like you care

make love not war, man

2008-11-04T20:41:00.006-08:00

i'm not a violent person.
i was in one fight, once, way back in grade one.
i'm a lover, not a fighter, man.

but there have been two women in my life, people i have shared a work environment with, who have inspired thoughts of ultraviolence in me.

we'll call the first shmay shmitter.

shmay was.. shmay... articulated every letter. she was very precise. she was perfect. and everyone around her, hopeless fuck-ups. (as precisely outlined and formally communicated by her, anyway.)

when i started working for shmay, i may not have been in one of the more self-confident phases of my life. and as such, she rattled me. she rattled me deep and hard. ooh, that sounds kind of exciting actually - not intentional but whoa, freud would have a field day with that! anyway, onward.. i started to think maybe she was right and i was, suddenly, totally worthless at a job for which i had received glowing praise from 3 other supervisors in her exact position. and as i'm wont to do when i perceive i'm not doing something up to what i like to think are my high standards, i beat myself up pretty badly about it.

and then one day, i got the bestest email ever from a friend - a former colleague. totally - really, totally out of the blue (i don't even think she knew i had just started working for shmay), she wrote me telling me of the dream she'd had the night before. she said though it'd been months since she'd last even thought of her, shmay was in her dream, and in it she'd gone up to shmay and told her to FUCK OFF, YOU FUCKING BITCH!!!!!

heh

it was... a comfort of sorts to realize i wasn't alone. and through this, and the many other revelations from colleagues that crept out over the few months of hell i spent working for her, i learned that this woman was, indeed, evil. she really was. i mean, i can get along with just about anybody. but she... wow. i wanted to hurt her in ways i'm still trying to erase from my psyche... chuckle

and then funny thing - i was relating that story to my current coworker earlier today, she said "shmay shmitter??" in that say-no-more kind of way. my current coworker is a soft swaying gentle sighing kind of a girl. she likes people, and people like her. and the way she said shmay shmitter.. i heard something from her i wasn't used to hearing. something deep and dark. incredulous, i asked her how the hell she knew shmay shmitter! turns out she'd served shmay at the very hip jazz bar she worked in years ago. before leaving, shmay had left her card. once. years ago. that's how profound of an impression this woman has..

and now, i work with a younger version of her. she could be her apprentice.. gawd, i hope they never meet, it would be like.. like... who's a really evil duo? like.. hitler and mussolini. anyway. we'll call this one shmushmee. shmushmee is.. a fucking bitch. she... oh i don't know. it's still too close. i guess i can't talk about it yet. that way she has of talking, as if she knows everything when in fact the poor thing is too fucking dumb to realize how little she fucking knows and she should just shut the fuck up and listen for a fucking change. or you know, something like that. gosh.

breathe
love
love
breathe
joy

ahhhhh

thank you shmay shmitter and shmushmee for giving me the opportunity to learn more about myself. and to practice wave form cancellation.

: )

too easy to ache

2007-08-29T16:13:00.000-07:00

my heart swells and sighs for the people i see, everyday reducing themselves to hate. i watch them directing, misdirecting their compressed confusion, their distilled disgust every which way but up. i watch them in traffic, in line-ups, on sidewalks releasing their inner demons, unabashedly belching out their frustration with a boss, a job, a lover, a fucked up world.

i empathize with them. i allow my energy to shift so that i resonate with them. and instantly, i feel my heart starting to ache, swollen with a depth of sorrow, of despair that wants to overtake me.

but then i take a step back, i take a deep breath, and i really watch. i watch very carefully, and i can see how these people are suffering because they are addicted to their ugly behaviour, in ways they haven't tried to understand. in ways i'm only just now beginning to understand. i know that for the majority of these people, their intentions are not ugly, nor are their souls. they mean well, and truly believe they want beauty in their world. but they don't take the time to watch themselves, to recognize how they perpetrate frustration and ugliness in their lives, letting it well up in them until they unleash it on any innocent (or at least unrelated) bystander.

and i realize that my propensity toward taking on this confusion, this anger, this sadness: this is my own behaviour addiction. addicted to their drama of sorrow and anger under the guise of an empathy that makes me ache, not act.

but i'm weaning myself. avidly focusing my energy on transforming that negativity into something positive, into a goal to strive toward. i'm reshaping my life so that all my energy - work, play, rest - is directed toward harmony. peace. compassion. that's the behaviour i want to become addicted to...

lucky me

2007-07-24T03:43:00.000-07:00

the other night:
a fellowship of four
at the lotus
(is it still called that? is it called something newer and trendier?)

i stood grinning stupid
and the sexy friend approached
and giggled.

what are you so happy about?
she shouted,
her subtle smile elevated to blaze
in this tooloud room.

she needed to ask!
i gasped:
look at you.

we watched together the other two -
thrusting, laughing, twisting, churning,
giggling,
being,
on the dance floor.

isn't it beautiful? i rhetoricalized.
she nodded happily.

glide.
glide.
glide for a moment
on the sigh of the music
and the now
and the yes.

so much yes.
too much.
such great glorious yes yes

i geekily giddily overexplained:

i could never watch this long,
never take in
every
gorgeous
gyration
if i was other.

but being me, i can stand here,
grinning, staring,
taking you all in -

and you let me!
you invite me!

right now
right here:
i'm the luckiest grrrl in the world.

she cannot argue.

she watches
sighs
smiles at me happily.

and slides back into the stage of my creation.

sherendipitous shuffle

2007-07-12T12:56:00.000-07:00

when i hit shuffle, iTunes immediately launches into "i dreamed a dream," Fantine's hard luck song from Les Miserables. i already know i'm in for it.

the next song is "black is the colour of my true love's hair" (Nina Simone). it's followed by "sweet dreams" by Patsy Cline.

my gut is throbbing and my shoulders are sagging. i'm still unable to go a single day without some intense thought about him. anger, sorrow, pity, confusion...
and i'm thinking.
and thinking.
and grinding.
and churning.

and then i hear the choir ushering in "you can't always get what you want" by the Rolling Stones.

i can't help but laugh.
i laugh at iTunes and i laugh at me and i laugh at him and i laugh at the world. i laugh it all off and thrust my hips around the apartment.

the shuffle demon rewards me by playing "bus to beelzebub" by Soul Coughing. i laugh some more and jump jump jump, flailing my hair and arms around. the KLF confirm that the mood is broken: it's going to be a good day.

life really is quite amusing and wonderful.
despite itself...

bjork!

2007-05-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

so i went to see bjork, and it was...
well...

even before she walked on stage, there was a sense of reverence in the air.

we'd cheered and giggled at the neon-bubbles-adorned-with-red-flags that were the horn section/choir. we'd cheered (perhaps a little lacklusterly) at the men - one drummer and, what did she call them? electronists? digitalists? some weird new word... and we'd whooped for the serious keyboardist.

but when the man in black nodded off-stage urging her entrance, i felt it in every pore of my being: i was about to be in the immediate viscinity of true greatness.

bjork is even grander in person than in her wondrous videos and fabulously freakish photos. how can she be so many things at once? so large and so small.. she's a cute, tiny little being with gentle delicate features. like her hands - i was reminded of the e.e. cummings line: "nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands." but then, defying all tiny, was her voice, her titan voice. it seemed almost to drain and pain her at first, requiring vigorous vocal exercises between the first few songs.

in those moments, those desperate gasping breaks she took, she seemed like an orphan needing nurturing. did anyone else feel an urge to rush up and rock her gently, feeding her spoonfuls of honey? was anyone else shocked back into standstill when suddenly, she would smile (i was close enough to see her dervish dimples). i watched in glowing wonder as she would grin and flick her arm; even the most half-assed thrust would elicit a rush from the audience, entrancing us completely. i was reminded, again, of another line from that cummings poem: "in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me." she was suddenly no tiny orphan, but a giant, a goddess - and we were hers, hers alone. even the others on stage seemed closer to us than to her, straining to serve her, to make her smile, to make her proud. she stood alone in her aura of awe.

the music started slowly, with such sweet soft songs like Hunter and All is Full of Love and Pagan Poetry - the latter eliciting a spring of tears that slid along my smiling cheek. i was moved by the beauty, by the power, by the intensity. god, those notes, that music..

by the time they launched into the grandiose, sweeping Bachelorette (whose waves i swam with eyes closed, smiling brightly), i knew she had different plans for us. already my hips were swaying, and the poignant Hyperballad eased us from swaying hips into stomping feet. well.. i say "us" but sadly, not many people were dancing. not around me anyway, and i was only about 20 people back from Bjork!!! in fact, the uptight bitch next to me kept throwing me sidelong sneers everytime an energetic dance thrust would see my right arm gently brushing up against her left arm. (and understand, i was not dancing even remotely vigorously, but the odd sway would wrench itself from me, how could it be helped?? IT'S FUCKING BJORK, SISTER!! whatfuckingever.) she eventually sidled up to her boyfriend, leaving me space to sway in peace. poor thing..

it wasn't until the last song (pre-encore), Pluto, when Bjork fucking lost it on stage in a tangle of freakish thrusts and twists and flails, that most people let themselves sink into the music, letting it coarse through their limbs and souls.

it's interesting. the very hot canadian "electrivist/whatever" kept trying to get the vancouver audience to.. i dunno, wake up! we were EXCESSIVELY mellow. ok sure, maybe it was the stellar bc bud, but i don't think so. it wasn't quite that..

whatever it was - you would have thought people weren't really "feeling it." until the encore. there were no lulls, there was no shyness, no quietness - it started when she left and raged until she returned, a roar that was energetic, loud, even a smidge frenzied. we wanted more more more!

and she gave us more - but only just a little bit more. bjork, ever the petulant goddess, tossed us a few crumbs before trotting back to her retreat, clutching her already half-enjoyed glass of red wine.

yes, it seems she had better things to attend to... but it's ok, we'll happily forgive her any transgression.

fishbone and eddy

2007-05-07T13:48:00.000-07:00

so a few weeks ago i went to see Fishbone. i'm not a huge fan, in that i don't own any of their albums, but that did not stop me from loving them. do you know Fishbone? they're... they're incredible. how to describe their music? in my scrawled scribbles from the night, i wrote "they're like the lovechild of Frank Zappa and Motorhead - though i probably say that because the image of Zappa's stache melding with Lemmy's chops pleases me greatly."

in truth, Fishbone is... well... people might be tempted to harken to Rage Against the Machine or Red Hot Chili Peppers, and they'd be right though they'd be reversing the influence flow. Fishbone's more primordial than them bands. they're like Zappa and Sabbath and Sun Ra and Slayer lovingly nurtured in Parliament Funk's ferocious grip.

favourite moments of the night include my friend Jessica mouthing/acting out that charming date-rape-to-anal-rape-in-prison ditty, with the lyric "that's when things got out of control!" i watched in wide-smiled glee as she did what we all do in our bathrooms or living rooms: she *became* the star of a rock video. it was brilliant!

i was also deeply impressed by the fact that, although there were.. what.. 60 souls in the place when we showed up, Fishbone were rocking as though there were thousands. no half-way for these motherfuckers, they were full-out, full-on, and i fully respect and admire them for that.

it was not my first time seeing Fishbone. i will sport always a dented scar on my knee from the last time i saw them. that was... 6 years ago? 5? i was with my punker-lover Eddy Kolasinski. sweet Eddy... we dropped acid and drank rivers of hooch and stumbled through the Commodore and stumbled through the streets of Vancouver, pulverized by Fishbone funk. it was a beautiful night.

i was remembering that night, watching Fishbone strut their stuff once again. i was not with Eddy, nor did i search the crowd in hopes to see him. not that i wouldn't have loved to see him - though romantic love didn't work out for us, i'll always love him. (i'll always smile when i remember how Eddy felt guilty for being heterosexual, worrying our boy/girl relationship was inherently patriarchal. ah, sweet Eddy!) but last summer, Eddy died of heat exhaustion. i knew always he was a tender and fragile soul, but who knew a 30-something year-old man could die of heat exhaustion in Edmonton? and yet, it seems fitting.

last december, i found myself sitting at a calgary table, sharing drinks with one of Eddy's heroes, Ford Pier. Ford remembered Eddy fondly, and we raised a glass to him.

hey Eddy, Fishbone was great. sorry you couldn't be there...

walking through the downtown eastside

2007-05-04T15:41:00.000-07:00

white-bearded skinny man stands on street corner, clutching a small yellow feather with his left hand, brandishing a blue pack of matches with his right hand. he waves the matches around slowly. he stares fixedly, murmuring or chanting words my headphones block out.

i nod slowly as i walk by.

we're all fighting off the demons as best we can, brother.

i do it through tireless self-analysis.
(though it may in fact be my biggest, nastiest, fiercest demon.)

recurring theme

2007-04-27T14:39:00.002-07:00

what else should i be
all apologies

people keep telling me "you have to write about this!!" when i'm recounting of the thousands of fabulous and fantastic experiences i keep being blessed with every magnificent day. these stories, tall and short, beautiful and trivial, are abundant though they have been left untold on this screen. and i'm sorry for that, if there actually is anyone out there checking in and craving updated anecdotes. what can i say? come find me, i'm the one huddled in amongst the old men around a dimly-lit bar, drinking cheap beer and sharing dreams and memories and philosophies and quips.

it seems my life away from computers, coupled with my intense need to process my experiences through retelling, is turning me into a barstool storyteller of great repute! (seriously, i walked in the other day and was greeted by a chorus of "kaen" from the characters around the bar. all began asking of my day's adventures. it was wild. i felt like.. someone between "Norm" and Bukowski...)

giggle

2007-04-27T14:38:00.000-07:00

shootin some darts with Jessica, talkin some shit. we get to talkin about Jack White (White Stripes, Raconteurs). i say "i'd fuck him." she says, "really?" i say, "if he was a twin, i'd fuck him TWICE!"

she said sigh

2007-04-06T11:18:00.000-07:00

he says he has this property, a wild and ragged stretch of untamed beauty.

he says he'd like to take her camping there.

he says: "you'll be wild and cool and wonderful. you'll see things i'd forgotten.. it will be great! --you already do that."

she smiles, and melts a little...

who needs green beer?

2007-03-28T12:54:00.000-07:00

so on st. patrick's day, i heard talk of a parade. i heard this from murmuring lips as i was leaving my flat to go to work. my ears perked as my shoulders drooped: a parade! downtown! right in my fucking 'hood! and i have to go to stinkin work! what a fekkin drag, man. i love my job, but fuck man, i LOVE parades!! i sighed slightly and made my way to work...

flash forward to the next morning. though i had enjoyed a friend's birthday bash (happy st flick!) the night before, i had deliciously avoided the green-beer-hangover. hurrah! so when i was awakened by strange siren sounds coming from what seemed like my deck, it wasn't a nuisance but a mere point of lazy curiosity. it was that sound they make when they don't quite turn on the siren - that half-blurb of whoop. you know? i just shrugged, rolled over and started drifting back to sleep.

and then the bagpipes started.

i know people for whom waking up to bagpipes would be downright nightmarish. not so with me! i instantly bolted up, loudly exclaiming "no fucking way!!!" and raced to my gorgeous deck. below me stood hundreds of people waiting to start a parade. at my doorstep!! under my smiling gaze, the marching bands and stepdancers and irish wolfhounds and leprechauns unfurled in the throng-lined streets.

i felt like a queen, entertained by loving and loyal admirers. and i loved them right back.

wonderful

2007-03-22T17:34:00.000-07:00

wonderful
wonderful
busybusybusy
wonderful

i love my life.

(as soon as i get a chance, i have to tell you about the parade that unravelled right before my balcony! i felt like a fucking queen. whee!)

wonderful
wonderful
wonderful

flirting

2007-03-10T01:50:00.000-08:00

he smiles slyly: "you like to flirt with danger, don't you?"

she laughs raucously: "flirt?? i fuck it! and then i don't give it my number in the morning..."

another loud and beautiful night in vancouver.

stumbling distance

2007-03-06T15:55:00.000-08:00

i am LOVING my new home. deep in the city's guts, it is stumbling distance to everywhere i want to be.

stumbling distance to the pita pit where the other morning, sputtering through the haze of another-last-night's beer and tequila and champagne, i tripped into its too-bright lights and too-bright signs. i averted my eyes in pain and they fell upon the pierced, dreadheaded countergrrrl. "please, make me something," i pleaded gently, "i eat anything." she stared blankly for a second before stepping up to my challenge. "ok," she said, and went about making my mystery breakfast. grilled chicken and condiment choices i would not have made blended into a delicate, subtle taste explosion. clearly, she was a Mistress of the Pita, and i let her have her glorious way with me. thank you, Mistress.

stumbling distance to the megaplexotheatre where last night, riding a whim of sudden freedom, i met up with a friend for "Black Snake Moan" - a great movie with a lamentable ending. but a great movie and oh how i crave already to see again that scene, with Samuel L. Jackson singing some dirty bastard blues and Christina Ricci (alarmingly skinny but still sexy as ever) writhing among a mob of sweating smiles.

stumbling distance to some of the city's finest diner dining, where this morning i skipped through a sunny spring morning to sit at a weathered table and enjoy sweet sustenance while reading words like "Holy flowers floating in the air, were all these tired faces in the dawn of Jazz America." (yes, i'm *still* reading Kerouac - i've been busy dammit!!)

stumbling distance to that classic lounge where the dirty-haired hipsters muse and marvel. old school whiskey shack with sly-grinned servers and addictive characters, like the captain who inspired a fascinating fable and my wild-strawberry-and-swiss-alp-haired brit.

and where shall tomorrow's stumblings take me? i wonder, i wonder... la la la-la...

oh what a world!

2007-02-23T11:48:00.000-08:00

wouldn't it make a lovely headline:
"LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL"
on the new york times.

thank you to rufus wainwright for "Oh What a World" - a beautiful and joyful song that had me beaming through the hazy, thick-lidded morning. (and from whence come the lyrics above.)

and thank you to martin tielli and bjork for following on his heels, proving his point.

and thank you to my iPod's shuffle feature for knowing exactly what i wanted to hear.

and thank you to the bright-eyed, floppy-eared dog who greeted me on the sidewalk.

oh, what a world we live in.
: )

---
has it really already been a week? oh what stories and adventures! necking in dimly-lit, high-backed booths. rhubarb sugar. the secret shuffling of numbers. youtube binging with a fun, young yank. firm words with a dim-bulb-of-a-soon-to-blessedly-be ex-landlord. mystery valentines. deep and wonderful conversations and explorations. and art - oh art! if you haven't already (and especially if you like or love photography and/or theatre), please be sure to go to the vancouver art gallery for Herzog, and "Photography as Theatre." really interesting. wonderful. spectacular!

happy valentine's day!!

