petrichor: i’m tired of being blind.


nan grey
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

I dreamed but cannot remember it. My eyes feel soft this morning and as clumsy as my fingers dropping words on the keyboard like leaves in a dry season. My body craves metaphorical rain. Something to clean my gutters and streets of dead things and wasted paper. On my closed body, the debris is noticeable. This is where nobody touches me. My heart is buried. It craves some kindness to fall from the sky and wipe my spirit of disarray. Wash my buildings of ashes, rinse these sixfold shaded windows.

Ryan and I are going for breakfast. Given my schedule, I assume that I’ll return home late Sunday night.

I figured what the hell


snsterkddz_sm
Originally uploaded by illf0.

This is going to be a busy time. Likely good, all things considered. I require some distraction, lest I find myself bitter.

Tonight is Indie Movie Night at Sara’s house.
Tomorrow night, Antonio & Mimi are having a slumber party.
Saturday is Jenn’s Hallowe’en Birthday Bash.
Sunday is Sukkot, which takes me firmly out of the picture.
Monday is Korean Movie Night.

So Tuesday then. Is anyone interested in going to see the Wallace & Gromit film, Curse of the Were Rabbit, on Tuesday?

On an entirely unrelated note. I have a bit of curiosity to throw at you all. You’re an incredibly diverse group of people, and perhaps perfect for this sort of query. My recent sense of wrongdoing has to do with some fairly basic ettiquite, I thought, but he’s claiming that it’s all in my head.

So, the question posed:
If you’re in a casual sexual relationship with someone, it’s only right and proper to inform them before you take another partner, no? Otherwise you’re being rude to the point of possiblly endangering them, right? This is my assumption, and the assumption of everyone I know, minus the one, so I want to know, are we just an exceptional group of people or are we an aberration of some kind?

Secrets are packets of seeds that require fertile ground. I threw his over the bridge he just burned

I heard the answer before he answered the question. I was right the first time around, when people change, it barely touches their intellect. Where is a notebook to spill into? I don’t have anyone I can call and cry to the sacred with. I don’t have a bastion of whole world at my feet to rely on. That was last year, this is this, the only now I’ve ever had. Too late. I swear into the phone, receiver falling into the cradle, heavier than gravity. His foolish answer, his petty games of justification. Cut. Respect is not a nebulous concept but simple. Unspoken contracts are trust, are the blood and bone of relationships. You don’t bring them with you when you fall, they are there to hold you up.

beat me to it because I forget

I tried to dye my hair bright pink today. It didn’t take, something deep in my physiology rejecting such a painfully vivid colour, but it’s coated my hands adequately as proof of after the fact. Otherwise, there would be no sign. I suspect it’s the first time I’ve ever attempted to paint myself something so.. cheerful. Here’s hoping that it didn’t take because my body’s learned how to reject falsities.

Ms. Kelly Foxton does very unusual things with her pet squirrel. Her website is mostly photo galleries. When I link to this sort of thing, can you believe I forgot the day before yesterday to link to the incest baby-death news story here? (similar somehow to the ‘only in the land of the free’ man charged for shocking his 8 year old daughter with electric coller.)

It’s like I’m slipping.

Another nice bit of news, a mysterious ‘half-animal, half-plant’ marine microbe was discovered by Japanese researchers.

Today I had my first time on a scooter and my first time driving one. It was terrifyingly easy. I’ve decided that I need to drop by ICBC and find myself one of those horrid little books on The Rules Of Our Roads so that when I play with such things, it’s legal. oh canada, we stand on guard for thee. My papers from the government should have arrived by now, the ones confirming my english citizenship, so I don’t think that I can stand to trust the office that said they would mail me one. Instead, this might become this weeks miniature crusade for meaning. Seems likely I need one.

hiding in front of everyone


The Mask
Originally uploaded by MemoryMotel.

I checked because I knew I would have been written to. An entire paragraph was there this time, a little window of wondering about. Wandering about. A room full of people and a small commiseration. I remember this. Lying down together. I remember and hands. Glass as an element, as a metaphor, as something to see through, something that the eyes read, something that allows us to see outside when we are within walls.

