fog

nepalese restaurant (magic)
or
a treatise on the existingness of matter

paintings of mountains i see in my dreams
jewels and treasures in the basement
aloo, tama and bodi
the names of my three future children
or maybe my three future fish
"imagine if you had a child named potato"

clouds on the ground
ice on my path
i can only write when i'm doing something else
melting
bursts of colour in the haze

dry

it is too early
i refuse to shovel
tomorrow i will bake cookies
i am too tired for this

i will find a way to watch the movie
i must know

morning

more times than i care to count
i have stared the devil in the eye,
and laying in the arms of another man
i have dreamed of angels
in reverse

never enough,
it will have to do
or will it have to do?
the revolt of the simple caveman...
follow the light

demons

I am wondering if you can just read this, not for proofing, but for a general sense of:
a) if it sounds like I am completely talking out of my ass
b) if there's anything that seems redundant, unnecessary, out of place, too crass, etc.
c) if there's anything that is (especially art historically) inaccurate or stupid conceptually
d) there was something else, but I forget.

vanilla

revelations from the mind of a tragic romantic...

i'm planning to spend the rest of my life eating nachos and getting fat

it just really dawned on me that i am in dire financial straits unless i get a roommate very soon

fruit flies are disgusting

crunchy diamonds

when it rains, it pours,
and when there's a blizzard...
well, same deal

i don't mind the snow so much
when it sparkles

boys with irish accents, working in bakeries
and
blue christmas lights
are
the most magical

i think i will be making a point of walking
down unplowed streets
for a while
just to see
what kind of snowmen
people will build
(it's the packing variety this round)

having now seen the real thing
i know now
that i know
when i see it

runny nose

too many balls in play
there is a war going on inside

mostly done

don't worry, i'm not hiding
it's just that sometimes i don't have much to say

virus

mumble
yes, but
i’m glad he convinced me to go outside

my poor lilac and magnolia friends
think it’s spring

see forever eyes

there is so little to write about
when there are no flowers

swirling clouds
when the moon pretends to be the sun

donut girl

so shy
small talk
spinning
full moon
incomplete

fear not,
we find our lives in the strangest of places

i can't stop sneezing and
i need to go to the chiropractor

wrinkles (summer rain)

a face in a dream
a face in the sky
there is a castle by my house

i think i'm that chick
the one you use to
get back on the horse
after the girl
you
really loved
has broken your heart

i can't stand the cold

fall would be my favorite season
if it was sunny and warm like this last one
(it was)

strange how easy it is for us
to slip in and out of each others lives
i really wanted this to be different

weak...
spring must be soon

endings

this (loud) makes me a kind of happy that I forgot about a long time ago.

this makes me a kind of sad I wish I could forget.

we cannot escape who we are,
but somewhere in between there must be peace...no?
either that, or boy george is a misfits fan...
and the crazy world at times becomes too much to take

pine flashbacks

"and she gave away the secrets of her past,
and said I've lost control again..."

why
why
why
why
why are they always insane?

spumoni

he said to me last night,
"you're one of those people who's always in the middle of something."

yes, i suppose it's true.

went back to the suburbs last night
it seems that wherever i go, there i am
always,
but more so when i return

you cannot both stay and go -
i read that somewhere
once

horses are not unicorns,
never will be...

fail

suffocating in my own dreams

i don't believe in accidents -
that's about the only thing i'm sure of right now

little vampire wishes

i wish i believed you
i wish i still believed in you
i wish you were here
i sometimes wish he wasn't,
or rather maybe that he was

i wish there didn't have to be a choice
i wish that rhyming wasn't passé
(something here, about your voice...)

i wish i hadn't run out of poetry
i wish i could make it all go away

i wish you were here (again)
i wish i could go there
i wish it were different

i wish growing up didn't have to mean
giving up, giving in

i wish i could see the back of my head
i wish i could see your face
i wish we lived in the same world

i wish you hadn't given up
i wish we could talk about how we both gave up
i wish someone would tell me how to come back to life
without feeling like i'm dying at the same time

i wish he hadn't called me gloomy
i wish she hadn't either
i wish they weren't always so right
and i wish they would tell me more

i wish there was time to talk
i wish there was time to sleep
i wish there was time to do it all

i wish i knew what to do

road trips

i don't know.
i just don't know.

my bangs are too short.

roots

walked home in the rain at midnight
nirvana and my new haircut
stuffed under my hat

he loves me again

***

RIP Kenny MacLean

insomnia

how do you stop once you've started?

for the sake of my sanity, i needed to stop believing the secret messages were for me...but i miss them.

salty cookies

dancing with myself
talking to myself
talking in my sleep
all's quiet now

we are going to take my failure
and turn it into art for stupid rich people

silly girl

no conflict
no drama
no poetry
is that the fear?

i made a really good lasagna tonight

nightshade

only time will tell if waiting was the best or stupidest choice i ever made.

dave st. pierre

umbrellas are essentially useless tools on a windy night down by the lake

new order on the subway, i'm dancing.

dog walking

the answer is yes

calling my own bluff

sugar for breakfast, I'm a little bit mental
I think I'm just going to leave it broken this time

tomorrow I'll go back and we'll see what I find. maybe kindness, a good job, and nice eyes are enough to trump poetry and brains. I'm gonna bet that baggage is the deal breaker...not that I'm one to talk...

melting into frozen

or ice cream in bed

at a loss for words
a loss of breath...
the wisdom of age, finally
finding him was never actually the hard part

i will lie awake again
ceilings obscured by my defeat
none of it ever means anything
that's sort of the trick,
isn't it, boys?

particle theory

just when I think you’re gone, you’re not
do you notice when I disappear?
absurd existence
we never know
and so we go
on
with faith in belief
and magic in cycles
by the light of the (once again) full moon
I listen for you
but waiting is for fools
who think they know what tomorrow might bring
I’d like it if I were here
when you decide to return

nachos

i have (almost) finished writing the beginning
and so
now i can choose which ending to use

side note: i think i am developing a taste for jalapenos

i am not a stripper

earlier this evening i was a little bit infatuated with myself.
(it has now passed)

yes, that means the writing goes, slowly but well.

when i start making up words, though, it's time to go to sleep.

karma

when i was nine, i thought braiding ribbons into your hair was the coolest thing ever.

it would be many years before i would come to understand that boy george was/is a transvestite.

this story brought to you by...nothing beats having the soundtrack of your life pumped over the loudspeakers of the near deserted grocery store just before closing time.

i suppose most of us long for the times when it was all so simple. for once, i won't insist on my difference.

loop

i feel like i should say something to you but i don't know what it is.

sometimes i go for a while without seeing any pictures.

sometimes i wish i could sing.

hope

i'm glad we went to bed happy last night
a day of rest
sun shining
warm air
pretty orange carpet of leaves
birds singing
the tired that comes when you reach the top of the hill
now it is bubbles and songs and sleep and dreams
and the hope that tomorrow
we wake up happy again

firestarter

this morning two crazy fat ladies charged this other lady for a seat on the empty subway. i was glad it wasn't me...shit like that on no sleep can really ruin your day.

then, a gift or two.

now the world is a different place. now we can smile. now i am ready to try again.

who knows, maybe one day i will even wake up to find a unicorn at the foot of my bed.

i hate waiting, but tonight i didn't mind. maybe for the next while, i won't mind.

maybe tonight we can change our minds.

paint it black, indeed.

