my friends are more awesome than I am


The Hasenmenschen Ballet, by Marcel Steger & Luzie Strecker

I’m leaving for the Island after work today. Thumbing a ride to the ferries with Lung, to be snagged by Esme on the other side, I’m delivering one of these to one of these and don’t expect to be back until Monday morning, when apparently I’m being put on a sea-place back. (Because life sometimes is just like that.)

In other news of the faintly ridiculous, Dragos is holding my bikini hostage, on the terms that I only get it back if I accept a year of cell-phone for my birthday, something we’ve been arguing about for almost a year. As soon as I began my usual protesting, however, he waved a gleeful finger in my face and said, “Ah-ha! This time you cannot possibly refuse. I know which one I’m going to give you. This isn’t just any phone. It’s got a story.” and proceeded to play to my greatest weakness, that of narrative. The one he’s picked out, it has history. Not only history, but hilarious history – a fascinating little back-story involving an Argentina black market, expensive consumer electronics that fell off the back of a truck, untraceable drug dealer SIM cards, and what happened next, when a British friend flashed around just one too many fresh hundred dollar bills – and, as usual, he was right. I can’t say no. How could I? How could anyone?

Also, though only tangentially related, there was a story about basement scam strippers, but that was someone else.

just a slice of life in general, I had something more to say but it got lost behind the couch

My mother writes a splendid explanation of her time at the University of British Columbia.

Earlier this week, Jenn came down for breakfast and gave me a packet of glow-in-the-dark fridge letters. I just opened them tonight. Sliding one nail under the plastic and attempting to pry it free of the thin cardboard backing launched every little letter violently airborne and straight into all the stove elements. I was impressed. After fishing them all out with a twist of wire, I’ve written GOD IS VENEREAL on the freezer and left the rest of the letters to the other occupants on the apartment. (Of which there is going to be one less as of March, as Ryan is officially moving in with Eva instead of continuing the sham of living with me and Graham.) It seemed the easiest thing to write, but now I’m vaguely concerned at my frame of mind. I seem to remember that the most common message in the english language is HELLO.

Neried rants a good shot at explaining her being a mother.

Nothing lingers like the realization that almost my every reference lately to interesting conversations has begun with “We were in bed and..” It’s like a bad habit, it brings to mind all the wrong connotations, like I prefaced with “and we were taking off each other’s clothes..” instead. I stop. My sentence echoes in the air as I halt midbreath and wish I could reverse what I just said. Thankfully, my friends understand. It’s possible they’re used to me. I’ve forgotten. This week I had the treat of a late night outing with someone who knows all my older friends, the clan of theatre folk who are a generation ahead of people like Antonio and Mimi. It was like a rewind on a few years. It was a gift. The nicest thing he said to me, “You were like you are now.”

My dear friend Joseph is about to be laid off, so if anyone knows of any work in Montreal for aerospace engineers…?

It’s a wedding. They are dressed in their best clothes, lying on a hill. They look like a carefully staged moment for a documentary on the history of stock photography. Her lips are painted pink. From his hang a flower picked from the grass beside his hand. Posed on the brink of conversation, they are skirmishing with words, throwing a miniature fit in avoidance. “Congress is preparing an investigation, and I will work with members of both parties to make sure this effort is thorough.” she said. “I don’t believe you,” he replied. “Look, that cloud’s shaped like a stork.”

Nicholas has been spending slightly too much time on-line.

One of the perks of my job is free long distance phone calls to anywhere in Canada and the U.S. As I have a few stretches of hours wherein all I’m doing is upping my freecell score to ridiculous levels or reading a book, I’ve been encouraged to try it out. This offer sounds like cool water in the scorching sun to me. I like this opportunity to get some of you a little better, to get to finally greet my family in a different medium. If you want to hear from me, simply fill out my little poll. Store hours of operation are 11 – 6 PST.

There is a saint created in lonely iron.

I undid the top buttons of my shirt to let him press his hand against my heartbeat. The heat of him held me down, we were like statues in the midst of madness, the only still people on Heroin Row. Crackton’s the one place in town that I won’t take my shoes off. We were an island, addiction beating as waves, as sound around us. Singing and screaming, people yelling and scanning the sidewalk for dropped rock or cigarette butts. There’s no darkness to hide in that doesn’t already have its own slurred speech. It comes at you from all directions, the pleading of the needy.

I used to live there, right behind the Carnegie, in a strange space in the basement of what used to be a vintage bank, all grand ceilings and open floor. The shambling creatures that used to be humans are familiar, the hounds that chase them nothing new. Once I woke up there and opened my eyes to daylight and the sight through a crack between the curtains of a prostitute shooting a syringe into the base of a mans penis that she was firmly working in her mouth. He screamed, but I suspect he liked it.

Nocholas is coming to town today, an impromptu plan. Plans for today are somewhat fuzzy, but I don’t think we need any. He’s going to call when he gets into town. If anyone’s interested in meeting up, give me a call as well. He’s got some phone numbers but not many.

Which reminds me, Andrew‘s lent me a hand held PDA thing to keep phone numbers and writing in. I’m trying to get rid of my phone avoidance and actually call people. Part of this will be having phone numbers on me rather than in a single, mostly old, list on my computer. Part of my problem is that when I meet people, I tend to collect their numbers on little scraps of paper which soon get lost or on my hands which end up being washed before I write the digits down. This PDA idea, I am finding it exceedingly useful.