2007-02-14T14:19:00.000-08:00

oh ducklings, how are you on this soggy love day? i hope your hearts are shining and full of compassion and joy. with heraldic spread-winged voice, i call unto you to spread smiles, spread love. i just opened an inbox full of sweet love greetings from friends across the country, and my heart is swollen with warmth. thank you to all my lovelies, and angela: for you, i am making psychic angels all day, every day in that fluffy toronto snow! : )

so, in the two weeks since i last posted i have worked close to 150 hours in 3 different amazing and fulfilling jobs, moved into a home, been asked-not-too-subtly to leave for being a "partyer," found a newer better home right smack-dab in the throbbing heart of downtown (i'm so fucking excited, just a few more weeks!!) and.. well, stuff a lady doesn't talk about. grin.

it's been jam packed full of fruity goodness, and i want MORE MORE!!!

but how to find time to tell you of the panoply of smiles i've been dazzled with; coy, beaming, shy, lewd.. how to find time to tell you of the not-one-but-two! great short story collections i've begun working on. or the profoundly amazing and inspiring plays i saw at the PuSh festival.

how to find time to tell you about the sweet delicious moments that make each day sparkle? like how Burcu gave me that hat off her head - a gorgeous black velvet fedora. or how that sultry juno-chick watched me changing the set between acts, and thought i was hot! or the big bad machines that i must stop to contemplate every day, charting their progress with light delight. or that man this morning walking ahead of me, with the pink argyle socks and strange little hat.

how to find time to tell you about the big beautiful souls who keep crossing my path? like the former punk rock bass dude who works in the downtown east side. or the gothic devil man who has a tiny dog and a big kiss for me every time we meet. or how i'm reading kerouac's "on the road," and spending hours of my days literally on the road with a reincarnated dean moriarty (as he was in the beginning of the book, not the mad/sad/broken-down version of the last chapters.)

how to find the time when i am living away from computers, nestled in the breast of experience and human warmth?

shrug. i dunno. all i know is that right now, i must work. a small theatre company full of bright shiny souls is depending on me! (insert superhero theme music here)

larger than life

2007-01-30T15:06:00.001-08:00

i've just read a great quote, by anais nin: "life expands or contracts according to risk taken."

if you've been following these past few weeks, you'll know i suffered a heartbreak.

and as tempted as i may be to beat myself up for ignoring the many (and tireless) voices of wisdom that urged me these last 2 years to walk - and sometimes, to RUN away, i won't. the spirit behind my tenacious infatuation with him was inspired by beauty and passion. and as ms nin points out, it is our ability to embrace challenges and take risks that make life worth living. sometimes, we really fuck up. but sometimes, whole new worlds unfurl before us and frankly, that's what it's all about...

and anyway, i'm the one who said a few years back, in my silly profile, that i'm "larger than life." shit, with the amount of risks i take, i sure wasn't kidding!

sigh

thank you thank you thank you, life!

2007-01-24T10:26:00.001-08:00

i know, i've fallen back into remission - a whole week without posting, after that orgy of words. but what a week; it was phenomenal!

so, when i left whatshisface back in august, i suddenly found myself back in vancouver and was amazed by how clearly the gods favoured my return. temporary homes lined up like obedient children, work bowed before me like an adoring servant. it was brilliant, and it was very clear to me that the gods wanted me in vancouver.

but did i listen? noooooo. i went running back to whatshisname for a final month of misery. luckily for me, my gods are generous gods, and they have paved my re-return home with platinum and daisies! (i was going to say gold and roses - more popular images of abundance - but platinum and daisies are my personal favourite precious metal and flower.)

i have found a great home in the heart of the very fabulous mount pleasant neighborhood - reputed for its funky little restaurants and shops and its overall dramatic (but not tragic) hipness!

i've found two great jobs! one for the pocketbook, one for the theatre girl who lives inside me, and both for the soul. one job is with a tiny and amazing non-profit organization populated with smiling friendly people out to change the world's vibrations, the other is with a funky little theatre company whose last play rocked my world. and in a couple of weeks, i'll be doing some stage managing with a crew of beloved friends - the old crew from the cultch days. ahhh!

during my interview yesterday, the fella asked me how long i'd been back. "two weeks," i replied. "wow," he whistled, "you don't waste your time." funnily, it's actually because i've wasted the last two years of my life, trapped in a pathetic limbo of lies, that i'm so energetic to get it all finally STARTED!!!

i'm feeling calm. happy. centred. awake. and also a bit fuzzy! (a bit warm and fuzzy, a bit bc pot good'n fuzzy!) and good. so so good.

thank you vancouver gods for giving me another chance!!
: ))))))))))))))))))))

breathless

2007-01-17T13:35:00.000-08:00

i am exhausted!!

i've just duplicated, sorted, labelled and filed away every single blog post i've ever written. although i didn't take the time to read through every post formally, i skimmed them all. what i got was a snapshot of the last 2+ years. and holy shit: drama drama drama!

reading it, in one big chunk like that, was a lot more overwhelming than living it. though of course, some of those moments also felt pretty fucking overwhelming...

i remember when a new lover read my blog. he was really testy when i saw him that night, and he finally revealed it was cuz he'd read my blog. he'd found it exhausting, tiresome, repetitive. he criticized the endless cycles that i seemed doomed to repeat again and again. (and he didn't want to be one of the endless stream of fellas who broke my heart. which is admirable and understandable, but total bullshit considering he went on to say some of the meanest things anyone's ever said to me, and to push me around - figuratively and literally. so of course, he joined the ranks of assholes and heartbreakers.)

but anyway, i have to agree that in one sitting, it's pretty draining. man, i don't do things half way, do i? i should put that on my resume...

and in addition to the weight of all those words, i got to relive all that wasn't written about. i know what was happening in those silent months a year ago, between raving about love and leaving toronto. i know what bullshit i was sifting through when i was stuttering through the summer. so many words left unposted for fear of retalliation from lovers or strangers, coupled with a desperate desire to stop talking, writing or thinking about it all.

i took a real shit kicking this year. and yes, of course i'm responsible for some of that. i made some really stupid decisions. again and again and again. but the spirit behind those decisions is something about me that i cherish, though it fucks me up every time. passion, a belief in love, a desire for something meaningful with another human. those are nice things... (i just keep falling for mad poet geniuses or supervain actors or conflicted sculptors. damn: enough of these artists!! next person i love is going to be a fucking accountant!!)

so i will not judge myself too harshly. i'll just keep working on ways to embrace that passion, while finding ways to protect myself. you know, not make quite as many stooopid decisions...

for now, i get to breathe again. it's all finally over. no more "soon." no more "temporary." i'm in vancouver, i've found work, i'm looking for a home. i'm going to have plants and maybe even a fish. something that will be a token of my born-again domesticity. a home! a future! a career, a life! so much to look forward to!

for the first time in 2 years, i feel clear-headed. it's incredible how much energy i was spending just coping in the name of "love." but now, that energy gets to be MINE again! i have a focus that comes not from some "him," not from longing, not from heartbreak, not from "love." it comes from me - my resurrected, and my new ideas.

stand back, 2007: here i come.

P-PuSh it real good

2007-01-12T17:50:00.000-08:00

i've had a great couple of nights enjoying the fantabulous PuSh festival! i'd been hearing friends rave about it for years (when i was in toronto), and i gotta tell you, it is very much living up to its excellent reputation.

it's funny, because i was sad, leaving calgary, to be missing the High Performance Rodeo. (another festival of local and international theatre, music, dance, etc.) i'd looked over the program, and there were a number of shows i was interested in seeing. i was also sad that i would be missing the Old Trout Puppet Workshop's remounting of "Famous Puppet Death Scenes" at another calgary theatre, in february.

but lucky for me, the PuSh festival features some of the shows i'd been wanting to see at the Rodeo AND it also has the Old Trouts show. how very excellent!! so i don't feel i'm missing anything at all! (well, except for Pan Pan Theatre, the company from ireland whose director i'd met a few times before. it would've been great to share a pint or two with him again.) but otherwise, i think i even prefer PuSh.

it was interesting to compare the two festivals. in many ways, they're very similar. both are international, multidisciplinary, edgy. both feature more experimental-type performances. but the Rodeo is more... well... it's radical, like punk. but punk was 30 years ago... PuSh somehow seems a little more contemporary. hip. young. (i wonder if thats more a reflection on the audience, or the curators?)

for instance, last night i saw "Sonata for Violin and Turntables." it was an amazing musical performance by New York violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) and DJ Scientific, and it blew my fucking mind. also noteworthy was that it was in the Chan Centre at UBC, a really beautiful theatre i'd only ever been to once before, for a friend's graduation. it was also nice to stroll the old grounds, a beautiful campus all dusty with snow. and to top it all off, i had killer seats - right beside the curator, so you know they're the best!! it was a perfect evening.

at the Rodeo, i would have seen Alejandro Escovedo, a very highly-reputed performer who's been perfecting his craft for 4
decades. i'm sure i would have loved Escovedo, but PuSh offered me a couple of young, urban hipsters doing something i'd never heard before. and it was SO good!! i wouldn't have traded last night for anything.

here's another example: i saw some of the PuSh opening night show, "Quizoola." in a 6-hour long performance, 3 british hipsters in clown makeup take turns asking each other questions (some scripted, some not), and answering them (not scripted). lit by naked lightbulbs. in a garage. it was really neat, with some truly deep and challenging moments, and some truly hilarious moments. and ok sure, a couple of boring ones too. but it was great, and again, it was something i'd never seen before. at the Rodeo, i would have seen awesome but aging porn star and performance artist Annie Sprinkle marry her lesbian lover. which is neat, and i'm sure was a hell of a party, but.. well, i think PuSh is just a little more up my alley.

that said, the Rodeo does have a way cooler graphic. i'm rather stunned, actually, that the PuSh festival is actually using the Old Trouts' image. couldn't they come up with their own?? it seems kind of lazy, actually. (shrug)

so anyway, i intend to enjoy the hell out of PuSh! as i told the curator last night, he's 2 for 2! if you're in vancouver, you should definitely check it out: http://pushfestival.ca *

_______
*for some reason, the hyperlink feature isn't available on this computer. must be an older OS or something.. sorry!

fun!

2007-01-11T14:31:00.000-08:00

cheers to the Wiggest of men for taking this fantastic pic. so good, i had to share it.
viva!!

dude, that is so not cool

2007-01-11T14:23:00.000-08:00

ok, i've survived some bad pickup attempts before. like the time that fella tried to woo me with one word. what was it..? oh yea, he'd looked at me and grunted: "boyfriend?"

that was bad, but last night i met the new champion, and crowned him emperor of idiots.

i was at the opening gala for the PuSh festival, drinking and mingling and all in all having a very lovely evening. (even though it was in a cafeteria... who came up with that winning idea??)

at one point i moseyed over to talk to the fabulous DK, who was talking with a coupla guys. turns out i'd met one of them before - a tent supplier for the children's festival. then i met the other guy, who also does crew work. the two guys were leaving, but we had just enough time for new guy to mention some show coming up that he's working on, me to ask if he needs any crew, him to say yes, and me to give him my number. work, yay!

later that evening, i looked at my phone to ascertain exactly how late it had become, and how little sleep i was going to be getting. i was surprised to see that i'd missed 2 phone calls, and received 1 text message from a number i did not know.

guess who:
new guy.

he didn't leave a voice message, but that's ok; the text message was plenty. it read: "at the cat's meow would love to pet your kitty"

(aside for non vancouverites: the cat's meow is a restaurant/lounge on granville island, near the opening gala.)

wha...??? i mean shit man, we'd spoken for perhaps one minute. and it had been entirely about work! there had been no flirting. hell, there hadn't even been any real chitchat or friendliness. just an explanation of the work, and the dictation of contact digits.

pretty impressive, hunh? oh wait, it gets better: he's married. at least this one wore a ring. man, i have a knack for attracting the real winners, eh.

so there you have it, the new "all-time worst pick-up line i've ever be subjected to."
(shakin my head)

Sunparlour Players, revisited

2007-01-09T19:23:00.000-08:00

i'm listening to an album, the recorded effort of the Sunparlour Players (the band i raved about in this post: http://like_you_care.blogspot.com/2006/04/sunparlour-players.html ) and wow - being catapulted into smiles i despaired i'd forgotten. oh, how all-consuming can heartbreak seem... but tonight, it is the musical bliss that is all-consuming.

smoking a stress-soaked cigarette, smelling the born-again air, grinning madly, stomping a wild foot.. oh the sunparlour
players!!! i love it i love it i love it!!

and yet.. their album is good. it has all the energy and musicality and vigour i love in them. and yet... it lacks that mad onslaught of cacaphonous glee! i can't taste that charge in the air, smell the sweat on the necks of head-bobbing throngs, feel the kick drums through my bones. i think the real problem is that i'm longing to see them perform again.

and it's not just a desire to see them. it's a low deep rumbling. i felt it the other night, when i was hanging out with that young hottie, the perceptive james dean type... he saw it. he asked, and i ask myself: is toronto truly calling?

a part of me feels i left it prematurely...

shrug
who knows what's to become of me.

james dean

2007-01-09T18:46:00.000-08:00

okay, okay: time for a little frivolity, for fuck's sakes!
grin
___

i'm a girl who likes crushes. i find them invigorating, stimulating, fun and healthy. and generally, they happen at work - so they're also a great way to find a few giggles in an otherwise long day...

for the longest time, i had fairly unwaivering standards to my crush-recipients. they were generally either uninterested or otherwise involved (and actually faithful, so being otherwise involved actually meant something). the benefit to this was that i could engage rather freely in unabashed flirtation without any fear of consequence. it was always playful, never with expectation or weirdness. just good, clean, light fun.

well this year, in my many crushes, i strayed from my standards twice. both times, i was seriously affected. blushing, diverted eyes, shuffling feet, tongue-tied - the whole bit. once was in may, a fellow crew member during kids fest. the other was this past month, a bartender at the restaurant i was working in.

now.. what's particularly fascinating about these two fellas, other than their ability to render me useless in their presence, were their similarities. they both have this great, thick, messy blonde hair (for some reason, i haven't dated nearly as many blondes as i have brunettes).

and they were both Young. i joked in may of exploring my inner cougar, but the basic idea was that it would help keep the flirtations light, as per code. well, it was the idea anyway, until they opened their gorgeous mouths and became so damned interesting!! kids these days, i tell ya... anyway, the may hottie was 19, the december one, 23. i just turned 33. it was quite shocking to me! most especially because, since i first discovered lust in my early teens, i've mostly dated guys who were way too old for me - as most recently demonstrated by my 49 year-old lover.

the exceptional crushes were also both very... well... shy. quiet. and... oh, i don't know... they had this uncomfortable and yet superior nonchalance about them. a way of standing, looking, being that was just.. very cool. if i had to sum it up in two words, i'd say: "james dean."

and so it seems i've developed a bit of a james dean fetish! i dunno, but i find this interesting. i mean, there is a strong possibility that a big part of what i found attractive was just how opposite they were to my aged, dark-haired, loud-mouthed, socialite lover.

or maybe i'm rediscovering a long-forgotten, full-on james dean fetish. see, i was pondering all this the other day, when i suddenly remembered a poem i'd written when i was around 14, about james dean. oh man, i wish i had it with me, i'd transcribe it for you! (it's currently in storage, where all my shit's been living in cold loneliness since march.) i'm sure it's terrible, but very earnest and passionate! perhaps i'll try to remember to share it, when i'm some day reunited with my estranged life... i'm sure it would give you all a good shudder/giggle!

but for now, i'm just ponderin... i dunno, maybe i've just come full-circle. maybe it's time for me to be 14 again...

GASP! e-fucking-gads, i hope not!!!

but dreams
of being kissed by james dean
make lonely nights so much funner!

shhh...

2007-01-02T12:35:00.001-08:00

i spew
vitriole
and venom
on everyone

i bury
hurt
with violence

i channel
everestian self-loathing
into armageddian rage

i'm feeling sorry for myself. there is no love. there is no beauty. i hate myself and everything. i hate i hate i hate i hate i hate i hate.

shhh... the brain is whispering again:

"shit sister, you need a reality check. you have friends, family, food, shelter. you're healthy, smart, resourceful. and you're feeling sorry for yourself because you have a broken heart. ok, it hurts and i'm sorry for that. but a heart broken by someone whose oldest friends gently warned was selfish and immature.. a heart broken by someone who didn't know how not to lie and hurt all the women who loved him.. a heart broken by one like this is something you'll get over. you'll survive it, and you'll survive it more easily than you could ever believe right now.

"but this hatred? it will consume you, rob you of all the things that make you beautiful, like compassion and a lust for life. it will make you ugly, unable to see all the beauty and power and mystery in the world. it will rob you of your ability to feel, and offer love. so shut the fuck up and get your shit together and lighten the fuck up. there's more important and interesting shit in the world."

my brain..
she's so smart.

the last noel

2007-01-02T09:53:00.000-08:00

this year i've really done it. at the age of 32 (almost 33!), i have stopped believing in santa claus.

the man in red, the son of someone's god, the pc alternative nomenclature de choix, the 25th of december: i'm done with it all. after years of playing the pro side, i'm now a con. no - i'm not the con: xmas is the con. a delusion we feed our kids so they can be miserable when they grow up.

well no more, i say! i'm through defending a fat man in a red suit that flies animals that frankly, taste a little gamey to my delicate palate. i'm done giddily counting down the days to inevitable disappointment. i'm finished with those bright beautiful packages, torn open with bared claws. the gifts may be perfect and generous and joyful, the turkey may be moist and the gravy divine, but it doesn't matter. nothing can save this day. we crowd together under a veil of bright bohemian ideals, but none can escape that weight in the air, thick as back alley urine.

no more dying tree shedding pine tears all over the living room. no more bright and fucksmiled carols. no more sitting around family tables, overstuffed and oppressed. no more twinkling lights. no more stupid grins on inflated snowmen. no more, i say.

oh, and bah humbug.

live by the fire...