fountain

remember billy ocean?
"get out of my dreams, and into my car"?
well, i made up a new version...
get out of my head, and into my bed -
except, see, not really,
i'm trying to work.
so, perhaps you could go away
just for a little while...
i'd appreciate it.
okay, thanks.
bye.

p.s. internet poll - who thinks it would have been superfun to have marcel duchamp as a friend?

as soon as i'm done

snacks at three
no sleep for me

cheesy poetry...

you and you and
you and he

no edits

you
me

back in time

lots of that going around these days.

learning to fly

caution
wind
"I have to get better at this."
she showed me again
my path is to see

fast hands

blind
boxed
I don’t know what’s more insulting
him using his charm to get what he wants
or him thinking I can’t see through it

one hand in my pocket
the other one on the table

true kind hearts
seem to last forever

i like it better when you come around

sometimes all we need is a reason to keep trying

will it be enough?

i was just thinking about how i could be dee dee ramone for halloween but i would want an old beaten up leather jacket and i don't own one.

i was just thinking about bon jovi, halfway there, living on prayers...

i have no idea where there is.

new
life
switch
hope is in there somewhere too

and green,
always green.

the crocus

i like

white chocolate

nuts

watermelon

toast

sleep







(sometimes you have to borrow a picture from the interwebnet. thank you.)

flutterboard

feels like
drowning
swirling
undertow
but with a view
head above water
ride this wave
crashing
back to my sanity

you never know how the puzzle is going to fit together
light
flashes

i don't enjoy swimming
but i can

breakfast only
on days when i'm still
awake,
not woken
from my dreams

lost in my head

this is where the whales were supposed to be

edification

dreams and songs and answered prayers
i got my little brother back today

all in a week's work

I am calling out to the universe
for a ban on crisis,
a moratorium on having those close to me falling apart.

This is why people turn to religion -
it’s a lot of work,
to hold up the whole world
with only two hands.

And no, I don’t really want to talk about it,
unless you have
some magic beans.


P.S. This IS me being an optimist.

lucky charms

pennies from heaven
kronur from iceland

facts, not wishes
it’s never too late to start making things right

figment of my imagination

rainy night
orange leaves crowd
the shiny black street

why does that have to sound sad?
i think it's pretty

lamplight

the things i don't talk about,
those are the ones that really matter.

post script

i end up alone and crazy.
apparently that's the deal.

chicken

"I know that it's bad,
That it's the kind that they can't operate on."
- MG

lucid
vs.
forgetting -
trauma
makes forgetting,
or do we feign forgetting
to avoid the pain of loss?

flashes:
bikinis
sailors
ladies
old cars
tobacco farms
depressions
dreams
memories

forgotten, pushed down, lost

stories of when the titanic went down
dance halls
cruise ships
hurricanes
wedding crashers
gangsters
home made brandy

my mom was a groupie
my baba was the local distillery
and here i've been blaming the men all this time
reclaimed
proud
explained
secret delight

thin pale skin

i forgot
if something seems too good to be true,
that's because it usually is

unicorns don't fall from heaven
they sleep on the tops of mountains
far too high to climb

you can call me fool

a thousand times

that is all

musings after the smell of damp earth

tonight i made a point of walking past the graveyard
there's something about the energy that soothes me,
the collective calm of souls gathered at rest,
those who no longer have to deal with the bullshit of being in the presence of other humans
power as purity
no ambition, manipulation, fear
the birds like it too

is it sexy when a cute bus driver goes really fast?

it is important to have friends who love you.
thank you friends.
times like these it sure becomes clear who you are.

forty-two

dusk, light, yellow leaves
that funny illuminated space in between
bright green imprints
not enough

head, down

- no.
- never, now, never/now, later.
- i wish. black.
- probably. very likely.
- once is funny, often is pathetic.

things that make me angry make me even more angry because they're a waste of my fucking time.

sad smile

there is a hole in my gut now
to match the hole in my heart
and the one in my head

there is seeing and wanting but being too crazy
there is seeing and wanting but being too afraid
there is seeing and wanting but being too stuck

there is seeing and not wanting,
then creeping into wanting but being too stuck
and maybe too afraid

there is wanting but never seeing,
then creeping into seeing and being
too stuck in afraid and wanting

and then there is seeing
and wanting and never understanding.
that one is me

ginko leaf

another apocalypse kind of day by my house
leaves flying, littering the sky
a dark and stormy lunchtime
kansas worthy

voting gets me all choked up, embarrassing but true

it's something about seeing old people who can barely walk
being helped down the street, out of cars, up the stairs
because they think it matters...

and it's something about being reminded how fate had me narrowly escape being born in a land where engaging in political thought got you shipped off to the zone

and so, in this democracy,
crazies are out trying to sell baseball cards to the neighbourhood crackheads,
rich liberals plant flowers to match the campaign signs on their lawns,
and on the eve of this full moon
i can choose not to even joke about how long it takes before the axe falls that leaves me jobless

there's just no point in being terrified anymore

and at least i’ve already got disappointment down to a fucking art
(funded entirely, of course, by my own dime)

maybe now is a good time
to start thinking
about exactly which kind of farmer it is that i’m going to want to be

leftovers

I have two arms
I have two legs
I only need my glasses to see far away
I have my health, and I'm basically sane.
Yeah, there has been some shit too,
but there are plenty of people who are way worse off than I am.
I'll give thanks for the luxurious nature of my current worries:
- can I cut that 245 pages down by the end of this week?
- when will he write back?
- should I get a cat again?
- aren't there more important things I should be doing right now?
- how lame am I, sitting on my ass waiting for bliss to come knocking?
(I was going to say nirvana, but then you might think I was referring to the secret dream I have that it’s me kurt is waiting for up there in heaven...or wherever...)

do unicorns cry?

just wondering...

it's cold in here tonight
no sleep...
while wishing that hibernation was an option
(but with a paycheque)

apples falling from trees

fall is pretty this year

what else?

orange tea, brussels sprouts, almonds,
the office
a house and family more mine than mine
I as him

walking,
home,
alone

train to nowhere

i forgot you in my math
four hours
four pillows
i curled up in the nice brown blanket
and tried to write
i wanted to tell you the sunrise was lovely
but i never even saw it

one hundred years

that's how old i turned yesterday

now it is twelve hours
and twenty years
minus one and a bit
plus yesterday, and then
give or take eighteen or so

i've always had a head for numbers
just never quite the exciting philosophical kind
but i know that in the end it all equals zero.

i knew there was more

i love the smells of tar and gasoline.

i hate that gross old men think it's okay to blatantly check you out while you're waiting for the bus just because they're behind the wheel of a jaguar. not that i have anything against jaguars, mind you.

in the spirit of the holiday, i'll be generous - maybe he was simply coveting my beautiful scarf, flapping in the wind as it was, just so.

the end.

stars

i kinda miss being sick...i had some crazy ass dreams yesterday

i wish i spoke cat

the past 36 hours have been some of the strangest of my life.

on another note, there's a cat i always see in the alley behind my house, who thinks my door is the door of his home. he's really skittish, but if i crouch down and stretch out the palm of my hand he'll come and talk to me. i suspect he wanders off the balcony from the apartment above and then has no way to get back up. i want to let him into the main hallway of the building at least, but i'm not sure he actually lives here, and in the end i think trapped inside would be much worse than locked out.

i think i'll nickname him tiger.

airport hotel

spades and balls and bicycles and brick walls

oh well, whatever, nevermind...

