Tag: there is no god

letting the cat out of the bag for a trip around the block

Shane Koyczan
Promotional photo for Shane Koyczan.
  • ChatRoulette Love Song: speed dating done right.

    Arron took me on a driving lesson the other day, all the way from Home Depot to Metrotown, the farthest I’ve ever gone in a car. I suspect he found it vaguely terrifying, but given my lack of experience, I think I did rather well. No one died, nothing got wrecked, and I finally found myself okay with driving at more than 30 km/hour. I had been vaguely concerned that driving his truck would be somehow scarier than the little car I had been learning in with Young Drivers of Canada, (bigger equals more dangerous), but instead I discovered that though I disliked the hugeness of the thing, (the amount of space it takes up is slightly ridiculous), my years of living in a truck have apparently made me significantly more comfortable sitting higher up. It feels more natural being able to look down at other vehicles, rather than up at them. I blame my mother and her addiction to vans. Also, not dealing with a clutch meant that I stopped mixing up the pedals, so that was a victory, too. The best one, probably. Notes: remembering to check blind spots, figuring out how much space is actually required to change lanes. (Hint: significantly less than I think).

  • Little Wheel: a sweet, beautiful art game involving robots.

    I had a try-out day of work with Agentic yesterday, the web development company I’ve been interviewing with that I rather like. It was a very relaxed time, some easy work in a nice environment, surrounded by quiet, friendly people, not stressful at all. I was mostly left to myself, just me and a desk and a small pile of simple tasks. It was only after, during my gentle walk home, that I started feeling worried I wouldn’t get the job, as if my body had saved up all my concerns for later, tucked away in a bottom drawer of my heart until it was deemed safe to let them out. Silly, in a way, as it is out of my hands now. Everything left to do is on their side – talking to my references, deciding which candidate to hire, then calling us with the decision. (I was told they’ll let me know no later than Monday.) In the meantime, all I can do is wait and cross my fingers that I am what they need. It would be great to work in a positive environment again. I’m tired of spending time in offices where you can tell that everyone there wishes they weren’t.

  • Mills & Boon: self-portraits that mimic the covers of romance novels.

    My others news: Lung and I are finally starting a photography business together, Fox-Rain Wedding Photos. We’ve been talking about it for years, but the timing was never quite right. This time, however, I’ve already kludged together a solid rough draft of our website that I plan to take live in the next few days, before he leaves for California next week, and hope to get some sort of quick logo nailed down by the end of today, the better to toss on business cards asap. Neither one of us is particularly flush at the moment, so start-up money is tight, but I’ve done my research and I’m not only certain we can do this on the cheap, I’m absolutely confident we’ll succeed. If we can get everything together quick enough, things could even be up and running by the end of the month. Expect us at a tacky wedding fair near you, soon! We’ll be the people who don’t suck.

    • he came closer while I was being pushed away

    I am left by the side of the road, a fugitive leaning silently against a wall as I listen to his truck drive away. I’m tired, he said, of being the one who always has to be strong, and in that moment it was like he had wrapped me the most beautiful gift even as I crumpled, destroyed by the echo of those words leaving my own mouth, over and over again. I wanted wings, then, to furl around him, great feathery things, mythical and incredible, powerful enough to erase pain, the better to protect him from the world. Pinions that scraped the ceiling. Instead my arms found him, found him and held him, while a part of me shattered, horrified, against the promise that I would never be that person, as I resisted the sour memory of times that should never have been.

    And so, standing in the street, solitude, the desire to howl down the moon. Anger at myself, at the past that robbed me of what this could be. Such a gift should mean more to me, I should be thrilled, yet here I am, incapable of carrying it, too weak to shout, too weak to even speak, too beaten down. Years of inequality choking me, I rest against the wet cement blocks of an anonymous warehouse office and try not to hate. If such a treasure had been presented to me a few months ago, I would have been beyond grateful, filled to the edges with joy, a flower in bloom. It was the only thing I wanted, just for myself. I would have been able to cradle it, this admired jewel made of fire, but now feels too late. Instead I have been broken. The devastating distance I tried so hard to survive has finally claimed me for its own.

    a thousand thoughts

    I felt immediately welcome at my interview this morning, which wasn’t stressful in the slightest, but an undeniably positive experience. I liked the questions, the interviewer, the vibe, everything! I especially appreciated the quick tour around the office at the end, as it confirmed my brightest hope about the company, that it’s built of the astonishing power that comes from good people doing good work. I feel like I could very happily fit in there in a very satisfying and productive way, like calling to like. I’m told I’ll hear back from them on Monday, but to send in another résumé in the meantime, one that covers my creative work, too.

