Author: foxtongue

If I manage to laugh today off, I will be very surprised.
Unheard of possibility.

I did something once that I called Remembering How To Smile, though, in fact, I’d never known. Without knowing how I did it, there was no fear anymore. I got the Life, the Walk, the Everything. The butterfly emerged with knives out and glittering. This was Mine. Refreshed, I was part of myself for the first time in my life. It’s glorious, the strength of being self. I scared people for months afterwards, like to look into my eyes was to see fire.
It’s been faded for a long time, but I feel it returning. I can proclaim and I can fly.

I’m discovering people give me much credit I do not deserve. “Of course, you’re You! Why are you surprised?” I never knew. I am not as anything wise as I am accused of. Told that my actions and thought are admired, I am lost. I am not special. I am not unique. The Dance you so desire isn’t purposeful. It happens. That people say I should know better, that I should assume and expect a certain kind of chaos and joy, this is somehow a new thing. Information I was ignorant of yet tying into that feeling. That flood of being everything without thinking about it.

Part of it feels like acting. Partially it’s a widening of self. I don’t know if I can do it, but I do. I push and find no barrier. I create a space with my false confidence and eventually fill it on the assumption that I can. Bravado constantly cycling into the real.

I have been startled. I do not say Yes.

Tonight I had a fabulous dinner with Silva. Tomorrow I go to Seattle with Alistair.
How about you and me, reader, we go hold hands somewhere we can’t be laughed at?

Today I either want to be hurt or I want to be in love. I want emotion to sweep through me and lift me and tear and throw me down on the cement street to lie crumpled with my heart in my hands. For once it’s not raining. Forever this buries me, forever etching itself on my skin. It’s warm and quiet here, like a bath lit by candles at night. It’s not what I want. I want lightning and you taking my hands to dance. I think if I were to add your name to my list of phonenumbers, it would look like it had always been there. The ink would have just that tiniest smudge that says countless times a thumb has rested there. Give me a cruel wind today. Give me a letter the size of your fist. Give me the moment of rock crashing into water.

I’m waiting for Robin to arrive after school. Today is a day for the Boy. Teaching him culture and behaviour twice a week. I’m not worthy to be attempting to show such things to a developing mind. Usually I would take him to the poetry slam, but I haven’t been going the past couple of months. The room seems unwelcome somehow, with it’s crowded heat and whistling. I know I would enjoy my time, but there’s something grabbing my arm, keeping me back. It’s time to find a new thing again. My friend on stage, looking at me very carefully before launching into a love poem that wins him the evening. I don’t need that. Don’t you dare give me power. Don’t. You. Dare.

Starships should exist today. I should hear a rumble and look out my window to watch cloud white trail following a silver missile growling into the sky. I see now I ruined myself reading science fiction. I want my future and I suspect by the time it comes, I will be too old. Here’s looking at you kids, celebrate that you will know the moon as more than a mythology. I read recently that Buzz Aldrin decked someone that accused him of being part of a faked moonlanding conspiracy. He was weightless for the first time since the seventies just this week. What could that be like? Revisiting the future, the past. Every generation having a moment of “I know where I was when this happened”. Pity mine has to be the Towers. I want mine to be a colony. I want mine to be a shining spindle reflecting starlight. I want mine to be dirty and dangerous and strong.

I was up all night chatting with Jason. Interesting and good company so far. Always suspected as much, really. I had to stay up to babysit my downloader. I threw open almost my entire collection to be downloaded by the world for a fellow named Joey in North Carolina. The grinding from the tower was phenomenal. It seems that what I have is sorely collectable. It finally crashed at four in the morning. When I say crashed, I quite mean it. I had to re-install my downloader.

*blank* Just now I remember too late that the close of the Fringe Party was last night. Oh holy hell. Work really shut down the brain last night. I’ve been talking for about twelve hours with the internet and the only sound to escape me has been laughter. Now? Insert loud swearing. Extremly pissed off cursing with terms that would scorch earth in a more narrative driven universe. Take frustration and mix it with self idiocy and bake it until it is made of iron. Now drop it on your exposed brain. I can hear myself crying.

Mystery hatred in my own bloody mind. I think I just burned a hell damned bridge.

