Author: foxtongue

putting my head back together


Padova, rezando
Originally uploaded by odei.

Surely seven steps have been taken. Days collapsing in exhaustion, settling yourself back into the city, alcohol aware, wondering where I am. I know that not once has an hour walked by without handing me a card with your holy name written on it. My eyes falling down, unable to speak it out loud without reverberations stirring within my heart. Scripted now, I don’t know what to say. It’s been a week. Every day an anniversary missed. I’m waiting. I gave you something and it’s time you gave it back. It’s been decided I’m a widow now, the grave dug in foreign soil when you decided another bed would be the answer to a question I don’t know yet.

Tonight is burlesque followed by midnight Rocky Horror at Andrea‘s house. An easy segue, we’ll all be dressed appropriately, though we’ll likely be showing up without toast or toilet paper. Tomorrow I don’t know. During the day on both Saturday and Sunday are Kokoro Dance’s 10th Annual Wreck Beach Butoh performances, something I haven’t been to in years now. Afterward, I’m sure there’s something happening Saturday night. With us, how could there not be? I put down my lack of knowledge to the fact that lately my brain, at best, has been a distracted sieve. Sunday is darling Chelsea‘s birthday dinner, and Monday is the ever-present Korean Movie Night. Tuesday is Beth‘s performance and Wednesday… Wednesday my skull swishes, an empty shell of me. Dominique, were you Wednesday? It was dedicated to someone and it wasn’t for Karaoke, that comes later. Was there a concert? Something to do with Mike? I’m tired, my memories bleeding. Thursday pulls a blank, but Friday is Lung‘s not-to-be-missed photography show.

I dont’ know where I’m going with this, how embarassing


lift
Originally uploaded by davenyc.

lafinjack has found vogueing vinyl ninja gangsta Michael Jackson clones. It’s bad because it’s good.

Bloody tar pit apartment. I don’t even much like it here, but yesterday I couldn’t bring myself to go. Ryan came home and that bit the edge off. Vagabond blue jello today for breakfast in a clear glass bowl. I don’t know where the rabbit is, but occasionally I hear things fall down in the living-room, so I’m taking that as a pulse positive sign. I am clearly awaiting a mental cohesion I’m not currently capable of, because the thought of a fashion photography bunny rabbit pin-up set continues to pass over me like a fast moving cloud. Place rabbit in life, begin to use as prop. It all sounds worse than it is. On the back of the motorcycle, my mother gunned us up to 120 and I let go. Leaned back against the wind and slowly raised my arms backward behind me. My wings for flying, it’s the same for everyone. I thought of taxidermy, a white winged mouse holding out its dried heart with tiny paws, the cavity in its chest apparent and stuffed with small rosebuds. The tiniest smudge of red on its hands and fur. I would hang it from a piece of ribbon, thin and shining satin. Black, because I thought of who I would send it to.

The Aristocrats (movie) Today at 8. Meet in Tinseltown up by the box office @ 7:30.

My humble pen in head has been thinking a lot about the texture of L.A. lately. I don’t know why. Something about futurism, about how Los Angeles got trapped in the bright promise of the shiny sixties, when optimism was still allowed, in a way that I’ve never encountered in Canada. I don’t know if I want to go back yet, but I consider it every time I think of getting a driver’s license. Ray sent me a film clip this week, General Motors’ view of what the world was going to be like. A woman dancing through a dream of glittering cars and enviably automatic kitchens. It ends with her and her masked man driving down a model of a freeway surrounded by rolling parks and well spaced tall buildings. All very Norman Geddes, the industrial designer who unveiled ideas of Tomorrow back in the American 30s. All very comfortable and lovely. The Future was something to look forward to.

Of course the allure of Futurama was polished with the wishful spit of GM to sell new cars to a depression laden country, but I think we’re more cynical now. It’s difficult to write any positive forecasts, which is important, in its own way, as people are entirely in love with soothsaying the Next Big Thing. Nostradamus had a surge of popularity back with September 11th, we’ve obviously not lost the bug. We still like looking backward to trace our way forward. We trail over whatever paths that look the most reasonable, metamorphing pattern recognition into a full blown precog bit of back-patting hindsight fiction.

