so let me get this straight.
they called it evil. eve-il. the worst possible kind of energy, the worst thing ever. they named all that is bad after her. and they will sometimes even suggest the blood and cramps are the eternal curse and punishment for her atrocious aberration. she, who sought wisdom. perfect knowledge. shouldn't perfect knowledge bring us closer to a perfect god? why should a yearning for truth and knowing lead to eternal punishment?
and what then of that second sinner, whose name alone i bear. what of man's first aberration, when he raised a hateful hand against his own brother? why not cain-il?
and what of this: that both were actually taunted by a twisted god who loved to punish.
ah fuck it.
i'm just so content with my decision that the quest to seek and know such unknowable gods is perversely futile, and robs me of time to contemplate those few other less futile things. like love, and the potential for generosity, gorgeosity, and humanity. i choose instead to savour rather than seek - savour and connect with souls, songs and all manner of real and intense and intensely real moments...
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Thursday, March 24, 2005
shop night!!
i'm standing at the streetcar stop, feeling a little prematurely nostalgic.
a month ago, i would have sold my rings for spring. yet i stood today marvelling at how a light dusting of snow can transform the world into magic, framing a lake that looks impossibly metallic. (oh no wait, it is lake ontario.. it's probably just the mercury.) i realized this is one of the last times this season i'll be granted this glorious sight, and my heart felt strangely tight.
it's a time of transition. may is usually my new year ushered in by something grandiose. last year weighed in heavily with the loss or transformation of 2 lives, 2 loves, one job and a neighborhood. though not nearly so spectacular, this year it's march that is leaving me with that bittersweet aftertaste. (how much of my life must i sacrifice to the liminal? and yet surely there is a subconscious yearning there, ever propelling me into new.)
i'm also thinking about the shop (you know, where i've dedicated my thursday nights to since last autumn). i remember in january talking with andrew and bill about how i'd worried about losing the shop. at the time, i thought that horror show of a non-relationship would be the culprit, and silly motherfucker: it almost was. (thankfully he got over himself.) they protested boisterously: "the shop is for everyone! the shop will always be!"
i smiled and quietly sipped my beer.
sure boys.
i really loved their attempt, their enthusiasm. and perhaps even their sweet naiveté.
but they don't know.
they've never lost a shop before.
i have.
that smaller shop in vancouver. so fondly do i still long sometimes for those endless nights of drinking apocalyptic hooch and dreaming big with the boys. the Herb Alpert room. the tech lounge, shut down by the sultan of no-fun. so many of us scattered to the wind after that... i came to toronto.
i'm thinking about all this as i wait for the streetcar, admiring the snow-feathered branches, keeping my heart light and my spirit bright, and trying not to think about how they're shutting the shop down on march 31.
only 2 more nights...
a month ago, i would have sold my rings for spring. yet i stood today marvelling at how a light dusting of snow can transform the world into magic, framing a lake that looks impossibly metallic. (oh no wait, it is lake ontario.. it's probably just the mercury.) i realized this is one of the last times this season i'll be granted this glorious sight, and my heart felt strangely tight.
it's a time of transition. may is usually my new year ushered in by something grandiose. last year weighed in heavily with the loss or transformation of 2 lives, 2 loves, one job and a neighborhood. though not nearly so spectacular, this year it's march that is leaving me with that bittersweet aftertaste. (how much of my life must i sacrifice to the liminal? and yet surely there is a subconscious yearning there, ever propelling me into new.)
i'm also thinking about the shop (you know, where i've dedicated my thursday nights to since last autumn). i remember in january talking with andrew and bill about how i'd worried about losing the shop. at the time, i thought that horror show of a non-relationship would be the culprit, and silly motherfucker: it almost was. (thankfully he got over himself.) they protested boisterously: "the shop is for everyone! the shop will always be!"
i smiled and quietly sipped my beer.
sure boys.
i really loved their attempt, their enthusiasm. and perhaps even their sweet naiveté.
but they don't know.
they've never lost a shop before.
i have.
that smaller shop in vancouver. so fondly do i still long sometimes for those endless nights of drinking apocalyptic hooch and dreaming big with the boys. the Herb Alpert room. the tech lounge, shut down by the sultan of no-fun. so many of us scattered to the wind after that... i came to toronto.
i'm thinking about all this as i wait for the streetcar, admiring the snow-feathered branches, keeping my heart light and my spirit bright, and trying not to think about how they're shutting the shop down on march 31.
only 2 more nights...
