Tag: travel

I bought my train ticket to Seattle. I leave Wednesday, then fly out on Friday night.

Rebecca nadia duncan

This past weekend was exhausting, the sort that feels alright to leave behind. Saturday was eaten up by David’s sister’s wedding, a strange affair out in Abbotsford at a family restaurant, small, informal, slightly terrifying, and Sunday was taken up with Slutwalk, a thousand person protest march against victim shaming that Katie N. helped put together. Oddly, out of the two, even though Slutwalk was four hours of being on my feet, running around and taking pictures, surviving the little wedding took more out of me. Something to do with social shock, maybe, or walmart-culture inspired depression. Either way, it’s not something I would be willing to do again.

There was also a long, miserable walk home from Broadway on Sunday, broken and alone. It ended with John catching me in my room crying, so he went out and brought back two delicious cupcakes from the new place up the street, presenting them to me in a small paper box, “Here’s some men-are-scum cupcakes.” I sniffled and laughed, and said, “Men aren’t scum.” He replied, “Yes they are sweetie. Trust me, I am one. Eat your cupcake. It’ll help make everything better.” And he was right. It did.

(He also, tongue firmly planted in cheek, brought me a voodou doll when he arrived from New Orleans to “help” with my heartbreak. It’s a grassy thing dressed in pink, with a burned plastic doll face and a magic lima bean tied to its waist with some leather. Creepy looking, yes, but with the effect somewhat ruined by the mass produced tag around its neck: FOR ATTRACTION.)

Today I’m processing pictures, doing laundry, and last minute packing for my trip to NY, making certain I have cords for things, trying to remember if I packed any stockings, triple checking that I’ve put aside pants that fit me, shirts for every weather, vitamins, hairpins, toothpaste, moonlight, music, the moose hat, and things with feathers on them. Really I’ve been more or less ready for a couple of days, I could have left yesterday, the only thing left is to find a missing bird skull earring, but there’s something comforting about being extra sure.

Ten Days until NYC!

Now that I’m planning to be away for my birthday, friends have started fishing around, trying to figure out what magical thing would make a great present for before I fly away. This year, though, rather than adding to my collection of stuff, which I have been trying to significantly pare down anyway, I’d rather that people kick in a few bucks toward my trip. The gift of experience, of freedom, of escape and new places, (especially given my dire finances), is the best gift of all!

Thank you so much!





making a google map from me to you

David and I have had a house guest this week, Andrew, a nice stranger from Montreal, a friend of a friend who, when moving here, suddenly found himself without a place to live. He was going to be here two or three weeks, but he’s already found an apartment, which means he moves out today. Serendipitous, as my uncle John arrives from New Orlean’s tomorrow, so now we can offer him a place to stay, too. Only the couch for the first while, but then my room while I am away.

Strange to think that I’ll be flying to New York in approximately ten days. I’m still utterly fuzzy on what I’m going to be doing there, besides visiting with Van Sise and Vitka and Mordecai. I have a few things solid, like visiting the Guggenhiem and MoMa, making sure to catch the Alexander McQueen exhibit there, and trying to score cheap tickets to Fuerza Bruta, but I’m still searching for suggestions.

So, beautiful people, I’m going to be in New York from May 21st to June 2nd. Where should I go?

Today’s Best Spam Subject Line: Can Lupus Sufferers Use Henna?

Rise Up Fallen Angel, an imaginary exploitation poster

Rise Up Fallen Angel, an imaginary exploitation film poster.

Yesterday was a good day. It started fraught with computer problems, the stupid sort that feel like steel wool endlessly scrubbing against the back of your eyes, but ended on a high note, with a visit to A. that left me feeling better than I have in weeks, to the point where I caught myself beaming at strangers all the way home, waving a broken stick of flowers I picked up off the ground. Oh dopamine, how I have missed you. It’s left me feeling super productive and significantly less like I’ve been crushed by steel plates. Not quite myself again, but a step in the right direction. I got up at eight and have been working on neglected tasks ever since, answering e-mail, putting away laundry, calling people, making plans, and continuing to tackle the broken hard-drives of idiotic doom*.

