n: vb: the spice of imagination
The Flickr Hot Tags yesterday were all related to England. The list ran something like “londonbomb, londonbombblasts, explosions, london, blasts” etcetera.
Today they are, in order, sextaposer, sexta, sflickr, furryfriday, swoon, and then londonbombings.
Obviously, there is something inferred here of which I am unawares but unwilling to click on to find out. You do it. It might be innocent.
As an apology, here’s an android portrait of Phillip K. Dick.
Yesterday was a long test of my breaking points, from every trying direction. An exercise in self immolation. I had put all my energy into preparing to put Matthew on a plane, I had nothing more. The bomb blast in London was not as shattering an event as it’s perpetrators were perhaps hoping for, (nice of them to choose a date which makes sense both sides of the water, I thought, very considerate), but they have managed to wash our increasingly small world with justified concern.
At work I checked my e-mail, the early morning having been spent on a death grip attempt to hold onto my last vestiges of restful sleep then by airport checks, is this going to delay his flight? Change his flight? and was informed that an old friend had died. A pilot from Hope had a heart attack and didn’t make it. He was a good man, watching out for Marrissa and I when we were much younger and more liable to sneak off to the other end of the airfield at night to watch the stars fall down and sip at Chetan’s family stash of Sweet Cherabim apple cider. I’ve been absent there for a long time, several years now, but I’d known him since I was ten.
The next letter was worse, a discovery of trust violated. There were other things in my in-box, a few girlish letters I was happy about, I’m pen-pal-ing someone like I promised, and that’s pleasant, but they were all overwhelmed by one tiny note. I had to excuse myself, leave my desk and sit instead on the floor of the lavatory with my head on my knees. The day I put my love on the plane should not be the day my trust base is assassinated, but it was.
This was where I began to be disturbed at my ability for composure, at how quickly I’m able to simply eat what’s hurting me and continue, as the day before was less than great as well. In fact, every week lined up since the beginning of May has had tiny shattering disasters scattered about within it. I’m half as worried about myself as what’s been going on, because I’ve no clue what to do with stress. I’ve no one I may talk with, no hobby that vents anything. No outlet. At first it was tucked away in small corners of my mind, goading me to cry when I was tired and alone, then I began to find it in my body, I would tap on things and flick my fingers, pressing my hands into fists and releasing them over and over. Now, I don’t even know now. My teeth are stones, my tongue contains acid, and I am so very careful not to let it show. Someone said the other day that I’m going to die of machismo, and they might be right, but I don’t know any other way. I only want my hands to stop shaking.
I was controlled by the time Sandi came to pick me from work. We made small talk successfully in the car on our way to Matthew and I even managed to laugh a little when we arrived. He was packed, his entire life in a giant black suitcase open in the middle of the floor. The rest of the apartment looked exactly as it always does, a hotel room set-up with a futon instead of a bed, all the personal touches looking committee approved. Even under the crushing weight of Matthew’s departure, I was glad to leave.
The airport was simply that. A hiatus place, where the food is merely something to do until enough time has passed and the people aren’t real, but props with which to make meaningless conversation. I’ve kissed three people goodbye there now, though never when I myself was leaving, only when I was being left behind while they continued their lives without me. he’s been here too Part of the reason why I haven’t applied for my passport again is that I know if I have one, I won’t say goodbye and leave through the doors, instead I will walk up to a counter, any counter, and buy the cheapest ticket possible rather than return to Vancouver proper. That’s dangerous behaviour and it’s good to have a yoke for it.
A baggage handler smiled at me fondly when I saw Matthew off. He looked over and you could read in his face that he thought we were sweet, our kisses seen with nostalgia. I wanted to hit him, but instead I turned away. I found something to take with me from the kiosks, a tradition of mine to keep balance, a mental koan of departure, and caught buses back to the office.
After that was my first day of work at the chocolate shop.
I was half an hour late but my supervisor decided to mark me down as on time anyway, my co-workers are the most friendly people I’ve ever worked with, (if a shop were to be run by the people who stay at global backpackers hostels, that might be similar), I must have had a quarter pound of chocolate and a half pint of ice-cream and gelati, rounding it off on my way home with a frozen chocolate dipped nanimo bar, and I still came home depressed.
The next five weeks are going to be long.
I wish I knew how to let people be nice to me.
Today tastes like leaving. Crisp blue sky and a metallic coating of smoke on the skin of the tongue.
“I know that you personally do not fear to give your own life in exchange for taking others. That is why you are so dangerous. But I know you do fear that you will fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society. I can show you why you will fail. In the days that follow, look at our airports, look at our seaports and look at our railway stations. And even after your cowardly attack you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners, to fulfill their dreams and achieve their potential. They choose to come to London as many have come before because they come to be free. They come to live the life they choose, they come to be themselves. They flee you, because you tell them how they should live.”
– Ken Livingstone.
Londoners are to contact BBC with phone and video first-hand accounts, here. Pictures have begun to be collected here.