Thursday, March 17, 2005
you MUST!
i've been very remiss in not posting something about this earlier. last week, i saw a show that impressed the fuck out of me. this week, i'm seeing it again. yea: it's that good. perhaps i'll elaborate on some later date when i'm not racing from here to there, but trust me: go and see this show (and don't delay: it ends end on sunday. tragic, but true.)
Suicide Site-Guide to the City, by Mammalian Diving Reflex (Darren O'Donnell, who's been generously stroking my synapses for years, bless his crazy diamond soul).
..enjoy!
Suicide Site-Guide to the City, by Mammalian Diving Reflex (Darren O'Donnell, who's been generously stroking my synapses for years, bless his crazy diamond soul).
..enjoy!
international women's day
at last, at long last, after a week of desolate and unplanned exile, my scribble book has come home to me. at last - since that fateful hour 9 mornings ago, when i awoke in her perfumed bed, covered in bite marks and pussy - and very, very late for work. an important meeting. professionalism-is-us, oh yea.
fun to find those last scribbles, fun to retrace and rediscover that beautiful, foggy night: international women's night.
indeed.
so last night i sat listening to friends make music, good grindy funk, and i read the random snippets of talking: "it's very difficult to have a conversation when you don't know who Starr Jones is!!"
and i read the random scrawled words: cuneiform (because despite the plethora of attempted pronunciations, she only got it when she saw it. "oh yea, that.")
and i read that bit of smooth too, oh slick me. i remember it now...
"what are you writing?" she enquired. we were sitting around the table impossibly late at night, empty bottles of wine littering our periphery. i'd taken a second from the game of euchre we were masterfully playing (and eventually winning, of course) with cards we'd fashioned out of that thick paper that them artists like to scribble on. (that alone made the night perfect, in my books. i hope they keep the cards, sad though they were.) i glanced up from the page, hesitated an instant, then slid the book over:
"it will be a slow easy night when finally i lean in so raucously and suck on that delicious bottom lip of yours. and it will be gorgeous. and you'll laugh and say something sarcastic, something right. and i'll just giggle and nod and lean in again, anyway, and lick that lip of yours. and my fingertips will graze your skin and we will know that we are alive: flesh and passion. and we will be happy."
smooth hunh. when that first kiss did actually happen, it was deep and hungry. i could almost feel the growling sliding out from our parted lips. it was fiendish and voracious and inspired and ambrosial. how can someone be so tight, so rough and so soft all at once? impossible physics that melt me.
mmmm, funnest international women's day ever.
(grin)
fun to find those last scribbles, fun to retrace and rediscover that beautiful, foggy night: international women's night.
indeed.
so last night i sat listening to friends make music, good grindy funk, and i read the random snippets of talking: "it's very difficult to have a conversation when you don't know who Starr Jones is!!"
and i read the random scrawled words: cuneiform (because despite the plethora of attempted pronunciations, she only got it when she saw it. "oh yea, that.")
and i read that bit of smooth too, oh slick me. i remember it now...
"what are you writing?" she enquired. we were sitting around the table impossibly late at night, empty bottles of wine littering our periphery. i'd taken a second from the game of euchre we were masterfully playing (and eventually winning, of course) with cards we'd fashioned out of that thick paper that them artists like to scribble on. (that alone made the night perfect, in my books. i hope they keep the cards, sad though they were.) i glanced up from the page, hesitated an instant, then slid the book over:
"it will be a slow easy night when finally i lean in so raucously and suck on that delicious bottom lip of yours. and it will be gorgeous. and you'll laugh and say something sarcastic, something right. and i'll just giggle and nod and lean in again, anyway, and lick that lip of yours. and my fingertips will graze your skin and we will know that we are alive: flesh and passion. and we will be happy."
smooth hunh. when that first kiss did actually happen, it was deep and hungry. i could almost feel the growling sliding out from our parted lips. it was fiendish and voracious and inspired and ambrosial. how can someone be so tight, so rough and so soft all at once? impossible physics that melt me.
mmmm, funnest international women's day ever.