(i liked that guy and i hope he comes back)

disappeared

sometimes when you try to save yourself,
you end up saving someone else in the process
sometimes they surprise you and say thanks
sometimes they never know it was you

back to my tea and teddy bear shaped graham cookies...

just like running, the last hundred is when you've got to push the hardest

one day me and you are going to france

waiting for the streetcar that never comes,
you know the one...
kind of charming bar band across the way
sid vicious sings elvis
thoughts of paris then alarms and darkness
so much perfume on friday nights
all night i forget to breathe
then it's you again
the world turns pale but bright
and i smile inside at your return

dancing and singing by myself

perhaps for this evening a list of my dirty little secret (as in, no irony here) favorite songs of all time...i'm sure there are more, but these are the ones that popped into my head tonight.

on my own from les miserables

the gambler by kenny rogers

what a feeling (the flashdance theme) - irene cara, tied with maniac from the same movie

day by day from godspell

honourable mention to samba lèlè as sung by raffi (i’m technically too old for it now)

hugs

i wish my hair would always look the way it does a few weeks into the haircut
drummers have strong arms
shadows have strong wills
six months at sea
versus a decade lost mirrors me...
chickens and eggs, oh my
music doesn't lie,
it's life that does.
not quite right,
but i'll try to sleep anyway.

baby blue

i will keep it up for you

me, i want a bunny, too.

dirty mind

princes and parties
it never ever stops
fuzz on my socks
gala invitations
crisis interventions
wondering if my meagre life savings will be worth anything when they mature next week
leftover kraft dinner wasn't as bad as i feared

if that's the way it is, then that's the way it is

internet poll

can I love you be a platonic expression?

blink for yes
sigh for no

garlic breath

awake and calm and able to focus. i could get used to this no anxiety thing, though i'll admit that reading heavy philosophy makes me a little unbalanced.

i'll go to bed, but i won't sleep. perhaps i'll just close my eyes and listen to some music...

christmas in september

(Some days I can't tell a banana from a diamond.)

When I was five, my (probably drunk) dad threw all my presents out into the snow in the backyard after I asked innocently if that was it, if there were any more. He obviously thought I was being a greedy little bug, but in my gut I know it was an honest question - Is the party/show over? Can I go play now? Thus my existential crisis was borne - a deep rooting of my sense that the world so often just doesn't make sense.

When I was eight, I wrote my first poem. It went something like this:

Christmas has sun, and lots of fun.
Christmas has cheer, and maybe a beer.
Christmas has snow, as everyone knows.
(and so on...)

Okay, perhaps the beverage bit wasn't it - but it feels like it was...alcoholic dad, and besides, what else rhymes with cheer? Queer? Deer? Hmmm, maybe that was it.

Anyhow, my dad was so proud of me he couldn't stop reading it to everyone, which may be why I still have it in my head. He took it to work with him and kept it on his desk for years (along with the one about Terry Fox, a "courageous man, who ran and ran and ran and ran" - we all went out to stand by the now burnt-down McDonalds to cheer him on as he passed through our town).

There's no doubt in my mind that the memory of the rare smile on my dad's face is the reason I still write. That much about my world has never failed to make sense.


We are who we are long before we have any real choice in the matter.

quiet (again?)

he said
"keep walking in light"

how can the best piece of advice i ever got be tied to so much danger?

the towel with the monkeys is still in my closet.
i will probably never have the heart to throw it out.

is this fog?
or distraction?
his box...so his rules?

impossible
us

damn the interwebnet for making it so easy to go nowhere.

three women / keep out

one plus one plus 13 times four plus 50 minus one = my life has been all about the odds these days

i stood outside the fortune teller's tonight
waiting for the bus
ocean smells and
neon candles,
and me

bound and beautiful
thinking i should have walked
caught enough to know that sometimes it's fine to stay and wait

i wrote this all before you came
before it all changed

take it away, i never had it anyway


a tribute,
a reminder,
on this day of all days.
a warning about regret

"And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth."

- Raymond Carver, "Last Fragment," *All of Us: The Collected Poems*

work/rhyme

strange,
how I left the place in such a shambles
true, though
it was crumbling in on itself
what I don't know
is if it was my doing,
or simply just my observation

i should check in, and see who's still around...
find the keeper a pasture to tend, now that I know who he is
leave the others to sleep, until it's their time
maybe take a walk,
and see if the river leads anywhere yet...
see if it's safe to come down.

breathe

i am the goddess of pasta, and i have the ass to prove it.

you know when you’re craving a certain food and then you make it and it’s perfect because it’s exactly what you wanted?

shape of an iceberg

I’d write you my own version of it but then he’d think I was stealing from him and well, that’s not my style…

waiting
staring
frozen
a thousand shades of blue
form of…water
into the sea, you and me, yeah?
maybe there’s another way to be
point and I will follow

groundhog day

to each his own but yuck, yuck and more yuck

though it is good to be reminded that my problems are relatively small, and that maybe what i think i want is far more trouble than i want. all kinds of both.

so, did you see that? the ken doll was talking to me of messages from angels, and then that and now this...yesterday refusing to exist as itself. two identical yesterdays, just like in the movies. is that the sign? are we doomed to repeat ourselves? it's so much easier when things come with instructions.

she tells me he plays bass now for the goofs. weird.

hands in my pockets
standing on the moon
tragic hero or fool?
too bad i can't remember

name that tune

there'll be no blog tonight
cuz i'm jaded...

quétaine is french for ikea

when you iron the curtains, iron the curtains.

there is no spoon.

got no room for bitter

i looked up
and there she was
the face of an old woman
one i know so well...knew so well...
gone, impossible,
but there was her mouth,
there were her eyes...
she kept staring,
at me
through me
to me
do we call those angels?

sometimes we know before it happens
caution not to change the world
foreknowledge, a new word

sunglasses and headphones shut out the world

squirrels playing in the graveyard

no more time for games
no more patience for him keeping his eyes closed and calling it blind
no more wolf cries

feels like the moon is full tonight but I can't tell for sure without my glasses
enter you
not the dragon (though he rises again soon, not sure if I will stand or hide)
enter you
and we sleep

screws

sometimes I’m a spaz, and I’m okay with that
excited and worried and really hungry for something (what?)

flowers

earlier today I could not stop thinking about how far we have not come
and about how much of nothing I have
(unless you count the plenty of debt and the imaginary boyfriend and the tummy ache and the pretty flowered pillowcases that I picked up on sale a while back and the pirate song that was reminding me of a time when I used to be alive)

but then you came back
(well, all but one)
and now I’m thinking that maybe my nothing
is not such a bad haul after all

the cosmic yes

but of course the question is, which one?

and the other question is, why are people buzzing my annoying front door thing at 3:33 am?

bubbles

summer made an unexpected return today,
her last gasp, a dying breath

my body struggles to find its bearings as the world keeps shifting around me...
and yet somehow,
i always find myself
back,
and here

one day maybe
i (or we) will discover forward.

pause for station identification

but first, I forgot to say yesterday that I wish I was there right now.

and so:

From Wajdi Mouawad, Governor General Award-winning Canadian playwright; Knight of the Ordre National des Arts et des Lettres, France; Artistic Director of French Theatre, The National Arts Centre of Canada...an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Monsieur le premier ministre,

We are neighbours. We work across the street from one another. You are Prime Minister of the Parliament of Canada and I, across the way, am a writer, theatre director and Artistic Director of the French Theatre at the National Arts Centre (NAC). So, like you, I am an employee of the state, working for the Federal Government; in other words, we are colleagues.

