he seemed very nice, somehow

Heavy soft-box rain. The light was unreal in how beautiful it was. I took my glasses off at the bus-stop, didn’t put them back on until I found myself at work. It made me less nervous than I thought it would.

A girl standing on the bus leaned towards me, stage-whispered, “I like your hair.” as I passed her. I whispered back, “thank you” and sat down, unable to see her face. At Broadway Station, rain caught sharply on the flowers, a sudden unexpected illusion of clarity – the light from the petals stung my blindness like metal splinters.

I fidgeted with my hands on the train, unable to read without my glasses on. How do other people sit for so long without a book? A man sitting across from me seemed to be staring, but I couldn’t make it out. I wondered if my inability to focus gave me away as blind until another man, deliberate business casual, brown shoes, inoffensive glasses, crouched down at my feet to gently whisper, “I have to tell you.” I nodded, yes, willing to swear I had never met him before. Very quietly, solemnly, he whispered, “the way you look gives me an erection” into my ear. I whispered the same reply to him as I did to the girl on the bus, then he nodded, still looking grave, stood up and exited the car.

Work, so far, has not been a tenth as interesting.

where are you people?

I’m sitting out in Silva’s back yard, comforted by the constant joyful screaming from Playland and the laptop warming my lap like a cat, streaming Imogen Heap’s electric siren call, but hoping more people come. It’s been raining on and off today, like taps being turned just behind the clouds, and it’s driving off all the gray-hairs we had been hoping would drop by. Mostly what we have are dreadful brass figurines and a rather stolid antique collection of pink, intricately patterned imperial dishes of the sort I remember seeing in museums back east, (where they tend to care about that sort of thing). In my opinion, there is very little sane people might want in their house, hence our attempt to get rid of them. There is, however, a very grand old chess-set I hope finds a good home, some leather clothing, and some silver candlesticks quite this side of nice.

on the heels of the inevitable “I’m not in love with you” phonecall which always makes me spit black

Also:

To whoever it was so thoughtfully tucked the pair of condoms down next to my bed?

Incredibly bad taste. Poor taste. Poor timing. You lose. I will find you. You won’t like it when I do.

say hello to these office workers

Useless epiphany of the week: Kompressor is really Drew, the research chemist behind Toothpaste for Dinner and Married to the Sea.

Terry and I went to a bar Saturday evening and I couldn’t help but notice a young couple in the window, the way his blond hair shone in the brief sunlight and how the semaphore of her laughter sat in his lap so well. I watched them until I realized I was not actually envious, then turned away, feeling irony pinch. I continue to believe, it is only base perversity that I forget myself so well. (A very human thing). My hand slipped into my pocket and held my watch, strengthening my resolve, a hard chord underneath my fine-tuned determination that has everything to do with respect, loves and unquestionable fascination, and I fell back into conversation without missing a beat. I only mention it because the moment took me so strongly from myself. Who was I before that I could be taken over so easily?

Matching fact: The original drummer from Sonic Youth was the guy who played the mustachioed parking attendant in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

With Spring, I’m having to learn how to be social again. My skills have become a monument of rust, crusted with disuse, surrounded by willow trees and puffy curls of bouncy barbed wire. I’ve been too busy with theatre business, crawling finances and finding my next meal. Facebook, shamefully, has been helping, shaping an upcoming calendar of events as well keeping me in contact with people I otherwise would have neglected, overcome instead by the day to day static of living, but it’s more a reminder page than an actual map of action. Instead, I am curious, what is everyone doing these days? I was swallowed by winter, covered by a blanket of red tape, lost in a hedgerow maze of numbers and paperwork, barely able to poke my nose out to say hello unless you tracked me down or lived downtown. Tomorrow Steph plays her first night at Organix, a night I worked for six years ago, Saturday Silva has her yard-sale and there’s a BBQ over at Aaron’s that I’m considering going to, (though I won’t do it alone, I know that much), and then Sunday I do my time at the Dance Centre again, another week over and beginning.

Also: Pre-muppets, Jim Henson used to create philosophy themed experimental television shows.

Last week I sent out various small packages to various precious people, and have been getting a multitude of fun responses in return. More went out than have been commented on, as of yet, but I hope everything will safely find their homes. If you either have yet to receive something or would like to, toss me a comment or send me your address.

public service announcement

Silva‘s having a yard-sale this Saturday. I’m going to go over Friday to help her prepare. Knowing her, it’s going to be fabulous and odd:

Likely and unlikely things. For instance: Mason’s Pink Vista dishes ($2 – $200), signed figurines ($30 – $60), new men’s leather chaps size 42, tags still on. ($100), ornaments ($2 – $10), leather armchair and ottoman ($60), Japanese miniature teapots, sake carafes, etc. ($5 – $15), new leather motorcycle jacket size XXL, tags still on ($80), and much more.