Just in time to go with that previous post on Zombies, Vancouver is about to join the fun!
Get out the oatmeal and liquid latex, ’cause the day of reckoning is nigh!
That’s right! Zombiewalk Vancouver 2005! . . .!
Tentatively Saturday August 27, 3pm
Starting from “somewhere horribly frightening” a horde of living dead will stumble en masse towards Mountain View Cemetery on Fraser St.
The zombie walk will end with a picnic in the graveyard – bring your friends and family and eat them in the park!
There is possibility of a post-apocalypse zombie-jamboree hoe-down to follow.
If you have the inclination to do so, please let me know of your zombie wants, needs, desires and offerings – contributions of ideas, zombie related music/films/performance (preferably from the brains of participating zombies), food (scavenged, hunted, incubated or otherwise), your presence (zombies are only really effective when gathered in
large groups. everyone knows that), general good will, etc.
Pass this on to anyone else you know who might be interested.
More engaging imagery + useful information to follow.
aarrgh,
heather
further reading:
http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/features/politics/61270
http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/features/politics/58975
As well, the Media-splat night has been planned. Friday, July 22nd, 8:30 pm. Bring a short bit of visual media, something you really like, may it be a commercial or a music video of a scene from a film. Whatever. Drop me a line for directions.
There are some things I can’t deal with.
“Right, so there are a colony of nerdy D&D-playing medievalists who gather in Mount Royal Park every Sunday to run around screaming and slapping each with swords made of duct-taped iron bars and shields made out of the lids of recycling bins. Shit, there are even dudes with nerf arrows, flails, battle axes and big fuckin’ hammers. One guy had on an entire suit of chain mail armor.
Anyway, a cabal of local hipsters decided that this Sunday was going to be different. This Sunday, the hipsters were going to dress up like zombies and come marching out of the woods to engage the nerds in glorious battle. We were there to witness and record the hilarity that ensued.”
Pale stones doesn’t cover it. I already can’t deal with this. My instinct reaction is to ball into a child and waste myself in stupid crying. Some idiotic display of hurt, as if it would accomplish something, as if it would help. It takes too long for water to erode rock for me to bother, and it will never wear away enough to let me forget that he loves her.
Draw a line. Draw another. Connect the two with a side swipe of the pencil. Eventually a picture will form, I am told, like shapes in clouds. After hideous amounts of dreary practice, I have come to the conclusion that I lack the skill. My lines become crawling scribbles which if they are animals should receive a final benediction. When I was younger, my inflicted punishment was art classes. My mother wanted to raise me to be an artist, (actually, no, an Artist, can’t forget the capital A.), and so put me into a program of anything that might take me. I kneaded my way through sculpture, spun my way through pottery, orated Antigone, stained my clothing painting and incessantly got my hands in the frame in an animation class.
My mother, of course, loved everything I made.
Now I’m left wondering how much of it has survived, tucked away in file folders, hidden in her papers like squirreled away nuts of a particularly bitter flavour. The only attribute found shining in the dust has been my practically useless ability to create three dimensional structures without reference. The classic example being lanterns. I can make practically anything you like. (Once a tesseract construct was almost accomplished, but the material wouldn’t stand up to it). But, the inevitable, you have to tell me what to create. I don’t have the creativity to think of more than basic tattoo shapes, little figures of people or winged hearts.
I wonder sometimes if I’m a disappointment to anyone else. Bred a gypsy, I’m supposed to be creative and imaginative and bright, and yet I don’t find any of it within me. Instead I apparently wander around being different. I’m serious, lacking a basic understanding of being silly, and there’s no spark to light a precious grin of recognition from people who carry that enviable madness my homeless life tried so hard to sink into me. I want to start meeting people whose parents wanted them to be doctors and lawyers and accountants. I want to see if the feeling matches up, the mean aura of self-annoyance.
Somebody give me something to riff off of? Please, somebody implant some ideas. I am a waiting garden.
Hiding in the dark,
Hiding in the street,
And of what was following me…
Now hounds of love are hunting.
I’ve always been a coward,
And I don’t know what’s good for me.
Here I go.
It’s coming for me through the trees.
Help me, someone,
Help me, please.
Take my shoes off,
And throw them in the lake,
And I’ll be
Two steps on the water.
I found a fox
Caught by dogs.
He let me take him in my hands.
His little heart,
It beats so fast,
And I’m ashamed of running away
From nothing real–
I just can’t deal with this,
But I’m still afraid to be there,
Among your hounds of love,
And feel your arms surround me.
I’ve always been a coward,
And never know what’s good for me.
Oh, here I go!
Don’t let me go!
Hold me down!
It’s coming for me through the trees.
Help me, darling,
Help me, please!
Take my shoes off
And throw them in the lake,
And I’ll be
Two steps on the water.
I don’t know what’s good for me.
I don’t know what’s good for me.
I need your love love love love love, yeah!