Let me take advantage of this unique position, as one functionary to another, to chat with you about the elimination of some federal grants in the field of culture, something that your government recently undertook. Indeed, having followed this matter closely, I have arrived at a few conclusions that I would like to publicly share with you since, as I’m sure you will agree, this debate has become one of public interest.

The Symbolism

Firstly, it seems that you might benefit by surrounding yourself with counsellors who will be attentive to the symbolic aspects of your Government’s actions. I am sure you know this but there is no harm in reminding ourselves that every public action denotes not only what it is but what it symbolises.

For example, a Prime Minister who chooses not attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, claiming his schedule does not permit it, in no way reduces the symbolism which says that his absence might signify something else. This might signify that he wishes to denote that Canada supports the claims of Tibet. Or it might serve as a sign of protest over the way in which Beijing deals with human rights. If the Prime Minister insists that his absence is really just a matter of timing, whether he likes it or not, this will take on symbolic meaning that commits the entire country. The symbolism of a public gesture will always outweigh the technical explanations.

Declaration of war

Last week, your government reaffirmed its manner of governing unilaterally, this time on a domestic issue, in bringing about reductions in granting programs destined for the cultural sector. A mere matter of budgeting, you say, but one which sends shock waves throughout the cultural milieu –rightly or wrongly, as we shall see- for being seen as an expression of your contempt for that sector. The confusion with which your Ministers tried to justify those reductions and their refusal to make public the reports on the eliminated programs, only served to confirm the symbolic significance of that contempt. You have just declared war on the artists.

Now, as one functionary to another, this is the second thing that I wanted to tell you: no government, in showing contempt for artists, has ever been able to survive. Not one. One can, of course, ignore them, corrupt them, seduce them, buy them, censor them, kill them, send them to camps, spy on them, but hold them in contempt, no. That is akin to rupturing the strange pact, made millennia ago, between art and politics.

Contempt

Art and politics both hate and envy one another; since time immemorial, they detest each other and they are mutually attracted, and it’s through this dynamic that many a political idea has been born; it is in this dynamic that sometimes, great works of art see the light of day. Your cultural politics, it must be said, provoke only a profound consternation. Neither hate nor detestation, not envy nor attraction, nothing but numbness before the oppressive vacuum that drives your policies.

This vacuum which lies between you and the artists of Canada, from a symbolic point of view, signifies that your government, for however long it lasts, will not witness either the birth of a political idea or a masterwork, so firm is your apparent belief in the unworthiness of that for which you show contempt. Contempt is a subterranean sentiment, being a mix of unassimilated jealousy and fear towards that which we despise. Such governments have existed, but not lasted because even the most detestable of governments cannot endure if it hasn’t the courage to affirm what it actually is.

Why is this?

What are the reasons behind these reductions, which are cut from the same cloth as those made last year on the majority of Canadian embassies, who saw their cultural programming reduced, if not eliminated? The economies that you have made are ridiculously small and the votes you might win with them have already been won. For what reason, then, are you so bent on hurting the artists by denying them some of their tools? What are you seeking to extinguish and to gain?

Your silence and your actions make one fear the worst for, in the end, we are quite struck by the belief that this contempt, made eloquent by your budget cuts, is very real and that you feel nothing but disgust for these people, these artists, who spend their time by wasting it and in spending the good taxpayers money, he who, rather than doing uplifting work, can only toil.

And yet, I still cannot fathom your reasoning. Plenty of politicians, for the past fifty years, have done all they could to depoliticise art, to strip it of its symbolic import. They try the impossible, to untie that knot which binds art to politics. And they almost succeed! Whereas you, in the space of one week, have undone this work of chloroforming, by awakening the cultural milieu, Francophone and Anglophone, and from coast to coast. Even if politically speaking they are marginal and negligible, one must never underestimate intellectuals, never underestimate artists; don’t underestimate their ability to do you harm.

A grain of sand is all-powerful

I believe, my dear colleague, that you yourself have just planted the grain of sand that could derail the entire machine of your electoral campaign. Culture is, in fact, nothing but a grain of sand, but therein lays its power, in its silent front. It operates in the dark. That is its legitimate strength.

It is full of people who are incomprehensible but very adept with words. They have voices. They know how to write, to paint, to dance, to sculpt, to sing, and they won’t let up on you. Democratically speaking, they seek to annihilate your policies. They will not give up. How could they?

You must understand them: they have not had a clear and common purpose for a very long time, for such a long time that they have no common cause to defend. In one week, by not controlling the symbolic importance of your actions, you have just given them passion, anger, rage.

In the dark

The resistance that will begin today, and to which my letter is added, is but a first manifestation of a movement that you yourself have set in motion: an incalculable number of texts, speeches, acts, assemblies, marches, will now be making themselves heard. They will not be exhausted.

Some of these will, perhaps, following my letter, be weakened but within each word, there will be a spark of rage, relit, and it is precisely the addition of these tiny instances of fire that will shape the grain of sand that you will never be able to shake. This will not settle down, the pressure will not be diminished.

Monsieur le premier ministre, we are neighbours. We work across the street from one another. There is nothing but the Cenotaph between our offices, and this is as it should be because politics and art have always mirrored one another, each on its own shore, each seeing itself in the other, separated by that river where life and death are weighed at every moment.

We have many things in common, but an artist, contrary to a politician, has nothing to lose, because he or she does not make laws; and if it is prime ministers who change the world, it’s the artist who will show this to the world. So do not attempt, through your policies, to blind us, Monsieur le premier ministre; do not ignore that reflection on the opposite shore, do not plunge us further into the dark. Do not diminish us.

Wajdi Mouawad

1-800-PEP-TALK

there are gypsies in my mountains.

his anti-perfect makes me smile.

there are holes in the poetry as i spread myself thin

but it's okay because my anti-perfect makes him smile too.

today he brought me a sock monkey

it doesn't make up for the pain of my third decade on this planet,
nor does it address the ongoing cleanup in aisle two...
but it's a start.

mornings suck and then it all ends in a blinding flash of light.
somewhere in between, there's us

popcorn

I lost today
distracted
couldn't wake up now I can't fall asleep
so behind yet way ahead of myself
all I know for sure is that I have to be out hunting legal sized paper at 8 am.

fruit flies are the spawn of the devil

How is it possible I have never seen this perfect painting until this week?


(I know that grammar's wrong, but I can't be bothered to puzzle it out right now).

got me a new pillow

I keep getting caught in the rain, always just minutes from home.

What's up with that?

sleepyhead

friend,
and friend,
and friend,
and stranger...

i wish i knew what to do with you.

popsicle sticks

i wish he would finish the story already
(, already?)

me and my little pal are gonna go take a nap down by the river

clarification

NOT a banana,
rather,
a Japanese donut.

My eyes are clear.
My monitor is blurry and faded.

It's a salty salty world,
where hawks eat pigeons at the side of the highway
too far to touch
not far enough to miss.

Dreams and lines
It bends, he said.
I like that.

protein / deficient

My life would be so much simpler if I would just learn to order from the menu.

Sometimes I wish Catholic school hadn't taught me to expect miracles.
Sometimes I wish life hadn't taught me to believe in them.
Faith turns to atrophy if you blink.
Quiet patience, high threshold.
Wait in the in-between places,
listen,
and wait.