3464 Dundas Street. (Two blocks west of Boundary and four blocks north of Hastings).
Noon – 3:00, May 19.
No early birds, please.

Around the back. Follow the balloons.

“he’s a fool if he’s not in love with you” “most men are fools, dear” “well, yes, but…” “uh-huh”

A Corpseflower webcam. (What a great band-name.)

My cluttered white desk is a small island in the cement foyer of the Dance Centre. It tethers me to this place, this screen, this set of keys. Through the glass wall in front of me, a small map of Davie street walks past – blue jeans with cell-phones, dogs, speculative couples, their arms crossed, held, ipods wearing socks with sandals, gore-tex jackets, camouflage, gossip and hoodies against the invariable threat of rain – indifferent. The new leaves on the trees outside are an unrealistic green that goes well with the electronic music surfacing from my computer. The phone stays silent, the building almost empty, there is very little for me to do, but wait and write and read.

I went to dinner with Alastair’s family this week, or some of it. His sister has brought her husband and new-born baby over from Scotland for a week. It is both comforting and strange to finally meet them. I missed them by barely two weeks when they came to visit in California. We went to Marcello’s, then to take pictures off the roof of Alastair’s building, where my cats live. As hard as I could, I couldn’t make the sunset beautiful, so I took pictures of them instead. I had only meant to come by and check in on the cats, (I had them spayed this week), but I ended up staying until eleven:thirty at night.

Standing at the bus-stop after, I found out there had been a shooting up the street, this time at the Roma Café. Street rumour says it was Over a Girl, but had no other details, except that the bus was rerouted and not to wait. The papers, as far as I’ve found, have had nothing to say.

I really like the Roma Café. Along the front windows are painted the NHL logo, the football league logo, the NBA logo, and a blue-robed Virgin Mary all in a row. I was stood up there once by a translator I met at Bukowski’s and it gave me a chance to properly appreciate it, though I hardly ever go. The music clashes with the pure Little Italy décor like plaid with polka dots, all tawdry 80’s and 90’s pop played loud enough to shove irony off a cliff.

I used to love the Capilano Review, I didn’t even know it was still in print

Thursday, May 17th at 7:30 pm, the Capilano Review and Upgrade! Vancouver present New Writing, New Technologies, an interesting multimedia forum Launch Party for TCR 2-50: Artifice and Intelligence, (guest edited by Andrew Klobucar), hosted at Emily Carr.

“Join us as we explore critical questions on how contemporary developments in media technologies – its tools and methods – continue to influence many of today’s most important literary and art movements, and how these new technologies affect the concept of knowledge.”

Food, drinks and live a/v by CineCitta at 7:30pm, panel discussion at 8:30 pm.

More information:
http://www.katearmstrong.com/upgrade/vancouver/
http://www.capilanoreview.com

edit: for those less pretentious, Alec‘s ska band, The Elixxxirs, are playing at the Buffalo Club that night. They’re on second, so they should be getting started around 10:30pm. Tickets are $8, unless you know him enough to get $3 discount.

I am still smiling randomly on the street, I am trying not to wear my memories thin


the sound of your absence
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

It’s been discovered oral sex leads to throat cancer.

I wear a pin that carries a last kiss from a common name on the lid of my eye, around my neck coils a scarf that brought my fluttering wings back to life, my wallet is camouflage for how much I still love him, it lives in my witty black bag, the stain of two infidelities. I am armoured, the only one who can break my heart. Pieces and parts, twisting my hands in the sink, water running red, the lesson of a clothed walk through life. Things, how little of them are mine. Of course I want more, to have their voices rise with mine again, to create a rhythm of easy conversation, the happy patina of bitten tongues and worlds beyond words, but these are what I have; the way I wear my pocket watch on my wrist and cradled in the palm of my hand, my ear against the door of the sky, my permanently borrowed hat always the word No. There is no cavalry.

I leave the room, hear behind me, “she’s my brothers girlfriend.” remember to write. My surprise is mechanical. Shelter. I rest my head on his shoulder, let the flesh give substance to a ghost, and settle in.

What is passive? This is my kit, the way I wear a skirt, lipstick, stockings, the way I shift my hips against a close explosion or brace my feet when I swing to defend myself. Nothing to be scared of. The angles of these faces, lighting up on a street corner, attached sweetly to my memory, wear quietly. Composers, compositors, blocks of personal mythology, barely attached, like birds fluttering along a wire. I have never laughed so much in my life.