Author: foxtongue

enchante non

Thinking suddenly of Tolkien, she leaned over her keyboard and typed in the words, I’m back.

I sat on the plane next to two deaf men whose conversation started bleeding into my awareness. One of them noticed when I smiled at one of their jokes and we started writing notes back and forth. It was interesting and maybe not worth the rain here. There’s no snow anymore, it’s been washed away, lost to me. They gave me the window seat about two thirds in on the trip, pity it wasn’t sooner. It was a clear sky over L.A. and I could have taken you many pretty pictures. Here it was overcast, gray white spinning the sky into nothing to see, nothing to hold. Ray met me at the airport, but had to go back to work, so I’m alone now, in need of people. I may head up the road for groceries, let myself settle back into this shell of an apartment “home”.

snippet of bodyworlds

I went to see the corpses. I wanted them to have names, for their voices to cry out still. I wanted to touch them, run my hands down their preserved bodies and kiss them. It was a heavy feeling, this love and sorrow for the dead flayed and shown. Nothing vulnerable, until I saw the exposed spine of a man leaned over a chess board. Something in that made me want to cry. Why were these people not allowed to keep their names? Why were they taken down from being less than human and put on a pedestal celebrating our fiery glory? I craved a word about their lives. Maria Chan, schoolteacher. 1967 – 1998 She collected butterflies. I needed to touch them, to lick their skinless faces, hold them, cradle them into my arms and say that I was sorry. I never wanted them to be stripped of voice as well as skin. There was a pressure, I wanted to take photographs. I needed to share it and the quotes on the walls.

heavy metal thunder blaring

Cookies delivered, packages processed. Seems a long way to go to assuage some manageable moments of foolhardy abandonment, but the propellant is enough for me. Now I’m waiting for James to arrive in his spiffy vehicle I look forward to snapping a picture of. I’m glad the thing is finally fixed, in time for the rain to vanish and the roads to open up on the way to his Laurel Canyon home. I’ve cookies for him too, payment and thank you for spending time with me in this unfriendly conglomeration of small towns. This place is made for travel, not people, and I get lost in it. Carried away with the belief that pedestrians are on even keel, I sit for hours on transit, devouring books and deflecting looks from those who find me unwelcome on the bus for my skin colour. I want to smash some of the pre-projected stereotype here, but I don’t know how. There’s no place for we on foot to go but from bead to bead of dew water on this decaying concrete coil of road. It’s possible to walk from neighborhood to neighborhood, or more honestly, town to town, but there is naught between. There are lengths of decaying concrete, little shops with boarded windows.

Soon I’ll meet people.

Just in time to leave.

when you’re lying next to me

I just spent an hour sipping pure butterscotch from a jar and stalking ants with a little spray gun full of ammonia. Somehow, this may be the closest I ever have come to having a Hunter S. Thompson moment. Dangerous chemicals, weapons, and frightening mind altering drugs. Check, check, and check.

This is for my blonde Bill:

Frank woke up tired. Hot sounds today, long drawn out sighs. The remedy obvious but unavailable. He slipped off all his clothes. Face to face with a laid back reflection, the blistering water always runs out too soon. Side to side, soap in hand, this is useless, he thought. He closed his eyes and let the water run cold. Ice prickles on his skin. I am not alone, he thought. I am not this sorry man, standing alone in the shower, unhappy. I am a god. The water began to freeze on his skin, hoarfrost traveling down his bare legs and into the drain. Molecules began to slow, entropy receding outward to the rooms of his house. He opened my eyes. I’m right, he thought, and the sun stopped.

He gave me, “one day Frank woke up and the universe ended”

I’m like a damsel in distress

Today I’m listening to hip-hop and wondering what happened to my enthusiasm. Am I really so shallow as to be wiped out merely from a fruitless train trapped day? If I could speak french, I would call this ennui. I woke up this morning swathed in a grubby cloud of apathy. Yesterday I felt like looking up and pounding on the ice which was obviously keeping me trapped under the water in another world. Today is like the hang-over. Wretched bodied tiresome breathing. I think I need people. I think I need friends. I want to shoot something enough so that it can’t run faster than me when I go to claw out the carotids. There’s a city up the way with art spectacular with no-one to share it with. Somehow, it’s crippling.

I’d like to apologize for what I am about to share. Especially for the synths. For the chimes as well, though less so. I don’t know who the creators are or if they should be punished or not. There’s something compelling about this track. It’s like a hippie car crash, the post-punk destiny for the those who believe in scented coloured candles. Perhaps it’s only worth an entire listen through to those with the right sort of sharp edged humour. I don’t know. Tell me what your thoughts are.

attempted phone post.

She seemed alone on the train. There had been an accident. Earlier, an apologetic man in a uniform had handed out canst cans

EDIT: I attempted a text phone post, but it arrived mangled. Original text as follows:

She seemed alone on the train. There had been an accident. Earlier, an apologetic man in a uniform had handed out cans of sodapop. That was hours ago. Now it is dark, the windows like black mirrors, the air conditioning rattling to overpower any outside sound. She might as well be on the moon.

it was just like christmas

Yesterday I put Umbriel on the train as if it were easy for me, then I went and sat by the long aquarium of sharks in Union Station and lured pigeons into perching on my hands. I watched the field of people stream by and thought about the strange possibilities our world now offers. We met in a Nightclub, both briefly in the wrong part of the world, dreaming of travel. Strippers half-heartedly danced to goth music as we played pool in the next room over. Red velvet curtains and beaded sconce lampshades. It was a night out of Hollywood, a midnight flick shown on a silver screen, and somehow we fit right in. We live in a land of choices, digital information networks, and options to mesh worldview with a letter tossed off with a little bit of typing.