That AIDS is a crises, (check this though), wars are blossoming anywhere on the globe where there’s oil, and that terrible news of any sort is available in a way that it never has been before, creates an open glimpse into 1984 bad dreams. Try to create something hopeful and the result seems slightly too soggy to be taken seriously. Social optimism is cyclical, and we are a very low swing of the pendulum. Our architecture has finally reached out into shining glass towers and we’ve found they all look the same. Expression of emotion through stone is all but a lost art form. Scenarios of happy thronging places seem wrong, out-dated and moded. Apocalypse ideas seem educated, smart and fact driven, less theoretical.

However, just because our predictions are darker than they used to be, don’t mean they will be any more accurate. Orwell gave us a place where security cameras covered our every move, yet never dreamed that we would be broadcasting from our bedrooms every day to a limitless audience of strangers. When my ex-roommate and I had a webcam in our living-room, we had upward to a thousand hits a day, and really we had no content. There’s the forever complaint of older writers, too, that there was no way to predict the cellular telephone, dating their work of the future with the stamp of Before The Technology.

time and space: he wrote the word city on my arm with his finger and I almost cried.


Tokyo City View @ Mori Tower
Originally uploaded by Ya Ya.

I reset my alarm, but forgot to turn it back on after Ryan left. Silly me, I fail at mornings. I woke up though at exactly the right time, my door buzzer more persistent than my hollow lack of dreams. Outside the window was a courier truck. Michel has sent me more comic books, an odd thing to find out first thing in the morning. There’s also a Jesus Monkey Pants t-shirt, which I would wear today if it weren’t that I’ve got a job interview this afternoon at one o’clock. Thank you, dear, they’re much appreciated and maybe just what I need. When is good to call? I read the three Dreaming, Weird Romance, and it occurred to me that if I were a better person, more attuned to expectations, it would have struck me bitterly. As it was, I finished the three then got up for my shower, thinking only that it’s sad that he hasn’t called me. I wonder at myself, that there’s no explosion of hateful verbal diarrhea waiting, only a sadness too deep for me to reach bottom in that wants an explanation. Chris said something to me on Monday night that’s been stuck in my head, still quietly humming in my ears. We were talking about Amanda coming home, of what would happen, of an unknowable future. I said, “Dear, I understand. I am terrified of mine.” He replied, “Yes, but see, I like the person I’m in love with, so I’m merely scared.”

I’m tired, you’re sick, we’re not sleeping, you haven’t called me yet


Chicago sculpture
Originally uploaded by mosaic22.

Rain is falling tonight, water against the windows sliding down into water on the street. It’s such a Vancouver evening, warm except for the chill of wet clothes. There was no one on the streets, cars absent, pedestrians a myth. I like the smell coming in from outside, it detaches me from time in a healthier way than my day to day wandering has been.

I forget how old I am a lot. On my knees, I asked your name. I asked for a moment, for a dream of needing me. Could you please, just one moment, do you see how pretty I can be? I saw you there, you put your hand on my shoulder as if you knew me. For the first time, I finally understood the meaning of having a name. Heaven was a place.

  • New York Times on the Theremin.

    One way to look at tonight is that I was getting paid for my opinion. I was in a focus group on the upcoming mayoral election. Burrard street, they gave us sandwiches, little bits of carrot cake. Draw a picture of your perfect mayor, what do you think of this man’s politics? I was more of a force than I thought I would be. Youngest one there, but supplying everyone with words, vocabulary. He answered my questions particularly. What she said.

    7:30 pm Thursday, we’re meeting at Tinseltown to watch The Aristocrats. (check out how the cast list never ends.)

    shadowblue discovered tonight the Canadian Heraldic Authority. “Apparently it was established in 1988, and all you have to do to get one is send a proper letter and a biography of yourself to the Chief Herald of Canada. It’s all very interesting — corporations can get them, too. Canada’s the first Commonwealth country to get its own heraldic authority, apparently. When your petition is approved by the Chief Herald, they basically consult with you to come up with something good.” Governor General Adrienne Clarkson’s coat of arms is Gules a Chinese phoenix regarding a lightning flash and rising from flames issuant from a maple leaf the whole ensigned by a representation of the Royal Crown all Or. It would be delightful if a group of us drummed up a brainstorming session to create some ourselves.