2007-01-01T19:39:00.000-08:00

how nice, to be sitting with a fresh computer in your hands, gazing at a new-dollar-bill dawn, contemplating the greater things in life. pondering interesting and amazing things! like how differently people, or even the same person at different times of his/her life, can measure time. how they can all live their different schedules. take, for instance, how one schedules one's leisure time.

for many people, work happens consistently from roughly 8-9 am to 4-5 pm, always on monday through friday. always has been, always will be. for this breed, the work week ends with.. well.. weekends. that's when they get to immerse themselves in a range of stimulating activities, from family fun at science world to 3am martinis with friends.

for people working on a theatrical production, mondays are the fabulous woohoo days - only they call them "dark". it's a great day to get some laundry done, call your agent, surf youtube. it's also your one chance to stay up all night drinking red wine and waxing philosophical about who the fuck knows - or remembers. well, it's your one chance to do it without it hurting too much the next day. it's hard, you know, to be great when you're bloated and belching up last night's bourbon.

some people's schedules are directed by weather or season, some by contract opportunities.. there is a wealth of unique rhythms.

well, i'm currently working in a restaurant near the saddledome. you know, down over there, in the red mile. (do i even have any calgarian readers? does anyone else know what the red mile means? well if you have no idea, and hey, why would you, the calgary flames are a hockey team that dazzles fans in an arena called the saddledome. and as far as i understand, the red mile is the part of the trendy 17th ave that juts out from said saddledome.)

so these days, i have to consult a hockey team's game schedule when determining the activities that will enhance my leisure time. it is a pele mele pattern, a constellation of home vs road games. it is complex and it is based, i think, on the language of dolphins. and it's my life.

so... i guess that means i'm "living by the Flames?"

resolutions

2007-01-01T18:30:00.001-08:00

it's that time of year when we western types like to take stock of all we've accomplished and blown in the last solar cycle. and then we like to make decisions designed to improve our state and lot. some people call it a crock, a cliched delusion. a lie we tell ourselves so we can feel like we're doing something productive with our sad little lives. like there's a chance we'll get our shit together. i don't know, perhaps it is a delusion. but it's also a ritual, and you know how i love ritual. and new year's can be a very intense and powerful time for a ritual reassessment. (it also doesn't hurt that i've just had one of those life-altering experiences that beg for a shift in perspective.) and so... i have some new year's resolutions.

i'm gonna wash that rage right out of my hair
i have been drowning in a consumptive rage for over a year now. sparked by a series of unfortunate lovers, fanned by a neglectful soul, it has become an inferno. i want to stop hating the world: strangers, friends, myself. i want to love, not scorn. i want to be consumed with compassion and warmth, not spite and ugliness. but i don't know how to do that. i have some ideas, like less booze. i am bruised and bleeding, beaten senseless by my crutch. but sobriety isn't the whole solution. booze is one of the symptoms, but it's not the illness. i've spent a fistful of grey hairs self-analyzing, and it's brought me some understanding. but i don't know what to do with it. i need strategies. i need external wisdom. i need help. i need a therapist. or a teacher. or guru? i'm feeling alarmingly wide open to spiritual guidance, for the first time in over 10 years.

willing more word's worth
less wallowing, more writing. i already have a handful of ideas for my next project. new ideas, and ideas i had abandoned in the fog of love. after two stunted years, i will be writing about something other than him and us. and i'm sure it means that for the first time in two stunted years, i will be able to complete something.

retirement
for my whole little life, my heart and her flaming emotions have been telling me what to do. well you know what? she's a fucking bully! and like most bullies - she's not that smart. it's time to retire my heart and see if my brain can do any better. imagine the possibility: making decisions based on rationality, not emotion! my first step toward that ideal was my decision not to disappear in a haze of melodrama. oh the heart's hurricane - a spoiled infant thrashing and gnashing in the grocer's aisles. when he broke up with me, the banshee bellowed: go home, go now, go go go curl up in your friends' laps!! run, don't walk!!! but then, right there underneath it all, i could feel this frequency. a slow, steady, throbbing hum: "shhh. breathe. now then kaen," my brain whispered, "it's going to be a busy week at work. and you have no idea what the fuck you're going to do for home, work, life... who knows where your next income will be coming from! wouldn't it be nice to go home with a bit of money in your pocket?" and for the first time in the history of my decision-making, my brain won.

finding true love
ok, so even though i'm submitting myself to the brain's dominion, i can't totally ignore my heart. pretending she doesn't exist is as stupid as crowning her queen. i'm heartbroken, and i have to feel that. let it wash through me. (the operative word being through.) and i have low moments when i wish to never again to be lured into this mortifying coil we call love and relationships. but come on - you know
my mantra: love is a fairy tale for fools and dreamers, and i just happen to be both. i have a deep hunger, a hollowness that has spread since i first learned to cry; i don't think i'll ever be able to give up on dreams of romantic love. but i need a respite. i need to learn how to direct all the energy i waste on love and sex, toward friends and family and myself instead. and maybe, just maybe i'll realize the companionship and love i seek already exist. well, of course i already know: my friends and family love me. they know me, they accept me, they understand me. i know this, i first discovered this a few years ago (and even recorded my epiphany in this post: http://like_you_care.blogspot.com/2005/01/friends.html). but then i got lured into lust, and then i became consumed by love. and i forgot. but now that i'm listening, my brain is reminding me to be fulfilled by all i have. i was deeply hurt when my last lover would take me for granted. and yet is that not exactly what i do with my friends: abandon them for months or years, only to return broken and frail to their nurturing arms. i need to tilt the viewfinder, redirect my gaze. i need to spend some time falling in love with my friends. and myself.

breathe

2006-12-30T07:55:00.000-08:00

snow-tipped air
sharp in a throat
sore
from born-again smoking

glide
through the raw
red
circular slide

race through the
fractal map
of my dying lungs
charge through to
my bleeding heart
surge up to
my flailing brain

a rush of cool
of perfect
of fulfillment
of everything
and then
so quickly
it races away
hot,
tainted
bumping
and grinding
its way out of the pink

and then again
and
again
innnnn
and
ah
o
ooout.

his & hers

2006-12-08T23:30:00.000-08:00

so ok, maybe i'm getting old...

but i tell ya, i'm sick to death of the avant-garde/post-modern/pre-i-don't-know-what inspiring bar and restaurant owners. specifically, i'm tired of having to spend valuable peeing time deciphering clever, genderless photos or symbols on bathroom doors.

ok, i can appreciate everyone wants to be clever, and hooray for them. really. i fully and heartily encourage cleverness and artfulness and creativity. but there's a limit, isn't there?

the other day, my friend alana and i were both fooled by the very effeminate pilot on the door to a toronto bar's washroom. it was only the (blessedly empty) urinals upon entry that gave away that this was no chick's washroom.

i know it doesn't matter for single-occupancy rooms, but what dude wants some chick walking in while he's talking to a man about a horse? or, for that matter, if he does happen to want it: what chick wants to be in that situation?

can we please just go back to good ol' fashioned "his and hers" logos that stodgy old fogeys like me can interpret? please??

(grin)

undeliverable mail

2006-11-23T16:30:00.000-08:00

so i just tried responding to a "fan's" email after too many months, and alas the email account no longer exists. i'm really sorry for the delay in response... so anyway, "audrey hepburn"/pretty_1975, if you're still reading my words, here's my reply:

> is that your real name?

yes, kaen is my real name. well, it's short for "kathleen." some people got kate or kathy, i got kaen. and i love it!

> I am afraid to tell you where I live, for the fear of 'turning' you off
> completelty - I live in 'toronto' sad, but true.

i was really shocked to read this. i know i was really happy to be back in vancouver, but i'm dismayed that experiencing joy to be back there somehow had to translate into my disliking toronto. sure, there may be things i don't love about toronto, but there are things i definitely don't love about vancouver either. and there are also things i love about each city. and i do, i love toronto. i love the buildings, the mass, the amount of things going on and on and on. i even love the silly tower!! i'm sorry you don't seem to really like this city, and i'm even sorrier you somehow interpreted that i also dislike it.

anyway, hope yer doin well,
k)

gravy capital of canada

2006-11-23T11:08:00.001-08:00

so i spent my summer months in drumheller, alberta.

a few quick facts:
- drumheller is located in the awe-full badlands of alberta, about an hour northeast of calgary (get it, awe-full? bad? get it? please note my geeky attempt at humour is in no way meant to imply the badlands are awful - they are in fact beautiful. stunning.)
- it is the "dinosaur capital of the world," and home of the world-class Tyrell Museum (that i never actually made it to, funny how those things happen)
- it has about 8,000 residents, according to their municipal website (http://www.dinosaurvalley.com/) but i find that hard to believe. i suspect many of these residents are the neo-gypsy "rig pigs" who work the oil fields for several months at a time before movin' on. either that, or they're all hiding in sub-terranean dwellings. either that, or 8,000 is a lot smaller than i think it is...
- it is a hole. i don't mean that in the deragotary, colloquial way - i mean it literally. to get to drumheller, you must descend, descend, descend into a valley until you are what feels like miles below the surface of the planet. it is, as such, the perfect place to hide out from the big, bad world up above.

months later, i look back on my time in drumheller as... a bit of a blur really. and in some ways, it feels as though i wasn't really ever there.

but boy, was i. i strolled its streets, giggling at the cement dinosaurs that grace almost every street corner, sometimes creating whole stories and lives for them. my favourites were the dalmation-asaurus that lived outside the firehall and the nerd-asaurus (complete with buck teeth).

i savoured the culinary feasts and foibles of pretty much every restaurant in town. my favourite was a greek restaurant that surpassed even some of the restaurants i went to in athens. oh those long slow evenings of lamb and retsina. it was also one of the few restaurants that didn't have a majority of its menu items topped with gravy. i'm telling you - drumheller may call itself the dinosaur capital of the world, but i will always know it as the gravy capital of canada.

i (we) had a sushi party in our fabulous "penthouse." (you'd need to see it to understand the humour. yes, it was on the top floor. yes, it was bigger than any other "suite" in the place. but no, it was not the kind of hotel that has "a penthouse.") anyway, our sushi party: we had discovered a beautiful little cafe run by a very charming japanese lady. noticing a few sushi items on the menu, we got to talking. well, we had to order a week in advance, but let me tell you, we had quite the little feast that night! we even found bottles of sake at one of the... i counted it once, was it 8? local liquor stores. anyway, we found sake and found sushi and found willing participants. it was a blast.

i recited passionate poetry at a local gathering of wordsmiths. drumheller may be a small town, but don't be an ignorant urbanite: people are inspired to create, even when not overshadowed by a city's buildings. yes, city-slickers, it's true. and no, it's not all hoaky. i heard some wonderful words, and smilingly sailed some wavelengths with the gentle residents of this hushed valley.

i met an avid amateur archaeologist. we'd noticed him one evening at a local pub, and we marvelled at what was surely the skinniest man either of us had ever seen. he was a mop-man: stick-thin with a mad mess of grey hair. later that evening, we stumbled upon and gathered around a table spread with his day's findings: bones, teeth, petrified wood, crystallized bits. he eagerly told us every detail about his findings and methods. fascinating, all of it. he was a diligent amateur, zealously reporting important finds to the local pros. he even had a dinosaur species named after him!

i met a palm-reader, a soul-seer who told me december would be a time of great happiness. as i prepare to spend it with my lover, it's possible this is what she was talking about. or maybe she was just drunk. either way, she was a sweet, shiny person and i was glad that she felt a desire to try to see my soul.

i took my visiting nephew to the reptile museum. with large smiles and wide eyes, we watched a host of slithery beasts. we marvelled over the wild colours, wild shapes, wild ways of these wild beings. and i lovingly watched him cower from the boa constrictor a staff member offered to wrap around his shoulders. (the boa a younger, sweet-faced, angel-haired girl eagerly embraced in his stead. hooray for the destruction of gender roles!!)

i hosted a salon. sort of. see, i was returning from 3 weeks in newfoundland and calgary. back in drumheller, i had lost my social momentum and needed to do a bit of soul-searching anyway, so just hid in our hotel room, writing instead of going out and reconnecting with/reinviting the friends i had made before disappearing for almost a month. so rather than being a bustling salon, it was an intimate evening with a local music-making duo. i'm listening to one of their songs as i type. it was exquisite, and rather than feeling disappointed with the small turnout, i was instead treated to a private concert by two gentle troubadours. it was a great night.

i met a chameleon-haired pixie. a group of us went to see a band one night and her wild dancing and freakish sexiness inspired me to dream up a burlesque troupe. i had several local gals interested, but again the trip to newfoundland truncated the momentum and then i just left a few weeks after coming back from that. so the burlesque troupe remained an unrealized fantasy. but perhaps some day, i will return to see it fulfilled.

and i even joined its working class. near the end of my sojourn, i decided that while i do like being a kept woman, i like being independent even more. so i got a job! i hesitated over the options. like the rest of alberta, drumheller was (is still?) in the throes of a staffing crisis. not only could you be sure to find a help-wanted sign in almost every window in town, some stores even had to cut their hours due to the staff shortage.

i chose to serve cup after cup after cup of coffee. i first did this at Diana, a chinese/"canadian" cuisine establishment. it seemed always moderately busy with nice enough folk. but mostly, i was drawn to the orange booths and flowery aprons. i mean hell, if you're gonna sling hash in a small town, may as well do it proper-like, ya know? well, unfortunately the OCD owner bitch-slapped any possible fun out of that experience. at the end of my first week, i found myself in a competing restaurant having breakfast. a few shared words with the waitress found me some sympathy ("oh, you don't want to work there") and a job offer.

so i started serving at Yavis, a family restaurant/pub. it was certainly a better job, but i never did make it over to the coolio pub side. i was instead trapped in family restaurant hell. when i got what would be my final schedule, it promised a week of 7 am shifts. although it would mean leaving my lover (until a more propitious time and locale found us?), it was not a difficult decision to load my shit into my visiting family's car, and hitch a ride back to vancouver.

and so my summer in drumheller came to a rather sudden, but not at all bitter end. thanks for an interesting blur of a summer, gravy capital of canada.

sugar crash

2006-10-10T15:59:00.000-07:00

what a sweet time i've been having. as mentioned a few posts back, shortly after arriving back in vancouver i found a really great job. if you go to this website: katkam.ca, you can see where i spent the last days of summer. just past the beautiful Burrard Bridge, to the upper right of the photo, you'll see Vanier Park. in that vast, sweeping green glory, up til last wednesday, stood the tents of the Bard on the Beach festival.

what a beautiful place to spend my days! how many times did my breath catch as i beheld the bright blue of the ocean framed by lush green grass and majestic mountains? i got to spend the last weeks of summer working in a park where people go to fly kites and share picnics.

for three weeks, i worked as production assistant. it was great work! essentially the site's “caretaker,” i strolled the gorgeous grounds and even got the use a skill saw on several occasions. yea, power tools!!! and of course, what a thrill to be earning my keep in theatre. shakespeare may be a stretch from the indie theatre i tend to call home, but it's still theatre! wigs, costumes and props. stages and lights. and that sense of family. stalwart stage managers, wise-quipping actors and techies who can talk for hours about the finer points of control boards. and ghosts, of course.

AND I WON AT POKER, outwitting and outbidding a dozen other texas hold'em hopefuls. it was glorious!! also noteworthy was the pitch in putt in stanley park, a “sport” i do not excel at.. but i had a ridiculous amount of fun and between the smiles and chat, i could not stop from gasping in admiring pleasure at vancouver's most majestic park's endless wonders.

as if that wasn't enough, each shift was bookended by a bike ride from commercial drive (where i'd been living) down to the seaside bike trail. weaving through sunday strollers and smartly dressed joggers, taking in all the sweeping beauty. i can't tell you how many times i caught myself breathing, almost reverentially: “it's so beautiful!!!!!”

when the run came to and end, i worked on the crew, pulling down tents and pulling up floors. as back in may with kids fest, i loved the work: chortling with the other crew members and feeling my limbs whirr and purr in action. unlike kids fest, i had spent almost two months instead of only two weeks in that world; it made it just that little bit harder to let go. each fallen tent was a mild torture, a reminder that this exquisite experience was finite. on the first day, one of the actresses came into the tent she'd been performing in. she gasped, seeing the seats all gone and the stage up in splinters. it already looked so barren, and i could feel her trying to grasp onto something intangible. something that now lived only, ever, in memories.

after three weeks, it was over. the last tent had fallen and finally, i had a day off. i was slow and lethargic, hardly moving, hardly thinking. just barely being. a drastic change from the activity of the last weeks. it felt kinda like a sugar crash. that sweet sickly feeling that leaves you bloated and sleepy.

but smiling. for oh, how sweet it was...

zing a ding ding

2006-08-29T23:32:00.000-07:00

we all know those missed moments. those frustrating exchanges that leave us tossing and turning in bed, overcome with the too-late, too-perfect snappy responses. when we wish we could have said something, christ anything, before the moment slipped away. well tonight, i'd like to raise a glass and toast my uncle for avoiding such an unfortunate fate.

this uncle is tall, lanky and wonderful. great smile, great sense of humour, great soul. he is quiet, gentle and smart as a whip.

once upon a time, my parents used to have a business. and then one day, stuff happened and they no longer had a business. who knows, maybe they blew it. maybe they got screwed. maybe there was an orgy of miscommunication. maybe some guys were real fucking money-guzzling, anal-raping, sociopathesque (in that, you know, get-ahead-in-business kinda way) jerks. i wasn't there, i don't know.

but let's just say that years later (and not long ago), a certain money-guzzling, anal-raping sociopathesque (in that, you know, get-ahead-in-business kinda way) jerk strolls into my uncle's workplace (a scrapyard). the jerk wants to sell.. well, without giving away too many revelatory details (it's a rather specific item that few people would have), let's just say he wants to sell a big ol' metallic cylindrical thing. however, instead of being offered the large wad o' cash he had been dreaming of getting for his big ol' metallic cylindrical thing, he is told that not only will the scrapyard not buy it - they will in fact have to charge him a wad o' cash to dispose of it.

cursing and muttering, he storms away. on his way out, he passes my uncle.

"hey," my uncle's soft voice says. "i know what you can do with that big metallic cylindrical thing you're trying to get rid of."

the jerk pauses, failing to recognize the man he has met before (they had met through my folks' business). "oh yea, what's that?"

"well, you can take it and then shift it so it's oblong. then you can bend over and shove it up your ass."

and oh, what fun to grinningly imagine his face aghast as he flabberghastedly stammers, "wha... who... ermph..."

ok, so it wasn't oscar wilde. but i still would have liked to witness it. oh, that second just before the line, when the jerk thought he was being offered help; the way he must have been listening intently...

and so cheers! yay for you, sweet uncle! i'm sure you savoured the delicious moment for us all.

exiled expressionism

2006-08-21T00:07:00.000-07:00

it's a funny thing, language.

just ask my "cunning linguist" (ba-dum-pum) friend miranda, and she'll tell you about the many intricate and joyful twists of the word.

and you know, i like words. (incase you hadn't guessed.)

sometimes, it's just the sound of the stacked syllables. an example of this quasi-fetish lies in my undying lust for a band called soul coughing. i won't digress too much, but i will say i saw them live at the now tragically defunct starfish room, and it remains one of the best shows i've ever seen or dreamed of ever. EVER.

soul coughing was fronted by a poet (and backed by brilliant and quirky musicians). these fellas liked to play. and oh my fuck, the lyrics... i could spend whole days wantonly wrapping my lips around their words: "quadrilateral i was, now i warp like a smile." "flipped an ash like a wild loose comma." "janine, i drink you up." "

aw fuck, i could dedicate a whole post exclusively to the words that sprang from their songs. but that would be UBER-digressing and so i must resist!

right then... so i remember once, miranda and i tried to invent our own slang. not like how young kids create their own personal language that the big uns won't understand. nope: we wanted to hear strangers uttering our expression in unknown bars in unknown cities. we were young (ahh, won't we always be, in some silly way?) and our attempt was so amateur, it kinda hurts a little to remember it. at that moment in time, "everyone" kept saying, about damned near everything: "that's crazy." (the line has since been replaced by some reference to smoking crack. it may have changed since, i must admit ignorance if it has.) well, we thought, wouldn't it be hiLAYrious if we started saying: "that's perfectly sane" instead.

yeah. it didn't catch on. but damn if we didn't think that was the cleverest thing this side of lordbyronia.

which brings me to the topic at hand.

my computer time of late has been more sketchy than a downtown eastsider's excuse for needing money. (a lost tourist? have a car broken down and need some 83-zone transit fare? puh-lease. i can respect need, but don't insult us.) but tonight i was granted the sacred gift of having just the right amount of energy to not flake out in front of a boob tube (living in borrowed homes has meant a lot more tv than i'm used to - damned that accursed afflicted addictive ridiculousness!!!!!!!), and just enough energy to plunder my soul for thoughts. and so i wrote a blog thingy. and then i reread it. and then i reread some of the posts that preceded it.

and i saw a trend. i'm not talking about the deep heavy inner cycle trend shit. yeah sure, i saw that too - as always (the gift and curse of keeping track). but i'm talking about something more frivolous, so chill the fuck out already!! the trend i refer to was a sad little turn of phrase i used in most of my last blog entries.

the formula: "this side of." a recent example: "isn't this just the loveliest day in the friendliest city this side of happy land?" another recent example: "the sweetest bus ride this side of the rainbow." and one more, just for kicks: "the best free music this side of the french quarter."

christ on a stick, repetitive much? and i had NO IDEA i was doing it. i bet each time i came up with the turn of phrase, i giggled at whatever i'd just written. but come the fuck on kaen (witness me slap my wrist): just because you're amused and you thought it was "clever with a capital K", it DOESN'T mean it's worth actually dressing up and sending out into the world! i mean shit girl, you're amused by smoking a bowl, sipping some wine and puttering around home blathering to your silly self. so: what the fuck do you know???"

but i have to warn me (and you, if you care): no end in sight. i already have a new expressional trend. the formula is: "since sliced..." (you know, from the expression "since sliced bread".) for example (the first impetuous utterance to inspire my new expressional craze): "oh my fuck, that is the cutest thing since sliced kitten."

well......... much like "perfectly sane", my attempted: "the stupidest thing since sliced Bush"," "the hottest thing since sliced Branjelina" and "the weirdest thing since sliced Raelians" just haven't caught on.