I’ve just been outbluffed. I sat back a minute. I really do wonder about this. My thoughts are uncertain, stopped. I don’t know if I have a reaction beyond “oh”. Frivolity has been whisked off like a cloth revealing a concept beautiful somehow in a darker way than I care to look at. Another step into my life being invisible. How is it that people talk about these things? There’s an epiphany and they pick up the phone. I only know it because I’ve been on the other end. Myself, I am left floundering. I suspect that I haven’t anyone to talk to in the right way. The water’s over my head and looking up to where the air meets the surface doesn’t help. No one has any clue as to what I want to talk about. I need names to be real, not only labels for the other person to file to the appropriate story. The people around me aren’t involved. Part of me hates being young. There’s not enough experience in my head, not enough learned. I need to build still. I need to Know.

Once when I was little my family stayed briefly with a pastor at Shawnigan Lake. He was a quiet old man who never walked with a wooden stick. When my parents had a gig in town, he taught me chess. During the day, he took care of a challenged boy sometimes, when parents were at work. It was one of the very rare occasions I ever met anyone around my own height so I was quite taken with the thought of spending time with him. I suppose he must have been twelve. We were out on the old wooden dock one middle of summer afternoon. The heat shimmering off the water, and looking around the lake, there are almost only dark green trees. Tall conifers with the occasional boat tied to them. We were on the end, leaning over as far as we dared, trying to see the bottom of the lake against the glare. Logic told us the sun would let us see the whiskery fish at the bottom that the fisherman would sometimes pull up. Suddenly, laughing, he pushed me and I went in. My corduroys greedily took the water and doubled my weight. Too young to ever be taught how to swim, I was unsteady, I was thrashing. I came up under the dock. And again. I could hear the hollow footsteps of the boy running away as I fought. Finally, I let myself drift to the bottom, where the sun lit the water brightly all around me. One of the whiskery fish swam past and I blinked, reaching for it. With my feet touching the silty mud bottom of the lake, I felt no panic at all. After all, having my bathingsuit on under my clothing made being in the lake alright. That’s what you wear when you’re getting wet. Letting go of my very last breath of air, I leaned peacefully backwards into the water to watch the bubbles gleam their way to break the surface. A white haired pixie looking up through water about to die. No one came running. No one ever saw. Now too many years of working with visuals say I would put a girl singing with a guitar over such an image. Then, it was the sound of water quietly against the shore and the deeper sucking sounds of the dock above me. My own moment and I saved myself by accepting everything. I would follow the bubbles. Struggling suddenly I leaped off the bottom and after the silver, almost leaving my shoes in the muck. When my hand hit the last slippery rung of the ladder I needed air so badly that my eyes had shut down. I tore myself blind out of the water. So desperate to breath that with my first inhalation came a pint of water. Everything burned. Alone on the dock wretchedly coughing, I decided I could stand before I could. I fell, smashing myself into the dock. When I could walk, I trailed water all the way up the shore to the cabin, where I found my mother changing the diaper of my brother on the hood. Looking up, I watched her heart stop. When I saw that she almost fell, that’s when I broke. Cried then, but not before. I remember helpless for perhaps the first time in my life because I couldn’t communicate to her. I felt useless to express how I felt about this moment and everything involved because she was not there.

I get that a lot these days.

I give in. You all win. I will never have another snarky comment on either Tom Petty or anyone remarking on my hat in regards to Tom Petty. Kyle, the blessed boy he most certainly is, sent me the video for Can’t Come Around Here No More, a piece of media that various sundry have been insisting that I see for about five years now. My reaction? Dave Stewart must be Mine. I will keep him under the bed in a specially constructed happy cage until he gives me every last Art Direction idea he has ever had. That, and damn, I’m going to watch it again now. Higher quality! Higher quality!

Just a tiny note. This is the second weekend someone has arrived without warning with food. You all must perish delightful deaths. I wish a thousand skilled concubines upon each of you. They have chocolate too, and strawberries, and whipped cream. Notwithstanding my loathing for mango, I feel like a guilty whore. You People have to stop being nice to me!! I’m not deserving!

Waking up panic striken because the phone is ringing and my clock says work starts in three minutes. The phone was for Gavin and it’s one more time I have changed the time on the clock trying to shut off the alarm. There was a message from Jacques, he called maybe somewhere around four or five. Damned Fringers. I didn’t pick up. Today I get to find out that gossip says we may be dating.  The most amusing  people have unexpected ideas about me. I can only think it’s because I got a ride home with him on Friday. Drunk people make interesting conclusions. It’s good to swim out of that final bit of sleep laughing.

This also made me laugh. Actually out loud. A man on the subway finally had enough of the evangelists and spur of the moment decided to sing show tunes at them. Showtunes won.

Blast. Work. The first child entered chat right this moment to the tiny sound of a snare drum. Would people be kind enough to save me a little from the monotony and send me new music?

Go here, enter my foxtongue shaw e-mail, pick something interesting, hit send.