    Don’t you want one?

    • This is my friend Sylvia’s debut burlesque performance. Anyone interested?

    Stilettos and Strap-ons Burlesque
    queer femme burlesque
    Friday August 19 – doors 8pm, show 9pm
    Wise Hall – 1882 Adanac St
    $10-$15 sliding scale

    Their
    virgin show is a fundraiser for YOUTHQUEST, an organization providing
    drop-in and support services for queer and questioning youth across BC!

    This damn sexy show is packed with power-femmes, drag kings
    cage dancing, gender-fucking hotties, vinyl, muppet costumes, and good
    ol’ fashioned nipple paisties!

    With lusty special guests:
    Brigee K
    DJ Analog
    DJ de Luxe (aka Mix Master Muff)
    Darla Devine
    Sweet Soul Burlesque
    and drag kings cage dancing!
    …and your fiesty, fabulous femme host:
    Morgan Brayton!

    doing it quietly, getting off the soapbox case


    hammeryourface
    Originally uploaded by avolare.

    It’s all flashback The last time I spent a night in a foreign bed was the Leo party, far more recent than I first assumed. I found a picture of a hotel on my flist this week, a hotel that I stopped and had to look at twice, because it was that room, that one right there, and suddenly I was inside, looking out. Standing in a corner, knowing that I was invisible when I wasn’t being looked at. Just like every other human being. I should have taken a picture, but I was too lost in everything I assumed. I’m sorry, I want to say now. I wish you had told me. I’m sorry, but I held up a mirror and now I understand. It’s always a mistake to attack Russia in the winter.

    This house is a different place, dark because it’s three in the morning and it’s not usual to turn lights on at such a time, not when other people are home and presumably asleep. There’s a wreath on the door, incongruous, but telling. I’m not sure if anyone who lives here actually bothers to live here. The carpets are deeper than I’m used to, but nothing else strikes me as special. It’s the room to the right, the only brightness in the entire black hallway. Be good to him. I heard her and understand, though I don’t know what else there is to do. I’m too damaged to be anything else. I’m too in love with somebody else. Being kind requires the least amount of effort. I don’t have to think about it. We were dancing, it was loud and industrial and not very good. My mother was a belly-dancer. There’s a trampoline in the back yard. He says it’s at my disposal the same way a rich man might offer me his secondary porshe.

    we’ll all float on all right


    fireworks finale
    Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

    Two days and two misapprehensions. Happy birthday Chris, you’re twenty-four now. I think that’s to mean something, but for the life of me, I don’t know what. Have this link, at least, it’s word heroin. It’s been a hard spring, burning into a difficult summer. There’s redemption somewhere, we just have to figure out where to find it. I’m sitting in my home, armo(u)ring myself with unlikely colours, with the strength I have in my body that a writer gave to me. I am hoping that if harm befalls me, if my heart stops, if he is there, it will set my blood to boil and I will flower into flame and burn again. Twist my hair around my finger and speak some magic words that will lighten the weights that drag my feet from dancing again.

    I’m not allowed to love you. It’s the same script, all over again. Audience of one. The evening is just beginning and I’m thinking of brake-lights, red glow into the distance. How cars will trail in long snakes through the mountains away from here. The freeways of L.A. were like that, incredible embers speeding past and forward and always going, just going, flying between yellow lines and white. There, however, without a vehicle of my own, I was lost, a child trying to catch up with little tiny steps. My legs were tied, my sight unable to see unless I was near the ocean. Here there is water, there are mountains, there are miles filled entirely with trees. In a way, it’s a cage all the same. I’m tired of it, I’ve done this place. My precious people, I want to shake their roots free of dirt and set them walking our of here with me. I’m glad James got away.

