Day: March 3, 2008

a silver locket clockwork heart

I’m in awe. The Lady Anomaly has sent me some of the most beautiful art I have ever seen in my life. Sacred things. Inside the prettily decorated envelope were two thick polaroid prints, (bent as time-travelers might be), a double-sided page of unimaginably exquisite illustrations, a pencil-written letter on a small piece of brown paper, and a slender, wooden Cornell treasure-box filled with dreams, loss, and memories, with an extraordinarily fine goddess of cats delicately drawn on the lid.

My sweet wicked self has been broken open by the care put into these precious things. I want to take her hands, palm up like branches of lit candles, and kiss them daintily in each palm, and never let go. I want to disregard caution, a ghost in love, kneel like the moon and lick the scarred ridges of her burning satin heart. The next time I dye my hair, I will take strands of it and tangle them into the amber beaded threads and silver inside the box, as if to tie us together, coax her elegant bones into my arms all the way from North Dakota.

best news of the week

Mildred of COILHOUSE says:

The DA has dropped all charges.

Cat is coming home. No criminal record, his name cleared, and he’s a free man. A poor man, but free! We expecting him on a plane back to London within twenty-four hours.

The BBC went to Dubai to cover this story, and interviewed key officials in the case. The reporter and our attorney are saying that damage control is underway: many prisoners are about to be released, and they’re promising reforms which could reduce these sorts of arrests happening to future travelers. Not holding my breath, but if this does transpire, then we’ve basically achieved everything we set out to do from the beginning, and that’s a fair bit of awesome.

It’s all a bit sudden, and I’m still trying to get my head around it.

You guys have a fucking lot to be proud of. The media attention we’ve drawn from our collective efforts has resulted in not only Cat’s release, but that of other prisoners and the subsequent changes that are under review. That’s a pretty serious accomplishment. Today you can look in the mirror and know you’ve made the world a better place, and I sincerely hope karma gives you the reach-around for your efforts. You guys rock.

I never thought I’d see the day where I said the internet restored my faith in humanity. This is the geek equivalent of an 80’s movie ending. Who’s throwing the prom, then?

down to the roots I save my self

365 day sixty: sailing on the warship munin

Sailing a viking warship is the devil, it made being in Vancouver completely worthwhile for a day. I’m hooked. (I even got to steer). Left, right, the shore didn’t matter. We were in a longboat blackened with linseed oil, carved by hand, with a square sail, red and white. Oh, my soul, I’ve loved those ships since I was a child. I taught myself runes when I was eight, (wrote a book report in them once, got an F), read every Norse story I could get my hands on, can still recite all the myths off one by one, all the way from the start of the world to the upcoming Ragnarok which may have already happened, Freya crying to her white cats as they sped across the sky, all the apples fallen, the giants throwing ice.

I can’t go next weekend, as Dan‘s having me down to Seattle for a house-party, but the weekend after that, I’m going back.

FYI: The ship can’t sail without a minimum crew of seven, so if you’re even remotely interested, please come along. They try to go out every weekend, on Sundays if Saturday weather falls through, and both days in the summer. Prepare to spend approximately two hours out on the water. As well, rowing isn’t half the terror you might think. It’s really quite relaxing, the entire thing.

Meet at the dock behind the Maritime Museum at 11 a.m. Say I sent you.