Selenium is sick


TV On The Radio – Trouble

“All of this borrowed time, it’s running out. It’s the ending of the show.”

Selenium, our beautiful one-eyed pirate ferret who had the dreadful kind of exciting year, has just been diagnosed with aggressive lymphoma. This is, unfortunately, a death sentence. There is no cure or reasonable treatment. We are uncertain how much longer she has, the prognosis for aggressive lymphoma in young ferrets is dire, but as it is rare, there is less information on it. It might be that she will not survive until January, though David has been giving her the very best possible care and inventing new recipes for soft food that have been successfully coaxing her into eating, or she might survive it until spring. We just don’t know. But please, if you have a moment, if you can reach out to David and offer any kind of help or support, it would be dearly appreciated. There is only so much I can do from England.

This has all been very entertaining to the people around me

  • What Marie Antoinette really wore.

    According to Duolingo, the language learning site, I am now at 18% of French fluency and learning at Level 5. This means I have successfully tested through two sets of basic lessons, a set of phrases, (“D’accord, à plus tard!”), and some vocabulary words that name types of animals and food. I have also learned the word “elision” and the word “enchaînement”, both of which are ostensibly English, as a side effect of puzzling my way through French’s seemingly illogical rules.

    This is, very possibly, more French than I have consciously ever known in my life.

    Canadians are supposed to be taught French in school, but I emerged from the education system with almost none. Until my first year of high-school French, (which I promptly flunked, as I lacked the foundation of kindergarten through seven that Grade 8 French expected to build upon), my only experience with French was when I was briefly put into preschool in Quebec, with teachers who refused to believe I only knew English because “she seems to understand The Smurfs just fine.”

    Though it always chafed that I only learned one language as a child, I have never had cause to try to learn French before. (Spanish has been my second language of choice. See: Growing up next to the United States.) Why would I? French fights me every step. The genders seem arbitrary, the conjugations absurd, and the pronunciation and the elisions downright hostile. Learning to roll the “r” in the back of the throat was as easy as coughing up blood. That French seemed impossible had the strength of prophecy. Even when I lived in Montreal, I got by on what I have dubbed “restaurant French”: a musical pidgin of borrowed phrases, body language, and snatches of pop songs that can be used to successfully order food, maneuver from point A to point B, and request assistance when I inevitably smack against the language barrier.

    My upbringing has given me one slight advantage, however, as French is printed on absolutely everything in Canada. It didn’t occur to me before, but I have been learning by osmosis, unconsciously absorbing vocabulary from my surroundings for thirty years. The result of which is that — though my spelling is atrocious and half of the mangled words erupting painfully from my mouth are misgendered — even if I murder the language when I attempt to speak it, I can mostly read it.

    Not that it makes much sense, anyway. Shark, for example, is requin. Aside from being an absolute bitch to pronounce, it doesn’t even sound right. The word shark chops the air. It ends abruptly. It carries the speed and sleek movement of the animal. Requin rolls across the tongue, smooth, it is not sharp and fast as shark, ending as it does on that spiky K, reminiscent of a knife-like tail. I don’t understand it at all. Requin sounds like it should be part of a dish, something to eat. Cassolette de homard et poireaux avec requin maybe. Something with cheese. Sorry, avec fromage.

    And oiseau for bird? Was it behind a post when consonants were being handed out? Is this the French onomatopoetic for the liquid tone of a whistle? (Not that “tweet” particularly sounds accurate, either, but at least it has a good balance of vowels.) Either way, it’s also worth noting that this majestic cluster of vowel-a-riffic phonemes is apparently pronounced not entirely unlike wazoo. A language chosen for beauty, indeed!

    My flight from Heathrow to Montreal leaves Friday at noon, arrives in DC at 3:30 PM, leaves again around 5:00 PM, and then lands, finally, in Montreal at 7:00 PM, half an hour before Alexandre arrives.

    • something new to learn on piano [bravery takes many shapes]


    the bird and the bee – polite dance song, directed by Eric Wareheim of Tim & Eric.