    Navi is asleep in my bed and Ryan‘s out fetching supplies for SinCity tonight. I’m alone with a rabbit and a ferret, though they’re kept separate now. We’ve found proof positive that rabbits are genetically food for ferrets. It won’t matter if they’ve seen one before or even know what to do with one, it will try to drag it away and eat it. The rabbit, Kitty, has escaped unscathed, but perhaps not so me. Now I know Skatia can attempt to be sneaky, I want to see it again. Again, the thought occurs to me to fetch him a mouse from the shop to have.

    nostalgia parade in barefeet on broken glass


    resting here with me
    Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

    Summer is beginning to end, just yesterday it was possible to taste fall creeping into the weather, and yet to me, it’s still spring. My run of bad luck began then, and there I have stayed, foolishly expecting a shift in happenstance to accompany the weather. It’s basic and slightly animistic of me, perhaps. As if the world might lick my wounds with sunshine.

    Ellen is leaving us, moving her family eight hours away. Her children, Kevin, Brin and Maz, are my godchildren. They call me aunt sometimes, or mum when they’re not thinking about it. I’ve known them for such a long time it hurts to think about. I’ve watched them develop personalities and grow into decent human beings from mewling toddlers, backlit by their amazing mother. Being with them makes me happy, they’re family in such a basic sense that it goes beyond friends. I’m already scheming a road trip to visit them. There’s going to be a huge gathering at their new place for Thanksgiving, Max’s second birthday. It’s a camp out deal, tents piched on thier four acres of backyard.

    My reactions seem so far away from my body lately, voices are quiet, touch is remote. Everything is mild, as if I’ve grown a new layer of skin, one made of thick lucite. I feel like a widower not yet ready to crave life again, instead still lying on the coffin or holding my corpse husband’s hand in a brightly lit room. He slept here. I’ve been sifting through my memories, holding them up to my inner eye and trying to understand where things went so sideways. I remember standing, vibrating with the first anger I’d had in years. How could you? I remember standing, my body molten honey, my hands unable to stop pulling him into me. His hair, his voice. Feeling like this was just right. What have I done? I don’t dream at night anymore. I won’t allow it. I’ve thrown down my gallows, soon maybe I’ll remember how to breathe. I’ll stand up out of the dust and wipe my hands on my trousers, readying myself to walk back home. I don’t understand how you can love me so much You’re persuasive, now I don’t either.

    I want a long walk off a short plank. An unexpected drop off to give me my catalyst, three months has been and gone, too long, too long. SinCity is this Saturday and I don’t know if dancing is finally going to help. My spirit wants to fly out past the edges of the cliffs that hem this city at the ocean and just keep going, out until my arms can’t help me swim anymore. Except for a brief period when I had emotional support from Matthew, I haven’t had a good week since the beginning of May, since I came back from Toronto. I think that I have friends who understand not to press me, who are kind enough not to force me to care. I’m thankful. I don’t want to call anyone on the telephone, I don’t want to leave this apartment alone. I got as far as the park today before breaking down, falling by the side of the road, a crumpled excuse for a small girl. I want a voice that I can’t trust to call me and apologize, explain, but I know that life doesn’t work so well, it doesn’t reach down a hand from over the prison wall so easily. This dream is an everyday agony.

    because life continues, it has to


    Down At Fraggle Rock
    Originally uploaded by cabbit.

    From Andrew:

    “Hey Everyone,

    It’s Navi’s birthday on Thursday and she demands bowling. Meet up with us at 10pm at the Scott Road skytrain station in Surrey, there’s a crazy laser bowl place she likes across the street that we’ll go to and bowl til we get bored or the skytrain stops running! No presents or sexual favours necessary, your mere presence is enough to send her into paroxysms of joy.

    Please leave a comment or otherwise let me know if you can make it so we can reserve a couple lanes.”

    A group of us, (you are invited to come along), are going to go to Tinseltown for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at 7:30 before meeting up with her and Andrew for whatever lazerbowling is.

    Right, and I don’t care, even if you’re on dial-up, watch this video.