If you're lucky, there's a pretty lady with a banana trying to find her way back to you. Those are the good days.

a world full of phil collins

worth six hours on the road
to stand so close
to see so clear
a time to sing
a time to dance

stripy pyjamas
a time to refrain

space
beyond
bridges over peaceful waters
riding back in the dark

saturation

i have just/only enough left to write about watching the wind blow through the green leaves outside my canopy-level office window. suddenly it feels like winter is upon us.

it's not bedtime

but it feels like i'm done for a while.

"I have nothing to say and I'm saying it."
- John Cage

spinning on the dizzy edge

found
stunned
enough for now
words used up for a better cause than this
that this to which i owe it all
sleep
dream
sleep
dream
write
dream
write
sleep
dream

lemon tea

i think a time machine would be a good tool to have, for lots of reasons.

cutting and pasting.

erasing.

it all starts to look the same.

i think i should just quit while i'm ahead, and get me to a nunnery.

how long have I been out?

I wonder what the world will look like when I wake up from this dreaming...

headache

I have one
maybe several
but I also have new books, new curtains
and lately sometimes something to look forward to

surprise phone call
from the one
who wasn’t
done, and done
and good in the goodest way

something's (still?) missing
start, try, to fill it in...

blue

sometimes it is best just to lie down and close your eyes.

he loves me not

"professional distance"
his words
not about us, but so much about us
sat in silence for most of the rest of it
he thinks he'd like to let the sides grow in a bit

at least my haircut's hot
at least some guy checked me out in the office supplies store,
and the man in the coffee shop was flustered enough to give me back the wrong change.
ego deflation repair

a day of tales of delusions and fantasies and sadnesses

the man on the bus whose legs no longer work right, melted on the sidewalk, ignored until i offered my arm. left him three feet later at the coffee shop door - will you be okay? - i'll try...

cocky beauty queen announcing her move to the worst part of town

baby raccoon dead in the roof

a story that needs courage to finish itself

how many times can a heart break in one day?

in the midnight hour

sick. sleepy. boring. bye.

strange nostalgia

everything is foggy when you're sick.
i remember how delirious i used to get when i was a kid.
i miss that sometimes.

also, why does milk chocolate so often taste like bandaids?

here comes the rain again

Deluge and drought and dreams that go bump in the night
I don’t know what any of them want
All I know is sometimes it takes all I’ve got
to fight the urge to go outside and dance around in the rain,
Without ever really having grasped
just why it isn't
the way it's supposed to be.

By the time you’re ready to make the real apology it’s always too late
Door closed, lights out
Otherside,
send it out to the universe & hope it lands safely

Life turns you into everything you hate when you’re not looking.
So hard not to blink.
Time to start new.

I wish construction season was over and they’d put my bus back in service.

I always have to imagine that it’s the last time.
I could see in his eyes that he has started to do the same.

bizarre vegetable concoction

slept too much (if only there were no such thing as too much for sleeping)...
and my tummy still hurts.
sex, drugs and rock and roll...(yeah, not quite like that).

the weather is a little bit perfect the past few days.
and so...
i love the sound of cicadas, which is funny because they're actually repulsive little beasts. once i found one on the sidewalk, flipped over on its back and unable to get back to its business. i wanted to help it but i was scared it would fly up into my face or hair while escaping the ground. being the coward i am i laid a small twig on its belly, hoping it would somehow manage to grab on and use the prop to rescue itself. then i walked away as fast as i could. it wasn't there the next day, alive or dead...that's got to have been good news.

i still like to pretend that their song is just the sound of electricity buzzing in the hydro lines. its nicer that way...and i believed it for years at no expense to anyone - why let reality ruin a good thing?

limbo

it is easy to fight the sadness if you just pack your heart away into a little metal box and throw away the key. make sure you poke some holes in the top so it can still breathe.

full moon

i think it is important to note that we're in one right now.

new socks/cruel world

much as i often dislike my shoes, i would really not want to be in his even more.

irony and karma are lovers, of that i am sure. i can't even process the latest...the joke is so fucking sick my head wants to explode...that or it might just be the alcohol.

as for real life, it's (not) funny how he made me realize tonight that the stories my mom told me about romance (hers and my grandmother's) were all tales of impossible love. it figures.

i almost stood on my head today. that's something.

um...

my yoga mat is purple, just like everything else i own.

i think i will probably buy a pack of smokes tomorrow.

dance inside the funny farm

writing feels like effort today

butterfly on a telephone wire

crazy somalian preacher lady on the subway shouting about how mussolini massacred millions of her people

a friend who lost his partner last week and was just making his way back out into the world again

an well-dressed old couple who made me smile when he held her hand and helped her off the bus

something else that has, as usual, escaped me

it's so easy to disappear in public when you want to

we had a deal once that we were allowed to cheat on each other if he ever met annie lennox and if i ever met flea. funny they both got stuck in my head this week. them and corey hart...i digress.

i can't wait to see him again (no not that him, a different one).

eyeliner fetish

a nice looking man with two kids smiled at me today.
it's too bad all the good ones are always already taken.

where do i file a complaint? the past few years it has become increasingly, and now basically just impossible to find a bra that isn't padded. enraged is how it makes me feel, in a hulk kinda way. someone, somewhere has decided that normal-sized and natural is not okay...there is no way to escape the injunction to augment...the only brands that still make proper lingerie are all french, and they seem to have stopped selling over here...who knew pretty underwear was the key to understanding everything that's wrong with the world? grrr...

on the plus side, there's always eyeliner purchases to brighten up a life...
raven and mystery
both
dark and sparkly,
just like me

it's quiet out there tonight...

forgetting

i forget how much of a difference it makes, how much easier it is to be in the world when i engage in a daily practice which is physical/spiritual/artistic. i always swear i won't forget, and then i always manage somehow to forget. so i write this in order to remember, just before the lights go out on this round...surrender in savasana, sleep always accepts the invitation. i breathe for me.

or more like this

sitting

A few days ago I made an interesting physical discovery, and today it was confirmed with a cherry on top...it's about the fascinating connection between my deep calf muscles, my psoas and my eyebrows...though I'm sure you don't want about it in all its gory (actually), detailed anatomical glory.

Yoga makes me realize I'd make a good rock.

I feel like I should have more to say, but somehow I don't. Maybe it's tied to an idea that's been floating around in my head for a while...(paraphrased from Greil Marcus) the suspicion that to say everything may be worth nothing.