 

I’m tired right now, uplifted a ridiculous amount and humming to pop music. Slightly out of place, but no matter. Spent an aimless evening with Alistair sketching pieces of our lives for eachother. In the car, go left, now north. Top ten in the charts of “we are young and we have nothing to do”. Went to Lynn Valley, but not to the bridge, went to the shore, but didn’t climb the Q. Instead we stood by the water. Perhaps water is calming a little because as a species we tend to stare out over it. Depending on the conversation, it helps to have a skyline on the other end. Something definite twinkling on the other side of that black rolling eternity. There’s a gap in the bars, wide enough to slip through without effort. I turn and take bars in each hand, pick one foot up and lean out. Insane moment I used to fight every time I stood there. That final splash would be cold like ice never will be. As a non-sequiter, he pegged me right damn and center. “You hold people close and far away all at the same time” Took him a week. In a quiet peaceful way I’m impressed. More so as he isn’t bothered anymore.

I’m not speaking very well. Little food and little sleep make for a dulled girl. I don’t know why I write as much as I do, I only know it’s something I do. Take away my books but don’t take away my pen. What would there be left to do then? I apologize that your friends lists are so flooded with nothing in particular.

Saturday is a day for death. The Baron has come calling. No one on-line and I am trapped by the monsterous spawning of ignorant wombs. I’m reminded of a dream I had years ago. I was pregnant. I could feel it moving inside me and as if that wasn’t horrific enough, the life sucking parasite had razor blade teeth. Sharp triangles of metal gleaming from it’s pink gums. I could picture the thing perfectly. Perfect little baby fingers, perfect little baby with just a little bit of fuzz on it’s waxy head. I shot up as I woke, choking a scream back. Terrified, I was in shock. The classic moment girls get in the horror movies. Blinking, newly in reality, I put my hands down from my face to realize the sheets and blankets were damp. No, soaked. Thinking I would have to change them in the morning when I was feeling a bit more sane, I let myself fall back in relief only to suddenly scream between gritted teeth. Pain unbelievable. Visceral hot and now. Fire burning flesh and terrible. My body knotted with it. Whimpering, I very carefully sat up and reached over to click on the lamp. Red. Red everywhere.

Turns out I tried to claw the thing out in my sleep.

Oh that was a nasty moment. Cigarette smoke in my hair from I don’t know where caught in my throat. The scent put water in my mouth, gave me a jab in the pit of my belly. I wanted suddenly to force my tongue into someone’s mouth and clip their teeth with mine. A sudden impulse that contrasts badly with my job. Digging my fingers into black denim jeans and shoving them hard onto my messy bed.

I would be horrified with myself if I weren’t getting used to missing my lover. I’d hate to imagine what I’d be like if I were the sort to listen to my body. Yes, I agree, knowing when to eat would be a bonus, but it’s enough deterrent watching hormones surge once a month. “Hey – kiss him!” and my brain replying, “WTF? Piss off! You’re insane.” Right there, yeah. I like having that two steps back from the physical. No wonder Mishka always thinks I’m strange. She’s plugged into hers. Her advice is wonderful in that it never wavers, as soon as the mention of desire comes up, it’s “You’re too complicated. I don’t understand. Jump his bones”. Reminds me of a page from I Feel Sick. Jhonen’s charactor Devi is ranting at her friend for always giving the same advice no matter what the problem. “I’m being attacked by killer bees!” “You should get out more!!”

My roommate is off in Toronto this weekend. Soft instrumental music drifting from the speakers and it’s so quiet that I can hear my silver pocketwatch ticking from the bedside table. My mind paints an image of standing on the tops of cliffs and staring over green sea, palely foamed with whitecaps, or better – sitting in a train, like I haven’t done since I was a child. Riding clickaclack clickaclack over the prairies, complete darkness inside the carriage, the only rare illumination when the highway veered closer to the tracks. Trainride lit by stars. I want that feeling, like outside is water instead of air. A mental picture of running my fingers down the cool glass and watching it ripple. I’m older. Letters and words shining lightly into focus in the soft quiet of the car. Being sent a picture from around the globe and laughing quietly delighted to myself as it shines against the ocean of sunless ink. “Oh darling, you’re aging well. Italy is good for you, I’ll be seeing you soon.” The image shifts, turning into his reply and I lean forward in the red plush seat to examine the painting he’s working on now. It’s a girl, with type setting lines all over her body in old style Arial. Antiquidated and it meshes well with her blocky computer key fingernails. Lights off and riding in the dark. Lights off and I love you. Click.