simmer down, sista!!!

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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???

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

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!?