(either.)

bah. what the fuck do i know of trends...

simmer down, sista!!!

2006-08-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

so let me tell you about the other day. it was a beautiful day. (again.) (my god this city is beautiful.) (but i digress.) i was starting my fabulous new job that beautiful afternoon. (yes, afternoon. for those of you who've figured out i'm a bit of a night owl, you can imagine how deleriously blissed out i was when i was told my training (for a theatre gig, did i mention that?) started at 3 pm...)

i kicked off the day with a slow, sumptuous tea-sippin morning in my fabulous friend's stunning home. (which she graciously found a way to get me the keys to when i suddenly appeared back in town while she was away; woohoo to her and yay for me!) and then i prepared to "dash off to work" - allowing myself a very luxurious hour to cycle down to my beautiful new "office" - a gorgeous park overlooking the gorgeous ocean, and oh so conveniently right off the gorgeous seaside bike trail.

did i mention it was a beautiful day? flecks of wedding dress cotton candy frolicked in an aegean sky. it was a hot summer day, but with none of that smog-heat-humidity-from-hell i'd grown to cower from back in the old homeland.

humming, smiling, admiring and riding, i plunged into my day. at one point, i found myself needing to cross a busy street. in my stupid-grinned cyclandering, i'd lingered too long one one bike trail and had strayed a half block too far to join up with the ritzy seaside trail. but ah, look! a half block back sat the brightly painted slash slash slash of white perpendicularising the busy street and connecting right to the blessed path i'd been seeking! a sign, to be sure, from the gods. (or bike trail engineers.)

so i moseyed on over to the crosswalk, leaned back in my bike's sadistic seat (well, it can't all be purrfect, can it!?) and waited for the cars to pass. now let me be clear: vancouver is a pedestrian's paradise. if i had *wanted* to cross at that very moment, i could have. the slightest gesture of intent would have inspired an immediate vehicular ceasefire.

as it was, it turned out all i needed to do was admire the beautiful sky. because as i was doing so, i heard a lull in the traffic hum: oh, my turn! but in fact, a kind man had stopped his charging car for lil ol' me! how gallant! i waved and smiled at him and made my way to the median that seperated the opposing directions. and i paused there, waiting for the lone oncoming car to pass.

and don't you just know it, once again the kind car had stopped for lil ol' me. "well golly gosh," i said to myself, "isn't this just the loveliest day in the friendliest city this side of happy land? shucks."

as i wheeled across that last side of the street, i lifted my head to wave at, and smile at the driver. la la la-la! and man, talk about a shock to the system when i looked up and witnessed a perhaps beautiful woman's face contort into tex averian animosity. i rode by in frozen horror, suddenly beholding the mad mug of beelzebub itself. i felt my face contort into confusion as her eyebrows fused into a jagged hedge, her eyes wide and rolling, her mouth contorted by hate.

"YOU'RE NOT A PEDESTRIAN!!!" she shouted, gesticulating madly.

(you don't say)

i couldn't even begin to imagine what the hell her problem was, so i hastily retraced our brief encounter's steps. well, i hadn't cut her off. i had paused patiently in the median, and she had willingly stopped for me. so perhaps her foam-lipped words held the clue. i'm not a pedestrian. right. well, perhaps the issue is that bicycles not allowed to use "pedestrian" crosswalks, and it's a cause that is very dear to her heart. well, if bikes can't use 'em, colour me ignorant and i'd love it if someone could clear that up for me. most especially because while it was perhaps not specifically indicated by signs in this case, quite often these city-planned paths *specifically* (i.e. as directed by white-on-green-signs) cross these sacred crosswalks. so if it's "illegal" or "wrong", someone should talk to the city, cuz that's a big problem...

so... would it have been better if i'd dismounted and walked across? i mean, it would have made me a "pedestrian." but would that not have slowed the process, potentially causing her head to literally explode? cuz i ain't joshin ya when i say she didn't look too far from it as it was...

still today i haven't the foggiest clue in hell what she needed me to do. and that was frustrating. but mostly, i just feel bad for her. she had done something nice - pausing her precious day to allow a smiling stranger to pass. (even though i would happily have waited the 0.8 seconds for her to drive by before crossing...) but instead of appreciating her moment of generosity, she decided it was actually a perfect moment to unleash the volcano of vitriole she'd been drowning in since/because of ...? who knows. maybe she'd had a fight with her asshole husband. maybe she had irritable bowel syndrome. maybe her daughter had died in a cycling accident while cycling across a crosswalk.

what do i know of it.

all i know is suddenly, i found myself flailing in her tidal wave of negativity, and my mellow was seriously harshed. well, certainly surprised. shocked a little. and so, what was i supposed to do with this fresh load of shit? ingest it as i ingest everything life tosses at me? and then what, get all irate? take it out on some other unsuspecting innocent? get pissed off at that first fella: "he should have just kept going so i could cross when there was a healthy lull and nobody would have been inconvenienced!!!" get pissed at this woman who might be having a rough moment/day/week/year and had decided to take that out on everyone who should stumble across her puerile path because she hadn't figured out how to cope with the real problem in her own fucking world?

well, i guess i could have done that. i'll admit, i contemplated it for a second. but then i just shrugged, smiled for the kind man who wanted to do something nice for a fellow human on the side of the road, sighed a little for that poor miserable woman who hated that same stranger and hoped she felt better soon, and cycled on my merry little way.

cheers!

2006-08-16T16:42:00.001-07:00

today was a great day.

after a few sluggish days of outstretched attempt, i have found a home and work. a really cool home. a home in the core of my east side pride. and the trickiest part: a fabulous temporary home that will just see me through to nov, when i settle into my proper new home. a home in which i can unpack my bags and start so many tomorrows.

and work! really cool work! work with great people on a great festival on a great site in a beautiful city. work that will keep me moving in the big air. work that will take me in its warm fold and deliver me to october - right when other swirls of opportunity should be meeting in a delicious apex of yes. work that starts TOMORROW!!

and work with a boss so cool, i could grinningly say to him, when he offers me a position i'm all over like a puppy's tongue on spilled shmutz: "you realize this means i'm going to miss pete and erin's famous island party this weekend??" (on an island, not "island" themed...). a boss so cool, he figured out how to work it so i wouldn't miss it.

and so i raise my chin to smile upon, and raise a glass to toast the beneficient gods who always take such good care of me. thanks!

surrender, dorothy

2006-08-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

since parting ways with my sexy beau in march, i have had the key to 10 places in which to lay my weary head, and unpack my worn bags. 10 beds in 5 months.

i have had to negotiate the smoking, liquor and recycling vagaries in 4 provinces.

and i'm now on my 4th phone number (3rd area code) of the year!!

...no wonder i sometimes feel so exhausted!!

but now the wind has blown west, and i find my feet landed on vancouver soil. this time, i even think it's for real: i'm actually looking for work and a home. the time to hide from reality has passed, and i'm ready to start living again!

i'm ready for ebulient banter with friends, old and new. i'm ready for festivals and art galleries. i'm ready for anonymity. ...and standing out from the crowd.

small time life was interesting. (for the two tiny months i experienced it!) some of it was GREAT, namely: i'm well started on a play i'm very excited about, and did some great work on my poems. even submitted some stuff! so that was very, very excellent. but i'm a city girl. i love the plethoraness of it all! i love the ceaseless din and whir of life. i love pubs with walls of exotic fish...

so then, there's one more month of summer, and i am alive in the city!

click. click. click.
there's no place like home.

alive and kicking

2006-06-17T12:28:00.000-07:00

i've been getting a lot of comments and emails from friends and "fans" asking me what the hell is up. i know it's been aeons since i've posted, and i'm sorry! i'm even sorrier to say: no end in sight!

i've spent the last 2 months or so in work or play that brings me far from computers. either because of time or location, i just have very very limited access to computers. like now, i'm exiled in small-town nowhere writing up storms of poetry and plays. i gotta tell you, it's pretty exciting and i feel blessed to be able to devote a few months to nothing but writing (except for one contract job next month that will bring me to the only province i haven't been to: newfoundland! i can't wait!!!) but i digress... basically, all my creative energy seems to be devoted to works larger than this blog has ever strived to be.

but most significantly perhaps, i've been bored for months of the blah blah, here's what i did today posts. this is nothing new to most of my readers... but add to it that if i did that now, the posts would basically be:

- went to one of a handful of restaurants for brunch
- went back to the room/to the park to write
- went to one of a handful of restaurants for supper
- went back to the room to write
- went to bed

ok, i'm oversimplying. i am meeting people, living fun and enriching experiences...

but...

well, there's other stuff too... small, but that weigh on me and contribute to a general lack of inspiration when it comes to posting. one is that i feel irritated that i should be completely shut out from someone's life, yet somehow they get to keep reading about what i'm doing. there's something about the blatant unfairness that really irks me. and i think a part of me is still reeling from that psycho-bitch's flurry of attacks against me. yes, she was a ridiculous, small-minded idiot. but it still fucking hurt and why should i want to open myself up to that??

i don't know, i really don't...

but i promise you, if i come up with any inspiration to make this blog interesting again - to you, but mostly to me, i will post... um... post haste.

until then, have a gorgeous summer!!
k)

home sweet home

2006-04-25T23:10:00.000-07:00

well, here i am. in vancouver at last. for real this time! or well.. for a month anyway.

it's almost hard to wrap my brain around the fact, the reality that i'm here, actually really here.

my last bit of time in toronto was quiet. i spent much of it alone. in a way, you could say i had retreated to lick my freshest wounds after yet another sad sorry failed love. but it wasn't quite that... there was a quietness. a sense of mourning without the gnashing-teeth, torn-shirt, i'll never love/be loved again melodramatic bullshit. it was slower. softer. like the hushed quietness of a funeral. it was a time of sacred silent sorrow, a respite after the loud, crashing months that preceded it. it was a time to be quiet, and to say goodbye to a beautiful man that i loved very much - the hottest man i have ever loved, and the best kisser i've ever known. it was a time to relearn experiencing great moments and not sharing them with him. a time to relearn mornings that didn't start with a "good morning my love" email. a time to fall asleep without his sweet, perfect kiss; without his glowing warmth beside me.

and slowly, eventually, i woke up to the fact that oh my god, i had so little toronto time left!!!

so i bought a molehill of multi-coloured, knee-high socks. i treated my tastebuds to my first zabaglione, with some incredible italian not-quite-ice-wine, not-quite-port digestif. i cycled the beaches with bright, shining friends. i went to massey hall for the first time (funnily because i'd managed to.. um.. procure them - and by them i mean a band i grew up knowing and liking well enough - some... ah... road necessities). i saw ronnie burkett's newest puppet magic. with the help of fabulous friends, i belly-laughed my way through hours of a futurama marathon. i drank expensive wine and savoured fine french cuisine with my favourite hunter. i washed away martinis with boothfuls of well-wishing friends at an all-night cafe.

and now i'm in vancouver. and oh, my first day back... yesterday was GREAT. everything is so green and lush, canopied with white and pink blossoms, erupting with loud tulips. there was colour everywhere and the air was thick with the smell of living things. everthing was beautiful: the air, the trees, the flowers, the smiles, the men...

and then i got to enjoy some mind-blowingly good sushi at a table crammed with smiling friends. as i told them, i think this gypsy has learned an important lesson about friendship. wherever my travels may take me in this big ol' exciting world, my heart is forever bound to vancouver. well.. until my friends move away, i guess. i love these people and oh - to be among they who know and love me. they, who support me and my hare-brained ideas. they, who will playfully yet forcefully argue the semantics of "jock" vs. "outdoorsy". they, who will remember the things i don't, and dilligently and patiently remind me of them. they, who want to inspire and encourage me. they, who will gently chide my low self-esteem. they who know my silly cycles and love me "anyway". just as i love them.

it's nice to be home.

transit is the opiate of the masses

2006-04-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

it's mayhem
it's a marrakesh market
it's the first time free citizens go to polls
it's studio 54 at 2 am
it's a boy's first overeager orgasm

it's rush hour in toronto.

i usually ride my bike: bright fake flowers nerdishly woven into a basket guiding the path for a slow-pedalling, flower-sniffing flake. this transit stuff is like safari to me. i usually confront it with bemused delight or in a slim-grinned daze. but when a friend's fervent argument perked my eyes and ears, well wow - the shit that goes on!

we queue:
quanine convelescents
pining for the drug cart.
the air is thick
with the slow-minded
sedated
sociopathism
of 9 to 5ers
at 5:23

but when the bus dodders in, the hive comes alive and the air becomes stained with a frantic desperation. shoulders are squared and elbows enflare as the mighty congregation pushes toward the light. my friend is jostled from me, and shoots me a disparaged look. i sigh and lean back into the throng, letting the frenzied squeeze themselves into their salvation. by the time i am pinballed into the bus, my friend and i are decades apart. i crane my neck, hoping to reassure her with a smile: i am here, i am alive!

and the bus dodders forward.

the bus is thick with humans. i have a moment to reflect, and reimagine the mayhem. i imagine myself as knightess in shining armour, crying out my friend's disgruntled dismay. the clouds part and gleam on me as i exclaim: what are you, a bunch of fucking barbarians? i mean, *what* is with the shoving? there is a fleshy mass before me, as solid as it needs to be to prevent me from moving forward, no matter how hard you push. and the butting-in business? if you're so fucking frantic to get a seat for those 7 blocks that separate you from your couch, wait for the next goddamned bus - oh look, there it is, pulling in right now.

i chuckled to myself, head bent coyly, as i imagined my archangelic ranting. and then i peeked left, i peeked right. i saw a young man, a boy, a yoot. scruffy thing. the first time he helped out a struggling traveller, it was sweet. the second time, it was downright exultant. and then, when some young girl singsonged: "this sure is a busy bus," well by golly, i reckon it was just about the sweetest bus ride this side of the rainbow.

ok, i got carried away with that last line and it sounds facetious, but i actually pretty much mean it. ...dang gummit!

as we emerged, sucking in my friend's inner-suburban-galaxy-far-far-away's sweet, sweet air, i thought: perhaps i'll sway her cynicism. help this sisyphus find something to savour of her daily grind. i asked her: "so, what was your favourite moment of the transit ride?"

"when this guy made the guy who was hogging two seats have to shift over so he could sit."

well ok sure, i can see that. i hate those fucking seat hoggers. and i laughed, "i thought maybe you'd say the girl, or..." and she laughed and we laughed and she'd actually been sitting near the girl and told me all her cute ramblings despite her sad, hippie name. and i thought you know what, we all find our zen where we can.

cheers to you, sister!

Sunparlour Players

2006-04-06T07:38:00.000-07:00

so last night i headed on down to the Tranzac to see the Sunparlour Players, and enjoy some of the best free music this side of the french quarter. if you haven't had a chance to savour the Sunparlour Players yet, that would explain that hollowness you sometimes feel in your gut on those cold, lonely mornings.

the Sunparlour Players (a.k.a. Andrew Penner and Mark Schachowskoy) are like gospel with all of the thumping and none of the bible. they’re a glass of mint julep served by a pixie in a hickory-smoked arcade. they’re fried chicken served on a quilt of patchwork pin-up girls, spread out on blue grass under an orange sky. they’re a train teeming with painted ladies and boozy bearded blackjackers, careening, speeding, charging charging through a prairie sunset. they're hungry sex on a hot afternoon in a summer field buzzing with cicadas. they're that scene in pulp fiction where uma thurman gets an adrenaline shot right to the heart.

or as my friend glowingly said, "they're like hillbilly punk!"

they're intense, they're fun, they're powerful, they're danged talented, and they have more energy than a 10-piece funk band.

they. are. great.

and lucky for all of us torontonians, they have lots and lots of gigs all over the city! you can go to their site (http://www.andrewpenner.ca) to get all that information. and until you get a chance to actually head out and see them, you can listen to them here: http://www.myspace.com/thesunparlour .

now excuse me, i’m going to go sit by a campfire, eyes closed in blissed out appreciation and hands clasped in giddy anticipation, and wait ever so impatiently for their upcoming album…

zen and the art of packing

2006-04-03T14:05:00.000-07:00

i recently moved, which means i got to spend some time filtering through drawers littered with the many scraps of a well-lived life. mosaics of scrawled thoughts, theatre programs, concert tickets, first drafts of plays draped in a tapestry of alien scribbles. i've sifted through clothes, cds, movies, books - what comes, what doesn't. and i have the double added bonus of serving a double-packing duty: the stuff that goes into storage until i figure out what i'm doing with my life, and the stuff that will join me for the next few months as i journey back to vancouver, and then..? stay there? somewhere else? the world is my oyster, and i like it raw!

it was fucking great!

unlike most normal, healhty humans, i love packing! sifting through the memories, the slow deliberation, the remembering, reassessing, reassigning. it's very therapeutic, actually. an opportunity to take stock in one's current reality. what have i been up to? is it what i want to be up to? what will i need for what i want to be up to?

delicious!

what can i say, i simply love packing! i've always loved packing, and i will likely always love packing. which is probably a good thing, considering how many times i've moved in my life. i've lived in more homes than years i've been alive...

it's a wanderlust that was fostered in my childhood by parents who always strove for more. sometimes we moved for work - my dad the bank manager would get offered a better position far far away. but sometimes, we moved for the sheer joy of it.

i loved those sunday afternoons, crawling through the streets, trolling for open houses. i loved walking into strange homes that might some day foster so many fights and laughs and memories. i loved trying to imagine the memories: where would i put my bed? would i have a sleepover? who would my friends be (if it was in a really different neighborhood)?

i just loved all that possibility oozing from the hitherto unseen carpets and stairways and paint colours, all the things that i might one day hate or just ignoringly take for granted.

and so i guess here i am again, on another cusp in my cuspy life. and yet, not a cusp, not really. i have figured out who i want to be when i grow up, i'm just travelling to the land of friends and connections to see if i have a better chance of doing it there than here. perhaps i won't and i'll come back. perhaps i will, but come back anyway, with a bit more experience (and expertise?) under my belt. perhaps i'll get whisked off to some new land that i hadn't even contemplated.
who knows? i don't, not really. i'm just here for the ride, the great wonderful thrilling ride that is life.

whee!

why, dear god, why???