    My only worry is that I may have seemed distracted, as I was silently agitated while we spoke, all too aware of my lover, sitting in a clinic across town, about to go into surgery. Between one waiting breath and another, his name will be called, and they will move him to one of the hospitals, then to an operating room where they will strap him down to a table and drill into his knee. It is not the surgery that concerns me, however, but the the anesthetics, because the only chemicals that will work on him are the sort that are tricky to properly balance. Too little and he’ll wake up, snap the needles piercing his flesh, and destroy the operation, coming out worse than he went in, but too much will poison his heart, a defibrillation-resistant dysrhythmia will set in, then, quickly, cardiac arrest.

    Being my usual reasonable self, however, I did my best to stay objective and only focus on the interview. I may not have been as winning as usual, but it was a pleasant conversation, even so, and I am grateful for it. If nothing else, it warms my heart to know that those people are out there in the world, making it better, a tiny line of code at a time.

    sometimes we have the same colour iris

    He smells of comfort, hair products, and exhaustion, solid and shadow eyed. He is wounded, oddly fragile, a count-down of days until surgery, less than the fingers on one hand. Five, now four. We are a chord, complementary notes, time shifted. My inability to climb stairs, now his. The need for a cane, the inability to concentrate through pain. Later this week doctors will strap him to a table, do something complicated with hot injections of plastic, drills and thick needles, fill the cracks in his knee with medical foam, a supportive core of artificial cartilage to carry his bones. A handful of pills every day after, as if he were dying. Expect: chemical powders, fuzzy headed answers, and sleep, almost a sickness. I am aware, concerned, but trying not to worry. When he looks at me, his pupils still dilate.

    in for a penny, in for a pound

    Seaside Improvisation, by Richard Siken

    I take off my hands and I give them to you but you don’t
    want them, so I take them back
    and put them on the wrong way, the wrong wrists. The yard is dark,
    the tomatoes are next to the whitewashed wall,
    the book on the table is about Spain,
    the windows are painted shut.
    Tonight you’re thinking of cities under crowns
    of snow and I stare at you like I’m looking through a window,
    counting birds.
    You wanted happiness, I can’t blame you for that,
    and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy
    but tell me
    you love this, tell me you’re not miserable.
    You do the math, you expect the trouble.
    The seaside town. The electric fence.
    Draw a circle with a piece of chalk. Imagine standing in a constant cone
    of light. Imagine surrender. Imagine being useless.
    A stone on the path means the tea’s not ready,
    a stone in the hand means somebody’s angry, the stone inside you still
    hasn’t hit bottom.

    -::-

    I’m going to Seattle today, a two o’clock bus that should get me there around six. It feels almost criminal because of the weather outside, crisp, bright, so promising. There was snow on the ground last night when my lover drove me home, my bare feet sank into it by an inch while walking on the gravel behind his home. Earlier lightning, small dark rolls of quiet thunder.

    My body bleeds today where I was rough with it last night. I am torn. Bruised, too, with carnations of gentle blue and yellow across my back like insomnia’s physical manifestation, a rebellion of capillaries protesting against lack of sleep. I am shamed that I hurt so much, so easily. The mirror will not meet my eyes. Everything aches – my devotion, the stress of it, the one drop of blood.

    vivisection

    moon

    “I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.” – Charlotte Bronte, English novelist.

    What profound monsters live in the center of my ribs, drowning in cruel jokes as thick as poisoned honey, lining my throat with quills. I close the door and they swallow me, strings attached to every limb, a film that coats the inside of my body and shrinks with every breath. Bring me the head of this discontent, show me the platter, silver and red, show me the reason for this escape. Where was it that I felt betrayed? Depths, darkness, hair wrapped around my finger, a reminder, the source of the stifled anger, silent until it surfaced, a comment laced in arsenic, self-resentment, and, at worst, a painful thread of hate.

    bittersweet week

    THE BROTHERS QUAY DO STANISLAW LEM’s MASKA!!

    My plans have been falling through left, right, and center the last few days, near unbelievably so, but there’s been just enough nice to make up for it. I had two shoots this past weekend, one with Mishka and Jim, who wanted engagement photos, headshots, and wedding invitations, and another with Shane for promotional photos for his new website, and I might be spending this upcoming weekend in Seattle, following my dear friends The Mutaytor as they kick off their Pacific Northwest tour. (I was given an iPod touch for the engagement photos, too, which means I NOW HAVE INTERNET IN MY POCKET. So. Exciting!). Good times!

    Today I’m processing my photos from the weekend, picking through and polishing, getting into the sort of flow I can get lost in for hours, and writing poetry back and forth with New York. I’ve already finished my first run through the engagement photos and soon I’ll be finished with Shane’s pictures, and then it will be time to start making Valentine’s dinner for my sweetheart, who I look forward to seeing. Things there have been an odd, bohemian mix of blissful and bizarrely unreliable, dotted with both raw adoration and vast misunderstandings, so the prospect of an actual “date” night, though unusual, is somewhat reassuring.

    a long, long list that I continually add to

    The Primer
    by Christina Davis

    She said, I love you.

    He said, Nothing.

