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!
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
shhh...
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.
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
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.
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.
Monday, January 01, 2007
live by the fire...
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?"
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
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.
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.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
breathe
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.
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.
Friday, December 08, 2006
his & hers
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)
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)
Thursday, November 23, 2006
undeliverable mail
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)
> 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
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
sugar crash
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...
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...
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