silly reminiscence

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

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

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!

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

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

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!!

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!

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

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

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.