(grin)
Friday, March 11, 2005
on a day pass in ritzville
i'm sitting on the edge of the luxury fountain. there's a group of octogenarians behind me, sharing the refreshed filtered air and the cool smooth marble. and then the strangest thing: a new one arrives and once she picks her perch, she doesn't say excuse me, or hey you. she doesn't even clear her throat. she just starts to aim her fat ass at my kidneys, somehow expecting me to instinctively sense the group's new girth as i sit, scribbling, with my back and mind turned from them.
well thankfully, somehow, i do sense her and dodge the buxom buttocks.
why are people so afraid to talk to each other?
maybe because i'm wearing all black, and in her day only roy orbison could get away with that.
or maybe she's just a stupid rich old cunt too coiled in her self-obsession to remember how to interact.
heh, this from the girl with her head hunched over her little red notebook.
well thankfully, somehow, i do sense her and dodge the buxom buttocks.
why are people so afraid to talk to each other?
maybe because i'm wearing all black, and in her day only roy orbison could get away with that.
or maybe she's just a stupid rich old cunt too coiled in her self-obsession to remember how to interact.
heh, this from the girl with her head hunched over her little red notebook.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
we're all diseased
cleverness is the disease we succumbed to after being brain-fed too many sitcoms in our youth. so much cheap wit, so much instant gratification. easier than even a sunday morning, we sink into our tidy cleverness and fill the world with one-line-wonders and cheap half-laughs. why the fuck does everybody want to sound like jack tripper, or ellen, or ross? and if a tree falls in the forest, do they hear the canned laughter?
and yet - why begrudge the cleverness? should i not celebrate the ability to caricaturize life? is that not an excerpt from my own definition of a writer's - nay, an artist's responsibility? to savour it all and then spread that flu with a kiss?
i mean, not all cleverness is trite. not all instant gratification is useless, or terrible.
and yet - why begrudge the cleverness? should i not celebrate the ability to caricaturize life? is that not an excerpt from my own definition of a writer's - nay, an artist's responsibility? to savour it all and then spread that flu with a kiss?
i mean, not all cleverness is trite. not all instant gratification is useless, or terrible.
Monday, March 07, 2005
by request
yea yea, another fucking poem. i wrote this one because someone asked me to. so i did.
___
his pupils are bristly
on a bed of boredom.
getting a little top-heavy,
i explain.
sweltering in an
island of desperation
decay
deliberate apathy.
(unyielded)
his gaze is low and smooth,
soaked in bourbon.
though -
the neon green buds grasp yet,
i muse.
clawing the sky,
tickling giggles out of thin air.
(unrelenting)
his insight is wrong and true
and bold.
it's a metaphor,
he murmurs.
for that shadow gig
you're chasing.
(ad,amant)
we are weaving a story
of soil, toil.
fruits of our labours
our loins
or looms.
a story woven of
licentious savvy
and raucous sarcasm.
(unavoided)
___
his pupils are bristly
on a bed of boredom.
getting a little top-heavy,
i explain.
sweltering in an
island of desperation
decay
deliberate apathy.
(unyielded)
his gaze is low and smooth,
soaked in bourbon.
though -
the neon green buds grasp yet,
i muse.
clawing the sky,
tickling giggles out of thin air.
(unrelenting)
his insight is wrong and true
and bold.
it's a metaphor,
he murmurs.
for that shadow gig
you're chasing.
(ad,amant)
we are weaving a story
of soil, toil.
fruits of our labours
our loins
or looms.
a story woven of
licentious savvy
and raucous sarcasm.
(unavoided)
Thursday, March 03, 2005
made the list
this past saturday made the all-time top 20 experiences list.
quick side note before i tell you about it.. now, i don't actually have an all-time top 20 list, although it might be fun to try sit and come up with one (consider it added to my to-do list). the "label" occured to me early sunday afternoon. one of the girls gushed that she'd had the best night ever. i mmmm'd in consent, but hesitated to give it so lofty a designation. i mean, i've lived some pretty fan-fucking-tastic experiences in my 31 years. so i wondered.. my mind instantly thought "all-time top 5," thanks to having watched high fidelity about a dozen times in the last few months. well, top 5 still seemed a little naive (so many cities, so many nights, so many people, so many laughs...) but 20, i felt like that was a number that i could stand behind.
