Tag: angeles

the things I want to see for myself

The silence is suffocating, I can hear not only my heartbeat but the quiet susurration of my blood. The cats are both asleep, two soft weights draped over my hips. I can’t hold them close, they’ll wake and wander away in search of a late night snack or some invisible ghost to chase. I wonder, briefly, if it’s possible to dream while so awake, at least rest the brain, but discard the thought, preferring to try and imagine where the people I love are right now. Various time-zones away, some of them aren’t all that far.

South three hours by plane, he’ll be asleep, strewn like an elegant game of pick-up sticks in his bed, lying feral on his left side, pillow loosely clutched to his head, hair caught in his fingers, cute in a way that tugs at my lungs, steals my breath, inspires me to slowly cut away his invariable black t-shirt with a pair of silver scissors and wake him with my tongue whispering poetry to his closed eyes. Stories of drinking in Vegas, Passover, his panic at the word marriage, how we laughed into every single night. Somewhere there will be a red curtains, a disco ball, a potted palm tree, and a video game console.

Another mind-set, seven hours hard drive in the direction of the impossible dawn, someone older, obsessive, more emotional than I could ever learn to be. Skin a different texture than mine, our hands exactly the same size. A half-fictional time-line, we’ve only spent time in hotels, I don’t even know what colour his sheets might be. The only picture I have is comfort, taking second place, offering a place of safety to someone falling apart. When we were together, there were no camp ground rules, if he fell down, he would try to take me with him, though accidentally. Eventually I cut the tether. Life got better. Now we could stand on a roof and scream at the stars together, if we were so inclined. Which we’re not. So don’t ask me to.

One day ahead and five hours behind, another sweet Jewish boy, like a new melodic theme, currently so far away the seasons have flipped, but not so far that we don’t have darkness at similar times. It’s not late enough for him to tucked into bed with the rest of us, however, so I lose my thread, can’t kiss him awake, begin mentally scanning pictures I’ve seen of the general antipode of the North Atlantic Ocean. Lush beaches, insanely colourful coral reefs, endless summer, dry dusty wastes, and ridiculous movies I love dearly. Lethal wild-life, big bouncing rat-things with gigantic feet. Some big rock right in the middle. Nowhere I can clearly place him. I’m bad at this game. Instead, I can picture him playing, his incredible, wry smile drenched in sweat, the effort of his music literally dripping off in waves. I can picture a stage, something festival, hemp clothing, om beaded necklaces, something wide and tent-like, people dancing, and the perpetual threat of rain. Completely and utterly wrong. He’s probably at dinner, I should go to bed. This is presumably the sort of thing that drives little girls mad in Victorian novels. Oh Herr Frankstein, only speak when you’re spoken to. Don’t use the wrong cutlery. Remember to sleep.

Seattle: March 18th.

delicious

In Finnish, “onni” means “luck”.

I think of them in metaphor. Black doves, shape changers, the old stories of Prometheus. I lick my writing from the taste of their skin, my words from the twists in their gestures. By the woods of our correspondence, a river flows. From the shape of their hands, I can place every single one against my fingers, the places I truly call home, and leaf through our fingertips touching. Encapsulated interaction, catalogued small details that I can carry later. Preferences. Coffee, cigarettes, tea.

“Here.”
“What’s this?”
“That’s a hundred dollars to cover a taxi to get you into town and back.”
“What? That’s too much. I can’t take that. You know most men give flowers or chocolate or, like, earrings.”
“Well, I’m giving you money.”
“You tawdry American. You’re just buying off the guilt of leaving me.”
“If I give you another hundred, will you just get the abortion and promise never to talk to me again?”
“It only costs fifty here in Canada, but I’ll take the other fifty as a promise never to send you bronzed booties. Is that what they’re called? Those little knitted baby shoes?”
“Yes.”

They are the second generation warfare of my inspiration, prodigies, a reason to ‘take my shoes off and throw them in the lake’, the impetus I require to create, to claim the word artist as my own. Without these black and ivory dreamers, I have no focus, no lens to collect light into fire. That high holy spark. The currency of competition. Engendering wonder by twisting the world into a better configuration. The etymology of the word awesome, a sacred dread mixed with veneration, an education in love.

In Japanese, “oni” means “demon”.

A week of Love Reminded.

This is where I drop being an entertainer, an entrepreneur, or even remotely professional, and just simply be A Girl.

The Here Be Monster’s Festival of the Art’s was at the Dollhouse Studios this year, the burlesque bar Antony and I went to on our first date. Frank and I went and played photographer, and though I expected to be apprehensive visiting the space again, it was more difficult than I thought. Stepping past the foyer into the main room knocked the wind out of me. I had to stand still, remember to breathe, try to whistle up a smile. I couldn’t help but whip backward in time, to how it felt being there last time, the two of us laying on the bed, discussing life, feeling out the edges of how much we liked each other. My heart jumped, sick with longing. I remembered feeling shocked when he offered to cuddle with me for warmth. Shocked and glad, pleased like we were inventing something new and useful, an affectionate key to a very old code.