    (As if there were just one
    of each word and the one
    who used it, used it up).

    In the history of language
    the first obscenity was silence.

  • An ASL interpretation of Crazy, by Gnarls Barkly
  • An ASL interpretation of F*ck You, by Cee Lo.

    My lover’s been whisked away this weekend, tossed without warning onto a late-night flight. I was going to head down to Chinatown today for the New Year’s parade but, in the light of this very sudden change of plans, I decided to stay in and finally print out my finished tax paperwork instead. Maybe attack some of my often neglected German lessons or my backlog of programming tutorials, too. Do laundry. Productivity in solidarity! Jah. Der junge ist in einem flugzeug. Das mädchen wartet mit liebe in ihrem herzen.

    Also on the to-do list: hang the aluminum deer head, sift through the last three two mess boxes, get printer ink, print tax forms, make a packet of them and mail them off, polish the silver tea-cups, update the minimalfox blog, sort the mending, do some mending, bathe the cats, clean out the hall closet, list more things for sale, finish David’s laundry, fold the towels, research nifty stops for April’s roadtrip, find a SATA case enclosure, apply for another First Aid certificate, patch the wall, fix the coat rack, get signed up for Quest, take the returnables to the recycling center, measure art for framing, find suitable picture frames, write a poem and a love letter, track down An Idiot Abroad, deliver books to Jenn, rediscover my recipe for cake-inna-cup, bleach the shower curtain, harass Young Drivers of Canada, arrange for more driving lessons, rewrite my CV, update A Thread of Grace, identify what’s in the mystery cord drawer, go swimming, soak in a hot tub, fiddle with foxtongue.com, replace duvet, help clean mum’s house, empty and sand the bureau, check my contacts prescription, acquire contacts, replace the VHS, find out the shipping costs for the IKEA flooring, take the medium format film to The Lab to be processed, attempt ice-skating, sort the linens, attack under the bathroom sink, take vitamins, rearrange what’s on the living-room walls, properly group my data, find the paperclips, back up the laptop, shed a light into the shadows of my heart, lime powder my boots, re-glue the soles, find a home for the electric pussy-willow, paint the baroque frame in my bedroom, replace my bike chain, get a spindle of blank DVDs, tidy the pigeon-holes, file and folder paperwork by year, update Craigslist postings, catch up on photo processing, attend a poetry slam, reply to neglected letters, change the sheets, bake cookies, listen to more Vampire Weekend, put all my change into a penny jar, replace a hook on a bra, try to track down silver-notebook, have a snuggly date night, collect my mail from Seattle, take more pictures of my friends, untangle my computer cable spaghetti, make some media mix-tapes, schedule a Sunday Tea…

    • don’t put this letter in the pocket near your heart

    “Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it.” —House of Leaves

    Though set lovingly adrift in a cotton sea of comfortable bedsheets, in the best of all possible company, I didn’t sleep enough last night. To my disgrace, I took Arron along with me, waking him as I tried to creep out of bed, the better to pace outside, dressed in rain, and walk out my stress, the painful squeeze in my chest. We spoke in the dark until the attic of morning, that interstitial breath of night which claims “too early” as well as “too late”. (Stars not quite beginning to fade.) Today I’m left feeling as if I’ve worn out something essential, like the catch to the spring that lives inside my ribs, as well as incredibly grateful.

    a crow carrying pearls

    365:2011.01.30 - Once upon a time there was a girl who composed love letters inside her head as she was falling asleep

    “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” -Carl Jung

    Once upon a time there was a girl who composed love letters inside her head as she was falling asleep, words in white against the darkness in her lids. She would lie and listen to his breathing, wondering what would be important later, wondering at the odds. In her hands, his, fingers laced, his death-grip a silent promise. She would kiss him goodnight, the angles of his body in the dark the same shape as the word home, while in the center of her body a garden of tightly wrapped desert flowers began to find purchase, patiently waiting for the right conditions to finally flourish into bloom.

    -::-

    I’ve been enjoying being more social lately. Jay came over earlier this week, as well as Joshua, Nadia, and Brian, and though I haven’t been spending as much time with Arron as I would like, we’ve been speaking every day, which is it’s own sort of treat, as it makes me warm to hear how I make him smile. It’s good to be rebuilding, seeing people who shake me out of habit, remind me that there is more to the world than looking for work.

    Today I’m living off oranges, peeling them with chipped silver fingernails, satisfied to be curled up in bed with my laptop with no plans at all except for job hunting and a driving lesson later, though tomorrow I will venture outside. I will dress up my smile, put feathers in my hair, and walk over to The Prophouse Cafe, the highly eccentric coffee shop on Venebles across from Uprising Breads, and settle in for Shadow On The Land, a beautiful evening of music and enchantment, the listening party for Jess Hill‘s darling new album-to-be, Orchard. Mind of a Snail will be performing, too, with everything kicking off at 8 pm.