I need to remember to eat something

I love bio-feedback. Today, in spite of having a thousand chores ahead of me, (FTX West 2006, Michael‘s birthday, SinCity), and feeling like I’ve been wasting my day, (laundry’s only half done and it’s nearing the end of the afternoone), the pervasive feeling that I’ve been emotionally living under an underpass has been adequately banished by the laughter from last night. Intermediate social cohesion is a really good trick. I have a heavy chemical reaction to charming people, the more clever my company, the more comfortable I feel, as if I can only relax when I’m with people I can trust to simply take care of things, so last night was perfect. No stress. Most of this week, actually, has been useful that way. I’ve been spending time with older friends and it shows, I think, in my reclaimed stability.

Parade of Lost Souls call-out (apparently they have canceled my damned fireworks)

A letter from Public Dreams follows:

Greetings Good People,

My beautiful mission for the Parade of Lost Souls is to create a field full of altars and shrines dedicated to the memory of people and ideas we hold dear. I’d like you to consider doing this with me.

Please find attached a little info about what we are doing and the dates and times for our upcoming workshops at 1000 Parker Street. Workshops start this Saturday the 14th. The workshop studio is roughly in the Clark and Venables area but the following link will show you exactly where to find the studio.

It would be great to have an indication of how many of you might be joining us for the workshops so please do drop me a line and let me know when we can expect you. Merci.

Feel free to call me or write if you have any questions. It would also be appreciated if you’d pass along the invitation to people or organisations you thought would be interested.

Wishing you well.

Vanessa Richards
Creative Community Liaison
Public Dreams Society

Workshops take place on:

  • Saturday, October 14 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Thursday, October 19 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
  • Saturday, October 21 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Thursday, October 26 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The door is open from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. To gain access after 4 p.m., press the buzzer or call 778-838-7678.

it must be three in the morning there

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.” – James Nicoll

When the Anti-Choice choose abortion.

Your cathedral eyes, I can see them through the telephone, carried by the documentary grain of your shaky hand-held voice. The subtle circus is in flames, tonight, with me here curled up like a teenage child and you on the other end, my mirror. It’s ridiculous, our travel backward in time, as if I should be wearing a poodle skirt, something light, pink. Black shiny shoes and pastel socks. My knees bent, my arms wrapped around them, I am an unembellished postcard, a childhood that not even you remember.

We are talking quietly, as if not to wake our parents, the non-existent neighbors, the hush of sleep come crawling, come knocking at your chamber door. It’s a lot of information, the image of your black hair wrapped in your little stories, the memory of saying goodbye like gritty sand, all of it leaking long distance. Our words have the antique innocence of empty bottles stamped from a factory and abandoned in a cheerful whore’s attic, they wear garters for the hell of it and lay hands on to heal. Good night, we say, and we mean it. I can’t sleep. My bed is cluttered with books in among the covers, paper reminders of then versus when versus me and now. We make your apartment an area of darkness, blank, fishbowl wish you were here, welcoming and new. We make you a thick furred cat, rubbing against my legs and glittering verbal sparks. Briefly I wish I had a cigarette but can’t place why.

For those interested, there are only two Ceilis in Vancouver this season.

Actually, that was a few nights ago. This evening I celebrated Friday the 13th by going on a Girls-Night-Out, (possibly only the second time in my life I’ve been on one), with women from the Moon Festival. We went to Avanti’s, the strange little pub up on Gravely and Commercial that feels like it’s been transplanted from some tiny redneck Oh Canada town, then to the Portuguese Club. A very drunk old man tried to attach himself to Beth there, (I’m sorry I didn’t get any pictures. She was amazingly dressed as a dutch milk maid, complete with red checked table-cloth bloomers and a fake flower crown), and I was asked to dance by a handsome man who sent a friend over with his phone number on a scrap of newspaper. (When we left, he blew me a kiss.) It was very traditional, somehow, all of it. Even our stumble up to the Havana for chocolate pudding. We told riotous stories about drunken evenings on nudist pot-haven islands, people attempting to snort lick-em-ade, misdemeanor moments on public transit, and having to slide down pyramids in Cancun.