*First I could see the hard-drive, but not interact with it, then after Joshua worked on it an hour, it was discovered that the case was too old to be supported by Win7. Then, after the case was swapped, the drive, ostensibly a terabyte, refused to show up as anything but 1Gb, while the SeaGate software specifically meant to fix such errors has refused to run. Kill it with fire.

There’s been other good news, too. Tony’s going to be in town this weekend, up for a visit with me and Tamea, and staying here on Friday, the better for dancing and Saturday breakfast together. Apparently I’m being paid for my gig with The Short Story Long this weekend and my antique bureau should be selling soon, too, (see all my listings), which should go a distance towards clearing away my credit card bill and getting me down to Seattle for my NYC trip.

Unemployment has left me financially devastated this past year, so it will be especially delicious to finally shoot down some debts. To wit: EI sends me monthly letters, asking me to pay them back over a grand. ICBC calls every three weeks, reminding me to pay off $100 in fare evasion tickets someone put in my name while I was in Montreal. My credit card’s maxed out, a slow death that one, used up on groceries. I finally did all my taxes, dating back ten years, (minus 2010 and 2011), but through the magic of interest, late fees, and general tax evils, even after living below the poverty line for a decade, I still owe them $70. It seems like the worst part of being poor is that the system is set up to keep you there.

But back to the good stuff! David was just promoted to manager of the Yaletown Book Warehouse! Not only will he be finally making a living wage, soon he’ll be able to start saving to go back to school to be a primatologist. Related to books, but more personally, I got to meet Zsuzsi Gartner, one of my favourite authors, at her book launch for Better Living Through Plastic Explosives. She’s going to be doing a reading at the VPL main branch on May 11th that I’ve decided I cannot miss. Also, the Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret is hosting a pay-what-you-can, tickets-only-at-the-door show at the Roundhouse on Sunday, 2 pm. Would anyone like to come with?

I’ve never been to NYC

Given that my recent job interviews have all fizzled, my relationship has horrifically dissolved, and my birthday is fast approaching, I have decided it’s finally perfect timing to use up my plane ticket to visit Van Sise in New York city*.

I fly out of SeaTac to NYC on May 20th and return June 2nd.

I am going to miss Rafael’s Folklife and a few other things, (my original birthday plan was to set up a Whole Beast Feast, hit up the 40th Annual Folklife for a day, then hitch-hike with some strangers to the 10th Annual Sasquatch Festival for the rest of the long weekend), but given my present circumstances as a connoisseur of sad situations, it just seems like a better idea to be gone. Every night my dreams ache, my body wrenches with unhappiness, yet in the morning, I can’t seem to find reasons to be awake. I lie there motionless, wrapped up in nothingness, unable to conjure any appetite for life, any thread of grace, any desire at all for my bland, banal hopes or disembodied future. If I had a job or were in school, I’m sure it would be different, I would feel that my life was moving forward instead of slipping away, but as it currently is, a lonely narrative of inevitable failure after inevitable failure, all I want is to be away from here, all I want is escape.

*Originally we were going to wander around the southern states, visiting Atlanta and New Orleans, rounding off the trip, if we were lucky and it was delayed, with the last Space Shuttle Launch. Instead his work got in the way and the already-purchased plane ticket was cashed in for credit and put aside for a visit with him later.

news from the dark

  • Chris Dame writes about our favourite night at Burning Man.

    Plans have changed, the April road-trip between Orlando and New Orleans with Van Sise has been canceled, perhaps to be picked up at some later date, replaced instead with a trip to New York City, when as yet unknown.

    In other news, the shiny web development company I interviewed at last week has asked me to come in for a try-out day of work, to see how I fit. They’ve whittled down the applicants to two. The other candidate is working with them today. I go in on Monday. It would be earlier, but this week my life’s been swallowed by a different madness, one of the best: CanSecWest. No sleep until Friday!

