performance art

send me a message if you want to make out with me at the art gallery for thirty dollars an hour (three hour shifts) in march and april...

"pretty mouth and green my eyes"

This is the squalid, or moving, part of the story, and the scene changes. The people change, too. I'm still around, but from here on in, for reasons I'm not at liberty to disclose, I've disguised myself so cunningly that even the cleverest reader will fail to recognize me.
- J. D. Salinger

insert love letter here...patience required

By far the majority of the hundred and eighty-four poems are immeasurably not light- but high-hearted, and can be read by anyone, anywhere, even aloud in rather progressive orphanages on stormy nights, but I wouldn't unreservedly recommend the last thirty or thirty-five poems to any living soul who hasn't died at least twice in his lifetime, preferably slowly. My own favorites, if I have any, and I most assuredly do, are the two final poems in the collection. I don't think I'll be stepping on anybody's toes if I very simply say what they are about. The next-to-last poem is about a young married woman and mother who is plainly having what it refers to here in my old marriage manual as an extramarital love affair. Seymour doesn't describe her, but she comes into the poem just when that cornet of his is doing something extraordinarily effective, and I see her as a terribly pretty girl, moderately intelligent, immoderately unhappy, and not unlikely living a block or two away from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She comes home very late one night from a tryst—in my mind, bleary and lipstick-smeared—to find a balloon on her bedspread. Someone has simply left it there. The poet doesn't say, but it can't be anything but a large, inflated toy balloon, probably green, like Central Park in spring. The other poem, the last one in the collection, is about a young suburban widower who sits down on his patch of lawn one night, implicitly in his pajamas and robe, to look at the full moon. A bored white cat, clearly a member of his household and almost surely a former kingpin of his household, comes up to him and rolls over, and he lets her bite his left hand as he looks at the moon. This final poem, in fact, could well be of extra interest to my general reader on two quite special counts. I'd very much like to discuss them.
- J. D. Salinger

error

de niro in taxi driver may have been sexy but he was also a raging psychopath.

just so we're clear.

he showed up at my door, blushing

a gaggle of pre-teen boys running (or rather flying, down a flight of stairs) for the subway made me laugh tonight

there are people i would love to run into again, but probably won't
there's a woman with tourette's who i see on the bus almost daily
my schedule is not regular, even if hers is
today it was twice
i wish i could put those odds towards a lottery win
some travels with men that i love would be nice

"please advise"

back when i was about ten they invented music videos. there was this one that i really liked. it was about a bus.

fast forward about twelve years, to the occasion of my formal acquaintance with the drummer from this band. he is (obviously) much older than me. to be kind we'll say 'not my type.' one night our paths crossed out in the world, and he asked me out. i said no. fortunately i was engaged, unfortunately it was still mighty awkward. he remains the only man ever to ask me on a proper date.

fast forward another thirteen years, to now. he works with me, maybe even for me if i wanted to play power games. i have always tried to maintain as large a professional distance as possible. on friday, i slipped. i mentioned that he shared a birthday with my ex-husband. he promptly asked me out again after reminding me that he had done so once before. i suppose 'ex' was the fatal word. i lied and told him i was taken. he responded by telling me all about his deep feelings (read obsession) for another person who works in our neighbourhood. her job and her name are both a lot like mine...as though it were a coincidence, aligned by the stars. she is one of the most beautiful women i have ever met. i tried to end the conversation then but failed. just before i left tonight, he sent me a long diatribe about how perfect she is (beauty on the inside to match the out) and 'woe is me' what will he do? then he asked if he should hang himself.

i hear this is a pattern with him. tomorrow i will find a way to make him crawl back under his rock. then i will send him his schedule for next week.

does he really not know he never stood a chance?

i wrote this story in my head on the way to my now semi-regular punk rock booty call. it was a bit like the molly bloom speech but with no instead of yes. the poetry disappeared and we are left with just this. there's a lot of that going around these days.

seizures and creepers and roadblocks and dirt and bed. all in a day's work.

ode to the search for the beloved

i got a random message from a stranger today asking if i was the aerobics instructor from oxford that he once dated

leave anywhere for long enough and you might come back to find a forest has sprung up in your absence

i told him i had an aversion to aquarian men but in fact that's the biggest lie of all

sleeping alone / new pillow happy

i guess life is pretty funny when nice but weird old rock stars hit on you and married men wish they weren't and everyone's got the same subjects on their brains. lots of boys like to call me master now, even though it's a while before it's official.

norway

a musical genius who came half way around the world to escape his life walked into my office tonight and started to chat about life and art and where to buy a good pair of jazz shoes.

how do they find me? we all know how this ends.

at least he's from this planet .

distraction junkie

it always takes five hundred million more hours than i think it will
limbo this and limbo that
i am finally ready to leave that place

little gem

accidental discovery. my heart may be missing in action but here is my soul. it's not as bleak as they would have you believe...listen close and look at how he dances...bubbling joy, always just under the surface.

of course, it's a little off...just enough to make you wonder.

she is smiling inside, i promise.

