidden treasures. Journals have been dying lately, I’d like to see who’s chosen to stick around. Anecdotes are welcome, as are photos, job descriptions, awesome links, and whatever else.

-::-

leaving the curse behind (story seed, a letter)

Tony illustrating a point with my picture and
a frame from one of my favourite music videos,
Elbow – the Bones of You

Video: Alasdair on a gigantic plinth in London as part of an art project.

Instead of going to Michael’s office after work yesterday, I went to the shop and got stick-on blackboard for the fridges, (both the one here and the one in Seattle), and scoured my way through Chapter’s cheap section looking for books about painting and colour, to try and better pin down what would be nice in the bedroom, (both here and in Seattle). I felt alone in the city, dislocated, as if my movements were an echo of someone else’s long past afternoon, a pattern of motion left like a mark on time, waiting for the right kind of lonely to step into it to manifest.

Eventually I shook it off, bought bus-tickets and a slurpee and went home, uncertain what my plans were, not thinking about it, reading a discount Hannibal Lector book and wondering what I needed to feel present in the day.

Thankfully David was home when I got in, and about as aimless as I was, so it was we found a mutual solace in finally tackling neglected projects around the house, our new sticky tape blackboard our starting off point. We folded away winter blankets and hung art and mirrors to Temple of the Dog and Live until eleven at night, when it was decided that continuing to bang nails into the wall might be crossing the line from antisocial to fully justified murder. Much of my art still needs to be framed, so most of what’s left isn’t going anywhere until some future pay-cheque, but it was mighty refreshing to get a start on what’s been on our To Do list since possibly last summer. The only thing that would have make the evening better was if I had a head full of hair dye, but again, of all things, that one will not hurt to wait.

Epistemology, the study of the properties of knowledge and truth

Bag, a photo of his daughter by Hendrik Kerstens

http://www.helenkellersimulator.com
Perpetual motion, like a spring wound in a heavenly kingdom. I can feel potential building, the tension of seasons, of thrilling decisions, of a grand tipping point somewhere near, almost as touchable as the closest horizon. Somewhere soon I will find a solution, the magical arrangement of pieces that will let it all out, create an escape for the pressure, allow me to blossom into the next incarnation of exquisite useful flower.

My internal barometer is, in part, my hair. The farther I neglect the colour, the more I know something needs to change. Now, for the first time in many years, I am only negligently dyed off my natural red blonde. Another is my music. When was the last time I practiced the saw, running rills, songs, and scales meant only for me?

David comes home, our lovely neighbor Randa in tow, “Why do you have a colander on your head?” “Oh!” I say, disingenuous, whisking it off my head, “I had company.” I spend eight hours on the bus every weekend, waiting in travel to see Tony or to get back to Vancouver in time for work, and close to five hours every week waiting for Michael, who gets out of the office around an hour after I do, so we can travel home together, but to myself I only seem to find a handful of ten minute increments where I can feel creatively infected, ripe with the mental control of whispering ghosts, where I have space enough to make.

This selection of habits grew so slowly, so organically, that it was confusing me, how little time was suddenly available. It wasn’t until I counted the hours on my fingers, waiting at a street corner for a light to change, that I realized what started as moments few enough to blink away has expanded, accumulated into enough minutes to fill an entire day a week of my eaten time spent stilled, ineffectual, accomplishing nothing, creating nothing, being merely a body, adding nothing to the world but a physical space.

This, among other things, perturbs me at the level of bone.

To that end, however, as I cannot afford a tool with which to fix this problem, and the other things are other stories, what colour should I dye my hair?

I want to meet the sort of man who will go barefoot in a tuxedo.

www.wernerherzblog.com
“This is not Werner Herzog. This is his blog”

Writing is in backlog. Photos are in backlog. My time is my own, but my tools, they are failing. My computer was wiped clean and still isn’t working. I don’t even know where to start.