2006-03-20T09:49:00.000-08:00

since i first started writing this thing, this blog, i've had many different people ask me the same question. the question ranged in tone from incredulous to dismissive to accusatory to awed, but it was always the same: "why do you write your blog!?"

why do i feel this compulsion to share my thoughts and feelings and stories with a faceless audience? why do i open myself up to criticism and judgment? and i have to tell ya, it's a valid question.

so why do i write this thing? i could answer with the haphazard way i stumbled into it...

i was writing a play in which a character wrote a blog. (given the huge disdain for blogs, the blog has been replaced with a zine, incidentally.) a desire to better understand this strange blog world was coupled with a new friend's invitation to visit his blog, so i decided to check it out. well at the time, in order to comment on his blog, i actually had to register with the blog site - a clever manoeuvre that had me setting up the full look and feel of my blog before i could proceed with my all-access pass to comment-land. so there i was, suddenly with somewhere to dump the mess of scribbles i was already engaged in anyway.

well ok sure, that could be an answer. but it would only explain how i started, not why i continue...

well, i'm a writer. i write a lot: i write down things i observe, i record funny or interesting snippets of conversation, and i write to sort through the jumble of thoughts that are attempting to help me figure something out. like my life...

when i first started "recording" these thoughts publicly, it didn't even occur to me that anyone but my fellow blog-friend would even look at my blog. and then eventually i started telling friends about it. and then i started giving the link to people i would meet and have interesting conversations with - so much less intrusive and actually so much more effective than exchanging e-dresses that nobody will ever use.

and then one day, a stranger commented. some person in the states that i had never nor would ever meet. then someone from montreal. then someone from texada island. then an old friend found me and we reconnected. and i realized that my life and thoughts and feelings were actually being read. meaning they were laid out there for anyone to see - kin or stranger, friend or foe.

and yet, i kept writing.
why??
why this desire (is it a need?) to spread my soul's legs for the whole world to stare at?

is it a low self-esteem? (perhaps)

is it a need for acceptance? (surely in some way, but ultimately i think not.)

am i just pathetic? i don't know... maybe i am. but if i am, i stand amongst an army of beautiful, pathetic soldiers who have felt an unstoppable compulsion to share their soul and experiences with the world. Vincent Van Gogh, William Blake, Charles Bukowski, Leonard Cohen, Jack Kerouac, Frida Kahlo, Beethoven, Sylvia Plath, Hank Williams Sr., and on and on and on. a legion of open souls. can we ever truly understand what inspires artists to bare their souls to the world? maybe not. but we can agree that it always makes us all that much richer.

and it's not just artists! most humans exist for contact. so that even a conversation over the water cooler about some reality tv show becomes an exclamation - a manifesto of self: THIS is who i am, THIS is how i think, THIS is why i feel! we are social beings, stretching our souls out always to connect, to relate to our fellow humans. to understand each other - and by necessary extension ourselves - a little better.

now i won't pretend that my blog ramblings are as inspired or amazing as the artists i referenced. i do have "some" grip on reality! but every so often, i'll get a comment from someone on the other side of the globe, or down the street, who can relate to what i've written, or who is moved to feel or think from what i've written. and in those beautiful, tiny, human moments, i (and hopefully my readers) can feel that much more connected to the community of souls that populates our globe.

futility

2006-03-08T08:30:00.000-08:00

i’ve seen some pollution in my day.

i’ve eaten Tokyo crackers, individually wrapped, then wrapped in bundles of 4s, then 8s, in 2 columns, in a double-wrapped container. i’ve seen mounds of litter cradling decaying street cats in Athens. i’ve swooned on the belched fumes of mile-long parades of punch-buggy taxis in Mexico City.

so as i sit here dilligently peeling away all the scotch tape applicants have slathered all over their envelopes (and as a side note: what, where they afraid the application would attempt a getaway? what is with the obsessive amount of tape? sometimes i wonder if they even want us to be able to open them…), as i sit here peeling away each strip of tape, tearing out each plastic business-envelope window, i can't help but wonder: what’s the fucking point!?

lovin the lovin

2006-02-15T08:50:00.000-08:00

i love valentine's day. no - let me be precise: i love holidays. i love solstice/xmas/whatever, i love easter, i love halloween, i love st.patrick's day... i love 'em all!!

ok, i know some of you may want to argue:
that valentine's isn't a "holiday".
that valentine's is a corporate cash-grab, a joke played on stupid unsuspecting consumers by greedy hallmarkers.
that couples should love each other every day of the year.

first, let me respond to the last one: duh. no fucking kidding. so if that's the way you think, why celebrate your birthday while you're at it? i mean, shouldn't you be happy to be alive every day of the year? retarded, eh. well, that's how i feel about people who refuse to celebrate valentine's. ok, maybe you're single, or freshly dumped, or just in general cynical about love. in those cases, i sympathize, i mean look at my checkered love history - believe me, i can relate.

but for couples, refusing to celebrate valentine's is just stupid or lazy or both. i mean, what is so wrong with taking one evening to do nothing but celebrate your love? is it really so evil??? frankly, i think it's beautiful. and no, it doesn't mean you can't celebrate it any other time. it doesn't mean the dues have been paid for the year, and you can go along taking each other for granted and treating each other like shit. it just means you've taken this one night to do nothing but be in love.

well shit man, sign me up!

as for those of you who rage against the corporatization (is that a word? should be) of the holiday, ok - you're right. but just because the capitalists are cramming diamonds and chocolates and red roses down your throat, doesn't mean you have to buy it. literally and figuratively... don't want to support the hallmark-created holiday? make your own card. don't wanna be a cliche and buy roses? don't! it's only a corporate scam if you let it be. same with xmas or easter or mother's day or any of the holidays. (i'm reminded of that simpson's episode with that fake holiday, what was it? that was funny...)

i say this so often, i should probably have it tattooed on my ass: our culture is desperately lacking ritual. for that reason, i find myself looking for any opportunity to create ritual. and i find opportunities in holidays. these occasions ask us to take a step back and celebrate something. ponder it. appreciate it. these things are not only wonderful, they're really important.

ok sure, you don't have to do it on some day that some religious zealot picked hundreds of years ago, but why not? are you so rebellious that you have to fight every convention, whether or not there's a rational reason for it? i mean hey sure, whatever floats your boat. but most of the people who don't celebrate valentine's aren't picking alternative dates to commemorate the great gift of love. they probably don't like celebrating anniversaries either, and i think they're just being lazy.

so anyway, i've been savouring the love vibe, and so i proudly wore my red blazer yesterday, shouting out to the world: i love love!!! and you know what? i had the bestest valentine's ever!!! sure, we bought into some of the hooha: he bought me lingerie, and i spent all my allowance on ridiculously overpriced (but also ridiculously beautiful and ridiculously yummy) Godiva chocolates. and we went full-cheese with candles and wine and fancy dinner, ooh la la. but most importantly, we shared a beautiful night doing nothing but being together and being in love.

it was... well.. a lovely night. and i'll celebrate that any day!

the "real kaen", part 2

2006-02-08T10:30:00.002-08:00

in addition to my birthday, i've also tried changing my last name. although not "officially" or "legally" (yet?), i have come up with a far superior last name.

"but kaen, we love you the way you are!!"

yeah yeah yeah. but is it really me? gather 'round kiddies, let me tell you a strange and interesting story.

when i was still a fairly young thing, the government of Canada changed a pretty significant law. previously, when a First Nations (or what the government still likes to call "Indian") woman married a non-"Indian" man, she lost her "Indian" status. became white, i guess? which whatever eh - you are who you are, no matter what the government calls you.. sure. except we're talking about losing out on the "freebies" (as the idiots call them) - the repayments our government offers First Nations people in exchange for having robbed so much of their land, lives, history, culture and dignity. so when the law changed and those women could "regain" their status, it was kind of a big deal.

well my gramma (from the Ojibwe nation) married a whitey. when my dad discovered she was now, again, First Nations, he decided to look into what that meant for him and his children. he had no idea what he was getting into...

some things were not a surprise: his real father had died before he was born. (or so the story goes. fact is, my gramma never talked about him which breaks my heart in many ways.) some things were a bit shocking: his step-father had never legally adopted him. so when he ordered his birth certificate, he discovered that the step-father's last name, which donned all his ID, was not his real last name. his legal last name was actually his mother's maiden name. my dad actually had to legally change his name so that it matched all his ID and information.

so technically, my last name shouldn't have even been what it is. for that reason alone, i feel no particular connection to it. but even more significantly, it belongs to an EVIL, terrible, horrific, awful, ugly-souled, horrible man (this would be the step-father, in case i've lost you), whose legacy i don't want to carry or honour, and with whom i don't want to be connected in any way, shape or form. AT ALL.

hold on - it gets strange.

as it happens, we eventually discovered that this name that i bear isn't even my evil step-grandfather's. the story is muddled and unclear. what we do know is that at some point in his scarred and sketchy youth, he turned his back on "Robertson" (his real last name) and "borrowed" (stole?) his aunt's boyfriend's ID and assumed it and its name for the remainder of his life. was it to pass as old enough to work the railroads? was it to run from the law? the mind reels. i know i have a flair for the dramatic, but believe me when i say without exaggeration, this man was capable of despicable, disgusting, horrible things.

so then, other than that it's a neat little fucked-up story, what does my legal last name mean to me? it carries an evil and abusive history, perpetuating the chosen identity of someone history should be lucky enough to forget.

what i chose instead to do is ask a bunch of my closest friends to try to describe me in 5 words (preferably adjectives). i then collected the responses, found recurring themes, and in keeping with my french heritage, translated the words into french, morphed them all together, and came up with Valoise.

unlike the "new" birthday, which i've already grudgingly conceded, this new last name is something i refuse to give up. some day, i hope to legally change my last name. it is, i firmly believe, a better representation of "the real kaen."

the "real" me

2006-02-06T09:29:00.001-08:00

it's been quite the ride - this past year, these past few months. and i anticipate the next few weeks will be filled with some big questions and big decisions.

let's start this journey into "the real kaen" by talking about my birthday. about 3 years ago, when i first moved to the big smoke, i decided to change my birthday. ok ok, i can never change the day which saw me spurted from my ma's loins, i know i know. but i was changing the day i would celebrate my birthday. stop rolling your eyes, ok, i know. but look, my birthday is january 3. can you think of a worse day to have to celebrate? ok, maybe january 1 or 2 - those could be worse. but trust me, 3 is no picnic. people are burned out. they have thrust themselves headfirst into their resolutions - dieting, quitting smoking, you name it. they are broke. they want to curl up and watch tv - not go out and do more feasting and celebrating.

the second problem was the astrology. i'm not a huge astrology person (which you could ironically ascribe to my capricornican nature). but i've learned that the people who ask you "what's your sign", are. so i was always reticent to tell these people that i was a cap. i've read the horoscopes, i know what people think: capricorns are uptight, money-clinging, perfectionistic, workaholic, attachment-fearing recluses. this does not describe me, not even a little bit.

so i went on a quest with some close friends to find the sign that best described me, while also being in a more celebratory season. we settled on may 6 - taurus (which is also my rising sign) and as it worked out, the birth date of Orson Welles. (citizen Kaen - get it? get it?)

well that was great, really it was. i loved the few times i got to celebrate what i lovingly call "princess day" in may. what i didn't love were the raised eyebrows, rolled eyes and scoffing, humouring laughs whenever i explained the complexities of my dual birthday.

so i gave up.

when i told a close friend i was reverting back, she exclaimed her delight. "you keep trying to change yourself, but we love you for who you are!" it was a sweet gesture, touching really. but is january 3 really the "real me"??? this year, i went back to january 3, and it sucked. we had no money. we were on a post-holiday fast. and my boyfriend discovered a birthday greeting from my ex that drove him a little insane, and we fought. and nobody called. is this "the real me"?? does this sad, lonely, cold, broke, burned-out day truly represent "kaen" better than a warm, springy, light-vibed day in may?

i sure as shit hope not...

the beast awakens

2006-01-24T09:36:00.002-08:00

hello hello and sorry sorry sorry. i know i've been painfully negligent, and it's not through lack of caring. really, you know i simply adore each and every one of you.

but i'm here now, stronger and smiley-er than ever!

or... i would be. if canadians weren't so fucking stupid.

i hang my head in shame over yesterday's election results. after shaking my head at our hapless neighbours to the south, i am shocked and awed that we have elected our very own monster. so much for being unique, canadian, socialist, open-minded and wonderful. so much for health care, pro choice and supremely sophisticated human rights. we now have our own dubya. this is what my fellow country people have said they want.

...or do they want it?

i was ABSOLUTELY HORROR-STRUCK last night when Rex (on CBC) read an email from some fucking moron. the person said they'd "voted Conservative to punish the Liberals". um... hey dumbass, you're not punishing the Liberals, you're punishing yourself. are people really this moutarded?? and if you wanted to punish your party, why hand the "reward" over to the very scary enemy? what about the NDP????

well you know what, i'm not gonna slit my wrists just yet. it's a minority government, with more than enough Liberal and NDP seats to ward off, i hope, any fascism. i guess we'll just have to wait and see what the Bloc do. wow, an alliance between Quebec and Alberta - who'd've ever thunk it?? craziness...

and you know, i am actually pretty thrilled with the leap the NDP has made, and am particularly tickled that my vote contributed to one of the NDP seats in the house. (and a big cheer to the Parkdale/High Park riding for not only voting in Peggy Nash of the NDP, but for showing up in such amazing numbers! over 70%!! yea!!!)

so hang in there kids. it'll pass. let's just hope mr. scary-evil-man doesn't get to do too much damage before the morons either stop "punishing" the Liberals, or realize there's another, better choice...

neptunian now

2005-12-01T07:40:00.000-08:00

i've always loved the ocean.

when i was little little girl, perhaps 3 or 4 years old, my family took a trip to the maritimes. i can't remember much (hell, i can barely remember last week!) but i do remember one thing. or.. do i remember, or is it lodged in my memories from having been told again and again around the holiday table?

either way, it's there, in my brain, in my soul:
a young wild precocious girl emerges from hours in the back of a hot, smoky, gas guzzling "pontitac" (as i cutely called it). she emerges from her travelling cage and is confronted with the ocean. and the young girl doesn't run amok or giggle or do any of the silly wild things you can so often see her doing. the young girl, instead, stands transfixed, mesmerized by the vast beautiful ocean.

now, not so young but certainly as wild, this girl (sometimes woman) has fallen in love with a man from the ocean, of the ocean, with eyes like the ocean. and i muse over my oceanic love for him. deep, mysterious, stormy and beautiful...

i met him 3 months ago
and i ran
and ran
and ran.
away
and back
away
and back
a fickle ocean
of tidal disquiet
until finally
waves tossed
whales beached
storms passed
finally
i collapsed in the
gentle
lulling
sigh of his love.

and so here we are
and i am hungry for it all:
the hurricanes
the swells
the depth
the mystery
the titanic
oceanic
thrust of us -
our now
our tomorrow
our yes.

ho

2005-11-22T09:10:00.002-08:00

...ho ho

this sunday, toronto played host to the fat man's arrival and the official launch of the tackiest, shiniest, loveliest season of my year! i'm of course talking about the Santa Claus parade. before going further: yes, i know capitalists have done everything they can to co-opt the season. yes, i know i'm not christian. yes, i prefer to actually celebrate solstice than the 25th. yes, i could choose to grumble at every tinseled tree i see, and dismiss it all as a fascist ploy or gawd knows what.

or i can choose to embrace it. i can choose to savour the time friends and family dedicate to making merry with each other.

as a kid, the playing of Elvis' Christmas Album was always the official launching of this merry season. but since moving to toronto 3 years ago, the parade has become a delicious substitute. i LOVE parades. i love being huddled with my city's people, smiling at tired waving children, tapping my feet to marching band tunes, and feeling my heart swell at the familiar belting out of the ho ho hos. I. LOVE. IT.

and this year, i got to enjoy it with my fella, who had somehow never made it out to the parade, despite a lifetime of living in toronto... (ahh, what men will do for love, and god bless them for it!)

and let me tell you: it was a beautiful day. a beautiful mild day filled with beautiful smiles, candy apples and clowns. (although admittedly, some of the clowns looked a little too much like drag queens on new year's morning...) my favourite moment (other than seeing Santa, of course) was hearing the little girl beside us LOSE IT when she saw Clifford the Big Red Dog. too fucking precious.

i took a few pics with my handy dandy camera phone and just look at my face - how giddily happy am i?? it was a splendid day, topped off with a mountain of whipped cream atop a white hot chocolate and a peanut butter cookie. yum! (as a side note, isn't it strange how grammatically, it would make more sense to say "hot white chocolate", but how that somehow sounds dirty - like a porn star name or something? Keith was clever enough to point this out, to the counterperson's giggly delight. words are funny.)

all in all, a gorgeous day. yay!

SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-11-17T11:04:00.000-08:00

i may be the only happy adult in toronto right now, because when i emerged to gather some lunch, i noticed it was snowing. oh, not much- just a few floating flakes, but it was snow and I LOVE IT!!!

i LOVE snow!

i love mittens and scarves and hot chocolate and tinsel and twinkling lights and snow angels and skates and eggnog and sleds and frost and pale moons and crisp skies and wool and fireplaces and mulled wine and and and... i love snow.

it's already stopped, but i don't care. even a few flakes can carry me through the next few days.. : )

i hope it snows for real in time for the santa parade this weekend. yes - the santa parade. i may like de phazz and mammalian diving reflex and peter chin and robert priest, but i also like the santa parade.

dammit.
(grin)

mwah!

2005-11-16T07:30:00.001-08:00

Remembrance day

2005-11-11T08:50:00.001-08:00

in canada, today is Remembrance day - a day when most of the country's 9-to-5ers get the day off to remember. (there are a few notable and disappointing exceptions to the observation of remembrance day. for some reason, new year's day merits a holiday, easter merits 2, but our nation's soldier's get barely a nod from 2 of the country's provinces - one of whom houses the nation's capital. it says something, doesn't it. but i digress.)

at 11 am, i dedicated a minute of my life to the memory of theirs. the classic rock station wrapped up its minute of silence with Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms. cbc 2 featured a very impressive organ and a very earnest choir. cbc 1: bagpipes. of course. (and why not; i love bagpipes.) i finally settled on the alt rock station's offering of the Pogues' Waltzing Matilda. and i stood there as i do every year, tears insistently silently streaming down my face as i contemplated the horrors humans relentlessly unleash on each other.

and as the planes flew over toronto, i remembered. or, well.. pondered memories. as best i know, nobody in either of my families has ever fought in a war. i have no grandfather stories, no sacrificed uncle after whom a brother was named. and yet, there are memories. maybe they are the memories of a universal consciousness, a glimpse at the blossom of our humanity. because my heart feels heavy with a hundred thousand memories. a hundred thousand tears. a hundred thousand souls lost in battle. and i mourn for each gasp, each drop of shed blood. and i mourn because we're still doing it.

and yet, world war 2... hitler... how to not fight such a war? are those deaths not well earned? unlike our new wars. when did wars go from being important and noble, to fucked up and begging for protest? did they change or did we? did the nature of the beast change, or did our perception of it evolve? devolve?

i don't know. i guess it's not supposed to be easy. i guess that's kinda the point.

top of the world!