And so, silence remains. There should be a picture here, but I'm not sure of what. Maybe it's this.

is it friday yet?

going into intense yoga practice this week
if I start writing way out there,
it’s because I have spent the week contorting and meditating/hallucinating

caffeine pills

woken from nightmares by a nightmare...
can't go back to sleep, too much to get done
too slow, painting is gone
it's at least relief to know that the noises weren't in my head
the crazy thunder boom that i didn't think was thunder...
thought maybe a car had driven into a house?
was actually a massive explosion miles away from here
saw it on the news
balls of flame to rival any apocalyptic fantasy
reality acts like fiction
but i saw it on the news

light and cold

this morning when i woke up in the afternoon
headache
coffee
slate and orange and green up around the sky

on the way home
saw a house i've never noticed before
saw the dwarf apple tree first
always musta thought it was a space between two others
overgrown
boarded up windows
funny how sometimes things are hiding right out there in the open

wide awake at 4am
sounds like thunder, then an explosion
now sounds like rain
no way ever to know what's real

he loves me...

stepped out of my house into the brightest, bluest sky
the sunniest sun, the greeniest green
perfect weather
felt drops and suddenly it was pouring rain
sheets and sheets of clear summer shower
like the apocalypse in a parallel opposite universe
it felt like sacrilege to use my umbrella and miss the strange baptism
blink and i would have missed it, gone before i even got anywhere

maybe that's why i like history
ancient peoples knew their signs from god(s)
(okay, well, it's that and the pretty dresses)
something is most definitely afoot at the circle K

i'm a sleepy monkey tonight...dreams are calling to finish what we started last night.

untitled (thirteen) candles

do stupid people have dreams too? sometimes i wonder...

black cat crossed my path...i like them, it's good

same deep water as you,
leaning on the wall at the end of the tunnel,
driver slowed way way down, musta thought i was a jumper.
strange how robert smith's sadness leaked right out of my ears and into the path of a train...

another black cat and a bat in the sky
twilight not blue not grey, maybe orange and green?
red maple looked black, black, like a haunted house kinda tree
twilight
wind
a feeling that something big is shifting
i always know when it's going on...
they just never send me the details

cleaned out a closet (it's actually the spare room)
where we used to just dump all the stuff we couldn't deal with
all the things we couldn't agree on
all the things we never figured out...
it's maybe cheating to say i cleaned it out,
i actually just moved it all out into the open...it's progress...

do you realize how fucking weird...really think about this...how really fucking weird it is that we have collectively submitted to superstition to the point where we don't have 13th floors in buildings? i can barely wrap my head around it, when i think of all the other shit the world calls crazy...

is there really going to be a point break sequel? the thought excites me in ways you'll never understand...

i like trains

i just thought of a good dating test.

watch godzilla (the first one; japanese original version, not the hollywood one), and if the boy agrees that it is one of the best anti-war movies of all time then he is a keeper.

me and my shadow

this is one of the best things i have seen in a long time.

this is also one of the best things i have seen in a long time.

i think i decided today that windy is my favorite kind of weather.

crash

today was a day of false starts.
i woke up, said goodbye, drank some coffee, went back to bed.
woke up, ate pizza for breakfast at 2pm, tried to fix my broken thermostat...
a song a message
opened the window to let in the rain
not ready to start yet but
running out of time.

made some (maybe not so) innocent bad jokes that I think are going to cost me more than i expected
which was none

sometimes i suck, today is one of those days
fuck
baby
a guy who makes me feel like i'm lying in bed getting punched in the gut is always bad news anyway

i sent the monkey monk off with my last peach to keep me safe, to make sure that the one who calls out the darkness wouldn't return
reminded of his absence,
how do I get him back without sacrificing the ocean I sent him to guard?

properly nuts - it’s a phrase that haunts me,
phantomwise

imagine if we were on the same side?
the ego must be quiet or its all going to end in tears

“Of this same flimsy, magic stuff our dreams were woven in the night - nothing, with all the pictures of the world in it.” (Hesse)

quit playing games with my heart

I just tried to play solitaire but I opened up my calculator by accident instead. It actually confused me for a second.

How do I get myself into situations where I have to defend my honour against random strangers? I guess it’s the price I pay for an all night pass into the realm of the infinite...the force demands balance. The thing I love about this writing business is that the more full of shit you are, the more people think you're a genius. I'll admit I pat myself on the back from time to time - it sounds something like this: Omigod I am a fucking genius sometimes! (no one is reading this so it’s okay to brag, right?)

I am a badass and just sliced cucumbers on the counter with no cutting board (I’ll regret it in the morning, what else is new?)

So it seems I have discovered (a little too late but not so late that it doesn't still count) that the key to being able to write non-fiction is to read fiction. Good fiction. Genius fiction. Crazy fiction.

Thesis detritus: The fish told me to write and so I wrote, and now it's time for some zen-like platitudes. Here's what I realized today: there is a real difference between knowing and doing, between wishing and being, between creating and living.

Er, don’t look at me for answers...if I had any I would have written the book, gotten rich and made my way out to one of my many mountain village homes (I'm was thinking maybe BC, Ukraine, Japan, and Ireland...do they have mountains in Ireland? They have nice voices there, anyway. I’ll make it work somehow. Hmmm, and I guess I'll have to add the monkey sanctuary to that now - yeah, 'round these parts we just call them all monkeys, but we like all kinds) where I will be attended by hot dark-haired men with nice sideburns who like to stay in bed all day...when they're not busy making me dinner.

Right, so since this blog is actually supposed to be about boys and my misadventures in romance in preparation for the writing of my own great, groundbreaking novel (about same), here is a pickup line I thought of just now:
"Hey, wanna go for a ride on my merry-go-round?"

I fucking hate it when you ignore me, and you know it, don't you?

Hmmm, I hope I haven’t shot my proverbial wad here. Back to work. A bientot. (how do you make accents on this thing?)

you just never know

I love days like today when I can have all the windows open, when some of the silence ends, when the songs I love make themselves heard, when there’s light and promise in the air and pink lemonade in my fridge.

I got a FB invite from a producer in New York who was clearly adding to her empire through a suggestion of common friends, but I figured what the heck? and lo and behold, a little bit of guts and a click or two, a few hours later I found myself engaged in some lovely casual wall chats with one of the greatest performance artists in all the land. It’s so easy to forget that sometimes all you have to do is show up, say yes, open the door...even if you’re not sure why or how you’re doing it…the magic always wins if you let it.

With his good wishes now I will go to write...straight into dreams if the gods are with me. There's a painting on the line; second choice, but we've all got to touch base with reality from time to time now, don't we?

cherries and peaches

absolutely nothing happened today.
it was great.
i woke up just before 4, and now i am going back to bed.
the end.

shadow dancing

this is how it plays out in my head:

he writes back,
"What am I supposed to say to that?"

and I write,
"Anything.
(Ha ha, you walked right into that one, Mr. Dobler!)"

that's quality Rushmore worthy material...no?



i need to get a life.

"It was lovely to be tired."

A few days ago I was inspired to go back to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and relive my falling in love with Joyce. Smiling out loud on the subway, having to stop every paragraph so I can read it over and over and over and over until it sinks in and the picture sets behind my closed eyelids...it's so beyond my own grasp of language to really describe how he makes me feel...it's close to that thing of having no need to move on, when a few words (as like a certain kind of touch) can make you perfectly content to stay forever...maybe this hunt is only about replacing that feeling from when I was a kid and would lie in bed all day with my books...fantasy fantasy fantasy...where it all makes sense.

So back to this world, it seems it was worse than he let on. Tomorrow I will once again spend visiting hours at the mental hospital, a place I forget some, most, people never see from the inside even once. But I've never managed to master the whole walking away thing...probably I guess never quite convinced myself to believe in it.