It had been empty then, the Dollhouse. An overly rich cover charge the same night as Sin had kept everyone away but for us and three or four other die-hards who were far more affiliated with the space than I’ll ever be. Wednesday, however, it was not. The Festival’s opening night was warm with people, conversation, and delightful performances. (It’s on until Sunday, doncha know. Atomic Vaudeville still has one more show). Eventually, chatting with the crowd, taking pictures, I conquered my overwhelming mind’s eye enough to be useful until well after midnight. Later that morning, however, I had work very early, (a six:thirty call-time in Squamish means being picked up at five a.m.), so spent the day dancing around a wicked lack of sleep, further embedding my underlying sense of helpless pining. Which felt bloody ridiculous. It’s been half a year! We’re still best friends! Boo helpless pining. Hiss. Derision.

So what do I do last night? Why, go see a ten:thirty showing of The Darjeeling Limited, of course, the latest Wes Anderson film, which happens to be the latest Adrian Brody film too. Not a stroke of genius. How does this relate?

EXHIBIT A – EXHIBIT B

Didn’t really ameliorate the problem, really, more amplified it a thousandfold until I caught myself struck, sighing with a scratch in my throat every time his character lit up a cigarette. Bah. Completely irrational. So, sound in the knowledge that Antony’s been working late, I called Beverly Hills as soon as I got home. Best thing I’ve done in a month. As soon as he said hello, I had a blithesome smile that almost cracked my face. We talked for hours, laughing back and forth, until work was done, he’d driven home, and we were both happily crawling into bed. It lifted a lot of weight off. Life lately’s been almost a terrifying amount of stress. As of Monday, I’ll have gone an entire year without a Real Job, and financial pressures are threatening to crush me almost daily. (ex. I ran out of catfood yesterday, but won’t have money to buy more until too late on Sunday to hit up any shops. It’s scary. In September I made 80% of my income from writing, but when I worked it out, I made less than minimum wage per hour. I would have made more money working at McDonalds. It’s like I’m living someone’s version of The Dream, but it’s not actually mine.) Having a life-line, especially one so gratifying as Antony, means the world. I fell asleep alright with the world for the first time in months.

And yet, it gets better. Today Mike called from wherever the hell he’s on tour right now. (Virginia or Indiana or something. Somewhere that ends in A, I’d check his website if doing so late at night didn’t make me feel vaguely like a stalker.) I was thrilled. I’ve only been hearing from him about once every three weeks. His itinerary doesn’t particularly allow time for anything as esoteric as A Life, so every time he calls, we have radiant conversations that go on for hours. Topics range everywhere, from the relative size of platypus to what we were like as teenagers. My favourite bon mot was that I should start a net campaign to help with the trip to Calgary I’m attempting to scratch out of nothing – GET JHAYNE LAID FOR THE HOLIDAYS: he’s clever enough to fool her into thinking he’s clever. Take some obliquely smutty pictures, maybe attempt to sell some prints, see if I get any donations.

Friends of mine from all over America have been going to his gigs, actually. I know of approximately twelve visits to venues so far, ranging over both our countries. Not just the bigger cities either, like L.A. and NYC, Chicago, Toronto or Montreal, but smaller places too. Madison, Vienna, Hamilton… Some towns I’ve never heard of, let alone visited. It’s been an incredible response. We think it’s fantastic. Tangible reactions from the network that isn’t just made of zeroes and ones are terrific. And thank you, from both of us. You warm my worried heart.

So today, as Silva graciously put it for me, I’m feeling loved and appreciated, which is sometimes better than feeling properly fed and clothed and housed.

Also: Instant stress relief in the form of a nws post-furry culture trainwreck.

time to say goodbye

Tony, brilliant sweetheart that he is, was determined to get me a corset before he left for home back in May. In that entirely endearing way that only he ever managed, his first two tries were not-quite-disasters. The first one was an over-priced off-the-rack from one of those little gothy shops in Gastown, and didn’t fit even a tiny bit. They couldn’t even pretend it could be altered, so with after a bit of genteel kicking and screaming, the shop-girl took it back.

The second one was wicked, a black satin Vollers. Wonderful, delicious, but too tiny, bought in a rush as a store was closing, as we were running out of time, (we only had three days before he was due back in L.A.), not the way to buy anything so unique, permanent or expensive, especially from a store with a No Returns policy.

The third one was the money shot. It fit absolutely fairy-tale perfect. Not only was it 50% on sale, it was everything I’d always wished for, even purple, my hoped for, and black velvet, his.

So here, after it’s lived months carefully rolled in a bag on my bookshelf, is the black satin Voller’s corset. I’ve put it up on eBay for $100 less than he paid for it.

as I collect, as I fall

August 6th is coming up quick. We are ditching my grandmother-blue velveteen sectional couch, would anyone like it?

I have begun something this week, wrapping my fingers in scarlet coloured string. A new slice of history, doomed to repeat, something that looks like broken water – a rusty puzzle that I can lay on a table, translucent pieces breathing slowly under my fingers, like a fever building and taking away the safest powers of language. My thoughts on the topic are surprisingly vague. I am being warmed by the next best thing. Unclarified affection.