2005-11-08T14:25:00.001-08:00

i'm on top of the world! powerful! amazing! wonderful!

why? cuz i climbed the CN Tower, that's why! that's right - i managed to drag my wonderful ass up 1,776 stairs and raised what i think is a pretty amazing $360 for United Way - extraordinary, really, considering most of my friends are broke-ass artsy types just like me. so hooray! (as a side note, i'm the chair of our office's United Way campaign, and i'm thrilled to announce we had an amazingly stellar year, raising over 140% of our goal. yea!!!)

it's funny... i mean, the climb was challenging. definitely challenging. and yet, it was easier than i thought it would be...

i work on the 5th floor of a building, and tried to prepare myself for the climb by taking the stairs in the weeks leading up to the big day. well, i can tell you i was getting awfully worried when the day before the climb, i was still winded by the time i reached our floor. and a few times i climbed all the way up (12 floors) and it damn near killed me each time!! well, believe it or not, climbing up the CN tower was easier. seriously! i even took the work stairs after the climb, and still they kicked my ass! fellow climbers concurred.

there could be a few reasons for this, most notably the clever/not-too-steep/many landings design of the CN Tower stairs.

all i know is this: unless you have some serious physical ailment that absolutely prevents you from climbing stairs (and i don't mean "oh i don't think i can"), i *strongly* urge you to take on this challenge next year. i know it's silly compared to, like, winning the Pulitzer Prize, but holy man, the overwhelming sense of accomplishment that fills your every pore! for days and days, i'm sure i radiated pure joy every time i glimpsed the tower...

it's aliiiiiive!

2005-11-07T09:55:00.001-08:00

yes: i'm still alive.
no: i have not forsaken you.
yes: i still love and adore every single one of you.

it's just been...
my plate's been...
i've been...

well, you know. the dog ate my homework and all that.

really though, i'm doing GREAT. after a gruelling few months of pathetic indecision (do i choose the funky soulmate, or the sexy kindred??) i finally decided: i choose ME! fuck this love business. every time i stumble into it, i obsess and i fuck up. so i've decided it's high time to chillax and spend a bit of that quality lovin on the one person i know i'm stuck with: moi. and so i'm back to writing, creating, doing...

in the next few days and weeks, i promise to regale you with my endless tales of wonder and deeply illuminating ponderings (ha!). for now, a bit of shameless self-promotion. and to show you how busy i am, i'm cutting and pasting the email i sent to the people i love best (or who happen to be on my mailing list) - so apologies if you were all excited to finally read something on my blog, only to discover you already got the email. heh heh.
___

stand back and gaze in wonder as ladykaen's theatrical career SPIRALS OFF INTO THE STAR-STUDDED WILDS OF OUTER SPACE!!!!! yea baby!!! or in other words, i got a coupla things coming up this week, should be fun, hope you can come...

wednesday nov 9: RED Festival
Lula Lounge, 8 pm
i'm doing a puppet show. (yes, you read that right.) as part of the fabulous RED Festival, I'll be joining a busload of other impromptu puppeteers and presenting a 3-minute glimpse of the extra-ordinary. i gotta tell ya, i'm pretty excited about my fabulous little puppets and deluxo little stage!

sunday nov 13: Lab Cab
Factory Studio Theatre, 8 pm
i'm presenting a 10-min excerpt from one of my plays (she spoke such words). i've had the great honour and pleasure of working with two incredible actors, Sheena Lessard and Elley Ray Hennessey, so i'm VERY excited about this. it has been too wonderful to watch these talented women help two ladies who've been living in my brain for the last year take their first breaths, stretch their limbs, and grip my heart with their tragic beauty. i really hope you can make it for this... details about the whole soirée are included below, for your reference.

and in case you don't know, i'm moving back to Vancouver in about a month, so this may be your last chance to sink your teeth into my art. ..until a tour brings me back this way, of course!

flashback!

2005-10-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

damn, time flies. where did the last week (since my last post) go!? and for that matter, where did the last 14 years go? well no, they haven't raced by, they've been full and lived completely - that's for sure. but it's been fun to reflect on them...

see last week, i was found by an ancient ex. and ah, the memories heretofore well and solidly dammed up have flooded my mind - frankly, i'm amazed by how much i remember.

if you've been paying attention (or if you're reading my words like you care, ahem...), you may remember that in my many exciting! amazing! death-defying! world travels, i've also lived in thunder bay. don't worry if you didn't remember: i try to never talk about it. (a note for non-canadian readers: thunder bay is by all legal definitions a "city" located somewhere in the woody cesspool of northwestern ontario.)

at the ripe and tender age of 16, i was transplanted from Montreal (french girls, dépanneurs, modern dance, poutine and Super Sex) to Thunder Bay (lager, loggers, legions and Bambi Bambenek). although this may bespeak a maniacal cruelty on my parents' part, there were reasons other than my torture. and anyway, as a colourfully-clad, bottom-feeding, artsy urban grrrl, i can clearly see the big shiny bullet i dodged. (shortly before the move i'd acquired an agent (modeling) - who told my 5'7" 115-lb anorexic ass to lose weight. i was also lambada-ing up a storm at the yuppie joints de choix. really: what might i have become?? shudder at the thought.)

but i digress.

so at 16 i suddenly found myself in a school that had a football team instead of an improv troupe, cheerleaders instead of a world-travelling jazz band and pep rallies instead of dance class. whoa. it was like i'd suddenly found myself trapped in an ABC After-School Special. this shit existed in Canada??? damned "distinct society" robbing me of dog squads and class-free, pepped-up wednesday afternoons...

my first few weeks were particularly scintillating. when i wasn't outside polluting my lungs with my cousin and her friends, you could generally find me sitting alone eating baloney sandwiches in the back corridor by shop class. despite this, and perhaps because i wore perfume, make-up, styly black clothes and spoke with a slight indescernible accent, i had earned myself a reputation!! that first week, the hushed voices spoke of "Parisian model". dayem, that's fun! i giggled and kinda liked this whole "gossip" business - something that somehow didn't really exist in my Montreal high schools... well the thrill ended when somehow, still sitting in the back corridor like a loser, i had become THE WHORE.

er... hm??

well what the hell eh. i was 16, alone, confused, and insecure as all hell and i now officially had nothing to lose. so i went on a bit of a rampage. say something witty (or, well... amusing anyway), be cute (or well... not uncute anyway) and buy me booze, and you had yourself a cute "foreign" girlfriend for the night or week.

until i saw him.
...met him? sadly the details are lost. but i do remember some things. like smoking in that far-back walkway as we started our solemn trek home (had to make sure he knew i was cool). i remember snow bros. at the 7-11. i remember the slow, lingering flirty walks home as we tried to ignore our raging loins (he had a girlfriend). and i remember that night... we were walking home from a friend's party, engaged in the ultimate act of adolescent foreplay: laughter-and-scream-laced wrestling. we manoeuvred ourselves into the perfect position: he sat straddling me as i lay looking up at his beautiful face framed by a naked sapling and a cool, crisp moon. and i remember my brain screaming out "kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me". i can't remember how it happened - did he lean in? did i have to lure him? did i reach up? i don't know. but i do know we kissed and he became my first full-on, really real thunder bay boyfriend. i'm talking months of devotion (which hey, for a 16 year-old is something) and 18 ct gold bracelets. oh yea, this was teenaged love at its best.

and now, 14 years later, he's stumbled on me at classmates.com. yes: someone actually gave the bastards some cash and got to actually contact me! i gotta say, it's sorta fun. haven't thought of Hammarskjold High in a helluva long time...

hunh

daydreamin

2005-10-05T09:38:00.002-07:00

i'm indoors all day, but my soul doesn't have to be! she's off adventuring...

it's a beautiful day. although there is a flavour of fall whispered on the wind, the day is sunny and sporting a misty smog that speaks more of summer than autumn. it's noon and she has emerged from the recycled air to savour her hour of freedom. she has decided to cycle to a farmer's market to get something fresh for lunch while supporting the hippies and environmentalists she wishes she were...

she is elated to discover that this is no outdoor mall, but a small community. the people are smiling, the prices are negotiable, and there are musicians. the musicians are all cool and carefree, oozing a casual sexuality - but it is the drummer who catches her eye. a feast of thick hair coyly brushes past eyes raging with intensity, sparkling with mischief. he seems transported, carried to mystical realms by his masterful rhythms. she is instantly mesmerized.

she watches his eyes. she watches when they are closed, and he looks almost reverential. she watches when they are turned to a sky filled with invisible but potent gods. and she blushingly stops watching when their focus shifts to her. although she has averted her gaze too quickly to see the salacious smile, she can feel the sudden charge in his playing. it seems now laced with a lascivious drive that pulses right into the yes of her.

eyes downturned, she tries not to think of his eyes. tries not to imagine them inspecting the contours of her dress. tries not to imagine them drinking in her details. tries not to imagine them piercing her thoughts and exposing her soul.

smiling softly, she tries not to think of his mouth. tries not to imagine it smiling wantonly just for her. tries not to imagine it whispering into her hair. tries not to imagine how sweet and soft it must taste.

fidgeting timidly, she tries not to think of his fingers. tries not to imagine them easing her clothes off. tries not to imagine them pulling her hair, exposing her neck to his fierce hunger. tries not to imagine them gently but insistently unfurling her like a rose.

but his dancing fingers and charging pulse lull her into the decadent daydream and she is powerless to his rhythmic seduction. and so she dreams on...

that's nuts!

2005-09-28T06:30:00.000-07:00

ah the silly rambly things that flitter through my brain while savouring a slow ride into work on a bright, crisp morning...

riding down a tree-lined street, i chuckled at the sight of a chestnut being chucked from a tree by a clever squirrel. the nut popped out like a stripper from a cake, it was beautiful. and for no apparent reason, that got me thinking about tree huggers. i mused over how many of the friends or people i've met who were radical environmentalists or tree planters or greenpeace warriors or whatever were also vegans. i get it, it all kinda fits together, ya know? it's all about the celebration of the sanctity of non-human life, right?

well then i thought specifically about the dedicated tree lovers - the ones who are just oh so in love with big wise ol fluffy trees dancing in the breeze just for them. and i thought of how, as vegans, many of them consume a startling amount of nuts. gotta get their protein, right?

well...

don't they realize that nuts are tree fetuses??

(shrug)

theeeahtah

2005-09-27T14:30:00.000-07:00

i know that for most people, autumn signals a time of hermitage: time to curl up under fluffy blankets after a summer of feasting on the city's non-stop smorgasbord of cultural offerings. but for theatre types, the opposite is true. while the summer has its own delicious treats (fringe and summerworks, for example), september is when the theatres come out with guns blazing, eager to lure you into their seats (as well they should!).

so last friday, i sank my teeth into my first play of the "season"; i saw Judith Thompson's latest offering, Enoch Arden at the Theatre Centre.

as the Globe and Mail so accurately states, it is "a beautiful, wise piece of theatre and what a thrill to experience it..." skillfully, tenderly, it combines music, poetry, pathos, grit and soul-stirring/heartbreaking beauty. i could not recommend this play more. it's only fifteen bucks, so ditch the comforter and head down to Queen West. you'll thank me...

and tonight i'm off to CanStage to see "What Happened Was..." not sure what it is, but i know it's theeeahtah, and that's enough for me!! (grin)

trent reznor saved my soul

2005-09-14T10:21:00.001-07:00

i fancy myself a bit of a life savourer. what i mean by that is i like to stand at life's buffet and try a bit of everything. so a long, long time ago, when i first tried my hand at post-secondary academia, i sampled a little christianity.

ok - who am i kidding. i dove right in: born-again pentecostal (though sadly i never got to speak in tongues, sigh), bible study groups, even the early-morning prayer marches around campus. yup, i did it all! i even practiced celibacy - to the dismay, i'm sure, of my boyfriend with whom i'd shared some red-hot fire engine sex for several months prior to my unfortunate conversion.

now, there are a lot of reasons for my foray into religious insanity, but i don't feel like getting into all that. i'm more interested in telling you the story of how i emerged from the holy water, back to my good ol' debauched self...

when school released me from its jaws in late april, i returned to my home. no longer subjected to the daily encouragement/chastising of my converter and other christian friends, the lord started to lose his grip on me. i stopped believing i was alcoholic. i stopped believing my instincts and impulses were actually the misguided whisperings of the devil. i stopped believing i was evil and going to hell.

i started hanging around with non-christians. i allowed the f-word and other such blasphemy to find its way into my vocabulary again. i started to smoke. i enjoyed the occasional alcoholic beverage (egads). i may even have smoked some marijuana. yet though his grip was loosening, still my fearful heart was squeezed in the good lord's frightful fingers.

and then i moved to vancouver, and discovered luvafair. every thursday and sunday night (nights without cover), you could find me sitting on the speakers (a luxury position placing me between floor- and speaker-dancers, where i could feel in the centre of it all), or on the dance floor, thrashing my hair and limbs about. and oh, i remember this so clearly...

week one
a song i didn't know began pulsing through me. oh, this is goooooood, i enthused, and jumped to my feet. frenetic and wild, it filled my pores with yes!! until the chorus belted out "god is dead, and no one cares," that is. the song: heresy by nine inch nails. as though god's hand had come down and smacked some christian sense to me, my limbs froze. sorry god, i murmured, and returned with bowed head to my seat on the speakers.

week two
there i was dancing like mad, and the song i did not yet recognize well enough again urged me to well up with energy. yes! yes! yes! i danced ferociously until the chorus snapped me back to god's fold. fuck. sorry god, i murmured, and returned to my seat on the speakers.

week three
again, i was compelled to dance. only this time, when trent screamed out "god is dead" i screamed with him. fuck you, god, and your ridiculous rules. fuck you and your archaic morality! i'm gonna fucking dance!!!

to this day, i consider that dance my final break from christianity. you could say trent reznor saved my soul.

now please, don't get me wrong. that christ fella had some interesting things to say. assuming anything in the good book is actually in any way close to what he actually said, i think he was a hell of a political visionary and we have a lot to learn from him. and buddha and confucius and muhammed and so on... but christianity made me more evil than my current debauched lifestyle ever could. i became judgmental, condescending, paranoid and i hated myself and all my instincts.

now, if you find a religion that actually makes you a better person, then i'll support you 110%. just ask my raelian brother... but if it makes you a bitch from hell, as it did for me, then trust me: slip on some trent reznor cuz you needs some proper saving.

frosh

2005-09-09T12:21:00.000-07:00

frosh week has desended upon our fine city. or certainly our corner of it.

i just sat on a desk, legs curled under me, forehead leaning near the window, looking down on masses of frosh parading through the streets. cheering, laughing, dancing, proudly donning their new colours. and it brought a sting of tears to my eyes. don't know why really... i guess a bit of envy: that sense of hope, of belonging, of community. there was something really exciting and beautiful about it.

labourless weekend

2005-09-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

i had such a lovely weekend. i went up to my friends' beautiful new home, a converted barn just north of the hurly burly, but still south enough to be relatively city-esque. indeed, close enough to be torn down to appease the suburban sprawlers. yes, in less than a year this beautiful home with its pond, its large lush garden, its serene perfection will be torn down and replaced with an army of bland, oversized suburban dwellings. but i don't want to talk about that, not now...

i want to talk about sleeping in my tent (likely the last time this season) on nights so beautiful i was brave enough to leave the fly off so i could gaze at the stars. i want to talk about slowly waking up to clear crisp mornings, lying in my sleeping bag, listening to birds, watching soft fluffy clouds float in a careless sky. i want to talk about making breakfast for friends in a beautiful big kitchen, while being serenaded by a jazz pianist and upright bass player.

could anything be more perfect?

how about playing in the dirt on a hot day, sun beating on my back as i dug a fire pit with garden tools. it was such fun! like a sandbox, only filled with cool creepy crawly bugs instead of syringes, yay! or how about eating my first fried green tomatoes - plucked fresh from the garden. or just in general eating way too much delicious food, grilled to perfection by the lovely and masterful alana. or drinking just enough delicious beer.. (grin) or cozying up by a raging fire and talking shit, punctuated by acoustic favourites.

it was so splendid, i didn't want to leave. and so on monday afternoon, after all the lightweights left, us few intimate stragglers decided to grow some sideburns and be real men: we set up the card table by the tv, turned on some cfl (i'm not a sports fan, but i do love the occasional joy of feeding off other fans' enthusiasm), ordered some pizza, cracked some beers and played poker.

from nature to friends to good manly fun, i'd have to say i had a perfect labour day weekend! : )

dreams

2005-08-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

Romeo: Peace, peace, Mercutio peace,
Thou talkst of nothing.

Mercutio: True, I talk of dreams:
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy:
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind

kindness of strangers

2005-08-17T07:22:00.001-07:00

he has been yearning for adventure, for something to happen. he has been invoking something new.

he and his friend have spent the night at the bar, taunting the bartenders to entertain them. "the robot" was their most succesful offering. the night has been amusing, high in entertainment. and yet... nothing new. he has invoked, and the universe has not listened.

until they are stumbling through their apartment building's front door.
___

it's 3 am and she's hovering over the landlady's buzzer. what to do what to do. two guys walk in behind her as she hesitates, debates. "do you need a hand?" he asks. she turns to him and giggles, embarassed but needing a little kindness from a stranger.

"i've lost my keys, and so i guess i have to wake the landlady to be let in."

his eyes go wide, "don't do that!!"

"i know, i know," she enthuses.

the landlady is a fiesty 80-something year-old woman with sharp eyes and a sharp tongue. the prospect of waking her to drunkely explain how she's lost her keys is most unsavoury. he takes pity, dons his shining armour, and offers her a couch. (it doesn't hurt that he's seen her riding her bike from his sunroom.) she accepts the salvation immediately, gratefully. (it doesn't hurt that he has mischievous eyes and a sexy smile.)

she has found shelter.
he has found an adventure.

such a nice man...