this blog is a foil to my shiny happy side

my calves spasm while i sleep
and tendons snap over the heads of my thighs
pain in the morning, anxiety in the day, restless in the night
i freaked out today because the raven wine bottle that covers the mousetrap disappeared...
too superstitious for my own good
(which i announced to the world earlier this evening)

tiny broken necks
broken friends
hide in my cave for a little while longer
scribble notes on the walls until i find my way out
keep blue skies and birds nearby to remind me there's a brighter (other) side

red wine and greasy microwave popcorn

even the gay men were making me crazy today.
thinking twice is for pussies (and sometimes the gifted, but not on school nights).
i stole this from douglas coupland’s twitter feed. it's very funny to me right now.
i recommend baron philippe de rothschild pinot noir.
clearly, it is potent. and tasty.

faking it

sometimes people use you
and sometimes they surprise you

wetsuit

i am going to get a robot named after me

maybe tonight i will try to sleep with the light out

i want the moon

poetry and flowers and songs of broken hearts...
i have this problem with believing too much in things that don't exist

they gather, always at once
drawn to an invisible force

men hover near the phoenix
but don't get too close
lest she burst into flames

old age/false alarm

i used to love public transit because i could read for long periods of otherwise useless/wasted time in relative silence. now it's all teenagers yammering away on their cell phones about inane things like the relocation of their high school lockers. i hide my resentment under my headphones and dream of days long ago.

sometimes you know it's over in spite of signs to the contrary, but it's nice to pretend for just a little while.

he likes it when i laugh.

the death of a zombie junkie mouse

i am learning a lot this week about will and desire and survival
they are not the things i thought i would find
it is impossible to lose something you never had
but return is another story entirely
space and our relationship to it matters
people and their feelings matter
trances are fun but they make victims
vigilance, attention, care, and consistency
this is the way
there is a difference between going back to find yourself
and going back to disappear
and just when you think it's over...
sometimes,
it's not

the parting of clouds

sometimes praying
sometimes waiting
sometimes quiet
not any/more
who knows?

nothing will satisfy these cravings so i will try to sleep

reset

sometimes miracles DO happen

just a small town girl

i do like trains, midnight or otherwise

watch out, air supply is next

too many cookies

there is a jumble in my brain
randoms floating in a soup of songs from my youth
i cannot find the picture of me as princess leia from when i was a kid
i do not understand the mysteries
i do not know how any of this will go
i wish the baby blue longjohns came in a size other than extra large

copycat (not my idea, but it felt like a good one)

The sense of risk one can hear in punk is a distrust of the punk moment itself. It is the will to say everything cut with the suspicion that to say everything may be worth nothing.
- Greil Marcus

2000 - i was married. i was unhappy. i knew something was wrong with him but i couldn't put my finger on it (partly because he lied, a lot). i spent a few weeks in montreal alone, doing what i do, and loved it.

2001 - still married, unhappier still. visited my brother in vancouver in august and discovered that hydrangeas (kinda) grow on trees.

2002 - had a tiny and meaningless affair with an astrologer. split up with my husband on labour day weekend, the same weekend both my brother and my best friend went through major breakups. was booked that weekend to go into the studio to do what i do but i gave up. a man i had admired for years told me to "keep walking in light."

2003 - in late january, my (now ex-) best friend's ex called me just to chat. we fell in love that night. he was a skater, a photographer, smarter and more ocd than me. i went to ukraine with my mom to see the land from whence all my grandparents came. i finally understood myself in the context of the other people on this planet. my only uncle died in the fall, the second person in my family to suffer from dementia to the end, at least in my conscious adult lifetime.

2004 - i moved in with the love of my life. we were going to make art together. the name of our company was going to be "joint failure." i suppose the writing was on the proverbial wall. during this time i developed a passion for art theory.

2005 - i decided i wanted to be a jungian analyst but you need a masters to apply plus one of my mentors died and his family gave me all of his archives equals i applied to grad school and was accepted (even though i never did an undergrad degree because i went to art school). just after my birthday, my ex-husband called me from detox. he had just almost died from a massive drug overdose. i was terrified, and relieved. it explained years worth of things i had not been able to name or explain. soon the inevitable "how could I have missed that?" breakdown began. my "the one" decided to leave in spite or because of this. but he semi-stayed. the next year was one of the most horrible emotional traumas i have ever lived. i thought i was going to - or wanted to - die...the only time in my life i have ever truly felt this. around this time i was told there should be a ban on boys from my hometown. i did not listen. my cat died (though i think her ghost hung around for a while). school started in the fall. i distracted myself from my misery by starting a chain of affairs in the name of academic research. it began with an eccentric anthropologist who was missing his left ring finger.

2006 - i continued my affair with the anthropologist, which enabled travel to new york city in the spring and vancouver in the winter. in june i met a much older designer and photographer i had crushed on for years. i introduced myself in the guise of needing to interview him for my thesis. thus began what we would later christen the "world tour" of our affair - it began in ottawa and was followed by winnipeg and montreal in that year. very late in the year after a relapse or two, my ex-husband was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. as his friend, i pulled "wife" rank to insist that they keep him in the mental hospital long enough to find this out. for the record, our mental health care system leaves a lot to be desired.