    […] Since I’m asking so nice
    Would you just entertain
    There’s nothing left to hide you away
    Just show a little bit of brain

    Yes that is what I mean
    That’s the nail that I hit
    I try to be as coy as I can
    But I wanna see your naughty bit […]

    -::-

    We fall asleep facing our laptops; two beds, eight hours away. I have practice at this, at living far away, at being untouchable, unreachable, lonely yet loved.

    The first person I had such a thing with lives here in England. He’s the reason I have the eight hour time difference from Vancouver to London permanently memorized. Our correspondence set the foundation for this place. Years of it, years of talking late at night, of mornings together, of chats and distance. There are hundreds of letters from him in my folders. Hundreds of pictures. He kept me writing, coaxed me into taking pictures. In many ways, he changed me from writing to being a writer, kicked it off, back when this journal was almost new. Back when I believed people who said nice things to me.

    I was only a few years older when he hurt me, sliced his way through my center, sliced until I bled, and worse, then put me in a book full of sex that opened yet another crooked little vein. (This starts the part that’s never been public). Perhaps it was meant as a surprise? A surprise like the awful things I found out about him, how he used people; a surprise that sent everything sour.

    With the open eyes of an adult, I can see that I was prey, but it took many emotional years, and many, many others to come forward with similar admissions. Women in pain have reached out to me from New York, London, San Francisco, Berlin, Toronto… We’re in so many places! There’s so many of us we might need a name. I collect them, now, his talented discarded. We are a small network, but we’ve started keeping track of the others and making friends. He has excellent taste.

    I never asked him why I had a starring role in his first book, our relationship was already critically wounded and we had almost bled out by the time it was published. Was I the first? It seems too unlikely to be true, even though it’s what he said at the time. I’ve also never asked the other woman named in the novel if she had been consulted or what her place in the mess might be. Her name was easier to spot, the public attention must have been massive. (A mutual friend told me that she wasn’t, so I’ve filed her under “One Of Us (potential)” and crossed my fingers that she’s been okay.)

    But I have been considering it lately. Now that I’m living just outside London, I’m only an hour’s drive away from his house. Two if I take transit, not even as long as a film. (Closure is such a pretty word. Sound it out! It’s beautiful.) Maybe I should reach out to her, the way the others have reached out to me. Break the silence, try not to fumble, and then, perhaps, ask him for tea.

    It has been a long time, but I’ll bet his phone number is the same.

    tripping the wire fantastic

  • Flight Facilities – Clair De Lune feat. Christine Hoberg

    I haven’t any culture shock yet, though 7,547.76 km lay between my last home and this one (as the crow flies); the only thing I haven’t effortlessly taken in stride is the quality of the light. Namely, the unanticipated lack of it.

    I sat in a pub, plate full of lamb and vegetable mash on the table, one of my longest friendships across the table, the city outside drained of colour, all neon and reflected halogen, the shine of artificial lights on wet pavement, sky suddenly black, and felt we were a peculiar form of vampire. (No wonder this place is so thick with myths.)

    England is North. Very North. More North than I had weighed in my mind. On some level, I understood London (51°30′N) to be around the latitudinal level of Edmonton (53°32′N), but I did not truly internalize what that would do to the sun. When it shines, appearing as it does around 7 am or so, it is weak and watery and near the horizon and glares in your eyes when you face South with a peculiar orange gold. The blaze of noon does not exist, even on the most crisp of blue sky autumn days, and it is full dark by 4 pm, despite the solstice being a month away.

    -::-

    The only other thing I speculate that I will have to consciously adapt to is the level of current that runs through the local wires. Don’t mistake me, I’ve already bought the appropriate cord for my laptop and have adapters for the rest of my electronics. It is a matter of transhumanism, purely.

    The voltage here is so much higher than I find myself fighting the desire to flinch every time I need to interact with a power outlet.

    For the uninitiated, the sensation electricity creates to those with implanted neodymium magnets is that of a danger reflex, which I have been finding unexpected, but seem to share with others. For example, the magnet in my hand vibrates when I reach for my electric toothbrush, sitting as it does next to an active socket, and loudly signals risk, peril, stop, don’t! And Divide told me of something similar, that he found himself reflexively curling his hand behind his back in a protective gesture when he was in the power room at ALTspace in Seattle. (For bonus points: My generation of neodymium implant is several orders of magnitude more powerful than his, too). It’s uncomfortable and profoundly provokes a very physical sense of unease. None of us flinch away from other magnets, though, even those of the opposite polarity. In my experience, only high voltage stimulates the warning. Has anyone found an explanation? Why are some of the signals interpreted as dangerous, while some are not? I haven’t reached out to others about it yet.