2005-08-04T06:36:00.001-07:00

"he was such a nice man."

the rallying cry of the neighbours of psychopaths, sociopaths, and some of my ex-boyfriends. people who, if they're catholic enough, might torture themselves with the idea that they should have known better.

is the fact that serial killers, rapists, bombers are viewed by many of their neighbours as nice:

a testament to how antisocial us social beings have become? oh, we'll nod our good mornings, we'll chitchat about sitcoms and reality tv in those forced moments of social interaction - colleagues in the kitchen, neighbours in the elevator. but there's no depth to any of those exchanges, no furthering of our crucial interconnectedness. in overpopulated cities, in an overpopulated world, should we not learn to respect our neighbours? look out for our neighbours? rely on our neighbours? interact more, more regularly, more meaningfully with our surroundings and with each other?

or

is it a chilling testament to how we treat our weak? our quiet? our "nice people"? dedicatedly ignoring, perhaps even scoffing them, until their exile eventually, inevitably drives to the ultimate antisocial act?

just wonderin...

childhood

2005-07-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

the tears came out of fucking nowhere, man.

we were sitting, enjoying a quiet sunday, a calm breeze. we were talking in semi-hushed tones, careful not to disrupt the intensely easy-going vibe. we were talking about.. oh, this. that. a bit of everything, a whole lot of nothing...

how did we lead into it? i can't remember. but i remember how the anecdote started. playfully waving my fist in the air, i decried Sean P---. "if i had minions, i would get them to do some serious damage to Sean P---." Sean went to grade school with me. ah yes, grade school: purveyor of all my happiest memories. (she stifles a shudder)

my friend laughed gently, wondering what Sean had done to me. first i gave the short answer, "oh you know, the standard grade school semi-torture..." and then i decided to flesh it out with an exemplary anecdote. i guess i'd never told this story before, not out loud.
anyway.

i was in grade 2. i had just gotten these death-locks, these bear-traps-in-training on my molars. the idea was these silver bands wrapped around my molars (top and bottom, one each side) and had a wee jagged bit (not unlike a thumbtack) that jutted out into the cheek, onto which you would hook elastic bands that would then straighten out the jaw. (as a side note, i love my semi-straight smile, but come on: orthodontists are sadistic fuckers.) anyway to be fair, the metal hooks that jutted out were not that big, but in a little girl's mouth, they were giant enough to wreak some serious havoc. anyone who's bitten their tongue or the inside of their cheek while chewing might be able to extrapolate...

to try to allieviate the damage being done by these metal rods that were incessantly tearing into my cheeks, i'd been given a box of wax strips. the idea was i would roll up a wad of wax, stick it onto the metal rod and round out the protrusion.

the bell rang, and i remember running across the field to get in lign. somewhere near the end of the field, Sean was waiting for me and with deadly precision, stuck out a leg and tripped me. did i say tripped? somehow that word doesn't do it justice. i caught air, man. as he laughed and jogged off to get in lign, i felt the air soar through my hair, felt my chubby little body land hard and fast, heard my little box of wax fly from my pocket and shatter on the ground, and watched in horror as the wax flew in all directions.

when i said caught air, my friend winced sympathetically for me. i kept on, but didn't make it to the end of the sentence. somewhere before the landing, i had to stop myself: "holy shit, i'm going to start crying, this is ridiculous." valiantly i breathed deep and plunged forth. my voice cracked. i tried a few more words, but tears came instead.

wow. i was blown away. here i thought i was telling my friend a silly little story of childhood malice. instead i found myself crying, remembering a pathetic little girl, pathetically wiping the dirt and grass off those fucking pieces of wax, terrified by the gruelling alternative of not having that fucking wax.

i was hoping in retelling it i could be a little stronger over something so small, so long ago. but jesus fuck, i am crying right now as i type.

Sean P---, know that there is someone in this world who will never forgive you.

weekend pass to cottage country

2005-07-27T10:14:00.001-07:00

it was friday evening and i was an urban virgin, embarking for my first time on the journey so many city folk take every weekend: fleeing to cottage country. i was off to whitestone lake, and could not be more thrilled. grinning and humming in the passenger seat, i was a tangle of giddy excitement and profound mellowness. ahhh, the weekend at last.

it was somewhere around barrie that i noticed the air had shed a few pounds. released from the shackles of humidity and smog, she danced naked and unfettered in my hair and lungs, and swam through my veins making me feel calm and luxurious. i gotta tell ya, there's nothing more exhilarating after a few weeks of intense heat than feeling the air's cool bite as you race topless (car, not me) through the countryside. as the sun fled to the other side of the world, i craned my neck to smile at a sky shimmering with stars.

finally we arrived and gathered on the beach to swill cool beer and swap ghost stories. the goosebumps charged over my flesh and Bruce made me yelp and jump with the ol' hand-on-the-other-shoulder trick. fucker. (giggle)

a night and morning of giggling in bed and our saturday began. i moved steadily but slowly, from the patio where we feasted on eggs florentine (how civilized!), to the chair under the tree, to the chair on the beach, to the raft on the water. and such water! not too cool, not too warm... had my fingers not been uber-pruned, i would never have left it!

then we got all energetic-like and rented a boat. a boat that would take us to cliffs ripe for jumping off of. i love riding in boats, and since i was knee high to a grasshopper, my favouritest thing, as the wind and spray whip through my hair, has always been to daydream about boys. being kissed, specifically. mmm, eyes closed i savoured each succulent thought.

as for the cliff diving, well.. i'm glad i did it. the best part was the anticipation. as i peeked over the edge to the water far below, i realized i'd never really done anything dare-devily before. lived in the downtown eastside? yep. put myself in precarious positions around the globe? you bet. but nothing like this. the anticipation was great, the soaring through the air was amazing, but the hitting the water... well, i could have done without that. but even the raging pain that seared through my freshly cleansed colon could not take away from the yay of it all.

saturday night we sank comfortably into some poker. but you know, as a side note from someone who doesn't watch tv, all i gotta say is: hey, there are more games out there than texas hold-em! christ. well - we had a great time anyway, recklessly gambling away all our little risk men until exhaustion carried us to another night and morning of giggling in bed.

sunday was mellow. the sky was gray (rain at last! hurray!), the souls were quiet, and i sat and listened to keane and mused and watched the water and wrote until hélas, at last, we donned our brave faces and made for the city...

so a giant thank you to Bruce for inviting me, and to Lindsay and Michael for hosting us and to the countryside for being so damned lovely. whee!

break on through

2005-07-22T10:00:00.000-07:00

so they're doing this promo thing on the radio, one of those classic rock odes to the doors. it's quite good, actually - cleverly written and aimed at my generation. that doesn't happen super often, wedged as i am between gen x and gen why. (ah, labels.)

but all the song snippets they're highlighting their fan-o-rific words with are the pap - sorry, i mean pop hits. they don't even skim through any of the really good ones, like crystal ship or ghost song.

i mean, don't get me wrong, light my fire's a good song and for a good part of my adolescence, also what i said to get my smokes lit by friends. (and a big thank you to them for never punching me!) but it's not quite good enough to be heard as many times as i've already heard it.

and no end in sight, either. i will surely hear that song a staggering amount of times before i die.

(shrug)
meh, whatever.

___
have a lovely weekend! i'm heading off to where the wild things are for some swimming, chilling, writing and tequila drinkin. hell yea.

mmmmm, yes

2005-07-20T11:59:00.001-07:00

the heat has abated, and i'm feeling sexy for the first time in days. that sweet succulent tingly feeling is washing over me, and my mind is racing, racing with thoughts of mischief...

i'm thinking of being out somewhere, anywhere, writhing on some dance floor to deep, grinding music. i'm thinking i can feel eyes watching me, sending a charge of electricity through me. i don't return the gaze, but with a peripheral smirk i thrust my hips toward him. it's subtle but he sees, and moves toward me.

a cat-and-mouse game of coyness, drinks and sly subtle laughs ensues until we are raging for more. my bag is slung over my shoulder before he can finish saying: "let's go back to my place."

as the cab peels away from the curb, our fingers are already laced in each other's hair. he pulls me toward him and i yield completely. his mouth is hot and soft and fierce as he licks and sucks and bites my moist lips. our breath dances wildly as as we fumble and stumble into and through each other, desperate to be alone together.

when we arrive, finally, at his place, he pushes me up against the wall just inside the door. i long to have him tear off my shirt, but he unbuttons it slowly, watching me as i yearn impatiently for his lips on my flesh. i pull him into me, grinding my hips against an erection i can feel straining against his pants. i begin fumbling with his button, his zipper but he grabs my hands and holds them forcefully behind my back.

i'm panting softly as he reaches in the hallway closet for a scarf. he uses it to tie my hands behind my back, and continues his slow, torturous discovery of my body.

he covers me with slow, soft kisses: my lips, my neck, my nipples, my ribs, my belly button. i'm moaning softly, trembling as he slides a hand up my skirt. i feel his hands gently brush my heaving cunt and i softly cry out "Please." he looks up, smiling sardonically, and pulls away to watch me wriggling, desperate for him. he approaches slowly and i gasp as suddenly, ferociously, he yanks my skirt off. "is this what you want, lover?" i sigh softly, "yes, oh god yes."

i'm naked before him, and he appraises me appreciatively. his hands smoothly caress my skin as he sinks to his knees. he lifts one leg over his shoulder and begins to shower my wet pussy with gentle kisses. i moan plaintively and he acquiesces at last, lazily sliding a tongue along my swollen lips and deep into me, and along my lips, and into me. he sucks gently on my clit and i cry out ecstatically.

his lips and tongue savour me completely until my hips buckle and i come, screaming, in his mouth. i'm breathless and delirious, and collapse into his arms.

christ, i'll have to finish this fantasy elsewhere than sitting at a computer...
(hoowee)

smoke blues

2005-07-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

i stayed up way way way past my bedtime last night and of course did my 9-to-5 shtick today. throw in some dedicated fringing since our fringe theatre festival opened on wednesday and you've got yourself one tired monkey. so no fresh new ladykaen thoughts for you today. instead i'm going to share a poem i read, from an anthology called Without Reservation (Indigenous Erotica), collected and edited by Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm and published by Kegedonce Press.

it's a piece called Smoke Blues,
by Daniel David Moses

You watch the smoke slip through
and catch, blue on his lips.
And you think No, it's not
the blatant cigarette
that puts the heat into

this habit, friend. Rather
it's the revelation
of limits, how the glow
of tobacco shows where
his exhalation ends.

It gives breath a body
and the body shows This
is how close you get with
out getting burned. Before
you trespass or you kiss.

lovely, hunh?
have a glorious weekend ducklings!!

happy canada day!

2005-07-04T14:12:00.000-07:00

this past friday (july 1) was canada day, for those international readers who might not know. in addition to enjoying a day off (a treat i always savour), i got to see my friends and idols, Tabarruk, playing in Nathan Phillips Square. despite the raging heat, i danced from first chord to last beat. damn they just keep getting better and better, how is that possible?

alas, the day also had a less than shiny moment. hanging out in a pub before the show, sitting alone, it was impossible for me to not overhear a young couple having a discussion a few feet away. here's what i wrote:

i'm listening to some young dumb idiot talking about Canada, and how Canada specifically doesn't have a culture, because there are so many cultures. he makes a comparison: could you survive in Brazil without speaking portuguese?? see because in Brazil, there's such a strong culture that you have to fit into... like this homogeneity is some kind of ideal. like "culture" is a scale, with homogeneity as the pinnacle.

and i want to hurt him, he's so stupid. my muscles are rippling with revulsion.

does he not realize how incredible this mass array of unique and preserved cultures is? does he not realize that this mosaic of cultures IS Canadian culture?? does he not realize that the systems we've created that allow people to preserve their individuality, yet coexist mostly peacefully is a rare and precious thing that makes Canada so fucking exquisite?

does he not realize that the ability to choose from pizza, falafel, hot dogs, shishtaouk, mcdonald's, chinese or vietnamese after a night of boozing doesn't exist everywhere else?

man, people can be so fucking stupid. it's amazing how much people take for granted...

ugh, i'm going to hit him! he's talking about Québec now.
i'm outta here..

(she grabs her book and flees before doing something decidedly unCanadian: beating the young stupid stranger.)

soul bits from the scribble book

2005-06-24T08:47:00.002-07:00

first of all, happy saint-jean-baptiste!

i’ve spent the week dragging my ass around, smiling sloppily and washing the last vestiges of a month of delicious semi-mayhem from my pores. so no full, lushly rounded thoughts for you, my ducklings. instead, i offer a smorgasbord of soul bits from the infamous scribble book.

(ok, this one goes back a little over a month (which somehow seems so far away!) well whatever: relive spring!) the air smells of autumn, but it looks like spring – complete with the neon green peach fuzz that now canopies our sky with its retro meshness. all this frolicking – pre-pubescent trees rubbing up against each other, giggling their coy consent on the cool breeze.
___
we are standing outside the party, smoking anything we can wrap our lips around. we gaze lazily at the sky. we do not know, but the northern lights are backstage, smoking cigarettes to soothe their jitterbug blood or standing in corners retracing sections of the choreography they're about to thrill the city folk with. one of us speaks staggeringly, “what time is it?” another ventures a guess: “12:30? 1?” another looks at his watch and laughs – it’s exactly 12:31.
ahhh, it’s the little things that delight me so…
___
i am on the threshold of trouble, and i beg for more. yes, yes, make me dirty with your shy gaze and wanton laugh.

paper cut

2005-06-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

i try to ignore you, my badministration badge, try to ignore your murder-mouthed grin. but the cool water streams down my fingers and finds you, my purple heart of 9-to-5, and tickles you into dark searing laughter.

___
i fucking hate paper cuts! but hey, at least they're not as bad as folder cuts. those fuckers'll have you wincing in pain for weeks. i once had a folder jump and contort itself, seeking the smooth, soft flesh that lay hidden well underneath my giant ring (unfortunately not the protective armour it could or should have been), proving that folders are evil, malicious little fuckers.

sigh - the trials and tribulations of office work...
(grin)
.

home for a rest

2005-06-20T08:13:00.000-07:00

ah – here i am, back in front of a computer, feeling slightly dazed and smiling dopily: i have had the bestest couple of weeks ever.

i have savoured theatre in three cities. the highlights:

the Children’s Festival in Toronto. i saw a charming and funny and beautiful piece from.. erm… somewhere in Europe, called Past Half Remembered, and a lovely, intriguing, strange little show from the Netherlands, called Museum of Memories.
the Festival de théâtre des Amériques in Montreal. this is where i saw La Chambre d’Isabella (the magnificent delight of Belgian wonderfulness that i talked about a few posts back). another notable artistic experience was being allowed to sit in on the presentation of a work in progress choreographed by Sylvain Émard. it was so beautiful, and i hope they come to Toronto so i can see the final product – it’s sure to be stunning.
and finally, the Magnetic North theatre festival in Ottawa. i got to see Daniel MacIvor’s Cul-de-sac again (had seen it here in Toronto), which was just as incredible the second time around. also loved Old Trout Puppet Workshop’s very beautiful and dark and magical Pinocchio, Pi Theatre's charming, slightly haunting and inspiring Élisa’s Skin, and i laughed my guts out with Andy Jones' King o’ Fun.

it’s been quite the few weeks, but the shows i saw don’t even scratch the surface of what makes the whole experience so gratifyingly incredible. if you’ve been reading a while, you may remember me gushing over this place i spent my thursday nights, called “the shop.” crammed with theatre types, beer, smoke and stories, i loved being there. well – every night at these festivals was like that.

whether in the cinemathèque in Montreal, or the mayflower in Ottawa, oh the hours i spent talking shit, sharing ideas and laughing richly. i met people that i know will be friends for years to come, and also with whom i hope to work. you know, make some theatre... like the glowing-grinned Virginia: writer, director, choreographer and shiny soul. and some of the half life folk – (in order of appearance) Randy, Richard and John. it was also great to spend some more time with the ever-charming and wonderful David and sweet-smiled, bright-eyed Jonathan from Calgary. and there were Vancouver kin too: Del and DK!!! always a delight to spend some time and ah DK, so glorious and delicious to kiss those sweet lips again…

so a big fucking YEA! to my month of june! it's been... unforgettable. well.. except the parts that are too hazy (ahem) to remember, of course... (grin)

kissed

2005-06-09T07:19:00.000-07:00

today, my lips are tingling: i need to be kissed.

looking lazily out the window, i tilt my head back and savour each succulent snapshot: soft trembling fingers curling in my hair, a rush of hot breath rubbing up against my neck, a soft hot tongue gliding gently along my lower lip.

today, i feel like i could spend a month kissing. my lips are hungry, longing for the taste of mouths frenzied and tangled in a lusty tango, gliding and panting in and through each other until we are overwhelmed. until breathless and ecstatic, we begin gently savouring, tenderly perusing.

today, i'm lost in those slow searching licks, the soft playful bites and sweet sucking. i'm consumed with a furious longing for the feathered brush strokes of impressionist lips, the hurricane of heated breath, the inferno of yes.

today, i really need to be kissed.

what is this intimacy thing?

2005-06-08T07:46:00.000-07:00

i was riding into work this morning, breathing in the smells of summer: trees, earth, rotting garbage and smog. mmm, summer in the city (back of my neck getting dirt and gritty). and i spent the time musing on intimacy.

i was recently talking with someone who read my astrological chart, and i wondered if it was a sort of cheating, like "instant kaen." not that the chart was oh so revelatory, but when he read the qualities out to me, i either agreed or disagreed. and i wondered if we weren't maybe creating a false intimacy?

but no, i don't think so... let's say he was paying attention to what qualities i identified with: yes i'm passionate, no i'm not obsessed with success and so on. fact of it is, that would only tell him who i think i am.

i think friends or lovers only know each other - achieve intimacy- when the friend or lover truly discovers not only how i see myself, and not even how i want to be seen (though these are insights the lover and close friend alone are offered. well.. and blog readers.) the keen friend or lover will see also how i really am, the depth of my unknowable soul.

although... i guess people fake that knowledge all the time, by focusing on stuff like how we want to be seen rather than who we really are. they stroke the ego with platitudes that we've created for their abuse. so perhaps false intimacy is indeed possible after all. perhaps even rampant.
but anyway, that's not the case or point there so let's just... leave it at that. (shrug)
.

flemish fantabulousness

2005-06-06T10:09:00.000-07:00

beautiful.
beautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautiful
beautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautiful.
if i wrote it a hundred - a hundred thousand times - it would still be a word, a pathetic two-dimensional hiccup attempting to capture the most incredible and profoundly impacting theatre i've ever experienced.

so i went to montreal last week for the festival de théâtre des amériques, and saw La Chambre d'Isabella, written and directed by Jan Lauwers of Brussels' Needcompany. i'd never seen anything like it. i've sinced learned that it's part of what the kids are calling "the belgian aesthetic" which among other things incorporates a lot of movement - and a very particular kind of movement - into theatre: i.e. movement theatre. if you don't know what movement theatre is, it basically incorporates... well... movement into.. you know, theatre. it also happens to be the kind of theatre i've been writing.

as i jumped to my feet after the show, hands flapping furiously, the slow steady stream of tears started. blocks away from the theatre, they slid still, and my heart raced and my body vibrated. it wasn't sad - it was just so beautiful...

but it was also more than that. it was new and powerful and inspiring and overwhelming. days later, i'm still not entirely sure why i cried. oh sure, the story is sad and beautiful and that inevitably played its part on my heart. but the sensations that coursed through me ran deeper.

maybe i'd felt my brain grow and knowing i was changed, mourned for the child, an infant in the world of movement theatre, who was no more. or maybe i felt challenged, supercharged with a deep desire to create something so exquisite. or maybe i cried because a few nights earlier, i'd met the company. after a flirty, giggly stumble back to the hotel, Jan suavely tried to turn a chaste kiss on the cheek into a lusty smooch and after seeing his show, i really wished i had kissed him...

whatever it was, i was deeply moved and look forward to seeing more of their work.
.

rush hour transit

2005-05-17T11:32:00.000-07:00

i love how fighting your way to the back of a rush hour streetcar can feel like victory. like reaching the end of a strenuous, deeply important pilgrimage.

you know, when everyone jams themselves into the first half of the streetcar, completely ignoring the back where they're serving margaritas and telling dirty jokes.

of course, i know why they do it.

they do it because they're so sensually neglected. too untouched. and now that they've outgrown discos and hot tubs, it's the only chance they get to press up against strange flesh, to commune with unknown auras...
.

oh, roar a bore! yea, liz.

