people keep asking how I am

Fondue was a success thanks to Ryan, Eva, Silva, her two friends, Ian, Ethan, Lung, Michael, Imogyne, Mike, Nick, Duncan, David, Beth, Mike, Alice, and Adam. At one point, the teahouse ran out of seats and I stood, leaning over people to get at the tasty treats.

  • The origin of HIV has been found in wild chimpanzees living in southern Cameroon.
    we look like we're related

    It doesn’t seem real that my birthday is so close again. Just Monday, Monday and the number clicks over another digit. Three to four. My mother got it wrong, thought I was older. It was her graduation from the University of British Columbia yesterday. I got the day off work to watch her walk across the stage to receive paper proof of her achievement. The pride that thrilled through me was burnished bright by the satisfied smile on her face. I took pictures after of her in her cap and gown, holding the blue folder that contains her degree. Then we took pictures of me in the gown on the basis that it’s very likely the only chance I’ll ever have to wear one. Driving home with her through the sharp rain on the motorcycle, I had to lean forward and hug her, the love and respect simply swelled to more than I could contain. She’s survived a ridiculous amount of harm to get where she is, and though it’s not ideal, she’s still scraping to get by, it’s a testament to her tenacity that she persevered and put herself through university as a single mother with three kids. It’s more than most have done.

    Tonight I have dinner with friends, tomorrow I have dinner with Silva, Saturday Ray is rescuing me possibly from my masque-panic hell and sweeping me about town to try and find something to wear, (suggestions bloody appreciated), and there’s (as yet unverified) rumour of a second SinCity to be held at Richards on Richards. (If there is no Sin, who wants to have a party?) Sunday I’m still planning on being down in Seattle with Eliza, though it’s looking less and less likely as the day approaches and no rides have been forthcoming. Monday my mother is bringing me to a soiree at the Mansion, and Tuesday is the last May Mandarin Movie Tuesday.

  • there’s a membrane drawn over my week


    axismundi
    Originally uploaded by camil tulcan.

    A sound like god, what happens when a man covered in microphones walks into a room full of speakers.

    I have been measuring things more in my eyes than my hands this week, which leads to interesting bits of missing time that I worry for, as if they’re my children and I’ve abandoned them for that crucial minute too long in the shopping mall where now the only way to get them back is in newspaper articles I clip out and tape to my fridge.

    Last weekend, Burrow was in town. I know that for certain. The order of her arrival is written down, there were pictures taken. She stayed over Friday night with Sam, the evening of Meat Eatery. Sam and I had walked to BJ’s after dinner, watched atrocious movies with Bob and his girl-darling from Parksville, then returned to curl up with Burrow asleep in my bed. We were quiet, but woke her unintentionally.

    Saturday we crawled out of bed in time for the Fool’s Parade. Sam went home to shackle himself to his desk and Burrow and I rolled like tired thunder downtown and met with Duncan, Jenn, Georg, and her pink-dyed ferret, Silky. The parade was rainy and under-attended, so after coming close to winning the Fool of the Year award with ferret breasts, we abandoned the street for Taf’s. When work didn’t have my paycheque ready, we turned around and walked to the Bay to visit with Eva at her clinical cosmetics booth. It was fascinating, in a quiet colourful way, but not enough to keep Burrow and I from going home to rest before Duncan pulled us out to the graceful Fool’s Cabaret on Main st. Reine‘s mother was there, and Siobhan, a friend of friend’s we went to dinner with after.

    Monday is missing, a played out afterburn. I took some self-portraits, but I don’t know if I slept there at home or not. There was one, two ideas. A number, undifferentiated. Something.

    Tuesday is more concrete, not only written down, but recorded. Video, audio, photographs. Imogyne and I at Hawksley Workman with darling Sophie. The Cultch in all it’s warmly worn desiccating glory, intimate, red curtained. I remembered all the shows I’d played there. Running through the back when I was a child, that one time making love inside the roof. Downstairs hot-boxing the worn office, how there was once a pane of glass violently shattered in the middle of an orchestral piece, how the beads of my necklace clattered as I bounced and clapped. The music was good too, his acoustic version of striptease sincerely captivating.

    After, Devon came over and we stayed up until the last bus, listening to our bootlegs and drinking weary tea. Imogyne eventually went home, and Devon and I talked until far too late, making me late for work Wednesday. The day I went to Andrew‘s after work and Georg and I re-dyed my hair into the colour of sticky quill ink while watching Ghost in the Shell. She came back to my place after, and we let the ferret run free through my apartment as we talked about partners and lives lost, the soulmates of just then and not today and maybe yesterday we knew something and maybe tomorrow we’ll have some hope. She wrote poetry and I woke up in the morning holding her hand.

    Thursday I had a date with Sam, a real live date, not one of those on-line long-distance approximations my life seems to enjoy lauding me with. Cleaned up versions of us met at Tinseltown for the Brick preview and had dinner at Wild Ginger before walking out to False Creek to hang out on a water fountain and eat caramel ice-cream. We sat under the moon passing the tub back and forth like a cheap cigarette and talked about some of the same things that Georg did. We’re all divorced, the lot of us. It’s like a curse or a disease catching in all the social circles. It seems like every split has had very little to do with love and everything to do with a basic need to keep evolving, to keep trying to touch forever.

    Friday Michael stole me out from under dinner with Andrew, Navi, Ryan, and Eva, and accompanied Robin and I to Thank You For Smoking instead. It was gleeful, with some damned nice moments, (there was a montage of Bad People that slaughtered us like baby seals), and led well into creeping alone up the stairs into Duello for the end of Fight Practice, a small red flower as my sword. I sat on the couch with Lee, letting him show me knife tricks, as people cleaned up and we sat for coffee until it was too late to think of going anywhere else but home. Friday nights, however, traditionally lead into mornings without work, so we survived.

    We survived well, in fact, not doing a damned thing until somewhere after two in the afternoon, until the body-call to breakfast was too deafening to ignore.

    vividly in memory though I never had a chance to meet her in person

    I’m not sure how to say this, so I’m going to steal Warren’s post because it carries everything needed to say. She was one of the nicest people I met through him on-line. I didn’t know her as well as many did, but she was a sweet support through my recent rough patch and her words were always cherished and smiled upon. I am stunned to have this news. I wish I were close enough to go to the memorial and pay my respects properly.

    My friend Leticia Blake, also known as Eva Lux, died yesterday afternoon. She was 32.