    While the incision has been mending very nicely, I remain inquisitive about the process as my body continues to adapt and naturalize the embedded magnet. It doesn’t appear to be rejecting, the area isn’t sore, and it’s unlikely it will scar, but there is one last thing I’m finding very curious. My magnet has moved a significant distance since it was implanted. It is not in the tip of my finger anymore, but halfway down the first joint, an entire centimeter from where it had been placed.

    It’s conceivable this happened when I foolishly caught the handle of a falling basket full of groceries with that finger a few weeks ago, back in Canada. (Other stupid things I have caught from the air without thinking: knives, scissors, sewing needles, a red hot piece of nearly molten metal, broken glass, a wild mouse. I am not a clever ninja.) The pain of it, though not sharp, brought me literally to my knees. At the time, I chalked it up to the freshness of the surgery, but presumably the impact shoved the magnet underneath the fat pad, along the surface of the muscles of my finger, to where it is today.

    I can’t think of why else it would have migrated. The soft impacts of typing, though daily, are mostly absorbed by my long fingernails and I’ve never heard of anyone else having their magnet move, except when the earlier generation (and flatter) ones would flip or were rejected from the body and migrated to the surface like a metal splinter. The technology is relatively recent, (my friend Todd was the first to be implanted in 2004), and still very gray-market/DIY, so I don’t know if there’s an exact science to the fingertip placement yet, which creates the question: Should I move it back or leave it?

    Either way, whether this is an ordinary thing for an implanted object to do in a finger or if the movement is due to banging it, I’m paying more attention to it than I otherwise would have, not because I’m worried, but because I don’t want reason to be. And, seriously, the voltage here. Sheesh.

    • Landing in London

    Zombie Flowers from ANTSANROM, as inspired by Charles Darwin´s first impressions when he first saw a carnivorous plant in 1875.

    I had zero leg room on the flight from Seattle to Reykjavik, my bag of camera lenses and hard-drives took up all the space instead, so I spent the whole time curled up in the chair, feet up, reading book after book until we landed in the cold. (Mr. Penumbra’s Bookstore made a special impression, as it had been a gift from Alexandre that we picked up at the Amazon brick & mortar in Seattle the week we took together there before I left. There’s a girl in it I somewhat identified with, though we’re not of a type.)

    From the outside, landing in Iceland at night is like landing on the Canadian prairies. It is dark, flat, empty, and cold. Walking across the field into the building, I felt the bite of Edmonton’s winter. The inside, however, looks precisely what I might imagine a minimalist airport manufactured by IKEA might be like, all pale wood floors and sketches of metal furniture. The gift shop sold furs, the cafeteria had an entire refrigerator shelf for greasy fish products, but otherwise what I managed to explore (with my dreadfully heavy bags) struck me as being similar to any other small airport. Mostly I simply sat, curled up with my phone, surfing the wifi, chatting with Alexandre.

    The hours were wrong for the Northern Lights, unfortunately, and the airport, also unfortunately, is an hour out of town, so I did not get a chance to see the aurora borealis or visit Reykjavik or , who lives there. No regrets, though, as I have been assured there will be other chances.

    Heathrow, however, was a sprawling place. It reminded me of nothing more than a level of an old James Bond video game that I remember playing a handful of times as a teenager. Low-rez, blocky, big open spaces, lots of windows without any view, and the illusion of multiple paths that resolve only into one when you try to move forward. I would love a map of the place, a 3D rendered duplicate that I could wander at will in virtual reality. The illusion of choice was especially interesting, as if the corridors could be reformed like a labyrinth and somewhere there might be a beast, perhaps some metaphor for finance, with gold dipped bull’s horns and diamond tipped claws.

    The border questions were nothing after having to handle the US/Canadian border so many times over the years. The guard dismissed me as soon as they gleaned that I own a credit card, all flags dropped and I was through. Waiting for me were Arnand and Dee, my suitcases, a little red car, and a whole new life. “Hello.”