so then. first stop after the mandatory 7-10 pm nap was my favouritest toronto jazz bar. have you been paying attention? then you know where i mean... a few drinks with the new colleagues, a few laughs, and a whole lot of anticipation for the post-work hang in sorrowful honour of ted's imminent departure to join his lady love far, far away: a 3 am pyjama party, hosted by the luscious angela. as the hours floated by, our giddiness became so tangible you could sink your teeth into it. on a side note, i spent some of that time chatting with a fella, nice guy. i don't know if i'm intimidating or what, but it was pretty sweet: strolling away from the bartenders, i grabbed a seat at the long counter-type table, incidentally beside some fella. not wanting him to feel pressured into entertaining me, i smiled (as i'm wont to do), but looked casually away.. a few such glances and he leaned in, "excuse me, may i speak with you?" impossible not to giggle.
finally: 3 am. angela's entire living room floor had become a large luxurious bed, covered in air mattresses, sofa cushions, blankets, and pillows pillows pillows. and beautiful people clad in flanel and satin. gawd bless pyjamas. gawd bless angela. the hours glided by, filled with over-contented sighs, warm smiles and affable tenderness. the freshest-scented lotion, and foot & hand massages. platters of fresh fruit, and grapes hanging from the ceiling. long soft pieces of fabric strung up mid-way through the night, creating an effect that lay somewhere between a fort and a harem. a tub filled with cushions and, at times, smiling souls. friends, new and old, crawled around creating new pillow props to rest on as they discovered a new smile, a new story.
so. so. beautiful.
i slowly drifted to sleep somewhere around 10 am and awoke sporadically but comfortably, always to a joint passing by (yay for those spidey senses!). i awoke refreshed and ecstatic, still, early sunday afternoon, to be greeted by a feast of breakfast goodness.
yep - top 20 for sure.
quick side note before i tell you about it.. now, i don't actually have an all-time top 20 list, although it might be fun to try sit and come up with one (consider it added to my to-do list). the "label" occured to me early sunday afternoon. one of the girls gushed that she'd had the best night ever. i mmmm'd in consent, but hesitated to give it so lofty a designation. i mean, i've lived some pretty fan-fucking-tastic experiences in my 31 years. so i wondered.. my mind instantly thought "all-time top 5," thanks to having watched high fidelity about a dozen times in the last few months. well, top 5 still seemed a little naive (so many cities, so many nights, so many people, so many laughs...) but 20, i felt like that was a number that i could stand behind.
so then. first stop after the mandatory 7-10 pm nap was my favouritest toronto jazz bar. have you been paying attention? then you know where i mean... a few drinks with the new colleagues, a few laughs, and a whole lot of anticipation for the post-work hang in sorrowful honour of ted's imminent departure to join his lady love far, far away: a 3 am pyjama party, hosted by the luscious angela. as the hours floated by, our giddiness became so tangible you could sink your teeth into it. on a side note, i spent some of that time chatting with a fella, nice guy. i don't know if i'm intimidating or what, but it was pretty sweet: strolling away from the bartenders, i grabbed a seat at the long counter-type table, incidentally beside some fella. not wanting him to feel pressured into entertaining me, i smiled (as i'm wont to do), but looked casually away.. a few such glances and he leaned in, "excuse me, may i speak with you?" impossible not to giggle.
finally: 3 am. angela's entire living room floor had become a large luxurious bed, covered in air mattresses, sofa cushions, blankets, and pillows pillows pillows. and beautiful people clad in flanel and satin. gawd bless pyjamas. gawd bless angela. the hours glided by, filled with over-contented sighs, warm smiles and affable tenderness. the freshest-scented lotion, and foot & hand massages. platters of fresh fruit, and grapes hanging from the ceiling. long soft pieces of fabric strung up mid-way through the night, creating an effect that lay somewhere between a fort and a harem. a tub filled with cushions and, at times, smiling souls. friends, new and old, crawled around creating new pillow props to rest on as they discovered a new smile, a new story.
so. so. beautiful.
i slowly drifted to sleep somewhere around 10 am and awoke sporadically but comfortably, always to a joint passing by (yay for those spidey senses!). i awoke refreshed and ecstatic, still, early sunday afternoon, to be greeted by a feast of breakfast goodness.
yep - top 20 for sure.
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