I met with my friend Andrew this afternoon before breakfast with Ryan, and he gave me a tour around his area of the university. It felt like a treat. He’s lovely company and I think I might have visibly drooled a little while scanning the titles on his bookshelf. I’m looking forward to attending his lectures. I don’t get credits, but nor do I have to pay. A damned good deal, in my books. It’s my first time looking forward to school, though I admit being on campus feels irritatingly like hostile territory. These Are Not My People, This Is Not My World, E T and C. Academia’s foreign in ways that surpass language and delve directly into conditioning. I’m comfortable in an agora atmosphere, I was never wired for muted halls lined with lockers. I prefer to have words inside my head instead of on silky paper on my wall.

Calling on the Vancouver web: A soundproof space is required for the late afternoon and evening of November 18th. I’m told it’s for a student film about an alien abduction. The ideal space would be a grotty basement with a drain in the floor but privacy, accessibility, and that it’s okay to scream are the most important. They’re willing to rent, but the most they could afford is $100.

Cloth instead of drug store bought, cloth instead of paintings, cloth instead of a tongue.

Usually I can deal with the unexpected, but lately I’ve not been keeping myself well, (not enough sleep, certainly not enough calories), and my dizzy lack of amino acids is leaving me open to feeling threatened. There were people in my house pretending to be characters in some game and I’m wasn’t comfortable with it. I’ve always had a very stiff Leave Your Dice At The Door policy and it’s always served me well. That felt like a breach of contract between me and my life. I was supposed to go dancing after, but those participating didn’t seem to care much either way if I attended or no, so it seemed wiser to hurt alone rather than inflict my hormonal self on the world. One of them is too important to me still to have to heir his false affections tonight, though bonds are thankfully dissolving in his self obsessions and my glad distractions. It’s my time of month to be lonely, to want particular people to call on me in the middle of the night and crawl warmly into bed with me.

  • Accountant “cashanova” embezzles 1.9 billion Yen for 17 mistresses.
  • Ohio Police Arrest Woman For $1 In Unpaid Taxes.

    Saturday I woke up too early, walked out the door before I was entirely prepared. Today I did the same. Today I didn’t go hiking all over a treasured nature park though, instead I went wisely for breakfast with Ryan, Navi, and Jenn, then went with them to Sunday Tea before work. (I hadn’t been for months. It was nice to sit and harmlessly flirt with Travis. My world needs more remarkably tall intelligent gay pirates in it.). I met up with Lori after, a friend I haven’t seen in something akin to four years, though it may be closer to three. We couldn’t remember.

  • A two year old toddler has shot a three year old in the hip and thigh.
  • Dead women elected as councilors in Pakistan.

    Now I’m up again after lying awake for over an hour brushing off Ryan’s in-sleep cuddles and trying not to let my emotions tackle me down to the ground. I found myself wondering where my loved ones are, and then, how many of them are there anyway all told. I am tiny and my mouth newly empty of teeth. My tongue probes and explores the gaps and depresses me. How am I to tear into the world like this? I feel as if there have been far fewer influences on my life than a regular tally would count. Years from now, I will remember Joseph clearly, though not who came before, then my marriage to Aubrey. Then there was a hiatus, a few artists already fading. One, however, overlapped the others with a fish-hook heart that I’m still recovering from. Shaking that from my system has left me a little peculiar, as it was deeply lodged in my own for so long that I still feel an absence. Wisdom teeth coming in. Growing pains. Matthew discarding what self I still had to give. Every person a lesson in trust, in disbelief, in the eternal ridiculousness of pain, in the undying willingness to try the damned idea out repeatedly. As I’m gathering myself back to my feet, I am knocking others off them. Let’s take this as a good sign, a marker stating the game’s afoot again. Same field, different rules. Maybe this round I’ll get to win something pleasant.