    “Baby I got your number, oh, and I know that you got mine.”

    “From a very early time, I understood that I only learn from things I don’t like. If you do things you like, you just do the same shit. You always fall in love with the wrong guy. Because there’s no change. It’s so easy to do things you like. But then, the thing is, when you’re afraid of something, face it, go for it. You become a better human being.”

    What’s the cost?

    “Ah, a big one. Lots of loneliness, my dear. If you’re a woman, it’s almost impossible to establish a relationship. You’re too much for everybody. It’s too much. The woman always has to play this role of being fragile and dependent. And if you’re not, they’re fascinated by you, but only for a little while. And then they want to change you and crush you. And then they leave. So, lots of lonely hotel rooms, my dear.”

    – Performance artist Marina Abramović: ‘I was ready to die’

    -::-

    Last Sunday was flawless. I attended Pauline’s birthday, went to Pancakes & Jam with Alex, made new friends, saw old friends, explored a new place, danced for over ten hours, finally visited the new Duello, and found resolution with a particularly pernicious ex from several lifetimes ago. (‪#‎healing‬ ‪#‎grateful‬ ‪#‎morelikethatplease‬ ‪#‎feetlikeblisters‬).

    Several lifetimes ago we used to be A Thing. Not so long ago that he wouldn’t be in here somewhere if I went looking, but long enough ago that I do not want to try. If I am going to cut this long story short, I shall only say that he placed the stars in the sky, then killed every one. To say it didn’t end well would be an understatement.

    But, before that, oh! Before that, when things were good, we used to dance together.

    We had a sword fighting school at our disposal, the second floor of an old brick building without any late night neighbors, all gleaming weapons and massive mirrors and beautiful wooden floors. So, of course, we used it as our living room. And when we danced, it was absolutely beautiful. We moved without parallel. We moved and it would take your breath away.

    When we danced, we did it with naked blades.

    The game was one of trust, the dance was one of acceptance and risk. We would light a thousand candles, until the salle was filled with glittering constellations of fire, lift our swords, and throw ourselves at each other’s weapons to the loud and salacious beat of whatever seemed sexiest. (He was very good at sexy).

    The game was dangerous, but we never erred. The dance was trust incarnate. And we would always manage not to cut each other, though the blades were naked and sharp and the tips were bare. I started it one night when we had some people over, tossing him a sword as we danced, a dare, then a second one, but no matter how much I tried to impale myself, he would move it out of the way of my body every single time, often at the last second, as I would in turn. And we loved it. It became something we would do regularly, romance, a way to make-out in company, a way to break ourselves open, a way to dance ourselves clean.

    It could have gone all sorts of wrong, but we never once had a mistake. It wasn’t a fight, understand, but a hard line practice of grace. The point was to throw ourselves at risk and let the other keep us safe. And we did. It worked. We never argued. We danced and we loved each other and we kept each other unmarked by our knives.

    It was the sort of thing you might see in a film, but it was real. It was our life. If there is a narrative equivalent for being photogenic, we were that. We were ridiculously that. Swords, knives, the school. We lived part-time on a reproduction Chinese junk in False Creek. There were always flowers and books, back and forth. We were so lucky! He was tall and handsome and graceful, lissome and delicious with long blond hair to his shoulders, a clever mind, and two shining lengths of steel, we loved each other, we were brave, and I was utterly confident that he would not hurt me.

    -::-

    Idiot self, I think now, given what happened after, which I will say only was devastating and involved a stay in a hospital, some long distance phone calls, another woman, and eventually their child. (Though these days I hear he has two.) Let’s just say that, unlike his swords, his extrication was something he did not handle with grace. Did I say it was devastating? Perhaps I should say it again. Devastating. It was an absolute fumble.

    This, however, nine years later, is the story of how we finally recovered.

    -::-

    The new salle is on the same city block, but better located. He’s done well. Ground floor, now, and much bigger, two shops smushed together with the walls torn down, with a large rotating sign stuck to the front of the building. ACADEMIE, it says as it spins, on a picture of a sword. There is a gift shop these days, ten foot by ten near the door.

