Day: September 16, 2005

I wanted to sleep before I went to work, but I couldn’t get my eyes to stay closed

I was alone since the day the power went out. Mark left me, went to the city to find out what was happening. The radio had said something about war and we were worried. He was supposed to be back in five days. Terry visited on the third day, dropped by with a treat of fresh coffee. Kind of him in such hideous weather. That was the day the storm began in earnest. That was a two hour hike from his place in four foot snow with barely any visibility, something I wouldn’t dare alone. It was too cold. Too dangerous. The forest was ice and the sky above an inviolate gray. I kept the house warm with wood that Mark left. There was no shortage. It was an antique thing, our stove. I loved it. I could burn kindling for a month and not run out. The fire lit the house with an orange gold that made the walls glow like pictures I’ve seen of churches.

I never have any idea what I’m going to write down when I sit down at my keyboard. I don’t make notes in my head, except in jest, “Dear LiveJournal, today Sophie tore my clothes off while we were pretending to be porn lesbians on the trampoline. I’m not sure how to mend the skirt, it may actually be ruined.”

The man of her dreams was slightly taller than the fellow standing in front of her in the grocery store line-up, but she thought, “Yeah, I could take that one home.” Her glossy beauty magazines gave her a litany of interesting things that never happened to her and she was beginning to notice. Hauling her white plastic bags out to her car, she realized that there had to be a change. She sat behind the steering wheel, staring off into space, unable to move, unable to decide what to do next.

I wonder occasionally why I do this. What impulse it is that tells me that words are piling up inside my head, pestering me, when there’s hardly anything with form, anything with any foreseeable purpose. When I’m asked, I say I use this place for networking, for spreading the word, for collecting interesting everything, but half of what I put here has nothing to do with any of that, I’m sure.

Weighing his options, that’s what he was doing, narrating silently a litany of why he should go any direction. He was twelve and running away for the sixth time that year. It was June. This time it was because he caught himself being condescending the same way his teacher used to be. His glance fell on a cloud floating above him and for a moment he tried to imagine what he would look like from the cloud’s point of view. A tiny speck, he decided, a blue one, because of his torn jeans and baseball shirt. A plane went by, drawing a pale white line behind it on its way to Indiana. “I’ll follow that”.

bustedwonder made a sketch of one of my favourite photographs


she knows what kissing’s like
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

Mice infected with the Bubonic Plague are missing.

Sitting on the floor felt like a miniature picnic. Instead of a blanket, I had a book. Instead of a park, I had a closet-room full of costumes. Raising my eyes from the page to fetch my grapes, my head brushed the petticoats of a dozen frnech maids waiting on hangers, my hand grazed the hems of a dozen schoolgirl outfits. Next to me was a box of ballgags and next to that was one of garterbelts. My back leaned against a cheap plastic mirror and I faced a drawerchest full of stockings in crunchy plastic packages. It’s quiet there, the soppy unimaginative music can’t find me in among the skimpy pieces of cheap fabric. I didn’t think it was possible to suck the soul from a Phil Collings song. Work had been dragging, the clock, I swear, occasionally ticking backward. Customers were few and young and silly, boys laughing nervously and winding up the annoying hopping penis with feet.

Light bulb malfunction at school sends 18 to hospital with radiation burns.

Later was better, the day got it’s feet under it and began to stride. I had a pleasant interlude with a friend of mine from SFU, teaching him how to use a paddle in such a way to leave marks before he remembered who I was, and Aiden snuck in breifly to ask me to dinner while my manager was vaccuming the back. I learned how to properly mark costumes down as restocked, something that had been baffling me, as every employee possible had told me to do it differently, a practice rumoured to be common in retail that I had never encountered before and hope to avoid in future. I’m trying to grasp the essentials of shop-front politics, but so far I have only, “Don’t volunteer any information that doesn’t sell something.” which doesn’t seem incredibly helpful.

A blind man is accused of raping his own guide dog.

As if counterpoint to the early afternoon, dinner was splendid. I let myself out at nine to find Ryan and Aiden waiting out front looking incongruous, like a foppish rentboy and his thug pimp or rough and tumble boyfriend, and we walked up Davie to Denman with intent to go to Guu, a japanese pub known for it’s sincerely authentic food and drink. Our plans was thwarted, however, by my fish sensitivity, the air thick enough with it to set me leaning against the outside, choking to breathe, after only stepping foot in the door. It was a pity, the place looked interesting, the waiters shouting orders to the kitchen and the bar crowded by chattering people sipping odd looking beverages. However, we ended up at Moxies, who, before we left, allowed us to order a side dish of dry ice, so I suspect we had far more fun than anything that strange alcohol might have offered.

A Black Velvet Art Flickr Pool.

meme from riotlounge: If you have anything to say to the person who posts this, say it to them. If you love them, tell them. If you hate them, tell them. Whatever you have to say to this person, even if its something you’re having trouble saying, if the person posts this entry, say it to them. You may never get a chance to, so just do it. Warning: Do not post this in your journal unless you really want people to do it. I expect good things but I expect bad things as well, and that is something you have to take into consideration. Not all of what you hear will be good. Comments will be screened if I figure out how. All comments are screened.