Flew into town this morning, head thick with the memory of dancing with Rafael and Tony in Seattle after That Mike’s Valentine’s show. Something about the motion, about the movement, reminded me, the weightless acceleration, the droning, continual prop plane hum. Despite the novelty of being in the air, (a day where I’ve been flying never feels quite real), I curled up against Will and napped for part of the trip, bag in the back, camera tucked against my belly, my hands warm against his side. Cracking my eyes open to look down at the water and islands smoothly running past below me, I felt safe. I felt safe and protected and alright. Everything in my head, no matter what it was, was alright.

Last weekend, in Whistler, was much the same. Waking up on the couch after after three hours of sleep to Dragos on the porch, knocking at the top of a champagne bottle with a samurai sword, attempting to slice through the glass so he could make properly extravagant mimosa, that also felt like home. The sheer absurdity that no one questioned, like flying, was an every day miracle that we all passed through, as comforting as curling up exhausted and wrung out, but not dry. It was exactly the sort of pretty thing I needed. It is important to have perspective, to realize and deeply understand that our lives are all minuscule grains of sand, but it is equally essential to learn that there are always a million fascinating, beautiful things happening in every direction during every second, and that sometimes we are lucky enough to be part of them.

how I live halfway

Bre Pettis and Kio Stark’s “Cult of Done” manifesto via bOINGbOING:

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

Frank is putting the moves on my computer tonight, bringing it back from the steely edge of death. Once that’s finished, I am taking these rules and turning them into a nifty desktop wallpaper, to make certain for awhile that I see them every day.

Currently my home desktop is a gentle sepia photo of a young girl with a fluttering dove, an anonymous photo of a magician’s assistant, beautiful and inspiring. Before that was Let’s Keep This Party Rolling, a New York City photograph by Rodney Smith of a couple kissing on top of a fleet of taxis. What’s yours?

Like the desire for a silver necklace, the need to find somewhere to put her hands.

Ancient Virus Gave Wasps Their Sting
David has been cursing from the kitchen this evening. Little bursts of oddly personal swearing accompanied by the tiny rain-like clatter of LED lights falling to the floor. He bought them on our walk home and has been pinning them up into the crease where the walls meet the ceiling in the kitchen, something I’ve been meaning to do for months, since I put the mirrors up, but never managed to financially justify. I think it will be pretty when it’s done, in the usual way muted lights sort of always are, like unobtrusively holding hands with someone you bravely love.

Me, I’m tinkering with my computer while catching up on Penn Says, Penn Jillette’s Sony-funded personal video blag, sincerely one of my favourite things on the internet. It’s not something I check on daily, like Sorry-Mom (I bang the worst dudes), but it makes me continually happy, so much so that I’ve made sure to pop in at least once a month since he started it over a year ago to listen to everything he posts. He’s intelligent, funny, and classically cynical, (and self-mocking), while remaining just unique enough I don’t agree with everything he says, a devastating mixture of traits I can only find attractive.

my menorah is broken, so I’m using tea lights. they lack a certain something

More goofy Salton Sea goodness via Lung

From the perpetually delightful brain of Mike Levens:

1. Get born in Mecca.
2. Move to Medina.
3. ???
4. Prophet!

Happy first day of Chanukah, everyone!

Apparently it’s Christmas this week too. Generally I notice a little earlier, reminded by parties with good cheer, but this year, not so much. Parties have been thin on the ground and I’ve barely seen more than ten people in the last week. I’ve been too distracted by my computer slowly imploding at home, the failing bus system, my thinning relationship, maybe not having enough money to successfully cover both rent and utilities, and feeling more trapped as every day New Year’s approaches a little more while I still have no plans to celebrate.

I’ve been trying to get my mind off it by jumping through the snow every chance I get, letting the pure child-like glee of all the cold white shoot in through my eyes and into every cell of my body. It really helps – I only wish I had a sled or a toboggan or even a crazy carpet.

Tonight I’m going to be filming the lighting of the hockey-stick shaped ice menorah downtown at the Denman St. ice-rink. (It’s by donation, you should come! There’s going to be latkes!) Tomorrow, though, I don’t have any plans after work. Would anyone like to come play in the snow with me?

Tag: life

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