Today was full of tiny episodes of the "too fucking vivid" variety (apologies to Tom Robbins). All I want to do now is sleep.

sometimes i do stupid things

i guess we'll find out if that was one of them.

in other news, there's a man i saw on the bus last week. he turned up again today. kind of israeli looking - dark eyes, big nose - but light brown skin, like the inside of a coffee crisp. well dressed. striking. he reads in public, which was the icing on that cake. i was pretty excited about him...until the boner killer - he moves his lips while he reads.

is that unkind? i was so disappointed. the search goes on...

weirdos like us

I have spent the past two days playing Idealist Counselor, just like Myers-Briggs says I'm supposed to. It's sort of hard to describe how really nice it is when the world actually gives me the chance to do what I do best...feeling no need to try and describe it for you...but maybe reading this tells you everything you want to know.

wait, i know.
it's the kind of day where you can listen to keyboard hair bands like flock of seagulls and feel happy and then go outside and the sky is blue and the air is warm but there's a breeze and there's flowers and smiles and you know that it's all going to be okay.

busted knee

Today at work I received a weird email
a prayer from one stranger for another
Not spam
Misguided incoherent
but a prayer nonetheless

There’s no one to send mine out to so I guess this is a good place to do it
he didn't want to tell me but he didn't have to
I knew today, I knew it was coming, I knew there was nothing I could do
I stand here because it’s the least I can do
maybe it’s all I can do
These tears are for powerlessness
I breathe, because it's all I can do
I wish I wish I could take it all away
No one to talk to about it because all they do is judge
it’s amazing how fast a liberal mind can shut down when faced with concrete demands on its beliefs

So tonight I forfeit work in favour of sleep
days I can find the door, it's a great place to hide from the world
Stand on my perch high above the blackness
and pray

some but never enough

i know i am old because (part two): all nighters are no longer quite the functional option they once were

if you are old and far away - are you coming to visit me soon?
if you are older than jesus and also far away - i hope you will come and talk to me again soon
if you are young and close by - you are not reading this because i didn't tell you where to find it
if you are a unicorn - i want to believe that you're reading this but i know it's probably just wishful thinking and i have no idea what i'd do if i found out it was happening for real
if you are a girl who is my friend - you might read this sometimes but you still bother talking to me in other places that have more to do with reality than this
if you are a stranger - hi, thanks for finding me and bothering to stay a minute or two - hardly anyone knows i'm here since this is kind of my dirty little secret.

insomnia insomnia go away
i know you'll be back another day

what can i dream of that will make the sleep fairy come to stay? hmmm....

grey is so a colour, especially after it rains

it's nowhere near bedtime, but i was distracted by the crazy flash rainstorm and the return of the young 'uns who don't understand the concept of quiet or of replacing the toilet paper when they use it all up...i was always jaded, as far back as i can remember...but i don't like this sense lately that i'm heading towards bitter...

and so:
perhaps this hiccup can act as a beginning
i have been so immersed in and fascinated by concepts around failure that i think i am becoming myself into one
it's incredible how much time i can kill procrastinating...hours upon hours of sitting, of staring, of nothing but circles

(i smell mashed potatoes...i want to be cooking instead of writing)

i've read the books on flow and anxiety and i know what it is and i know what to do
but i won't
the fish says i have to learn to be "a prick" to myself (that's a can of worms that we're just not going to open with regard to that particular gentleman friend)
perhaps instead i will be a fish itself
jump in and swim around inside my head and see if i can't change this tide

if i finish what i set out to do, i think i will splurge on something frivolous ($80 in my bank, but for everything else there's mastercard!). i know what would be nice - it's too bad i suspect i'm on the disqualified wackos list...might just have to settle for a painting of the ocean in a purple and green sunset...

plan B

slept all day, woken by crows in the middle of the afternoon
bought a pineapple, got myself a tax refund

i wish it wasn't such a slow night for the trains...i much prefer them to the sounds of the boom boom music party that has been going on in a not distant enough somewhere out there for at least the past six hours. i am going to go put my head through a wall if i can still hear it when i close my window. if i don't come back tomorrow, you'll know what happened to me. i hope you'll miss me, even if it's just a little.

i'm with the band

i played on the other side of the eye tonight
chance played too
as long as the somethings call me cinematographer when my footage ends up in the video/documentary that skyrockets them to superfame and fortune, i'll be a happy monkey

exciting new music everywhere, ugly poetry everywhere
and
bicycles bicycles bicycles
voices
songs
words
and later screams and fists, but not the bad kind

pizza of all kinds, tasty goodness and it's somehow enough just to think it

dragons
walls
stood on that corner for just long enough
walked just far enough
*
*
*
back and forward but nowhere at all and it's so okay today

there's nothing quite like french fries from vesta lunch at 3:30 am...

pac-man

have you ever gotten drunk and then almost wandered into traffic because you were thinking about the twenty and how funny her smile is when you fold it up right?

anyway, sorry, this one's just for me.

feels like time to let it go

today a little gift from someone i didn't know was a friend...

other people fuck up while the selfish ones lie and disappoint...and how!

but at the end of the day there's still berries and music and rainbows and sunshine and watermelon and puppies and flowers. and maybe unicorns.
i want to believe.

went on a birthday cake date with the baby supermodel and her mathematician boyfriend. next time i'm in an airport and my plane gets delayed, maybe i'll try picking up the cute stranger sitting across the waiting area and see if it doesn't work out as well for me as it did for them.

sleep is now.

except for when i'm not

drummer came by today looking for work
he forgot that it wasn't the first time we have had the same conversation
(how does that happen to me more than once?)

this guy was pretty high
at least i don't find that charming anymore

it would have been funny...
old me, different me
now
it isn't even rare enough to make me sad
lame, just tragically lame


tomorrow decides my life for the next year or so
cross your fingers for me and hope it all goes well

this never happens to me, i swear

this one hasn’t been around in a long while
i’m not all that much into motorcycles, but i sure do seem to be into men who happen to ride them
this one brought out a melodica today
much to my surprise, to my surprise
(i have a thing about melodicas)
i asked if it was what i thought it was
he said yes
i lent him a piece of duct tape for a quick repair
i noticed later that he has gotten a lot thicker
and maybe shorter
than i remember

i will never know

folded laundry, ate grilled cheese and raspberries from a pretty bowl, worked on my taxes, talked about birthdays and cake…and I still can’t get that song out of my head

tomatoes on pizza are redundant

i'm glad things didn't work out and i didn't have to move to the tropics because fuck, i hate this weather.

have you ever had a crush on a guy because he's cute and poetic and intelligent except then you're too shy to talk to him so you always come across as some giant idiot around him but then you figure he's the singer in a band and so he's probably a dirtbag anyway and then he starts dating your friend and so that's just that? and then time passes and suddenly there you are and he's kind enough to force your shyness away and you chat and remember to make eye contact once in a while or at least look at him instead of anywhere but and then it's all okay and you smile and then you leave to go walk in the rain?

audition day

raining on parades...

the world was ugly today

are we all this deluded?
too many crack whores on the corner near my work
so much I can’t articulate lately…always
too late too angry too sad
same guy sitting smoking on the stairs when I come out of the subway
too muggy too smelly too heavy too loud too far too much
forgot I meant to buy strawberries on the way home
at least this summer there’s foxglove everywhere

we all stand around by the river but nothing ever happens

days like today I feel like if we would all just remember how to dance we could save the world

wrong, wrong, wrong

i know no html so i am a slave to blogger templates. that last one was spatially retarded and it was driving me crazy. i'm feeling a little emo lately and i even put the cure's disintegration album on my ipod so black it is...make fun of myself before you do it for me.

update: er, nevermind.

not sure what my point is

there are lots and lots of things that i have hated myself for, but being somewhat insane was never one of them.

i ate hippie potato chips for dinner.

i have been dreaming a lot which means sleeping too much...i guess the fish was right, life's much more interesting in my head. riding the bus to work this morning (late as usual) i finally understood how the end of that book might actually have been less of a cop out and just more of an...acceptance? with the most recent appearance of the pink lady, i'm starting to wonder if i had the whole thing wrong...perhaps fate's version of a red herring, my favorite literary device.