    The mirrors inside are similar, the floor the same, the walls are still brick, but the scale is impressive. The business moved several years ago, but this is the first time I have stepped inside. I have arrived because it is a partner dance night, something some friends of mine started years ago that I have neglected to attend, in part because of the location. My ex and I did not part well and this is his domain. I even gave up sword fighting when we split, the better to not cross paths.

    But here I am and it is beautiful, the lights are dim and the space is filled with whirling bodies, dancing instead of fighting. Couples spinning to compelling music, electronica and remixes of old standards, the sort you might know all the words to while still enjoying something new.

    I take off my bag, my hat, and my long coat and fold them together, leaving them with my shoes as a bundle on top of a hobby horse next to a small model of a medieval battle. I step past a pile of large pillows and scan the floor. And there he is. Hand extended, living proof of another life. The romance book cover hair is gone, but he is otherwise the same, cat-like and beautiful. “May I have the first dance?”

    Something hangs in the balance until I say yes, but then it is as if a pane of glass has shattered. The moment breaks. I know what is about to happen. I take his hand, we step into the crowd, and time falls away. His body is both infinitely familiar and that of a stranger, but we can still dance.

    He is still very good at being sexy. He talks about how beautiful it was when we used to dance, how he loved when we used to sit in the windows of the old salle, feet hanging out over the street. He’s missed me, he says. I’ve missed him, too. He is so, so sorry for the hurt he caused. I couldn’t be more relieved. The years drop away. The thorn is removed, the wound repaired. I am made better. We sing along to the music, eyes blurry from emotion, but never lose the step. He apologizes, we spin, and I am finally free. His hands on mine, our feet matching the beat, his words kiss my heart, and I am finally free.

    I can’t help but laugh. This is absolute absurdity, but so perfect it might as well have been scripted. How else would we ever do this, unless we used literal knives? We move through the song and start into another. He lifts me in the air, my feet up, it’s not unlike flying. We talk, we sing. Our bodies glued to each other and the music. We dance ourselves clean.

    a year and a day

    Sometimes it is barely possible to believe how hurtful other people can be.

    I did a terrifying thing. It was scary and hard, but I thought, well, perhaps this time will be different. Perhaps this time I will find kindness. I doubted, but I put aside my doubt. I thought myself broken for doubting. To stop trusting is to let them win, the people who hurt, the people who value selfishness over compassion, the cowards and killers of small mercies. So I put aside my doubt, I did the hardest thing I know to do, and I reached out to a friend and stepped forward into the darkness. And, for a moment, the world was gentle; they took my outstretched hand. It was going to be okay. This, the worst, the scariest, was going to be okay. It was both wonderful and astonishing. Where one fails, two can create light.

    Then, as if it the most casual thing, they recanted. So now I’m not even back to how badly I was before, but worse, because I dared to step forward, I dared trust, and there is no redemption in this solitary darkness. And there are no bread crumbs, no small pebbles left for me to follow back out, no kindness in it. Betrayal contains no sympathy or compassion. They left me with the most cruel of possible stories. Worse, they knew, going in, that they would abandon me, but they walked me there anyway, stringing me along as far in as they could manage before having to tell me they were already gone.

    The honey in the lion is a lie.

    EDIT: And then, plot twist! It worked out, actually. They stepped up. Just last night. Three in the morning, they showed up at my door. My writing made something better. They came back for me. Their care for my well-being finally trumped their fear. I am.. absolutely floored. I can’t remember the last time I felt so much relief. I feel better today than I have in a very, very long time. And because it was such a success, today I ended up sending one of the scariest letters I’ve ever sent, asking for similar redemption for the worst of my hurt, from the only person who could make it better, belly bared to his teeth. Fingers crossed, dear ones. Fingers and toes.

    never make someone a priority who treats you like an option


    Set-brooches: “MEMORY” 2006 by Mila Kalnitskaya & Micha Maslennikov.

    We walk together, arms linked against the night and rain. My scarlet headscarf complements his gray woolen army coat and transforms us into a cliché of immigrants from a different era. We look to the world like married refugees, all Eastern Europe and the memory of cinema, an accident of scathing metaphor made manifest. We both notice and remark upon it, though we name-check different countries.