The Boy left some things here I have yet to send back to Beverly Hills. A phone charger written like a nostalgic poem in my window, a pair of Armani shirts that I want to wear until they smell like my body instead of his. These stories are meant to hurt. This is what I tell myself as I stand over them, seconds from wanting to uselessly cry again. I can barely bring myself to touch these things, and I have made certain that it is someone else who fills the drawer I emptied for him when he was living here. (Walking past where we’ve been, the sidewalk is a staring contest.) Objects as a doorway, his voice over the phone describing the hot mathematical arc of Los Angeles traffic, apologizing for missing my birthday. I am caught imagining the shape of his body as he stands at the beach, remembering being in his apartment, naked on the porch except for a blanket, and us, the pictures we took at the airport, reaching out goodbye, the most honest portraits I have ever seen.

Social Suicide, our favourite UK tailors, have an interview with PingMag.

She stood in front of me with a rainbow of metal studded hair-bands on her metal studded belt, looking like a young crow clone of a first nations girl I used to know. Long dark hair, silver printed t-shirt, short denim skirt. Too young for me to watch. I almost said Hello. She swayed with the bus and got off at the Skytrain, oblivious, leaving me to my borrowed Pynchon, a fictional account of WW2, thick as if the paper had been dropped repeatedly in water and dried without care.

our production meeting went past midnight.

How William Gibson discovered science fiction.

He sits on my bed, talking to his mother on the phone, his car keys plugged into my computer, taxidermy birds at his feet, familiar with my room. I have already met his scientist father and taken pictures of them both. Possibly this makes me uncomfortable.

We have been reacquainting ourselves after six years apart in the same city. It has been interesting, though unexpected. We are very different people than when we first spent time together in the almost perpetual darkness of the constant heaven threatening raves and parties that we used to work at. (We met, like Shane and I, (and Jacques and T. Paul), as part of the first incarnation of C.R.’s Fr8-train Land.) I think we have far more in common now than we ever might have then.

Perched on the roof of his truck, we watched the night occlude the city from Spanish Banks and discussed stars and noise, art and engineering, information architecture, and how to wire lights to make bursts of sound, constellations of old ideas polished into new. When we drove back into town, swaggered into the bar, and kidnapped Shane to star-crash on my couch, it was like we completed a circle that took almost a decade to make.

Human After All.
History begins now.

At work, my boy haunts the hallway from months in the past. A reflection of when we sat here over our greasy chinese picnic and laughed over chopsticks and our mismatched everythings. His eager grin and long legs folded, the mischief in his eyes conspiring against my cleverness. It’s difficult to be there some days. I catch my ears bent listening and I almost have to close my eyes against the superimposed image of his voice sitting next to me. He’s hung up the mirror-ball I gave him for his birthday and sent me a picture from L.A. It looks like the perfect accessory. As consolation, it beats a drum within me like the clapper in a bell. We had a good thing. He remains the happiest part of my dreams.

Robert Silverberg on Philip K. Dick.

These long summer evenings have been both good and bad for me. I’ve been getting up early, it being too sticky hot to stay in bed, but as the day molasses crawls down the windowpane of the sky, I don’t feel I’m accomplishing as much as I could be. I want to be as busy as sin, not living this meandering odd-jobs existence I seem to be dreaming up daily. Tuesday I’m on set again, but I haven’t heard about call-times yet. It’s still too early to say. My flashing re-boot of a film career is suffering from the drop in the American dollar. Crews are being pared down. It’s not as cheap to shoot here as it was five years ago. I’ve been keeping my fists up, but it proves to be difficult. The industry’s not being kind to any of us. It might be time to side-step into the Jolt and Doritos fuelled modern fortress of video games, like James wants me to.

William Gibson explains why science fiction is about the present.

it’s only you

Sorry for the pain you’re in

The last day he was here, I woke him up with a silver fountain pen. He opened his humming evening eyes as I lay upon him, delicately pressing his long body into the cotton-stocking sheets, and began to write poetry across the seamless skin of his paper white chest.

I got as far as the end of the word “Love”.

Later, in the shower, as a miracle might, I saw the word survive hot water, clove soap and our bodies painfully pressed together in tight comforting hugs. I thought of it at the airport, how it was still resting above his heart in graffiti black ink under his shirt, and how it would travel home with him on the plane like a new neighbor. I said nothing, but my reckless fingers pressed against it, saying goodbye, and my lips, as if they never meant to stay.

drumbeat

Old space-suit recycled as experimental satellite.

I went to sleep knowing he was in the air over the ocean, on his way to Tokyo, Japan. The ceiling of my room telescoped away from me, showing me my life as a tiny toy dragon with topaz eyes. Nothing in me seemed as effervescent as the waves speeding below the plane I could sense like smoke outside and so many miles away from me that I could not walk them in a year. Rain on the windows loud enough to shut out the streetlight, lying in the sleeping nest of salty silk pillows on one end of my bed was suddenly the saddest place I had ever been. (Wrong, of course, he goes next month).

A photo gallery of Japanese manhole covers.

Sasha is moving upstairs to live with his cousin. I’m going to need a new flatmate for August 1st. Anyone interested? Rent’s $450/month + half utilities.