talking to ourselves out loud in public, indeed.

i am secretly still such a rocker

this house makes me happy...the way the purples match and the greens match and the way they sit against the blue...there's something about it that makes all my anxiety go away...and bright colours to remind the people to forget that it's always grey and foggy...

he thinks he lost those eyes but if that were true he wouldn't be able to see me.

sleepy eyes

i am dragonette. i will go back to breathing icy white fire...just as soon as i have a little nap.

no shame, no gain

today i played supermodel. it was super fun.
outside the building were these giant pink planters (like 7 feet tall) full of purple flowers. it was possibly the most bizarre thing i have ever seen.
on my travels i passed a perfect and unexpected combination of two of my favorite plants - a juniper bush threaded through with deadly nightshade...the most incredibly beautiful weed of all time. i do love poison berries...
then it was off to the chinese restaurant we used to frequent when i was a kid. it's a full on gangster style 50s upscale diner with a separate takeout window and an amazing golden buddha sitting in a bath of pebbles in the front entrance...i asked nicely and took some pix for the sake of nostalgia. didn't have time or money for the special fried rice...next time...need to return at night to capture the neon dragon outside...(use your imagination, i'm still shooting film)
lastly, to the jewish bakery for raisin challah. so i can eat a whole loaf of bread in one day...so what?
oh yeah, and i upgraded my ram. so satisfying. so nerdy.
my temporary roommate told me i'm the quirkiest and funniest person she has ever met. she's just a babe (and actually, she would kick my ass in the supermodel department), but i'll take the compliment.

i love it when he calls me obstreperous

the silence, however, i only like when it's my choice.

spent all day today thinking about this amazing burrito i ate in seattle last summer...

disguises

the only thing guaranteed to fill me with delight is old sesame street.
for some reason i am reminded of this a lot lately but especially today.
maybe picture bert with a guitar in his hands...
ahem.

i know i am old because

1. my stylist is into hardcore bands that i have never heard of.
2. text messaging is a chore.
3. i am coming to terms with men and pot bellies. i never thought i'd see the day.
(this post inspired by leftover sugar high/hunger cramps and not knowing why the old man seems to be ignoring me these days. and so it goes. sleep is not my friend today.)

randoms

I have been listening to the Pixies a lot lately because of you. Why does the world think I'm a bad person because I can't wake up in the morning? I realize that part of the reason is because he totally reminds me of my beloved Keanu. Ice cream tastes better when you mash it up and make it soft...except HD. The kid next door has always driven me crazy...but now that he's growing up I can tell he's just a misfit like me. I feel sorry for him and the long road he has ahead...

If I could have my way all I would do is lie still in silence and listen to the world. Sometimes you are there too.

suddenly so sleepy

the perfect man has to believe in magic. i forgot to tell him that when he asked.

there was more when i was on my way to the grocery store in the pastel green (?) and pink sunset earlier this evening...it faded away somewhere and i suppose that's fine.

i hope he's good to her. i hope she's good to him. i wonder about people and their lies and how much we all get away with and how easy it is and whether or not it really matters as long as no one gets hurt.

i wanted to watch the movie but my battery died and there's no plug near the bed and so sleep it is.

forbidden

Sometimes there are things you can't say and sometimes there are things you say that you wish you never had…but worst of all are the things you didn't realize how much you wish they weren't yours to say until you're saying them out loud.

Today there are two stories.

The first begs a question of what do you do when your hair stylist is cute and interesting and nice and talented…and NOT GAY! Anyhow…sometimes I imagine things and sometimes I chicken out and at the end of this day I can't even really gamble on boldness because this is the best fucking haircut I have ever had in my whole entire life so I can't screw up our professional relationship. Plus, we kinda have the same bangs…it's a consideration, no?

And sometimes there are days when nothing happens and other times things happen that are too big to talk about. That silence feels a bit the same. Today's second is part of a story with a long history and no future (until maybe the retirement home)…and it falls into that latter category. Me and he, our worlds are a circus bleeding all over the magic forest...

If you need me I'll be dreaming of washi and Totoros and salsa with cucumbers and whales and Degrassi and haircuts and Japanese villages in the foothillls of the mountains, movies Godzilla anime music music music and a story about a monk living alone in a temple on the top of a hill who tells a story about a monk living alone in a temple on the top of a hill who is writing a story about a monk…alone…

livre de visage

I had this massive urge to listen to Martin Gore's Counterfeit.
Then I found myself looking you up.
Depeche Mode is always forever about you.
(Well, and maybe him too…)
Is it true you turned into a famous DJ?

I was a superstar DJ/producer.
I had a big trance hit about ten years ago.
Drugs, women, partying almost killed me.
I took three years off…just getting back into it now.
I have a new album coming out soon on this German label...

I never understood that music.
But good for you.
Good for you too about getting clean.
I know how hard that is.
You, my ex-husband, my skater friend from high school, my best friend from back then too.
Must be something in the water out there.
Either that or my taste in men.

You know what they say about divorced women?

No, but maybe you should tell me.
It might explain a few things…
Do you remember what you said to me the last time you phoned me?

I say and have said many shocking things. What did I say to you?

Sorry…don't know how this one ends yet/again…though I'm going to put my money on not happily ever after…

we drank martinis in the rain

1.
I once had a romance with a boy who lived in a cardboard box.
Later he played bass in a punk rock band.
These past few years you can find him sitting on a stoop in the market, drinking a beer and watching the world go by.
(I thought just weekends but apparently it's Tuesdays now too.)

I used to dream about him…today I decided to talk to him.
If I look young for my years now, he looks old for his.
It has been almost twenty since the first time I crossed him
Green mohawk, tanned skin...skateboard riding perfection.

He remembered me, just not my name.
His eyes are still the same.
But he's quiet now.

2.
She went home to Israel. I don't know when I'll see her again.

3.
By the gas station
I saw a man flip over the handle bars of his bike.
I asked if he was okay. He said yes. I walked away.

I stopped. I checked back. He was still getting back on his feet.
I asked if he needed any help. He said no.
I walked away.

I looked back.
He was riding down the sidewalk towards me.
We stopped.
He said thank you.
He showed me the umbrella all bent up from its tango with the bike wheel.
I told him it was a spectacular fall.
He asked me my name.
He asked where I was going. He asked if home was close.
He said he'd walk with me for a bit.

He told me it was his friend's bike, that he used to ride all the time in France, but this was different, that it was new, that maybe he was going too fast…
He told me he was from Lebanon but he came here ten years ago.
He told me he was just coming back from the concert of an Algerian singer.
(there is something about Algeria that intrigues me)
He told me he took his mom. He told me she was visiting.
Then he asked me too many questions.
And I wondered if we were going too fast…

He showed me his hands.
I said he was going to hurt tomorrow.
I wanted to ask his name but it was dark.
And late.

He told me he was going to meet some friends.
We got to my street.
I told him it was time for me to go.
I walked away.

I remember wondering the other day how strangers fall in love.

I wonder if I will remember that I walked away.

tony made me do it

The fish said i like to live in fantasy
And so i'm attracted to boys who can't handle reality
I say it's a question of unicorns
One brown eye like the rock star
One blue like a cross between a husky and the boy i loved when i was sixteen
and an alicorn that shoots rainbows
He's still small
Lies at my feet while i curl up on my side in the moonlight by the river
With a crow at my back
They watch while i wait to figure out where i'm supposed to go next
Until then this is peace and good enough maybe for sleep