  • With apologies to Max Ehrmann as initially I was only trying to remember the Desiderata

    I don’t know you, but we refuse to go placidly amid the noise, which is good. For once, the haste is ours. I warn you, however, this is familiar; how I bring joy. You’ve crawled into my life smiling with a whimper and the promise of bang, both unexpected, and I find myself bound to your responsibilities because I like you in spite of them. Unexpected is understatement. You steal what I steal and replace it with truth spoken quietly with affection. We avoid the loud and the aggressive, and violence escapes us, vexations to the spirit, except in our hands clutching at each others hair. That knowledge is comforting to me. If you don’t look to force your religious opinions or your political surfeits upon others, than I will keep respect in my heart warm and welcoming and stand with you as far as possible without surrender. As long as those traps remain empty, it is not my business how you continue your life apart from me. As long as there is love there, I need not concern myself. If you choose to adopt a child and raise it, you have my utmost respect. My concerns will remain with myself and I will offer as placid a pool as possible and attempt to rinse myself of my frustrations. If you choose to raise that child into a specific lifestyle, that’s fine, as long as religion is not an excuse for intolerance. You are already braver than I. (When half a million people led by their religious leaders gather in a 21st century city to protest a law that gives opportunity for two people who love each other to raise a child, it gives me pause as to whether this is a world that I would ever want to introduce a child to.)

    I am usually complicit in the world, not comparing myself to others, for there are always be greater persons than myself in my estimation, and I make every effort to know as diverse a group of people as I possibly can. Diversity brings the new, insights and experiences that I would never have discovered had I remained wrapped in my own existence. But fundamentally, I don’t know why you like me. My mien’s been trampled, there are only a fistful of similarities left; we are on good terms with most people, we find good humour in the world, we listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. My skeleton is not made of such fine stuff as yours, it was spun messily and without comfort. I feel outdistanced.

    My employment leaves much to be desired, but I do my best when I am present, however much I would wish to be elsewhere. When I leave, I wish to leave a positive impression and a place where I remain accepted. The world is a frequently hostile place, I want to have as little negative impact as possible. If I am to raise my voice, it should be to combat intolerance and promote distinctiveness. It is my own blindness to virtue that gives me discomfort where I’m positioned, not a lack in the striving industry of local friends. I want that as clear as the happiness in your eyes when you see me smiling back at you, granting without cynicism that you are not enough for me to stay as much as I am not enough for you to leave. In my adoration is hard knowledge sharpened on ‘I should have known better’ that states with great clarity that there can always be another human being to capture me, that there are enough souls alive to capture you as well, that we can’t find ourselves alone unless we choose to be, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass. I was not raised to be a child, though I had a right to be, instead I was raised to be strong in spirit. It may yet save me, but not from you. You are a piece of the universe unfolding the same way I am. It would be a gift to let go of everything I hold so tightly, but I don’t know how.

    With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
    it is still a beautiful world.
    Be cheerful.
    Strive to be happy.

    your basement’s on fire would make a delightful in store euphimsim


    ScanImage171
    Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

    There is something startling about the first kiss. It’s always a surprise, even if you’ve known for a year that it was coming.

    I wore a police cap in the store today. It kept falling forward onto my eyes, resting on my glasses and obscuring my vision. Someone said it looked too appropriate to be sexy and I laughed. My sleeves are pink silk today, and everything else is covered in wine velvet. I look as if I dressed to span three centuries and I forgot to brush my hair. It floated in a tousled corona of cloud around my head until I went out into the rain to fetch us tea from the Starbucks on the corner. I stood a minute outside the shop while my hands were slowly scorched by the cups of hot water and looked up into the sky, fascinated by the feeling of light wind and water falling out of the heavens, feeling a moment like I was alive instead of pretending to be infatuated by a little grinding retail life. It soaked me enough that I could tie my hair in a passable knot and be done with it. I’m fairly certain my manager didn’t notice the delay. She stands outside intermittently and smokes.

    Every time I approach the red velvet curtain that separates the store proper from the storage area haphazardly filled with sex toys, I face a a row of unpleasantly shiny vaginas in clear cases winking at eye level and inwardly wince. It’s a vision of cheaply kept entertainment, our back area. The door to our bathroom has broken off its hinges. To the left plastic bins messily marked ANAL (small) and HARD DILDOES in block letters with black permanent marker are stacked on cheaply made metal shelves, to the right is a wall plastered in tiny crabby notes on how to properly run the store written by people who aren’t familiar with what needs to be done. I am continually impressed at how difficult it is to find anything in a place where black marker writing is on everything. LIGHTSWITCH, ALLURE, NIPPLE CLIPS, ALL CROTCHLESS PANTIES, POCKET ROCKETS, REMEMBER TO TURN OFF THE LIGHTS, SOFT VIBRATORS, ANKLE CUFFS, MENS, ALL GARTER BELTS, PLEASE REMEMBER TO REMOVE BATTERIES FROM TOYS BEFORE PUTTING THEM BACK ON THE WALL, BEADS, BOOTY SHORTS. It just goes on, and yet everything is moved every day. It would be an adventure if the prizes were anything I wanted to find.