    • looking for atlantis

    Shane Koyczan
    Another of Shane Koyczan.

    I attended a Napoleonic Star Wars themed birthday party on Friday until the small of Saturday morning, dressed as a courtier/tie-fighter rebel pilot, lace ruffles fluttering from the cuffs of my orange pilot’s jumpsuit, a flouncy white cravat at my neck, hair snail-coiled into tiny Leia buns, lips painted in a tiny red heart, and then I walked three miles home in the incredible snow, taking the long route to see a man who wasn’t there, and stopping to buy ice-cream on the way. Coated in white, dripping as I walked up the counter, the windows obscured by flurries. Seriously, you should have seen the sales clerk’s face.

    -::-

    Shane called just after midnight the other night, thrilled with his pictures, asking if I could shoot his band soon, too. Of course, I said, I would love to, so we set it up that we’ll see each other next month, when they’re in town rehearsing for When I Was A Kid, his upcoming show at the Cultch. If all goes well, however, I’ll miss it completely, as I’ll be out of the country as he stands on stage, somewhere I have never been before with someone I’ve never met yet utterly adore. (My favourite kind of exciting!)

    -::-

    I have a job interview coming up on Friday, a follow-up to a promising phone call I had last week. I really hope I get this one, far more than usual, as it seems like a perfect combination: a company of good people doing good things, ethical, open-source, media-savvy, and clever, within an easy bike-ride from home. I’ve been keeping busy lately, taking pictures, writing, catching up on MIT’s open course-ware, learning new things, but underneath the triumphant glaze of productivity, there’s been an unwavering desire to jump back into the workforce, take part in more than my own little projects. This job, if I get it, could be the key to an entirely new level of personal satisfaction, so fingers crossed that I am what they need.

    I just saw a bald eagle snatch a fish from the water

    “A kiss would do it.
    One sprinkle of milkwhite salt
    and I’ll break like bread at your table.”
    – S. Sloat

    Uncertain about my weekend away, I find everything I wanted to write about draining away, replaced by the landscape outside the train windows. There is a large, strange boat abandoned on part of the shore, a hulking, rotten thing, the discarded corpse of a predator. Every time I see it, I want to visit. Climb upon its ribs, explore the depths of its throat. The house near it, that of a witch. Driftwood, black paint, sorrow. Somewhere a hand-painted sign, STAY AWAY. The water is smooth today, enough to reflect the sky, a strange illusion of clouds and occasional threads of blue. Soon it is replaced by green farm fields dotted with tiny isolated homesteads, the tracks swinging in-land. A bridge, blue herons, the shock of a log yard with violent wood-chippers, the elegant, golden spray of chewed material gouting from the top of a long metal tube, propelled by a quick, vicious conveyor belt and the hunger of consumerism. Touch it and you’d lose your hand. (It scares a child sitting behind me). Next, a dense, sputtering flock of birds swarming like massive bees, a horror of movement next to a small white farmhouse, paint peeling in antique strips as potentially old as the magenta hot-rod rusting out beside it, fins pointed to the sky like a prayer.

    The closer I travel to Canada, the more everything is gray. The more the trees I like, honest, naked, are replaced with depressing evergreens. To another set of eyes, the view might be spectacular – inspiring, pristine nature of the sort usually found only in magazines – but if it wasn’t for my lover in Vancouver, I would be certain that I’m traveling the wrong direction, towards failure. My home behind me, as if I am running away.

    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.

    Southern States Road Trip

    Hey everyone, I need to know if you live in or in between Orlando and New Orleans, so I can come visit!

    I’m flying out of Seattle on April 13th to Orlando, where I’ll be meeting up with a TOP SEKRIT FREINDZOR, and from there we’re spending almost two weeks in the Southern States, driving from Orlando to New Orleans and back, with stops in Charleston, Savannah, and Montgomery, with everything else being flexible. (I fly back April 26th.) Considering we’ve never met, and I’ve never been any of these places, I expect this is going to be a very interesting trip.