2007 - early in the year, my own mental breakdown of sorts began. a drunken email spiraled into a slew when an imaginary creature responded to my ramblings. my head exploded with theory at school. i teased my hair (!). i fought with my prof in public. i may have even developed a crush on a student. my affair with the "old man" continued. later i would have a revelatory conversation with my brother in which we decided that studying the mind and/or outer space in any conceptual depth is a surefire way to crazy. in the summer i visited seattle and made some awesome new friends. i also smoked cigarettes at the west coast kitchen table of a rockstar. i chatted with his best friend and played with his dogs while he folded laundry and ignored me. the evil magic of facebook-instigated closure began. i re-met the skater stoner crush of my youth who was one of my first major, er, experiences. we bonded fast and hard through the electronic sharing of words that hadn't been available to us as kids. sadly, he now lives several thousand miles away and is married with children (two plus a step- then, four plus now). soon after, i began an intense relationship with one of my heroes, also a much older man, and a poet.

2008 - it turns out the poet was also an alcoholic, and had several personalities. it ended badly in the spring. my affair with the other old man continued after a brief hiatus in the name of monogamy. i was discovered on the street by a young man who is now my hair stylist. he asked me to model for him (a secret dream realized, lame as that is). in the spring my ex-true love's best friend made his move. nothing happened, but it still ended badly for all, and i have lost any faith i ever had in religious men. i presented a paper in st. john's and discovered that the east coast makes me claustrophobic. a quick jaunt to ottawa. in july i started this blog and through it i met a soul mate (i no longer believe that we have just one). two men started blogs to share their secret thoughts with me. i had an airport layover hotel liaison. i re-met another high school crush and started trying to get out of our bizarre relationship from somewhere around the second date. i can no longer stomach tom petty because of this. my mom began to disappear inside her own head.

2009 - i fell in fantasy love with my good friend's boyfriend. i fought to be released from work so that i could take a short contract in vancouver that gave me the opportunity to make a bunch of cash and gain some closure in a number of areas of my life. i met my stoner skater friend's children (but not his wife). nothing happened, but as karmic punishment i returned to a serious mouse infestation in my home. i went to new york city and spent an unexpectedly platonic weekend with the old man. i found out two months later that he is now single but didn't know how to tell me. i still do not know what to make of this (he lives in another city, there is no future to avoid). i met my blog stalker (as he is affectionately known to my friends) in central park. i travelled to california for the first time. i went out with yet another guy from high school, one i regret not having been nicer to back in the day as he has turned into a handsome, rich world traveller with a history and habits as messed up as mine. for the record, i have not been as drunk as i got that night since i was sixteen. my ex-best friend found me and forgave my transgressions. i re-found one last teenage love, the one i should have chosen when i hit that fork in the road. i sat in a crusty basement with some crusty punk rock legends. i got a cool new roommate who tolerates my neurosis with a smile. i finished writing my thesis (two and half years overdue, but done). i met an alien and we went out for drinks. i got a new office at work. i may have driven the old man away, but not the mice, who returned in the fall and have been here for the last two months.

Whatever have been thy failures hitherto, ‘be not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to thee what thou has left undone?’
- Henry David Thoreau

there is only one (the big one) left unfound.

and i still have no cure for my insomnia.

traps and ambiguity

i haven't been reading enough lately so i'm running out of inspiration
(i'm pretty sure i've never had an original idea in my life)
a little thoreau tonight, from walden:
where i lived, and what i lived for...
maybe he's got some answers
i think i've got a mouse in my closet, at best
sleep with the lights on, always now
at least there aren't gorillas in the kitchen too

binary dates

i feel best when i wake up around two in the afternoon
can't get new year's day by u2 out of my head - that's a cliche, i suppose
more and more i am leaning towards celibacy as a means to reclaim my life
more and more there is less and less said, and to say

blue moon resolution

i will go off the pill after this package is done, and see if my body can recover from twenty years of messing with it.

hopefully this is the year when i go back to having no mice in my house. regardless, i will try to budget for a cat for my birthday. maybe the money i used to spend on pills will do it - much like people who quit smoking get to go on vacations. my cat friend will be black with a white spot or two. it will probably be a boy. his name will be wabi.

i am going to eat bread in all its many forms because i love it and who cares how big my ass and thighs get because no one is interested anyway. besides, i'll always have my cheekbones and my tiny wrists and eyes eyes eyes.

stop procrastinating - do what i say, when i say. this means not being too tired, too hungry, too sad, or too scared (see mice and cat, above).

learn to be okay with being alone. i will become free in my heart.

a mentor friend once said that i was way more awesome than i let on. according to my horoscopes of late, if i actually try, the world will come to understand this.

i will aim to become less skeptical, or to at least keep it to myself so as not to ruin things for everyone else.

i will help my mom, then myself (and my brother if he needs)...everyone else can wait for a change.

nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.
- richard r. powell