Month: April 2005

Mike Kozak is coming to stay with me for a few days. I was expecting him for the first of the month but he’s only just called now, at one o’clock in the morning. My policy of “you can always call” kicking in. I haven’t properly known the boy for years so, no matter the result, this will turn out interesting. I’ve not any clue what we might have in common still, who we might know in contact.

I was the Goddess Canabasita once to our group of friends, there would always be a pipe, papers, a light in the darkness, the third feedback member, the Technocratic Concubine. This is House of Slack memories and living with Grady and the flaky painter Chris in the worst back alley of Canada’s only slum. Rabbit would spin decks in the renovated bank safe and Merlin and I would dance, throwing our heads back until we sat exhausted on the chroma key green of our studio floor. I grew into godliness on that rooftop my first night, watching fireworks with half a stranger and half myself. We would cook with peanut butter, we would make clothing out of silver tape, we would create something better than the two dollar blow-job with a heroin kick in the street outside our window.

I don’t know if Grady succeeded, I only know that I’m not sure I did. We split ways when he got lonely, when he peeked when I used the shower. I’ve heard since Trypped On is still going, that Merlin had a depressive crash but is now recovering, (recovered?). I’ve heard that Grady and Roz have been together for a few years now and that he doesn’t come to our god-childrens birthdays anymore. Our relatives together see him barely more than I do, and I see him never past chance meeting where we don’t know what to say to each other. I know too much again. The phone number changed, the famous one, 805.trip. When I called it last, the girl who picked up cried with frustration. I imagine she must have received twelve a day for a year after the switch.

Mike is older now and I suppose so am I. A few inches taller, the both of us, he’s got longer hair and spikes in his hat. I remember him as a child genius inventor, always fiddling, making new things. Skully says he lost something along the line, that he lost impetus. They lived in the same building fairly recently, before Mike and his ex broke up. He never contributed apparently, which is why the girlfriend left him to fend on his own. Tomorrow or the next day I’ll comb some truth from the wool of rumour, I hope, though I don’t know exactly how reliable he is these days. So many years apart has left a bit of a gap.

It fit yesterday as a second skin that just when I arrange to wander out of doors with Patti is when I remember that I was to call Shane. Futility squared, that thought. I imagine that it’s likely better that I see him later, after this tainted bloody thinking drains from my body. He would have too much fun running with it. He used to call me the Ice-Queen, now he introduces me as the heart-breaker, the lost love. A girl took it seriously a few months ago and stopped me on the street later, “I couldn’t help overhearing…” Earnest in a denim hipster skirt kind of way, her questions trimmed in pretty little girl lace. The joke is spreading, I’ve been spending time with a completely other group of people lately who as well decided I must be told that I’m attractive whenever they write anything down.

Tonight Ian and Andrew and I are taking Robin to Kung-Fu Hustle. (Andrew – this link is for you.) Granville 7 at 9:35 for anyone who’d like to tag along. We’ll have a vehicle and can give rides home after as if to flick the finger at our newly discovered summer weather as unexpected as whale fossils in desert Egypt.

Silk and fathers, go to bed, love. No I’m not, it’s time for me to go, but not now, no, not now but yesterday, last night, I’m putting on my coat and realize his eyes are open when his voice darts from the darkness to ask what I’m doing. “I’m going out.” “Where?” I don’t know, there’s no reason to know, it doesn’t particularly matter. I’ve cut off my places to drop by partially for you and part for me. Across the street is a park to sit in with damp green grass and messy playground love waiting without swings to let me cry on the plastic slide’s knees. Farther up is a house I used to throw rocks at, farther up is an apartment I grew up in. My father hung me out the window once, it was hot out, the sun blinded me from my ankles down. He and I would look so sweet together, still now I’m sure there’s a resemblance. The body and blood, they scream to each other. I want this, but it’s bringing me flames. My flesh is crackling, skin black and splitting at the merest mention of everything I’m trying to keep away. I’m not as strong as I could have been, my resistance goes down when I like you. There’s prior damage, neglect and poisonous accusations every night for dinner over books we’d both read. This is the History Of A.I.D.S., the biography of WWII, this is paper pages too thick to throw anymore. I didn’t go walking. I didn’t find a cold moon staring at me through gaps in the darkness. I didn’t pause halfway through a gravel field and look out over the city and decide to never come back. There is a chance still for a waltz to save me. There’s a hand reaching to sweep me into skirts and out of them. Now I have to remember your name.

Thank you for the picture. This is a listing of every MP3 that Amazon.com has for download and this is a stunningly stylish animated Ramayana, one of my favourite books.