2005-05-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

what a weekend! all together now, let's heave out a lusty grunt in honour of my fabulous weekend. doesn't that feel nice?

the weekend included friends new, newish and old and lots and lots of talking shit which is _____? that's right kids, kaen's favouritest activity in the wholest widest world. although i do have to say the weekend featured a smidge more turning-down than i'm comfortable with. though i do know that of the two parties in such situations, i'm the one coming out ahead, it still fucking bites. the worst is when it's with a friend. i can't tell you though how many male friends i've lost once they've crossed that bold threshold into telling me they want to fuck me. that's generally the point at which my friendship becomes absolutely expendable, useless in the midst of all that potential fucking.

well hey fellas, here's a clue: if you're my friend, and we've hung out - perhaps even gotten drunk together - and i haven't kissed or fucked you, then i probably won't. i'm a fuck-on-the-first-date kinda gal...

anyway, enough about all that silliness.

saturday wins the highlight of the weekend. standing on mondo's rooftop patio, chain smoking and meeting fellow lung-polluters, i was standing with new friends when one breathed out an exclamation. we all turned our gaze upward and were blessed - spoiled really - to have front row seats to a rare performance of the northern lights. in toronto, one night only!! and oh, it was spectacular.

now i'll be less than romantic and say that having lived in whitehorse (yukon, a.k.a. "way the fuck up there" for our non-Canadian friends), i've seen some truly spectacular northern lights before, and these were not quite so glamorous. relegated to the light green hue, though, they made up for their monochromatic costume with an exuberant, energetic display of frivolity. i slid my arm in my new friend's arm and we gazed, awed, at the sky's show as the other two spoke in hushed tones of aliens and conspiracies. we were mesmerized, super-charged, reentering the party a lifetime later glowing with excitement, dazed by the unexpected gift. how fucking fabulous!
.

cat parliament

2005-05-11T14:03:00.000-07:00

so i visited our nation's glorious capital city this weekend, and oh what lovely fun it was. under a cloudless sky, i visited a new friend/old soul. and i took in some sites. well... one site. unless you count the market, purveyor of fine stinky cheese and sumptuous wine. well at least, that's what i bought there. but i don't count the market. so i visited one true-blue tourist site, and what a site it was.

ok wait - two if you count the parliament. but to be honest, the parliament was an unavoidable distraction, standing between my hotel and my true destination: cat parliament.

just outside the fence, around back of our fine parliamentary hen house is cat parliament. i'm not even kidding: we asked fellow strollers where it was, and they were like "oh, cat parliament! just keep going that way!" cat parliament is a small ramshackle lean-to made to look like the parliament (though to be honest, i failed to see any meaningful resemblance), and it's populated by a mess of stray cats and one weathered old man.

on this beautiful afternoon, surrounded by tourists and saturday strollers, i watched them watch. i was particularly stricken by the toddlers, wild with glee as they peered curiously. although on the outside, the cat and caretaker looked caged, and the onlookers gawked.

"look mom, a CAT!!!!!" the kids screamed.

and i wondered... is this what our morally-pure zooless culture has bred? children frenzied over stray cats and a bored old man?

bring on the freak show, they are ripe.

silly reminiscence

2005-04-28T14:05:00.000-07:00

Alana was remembering her first job at a chinese buffet. on birthdays, she recalled, a handful of the waitresses (pardon me, servers) would head over to the dessert table and concoct some sweet monstrosity for the unfortunate celebrant.

she shakes her head at the memory, soft honeyed brown hair swishing on the waves of her laughter.

"you couldn't imagine some of the things we put in front of those poor people."

and for a second, my mind raced into a parallel universe, where some artist is drinking wine and celebrating the opening of a show: installation pieces of heaped masses of buffet desserts. it's a massive hit.

carpe omnia

2005-04-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

i'm not a pothead!
...i only smoke pot on special occasions.

but see, i'm a loyal devotée of the school of carpe diem (or as the drunken poets society i spent afternoons with back in guelph oh so many years ago would say, "carpe omnia" - seize everything). as such, every day must be hailed as important, to be savoured and celebrated. even the quiet is celebrated. the boisterious, the new, the calm, the old - all cry out for love and i benevolently dote on them all.

i'm not a pothead.
i just celebrate a lot.

adieu ikea

2005-04-19T09:05:00.000-07:00

wow, that title has a lot of vowels... right, let us begin. today's offering is a very silly, drunken rambling, scrawled just last night: mere hours ago!!

i was flipping through an ikea catalogue (not shopping but rather, making art - découpage, dahling.) and it suddenly occurred to me that they are no longer marketing to me. the first clue was the 5-page section on orthopedic beds. well… i didn’t read the literature to get their qualifications, but they sure looked healthy. like those beds from those commercials during Three’s Company, with the silvered lady and her polydent smile, holding a remote control that eased her into pleasing contortions.

but it appears that i am officially no longer the kind of folk ikea like to associate with. this is startling! i mean - who am i if not an ikea consumer?? while it’s true that i never graduated past ikea-neophyte status, with the odd plant or bookcase, and the occasionally enjoyed underpriced foodstuffs tenuously garanteeing my membership. but at least i was a part of it! sucked by its undertow to a place of belonging.

i saw it coming of course. it started back when they began focusing so much of their floorspace to the breeders. while still generationally simpatico, already i was beginning to be excluded from the dream of ikea. but the tea lights and chrome light fixtures kept me hoping, drawn in, drooling in the storefronts of their ready-made chic – as playful and contrived as “right out of bed” hair product.

but now i am a child alone, no ikea to fall back on, no storefront to call my home.

meh.
(she shrugs, laughs, takes another sip of beer.)

i love my neighborhood!

2005-04-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

i love my neighborhood, for it gave me saturday: the jewel of my "weekend of the impromptu."

but first, a quick nod to an also splendid friday. after over a month's absence, i finally made it to that poetry gathering thing i've been known to frequent on friday nights. and i was even able to read some of my new poetry, which went over well, very excellent. afterwards, one of the fellers (lovely guy who introduced me to a beautiful free greenhouse/conservatory earlier this year) was having a party that i gleefully crashed (although, since he gleefully hosted me i guess it doesn't count as crashing!?) fun part of the night was discovering that nancy isn't married to michael after all, but to that other fella. in fact, michael's not married at all! michael's one of the poets i noticed with a raised eyebrow on my first night, but then dismissed after assuming he was married. well, the discovery was well worth some playful flirtation and a few giggly kisses. but alas, he is not only a poet, he is piscean. very very piscean. so not going there again.

and then saturday, ah saturday! i was supposed to attend a writers' symposium but when the alarm rang at 7:30 am, i was not feeling the love. after a good half hour of pro- and conning it, i curled back up and slept a few more gorgeous hours. waking up ravenous, i decided to ride up queen until i found a new greasy spoon to investigate. and oh, i picked a great one this time that i will definitely need to revisit. no urban hipsters in here, but filled instead with bukowskis and random sordid locals who added spice to the grease, bless 'em. got some great writing done too.

after that, i emerged back into the blazing sun and pondered my next steps. i'd done all the writing i needed to do on the play i'd brought with me, so i definitely needed to go home to gather other stuff if i was to keep writing. but then it occured to me that i didn't even have enough money to have *one* teensy wee beer that would allow me to sit on a patio and write, as my heart was wishing it could. so i shrugged sadly and decided to just go to the beer store, grab a bit of brain-soother, and head home to write. i know i know, indoors on the best day of the year (so far)? insane. i sighed, wishing i at least had a deck to work on...

and then, my prayers were answered! stuffing my beer into my bike's flowered basket, a couple of fellas said "hey, why don't you grab that bohemian and bring it over to '123 street' - we're having a bbq." no need to ask twice. i showed up to their surprise and delight and savoured beer and fun in the sun with bob (of the fabulous, deep, hearty laugh and excellent music collection: zappa, yay!), mike ("i'm not young - i'll be 30 next year!!" who loves to cook and spent most of the day preparing culinary treasures for us), abbey (who sadly didn't join us until later in the evening, having spent the day running running running around getting shit done) and "the dude" (who to my gulped surprise looks an awful lot like david thewlis underneath the scruff (old-time blog fans might remember my obsession with the actor), and who rolled a t-shaped joint that was truly a thing of awe and beauty to behold. i've never smoked anything like it!).

so yay to my neighborhood and hey, now you know: if you see me rambling about and feel the inspiration, why not ask me to join you? odds are i'll say yes. although, i guess i wasn't quite so open-hearted with the white-trash-suburban-homeboys who greeted me with a boisterious "how you doin, girl!" at the grocery store.
...not so much.

last week

2005-04-07T09:29:00.000-07:00

i've been rotten, and i'm sorry. between living my typical rock star life and writing my little heart out on too many projects, new and old, both you and my scribble book have been sorely neglected.

(deal with it.)

so here are the few scratchy scribbles from my last night in the shop. there weren't many though: too much time spent talking shit with people i have already seen again, people i hope to see again, and people i will never see again.

***

her shoulders are squared and yet her torso is craning ever so subtly into him. they are having a passionate discussion that i can't hear over the guitars and crooning. but make no mistake: it is most certainly passionate. there are waves of animated voices, frenetically gesticulated hands, and eyes that have not swayed from each others' fey focus for 2 whole songs.
___

the table tonight is a mosaic: 50, Stella, Keiths, Carlsberg, Guiness.. they rub up against each other in a stained glass dance. sacred in their asymmetry, they mimic this gathered crowd of mismatched souls.
___

maybe what i love so much about the shop is its impermanence. these fleeting moments of loveliness that are gorgeous or fun, but only for that moment. there is nothing tangible, not even in the email or phone numbers i foist onto people who make hollow promises for tomorrows that will never happen. i even pointed that out tonight, talking to some fella i didn't even bother offering coordinates to: "well, i guess i'll never see you again!" "oh, sure you will," he enthused. i laughed gently, "no we won't, but whatever man - it was nice meeting you."

maybe i've just closed the curtains of my heart already. or maybe after tapping into some of that deep-down soul-connection stuff with people who do make things happen and can inspire or involve me, i'm bored with all this drunken banality that only i seem to find possibility in. floating from chair to bench, from conversation to conversation, i was discouraged by the superficiality of it all.

fare thee well, hollow talk and drunken fun. it appears i won't mourn you after all.

evil

2005-03-29T09:48:00.000-08:00

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...

shop night!!

2005-03-24T10:04:00.000-08:00

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...

you MUST!

2005-03-17T14:21:00.000-08:00

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!

international women's day

2005-03-17T09:41:00.001-08:00

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)

on a day pass in ritzville

2005-03-11T06:36:00.000-08:00

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.

we're all diseased

2005-03-08T07:03:00.000-08:00

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.

by request

2005-03-07T11:02:00.001-08:00

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)

made the list

2005-03-03T10:14:00.000-08:00

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.

what can it all mean!?

2005-02-28T10:27:00.000-08:00

so the other day someone was telling me about all the weddings they had to suffer through last summer, and their fear of the approaching season and its imminent and inexorable torture. and it occurred to me that i have never, and i mean ever, been to a friend's wedding. in fact, i've hardly been to any weddings at all. to the best of my memory (don't laugh!), i have only been to 3 weddings in my life, all family: my uncle gary's (when i was about 8; i was in fact the flower girl, how precious) and my uncle real's (i believe his third) and my sister's. and hm.... yep, i think that's it. well, i went to mine of course, way way back when i was in my early 20s, but let's not go there...

so then it occurred to me that all my friends are bachelors. some dedicated, some cursed, but throughout our short or long acquaintanceship, the staggering majority of people i know and love have been primarily single.

so what is it? are we too picky? do we have bad judgment? are we looking for the wrong thing? or are we just looking for something other than love altogether?

i'd like to say the latter, but among a majority of us bachelor-types, there are still the flailing attempts scarred by disappointment or broken hearts. it seems that even when we aren't looking for a romantic liaison, it hunts us down and when it knocks, most of us will answer - however cautiously or gleefully...

so, i wonder... is there something about us that draws us to each other? is it the same thing that repels us from romantic attachment? some sort of scent we give off that we just can't get enough of, but that non-fucked-up/asshole/moutarded love-potentials are utterly repelled by? a stench of aloofness accentuated yet with a pinch of unabashed hunger. or maybe it's a look in our eye, part disinterested, part flirtatious-curious, with an underlying texture of hopefulness, yet, beneath the unavoidable repulsion.

hm.

poets

2005-02-25T14:55:00.000-08:00

the other night, for no apparent reason (though surely the plethora of drinks i'd inhaled played their part) i actually introduced myself to someone asking the painful "what do you do" question, as a poet. by the time it escaped from my lips, i decided it was too late and what the hell, to just go along with it. so i spoke in the tortured lilt and assumed that mood, that stance, askance, that lately anyway i've been dwelling in. identical to my definition of a poet. that certain way of being, perceiving...

i tried to explain that to a poet a few nights later, but he wasn't buying it. leaning back in his chair, piercingly ingesting my words, he was listening but not investing. this fella, who'd spent most of the night analyzing and interpreting me from having read - astonishingly and impressively - my whole blog just a few days before. he infused sarcasm into everything i said, overlooking even my sincerity. and i inflicted tortured depth on him. i think we were both just so fucking megalomaniacally insular that we were inflicting our egos onto each other...

and on that note, i'm off to a poetry reading. i hope the madness ends, or the fates will surely curse me by inflicting a poet on me.
egads!!
but sitting in that unfinished room in that rat-infested dive of a place, hearing words so skillfully strung together, and then sitting around, drinking, thinking, talking shit with these people, these poets... it's such a lovely, mellow way to spend a friday night (read: post-thursday-night-at-the-shop).

have a de-gorgeous weekend dahlings.

happiness

2005-02-25T09:44:00.000-08:00

a few glimpses at the last week, from the infamous scribble book of course.

my gaze is lost in the maze of empty cans - 3.7 per person strumming or humming or singing or just gorgeously being, congregated around the big black block of wood masquerading as a table. i'm in the deluxo luxury chair. and the girl leaning on the arm has just come back with a fresh beer and beaming smile. and the girl leaning on the back of the chair is singing an enthustiastic harmony. clocks be damned. tomorrow be damned. right now makes all this life stuff make sense. worth the gruelling effort.

***
right now is a good moment. i look good (never mind the 14 outfit attempts before finding the delicately perfect outfit for going to a Chopin recital, a wine and cheese that will include some colleagues, and potential (likely) late-night debauchery with the kids, while remaining stylishly sexy, in an understated way of course). i feel good. i've enjoyed a few scattered mini-conversations with handsome strangers. free cover, free beer, hugs and hugs and yet still, also, the space to be alone in my bubble to write all these pages i've written tonight. perfection.

***
it's nice here.
i feel right here.
i'm at what i think is my best,
others, maybe, my worst:
drunk
disorientated
pure.

[ironically, the word drunk, above, was written as something that looks like "dirunek" on a page made ripply by spilled beer. hee hee.]

dude, don't harsh my mellow

2005-02-23T14:33:00.000-08:00

i flow on the waves of my brain this morning. eyes wander here, thoughts wander there...suddenly i'm focused on my headphones: filter is singing to me about feeling like a newborn. my eyes glide to the pages of my book, at the top of the page is the title: metamorphoses. the moment's synergy does not escape me, and i pause to wonder if my brain or the world is trying to tell me something.

float, float, out the streetcar window onto the velvety winter landscape.
smile...
muse...

and then my eyes are brought back to the page, so i read. it's the tale of Apollo separating the satyr Marsyas from his skin. "it was all one raw wound. blood flowed everywhere, his nerves were exposed (...) it was possible to count the throbbing organs."

jebus.
just a half-page of gore, randomly snuck in to horrify me on this quiet, lazy morning. mood killer, man - harshing my matinal mellow. and i sure as shit hope there was no hidden message from the universe in that!!

and my eyes drift again, flying from the page to ride the receding rails as i look out the subway's back window and plunge forth, forth into the day. (borne ceaselessly into the future? something like that.)

highly disconcerting

2005-02-22T09:43:00.000-08:00

the weirdest thing has been happening to me lately.
let me start with a bit of context...

i have always been a rather excessive fan of smooches. indeed, this passion has made me responsible for international kissing games, late-night rooftop spin the bottle sessions, and oh so many countless kisses. one of the fellas i dated last year was first kissed by me mid-sentence, shortly after we met. "sorry," i bashfully exclaimed, "couldn't help myself..."

hell, there was a time when i used to make it a point to share at least one deep-down, full-on smooch with all my closest. for example, when ken first decided he would be my flatmate, we were in a bar and i reached across the table to pull him into a sweltering smooch. it was just... something i did. maybe i figured 'hell, we're gonna be roommates, now this is out of the way.' or something like that. even my queer (guy) friends didn't escape my lascivious lips.

well lately, the sight of people smooching or even the thought of it kinda... well... repulses me. and it's not just my cynicism! i've certainly found myself floundering in the anti-love-vibe before, but i have never, ever been even remotely anti-smooch. but watching movies or on the subway, or wherever i see lips joined in a passionate embrace, i kinda hear my brain going "ew."

i've had a somewhat similar transition from adoration to disgust before, with cigarette smoking. just randomly one morning (or in some cases, gradually over a week or two), the thought of smoking will just turn my stomach, and so i'll give it up until months or years later, when it appeals to me again. well, could this be happening with the smooch? could a fate of being a non-smoocher await me??

the horror! the horror!

on a hopeful note, as i was twirled around my apartment last night by an imaginary partner to acker bilk's 'stranger on the shore,' i was swept away by thoughts of gentle kisses on my temple, as fingertips brushed my hair away. so perhaps all is not lost...

thank heaven for little girls

2005-02-14T10:37:00.000-08:00

heh, what a great weekend.

one teensy wee snippet from the jam-packed-with-flavourful-goodness-weekend:

we're sitting in angela's living room, sipping wine and talking about deep, important things like neil young and hair. you know, deliciously insignificant and highly entertaining post-bar/5 am talk. (my favourite kind.)

angela asks kelly: "are you cold? cuz you're not wearing much." the rest of us explode in laughter as angela explains, "no no no, it's just that i know i keep the apartment cold..."
yea, we get it.
but we've also been admiring that short skirt of kelly's all night...

earlier that night, kelly had come to me to seek solace from the naughty, grinning bartenders. "they keep trying to get me to bend over!" she playfully pouted. hm, i replied with seeming sympathy as my fingers reached for a nearby flyer and swept it to the floor, laughing sardonically. the bartenders were watching intently, laughing in that deeply familiar way bar colleagues have with each other. a snug, smiling incestuous family.

lately, i really miss working in bars...