Your love!
Take your shoes off
And throw them in the lake!
Do you know what I really need?
Do you know what I really need?
I need love love love love love, yeah
My Lover’s leaving this week and I’m a little bit scared that my heart won’t be as stable as I need it to be. There’s been so much waiting to even find myself where I am, a place where I feel like I can finally love this man without endeavoring to make myself small. The noun turning into verb, the cards laid levelly on the table. I’m so good at keeping everything contained, what will happen when I don’t have a constant reminder that I need? My job is a welcome distraction, something new, but not anything that can go home with me. That might be what I require. Something to keep me from sitting alone, counting inhalation after exhalation, the number of times I blink in a minute.
I don’t know what anyone reading this must think this is, what all the waiting has been about. I can only say that it should be worth it, if even only for a year. I’ve been careful without thinking, my respect paramount, and I have no idea if anyone knows the situation who does not directly know me. My regions of thinking aren’t apparently clear in these words that spill from my fingers to warm this moniter lit field. People like it that way, when they’re mentioned, when I’m writing this to them, but sometimes I would dearly like to break. Toss in names and situations that have been eating me away. Explain why I carry this ridiculous sadness, why I pretend not to be secretive about cradling pain within myself.
Sometimes a melody will draw from me something deep, a line of sunlight that cores in my arteries and forces me to go search for open air. Find some friends and explore where we’ve never been. It’s harder to do here, we have to go so much farther afield to simply find a direction that we haven’t memorized. The exercise, when successful, leaves you lost and discovering, trying to find the nearest village name in the hopes of something to eat that isn’t highway sign fast food. With temerity, we may even leave the country, switch the colour of our money for a monochrome green printed with less interesting faces. When I see a plane fly overhead, I think that the people captive inside that little machine know freedom more than I do.
Princesses dancing beneath the castle, shoes worn out every night. I was always a little jealous of those seven girls, seven nights. I am invisible, stuck in the middle, a strange drag on the boat. Again, the feel of pale stones against my teeth. I could spit them like teeth, pearly and scraped by a thousand words but instead I leave them in, swallow them clicking down my throat to rest in my belly. They can whisper there, abrading my tensions with a heavy dusk weight, grinding them down into poison that’s easier to digest into fury. Noise isn’t what I’m asking for. I want meaning to flower into splendour here, analyzed into fractal machines and the percentages of smiles versus tears, wet cheeks in rain on a sunny day.
Blood thudding in my veins. I’m going to feel so empty at the airport, just like last time and the time after that. They’re always the same, escalators and railings. Potted plants that are carefully fake, not even silk and ruined when they get wet. Signs that have been bleached blue by daily wear, left over from the seventies, when all these places were made. The big travel boom, when suddenly the globe was seen as that. When Paris was still romantic and no one here had been to Prague. I always watch until it’s time to walk away, the realization dawning that I never know where to go from there. The day should be different, something incalculable has just changed, but it’s always the same. The day spins, weaving a night and fraying into a new morning, never minding that I am without a set figure of “you”. Past participle sleeping, past and passed and the day is exactly like yesterday. No one notices.
Distraction is about to become more precious. Black leather pants and he’s not my type at all. He’s thickly built and lacks grace in his language, it’s unnerving. He doesn’t dance with me but it doesn’t seem to matter. He carries my deepest sleep in his washed hands, cupped palms full of sand that keep me mercifully above water. My skin doesn’t care that he doesn’t wait, that he doesn’t speak what it asks for. My energy can’t crackle until that happens, but somewhere there’s a key. It fits into the lock and turns stage left. I’ve seen it happen with closed eyes and an arched back. Lightning caught in a gasped breath and my hands trapped in hair. Artists will tell you that it’s all in the wrists.
The kitchen is clean. I am considering celebrating. Those of you who have visited recently know the implications of that statement. For those of you who haven’t been so unlucky, it seemed for awhile that my roommate was observing a strict regimen of experimentation, hypothetically breeding new species of super fruitfly. It was all for science. It had to be. That was too many of the little annoying gnats to be otherwise. Now that the kitchen has been cleaned, I will take on the bathroom in return. A serious exercise in scrubbing shall occur, oh yes. Time for the cool clean taste of bleach. I would still like to know where to get a carnivorous plant to placidly hunt down the remaining kamikaze insects, but for now, I am no longer living on the edge of a war zone of dishes. Insert the ticker tape parade here.
As part of making the self a home, I want to map out my new body rules, examine minutely the fresh schematic I returned with, but I think they’re still in flux, still settling and finding their edges. I don’t like people casually touching me now. Arms around my shoulder, legs against mine when we’re sitting four to a couch, I’ve been avoiding it. Instead I sit apart. Family is exempt, as they usually are. Not the blood relatives, but the clan I’ve created with empathy adoption and matching personal mythology. It’s odd and unexpected, a new layer of adaptation to paste into the mental environment. I require space now, room for my skin to breathe.