    He plucks memories from the air like ripe fruit, free hand in the air sketching shapes from his childhood, handing each one to me as a gift to eat, placing his history into mine, his time-distant innocence shaped into a protective amulet against the world we are taking part of this evening to hide from. “And that hill there,” he says – up, a sweep down – gesturing like a conductor counting, “there used to be more bushes there. It was great, foliage full of tunnels the adults knew nothing about. I had my first rumble on that hill.”

    We are traversing the grounds of his elementary school, thirty years distant, though the architecture remains unchanged. Low buildings. Brown walls. He tells me stories. Story after story. This is where the bus used to drop him off. This is where it used to pick him up. The porch of this portable is where he broke another boy’s nose.

    “I used to have a temper. I was a small kid and it made me fight harder.”

    “I could tell, ” I say, tying the broken nose and scrapping to my knowledge of his punk days. Dayton boots and liberty spikes, so young that he would have to drive to Canada to drink. Vancouver of the nineties, when the Lamplighter was a grungy punk bar, back when I was little. A city as dead as my care for it.

    He seems perturbed, regretful. “Really? I got over it, though. I’ve recovered.”

    I wonder if we ever passed in the street. I would have been just as young as he was in the memories he is describing. Absolutely invisible. Under four feet and also the smallest kid in class. Scrappy, too, though for different reasons.

    I want to kiss him for this. Wrap his heart in warmth in thanks. It hurts that I can’t. I am going away, perhaps forever, and this is our swan song. He is an odd man for choosing this farewell, as it is an odd gift, though it would be a very good one if our relationship were different. I try to explain this, but fail. He begins to doubt he’s doing the right thing. In some ways, perhaps he isn’t, (we are self made exiles this hour, trespassing in the chilly rain), but I press on and ask for more. He doesn’t know the gravity he possesses. He feeds me, but doesn’t quite understand how hungry I am or how to make me hale.

    “And this is where we caught bees. They would sit on flowers and you could sneak up on them,” he gestures again, displaying methods of boyhood bee capture, both hands making a curious shape then coming suddenly together like the materials inside a fission bomb. “We trapped them in our hands with a clap that stunned them. They wouldn’t sting us, that way. They would just sit.”

    He opens his hands again, showing me the treasure of his imaginary insect prize. He doesn’t only talk with his hands, he communicates with his entire body, curling around his stories like a cat around a leg, a modern pantomime.

    I shiver from the cold, bite my jaw closed against my betrayal-chattering teeth. One chance to memorize this. One. It could be that this might be the very last time these memories will come to light. Every memory in the world, no matter how poignant, always has a final time, and this gift is too full of grace to let any slip through my clumsy fingers.

    He gives me the name of the boy he would catch bees with and descriptions of the open layout inside the buildings and which windows he looked out of during kindergarten. He gives me his enthusiasm, wrapped up in string. He gives me his life, parceled into small, lovely, and bite-sized pieces, the better to slip down my throat and into the furnace that heats my soul. Pound for pound, he shines brighter than our sun.

    This is where he used to get on the roof by scaling the brick wall with his fingers and toes, like I used to do until my accident. He demonstrates the action, back to me, and I am startled by a memory from when we first met, when we walked downtown and he dropped behind me to hook my ankle with his hand, explaining how he caught calves as a boy on a summer ranch, a pun I appreciated on the spot. We began our history then, and here, much later, in this dark and damp playground goodbye, the two moments, alpha and omega, come together and merge forever.

    “I spent six years here. Every single day. So strange to think about, now.”

    “Because it’s the longest you’ve ever been anywhere?”

    He blinks, gazes into the distance. “I guess so. I didn’t even spend that much time in college.”

    I am cracking. This is marvelous, but also impossibly difficult. I do not want to be a refugee. But this is what I am given, so it is what I have, and I’ll take what I can get.. I can’t help but think about his choices, about where his life led after, how it doesn’t contain space for me. My life will be less without him, but it could be argued that his will be better.

    I speculate about what he might have looked like a a child, even as I know I will get it wrong. I wish for a picture. Something else promised then rescinded.

    He frowns, remembering, considering mortality and fate.

    I wish he would turn to me. I wish this wasn’t our goodbye. I wish he would turn and smile, give me that instead. Smile with what brought us together, smile with what pulled us apart, smile with the warmth that opens a lily to the heat.