    oops, wrong speed on that one

    Peel’s comparing debut on Top Of The Pops: “In case you’re wondering who this funny old bloke is, I’m the one who comes on Radio 1 late at night and plays records made by sulky Belgian art students in basements dying of TB.”

    What sound does not create the grandest of consequence? This October 13th was the one year anniversary of the very last session played by the late John Peel. For you in the Americas, John Peel was the man whose tastes dictated law in the land of new music. Your media failed you if you didn’t know this already. He died of a heart attack last October while on vacation with his family in Peru, a tragedy. The BBC has been putting together tribute concerts for him all week.

    Here are some of Peel’s stories, collected from a series of interviews with Simon Garfield.

    Here is a collection of legally free downloads of music that he’s played, as well as a toss of links relating to other pages of Peel and information.

    Here is his list of twenty favourite albums, with a bit of Peel information on each. There is a BBC list of links at the bottom of the page that are well worth going through.

    Speech-only MP3s of Peel standing in for Mark Radclffe in October 1996, with guests Lee & Herring and Stuart Maconie. Nearly all the music has been edited out (bar a Swedish Elvis impersonator), leaving 50 minutes’ worth of deadly genius. All reports agree that Peel’s contributions on the second MP3 are particularly fine.

    A comprehensive list of his Festive 50’s, a yearly listener’s poll of favourite records.

    “I know that I’m going to die trying to read the name of some band in the headlights of a car behind me, and then drive into a truck in front. People will say, ‘Oh, this is the way he would have wanted to go.'”

    cross your fingers and make a wish

    A quarter to having to go to work and I’m still being kept up at night. Left over hey you, I don’t think so, let’s not talk. It feels like sitting at a crowded bar alone. It’s too bad I don’t drink. In these shoes, it’s not like I could spin on my heel. One by one, these secrets come in and roost. Little feathered weights that never fly away. Rocks to throw into the ocean that crawl home to sleep in the lungs at night. I want another trip to Seattle, another shot at visiting the Roq La Rue gallery, another day with my hands on brushed steel, but most importantly, six hours trapped in a car with someone I could talk to. Victoria’s a chance too, closer and with places to stay overnight. There are beds there that would welcome me and whomever I brought with me. I float in an interesting sea. Mishka’s birthday was recently, I should bring her something. Nicholas had his heart trapped, I should shake her hand. There are reasons, social outings, let’s sit on this tiny piece of seawall and look at the water, just like everywhere else with a shore. I’m carrying polished stones, let me carve my name upon them. Let me pretend I can believe in my silent stories.

    Speaking feels like thorns pricking my tongue. It’s dizzying. I can’t focus on anything important to me. There are skeins of words waiting for me, but I can’t untangle my fingers from the knots I made when I spun basic dried straw into gold. Desire’s a powerful thing, I’d like to let some out to play, but first I have to collect it like dew in a leaf before dawn, else the charm won’t charm, the curiosity will prove itself to be a wretched liar.

    From thenowhere:

    Calling all everyones out there.
    I’m going to turn off IP logging.
    Then I’m gonna turn on screening.

    You know what your part is?

    Anonymously Comment. That way the world can read your secret with me. I don’t want to share something with everyone if you thought you were only sharing it with me.

    Tell me a secret. A nasty, awful, atrocious secret. And it really ought to be yours, though since things will be anonymous, eh, who can tell? Name no names, simply because if your secret involves anyone else, it’s not just your secret to tell. I’m going to screen the replies to this one, only because I don’t wanna see a flame war about someone going ‘ZOMFG U R TEH SICKOO!!!!1’

    You have a hundred thousand chances in a lifetime to confess your fears and your weaknesses, but you rarely see them. So I’m pointing one out, right here, right now.

    Tell the whole world that secret. Let it out.

    anonymous commenting fixed.