Your Local Nefarious Cherrious Speaks

oh sweet girl

2006-02-15T16:39:00.000-06:00

i was reading the history of that equation and thinking about hotprof, just if you're wondering. in other news, i LOOOOOVVVVE yellow paper and scanners. peace.

Marijuana Use Can Be Crazerous

2005-11-25T16:55:00.000-06:00

assorted poetic expressions of nonsense

2005-10-25T16:29:00.000-05:00

on evolving tongues...
i would kill myself
for that moon
and all
its ridiculous poetry
it is one of those things
for which i becomea fanatic
a fundamentalist
a lunatic
as they say
and they have it right

here
oh these clever latin shapes
sometimes i remember at odd times
the history
of my history
how these forms were
formed
how these words
grew
from infancy to the sprawling gangly teenagers
they are today
all slutty
all experimental
and wanting to party all the time
with all the adjectives they can get their hands on

on the girl who gardened in del crary park in late summer...
i have seen you twice
growing flowers in that way you do
long arms gracious and strong
now i sit often under small trees
so that while you tend them to growth
i can warm myself in your shadow

i think that if i knew even the very darkness of you
it would be as sunlight

but poetry is for the fearful and the weak
oh and in these foolish words
i am weak
i am weak

---

the sunrise appeared today like some
big city remix of the geese of fall

i am miles away from wild

but i do believe that wilderness
makes housecalls
some days

you there
brought in from the dark of a hall
or bar or pub
you there with untamed eyes
and hair
are you some
regional representative some
local loyalist
to the cause that is
jungle and mad misty air?

you
you are too
too
rambunctuous
for this establishment

come with me then
and we will make a new one

on jazz and the inequality of us...
(this is a work in progress. i'm not sure where it's going. i'm thinking something morbid and tortured, but that could be zola speaking.)
The Kid wasn't the sort to be held by a song. But here he was, downright lingering by this ratty brownstone because, out of the south window on the second story, there swung strains of a rhythm he'd never heard before. Trumpets blared like they were dancing on rooftops, basses bumped like they were the heartbeat of this wayward boy, and a woman shouted perfect nonsense to it all like she spoke a holy language. And so he lit a cigarette, one he'd stolen from him momma, and tried his damndest to look like he was waiting for something cooler.
The Kid had silver eyes and they used to conceal nothing more than that aching angry desire to survive. He had grown up down the street, he was all of thirteen years old, and he was alone. Well, technically he had his momma, who weren't ne'er home, was always fightin' for hits down behind the gas station. He had his older sister, who threw her body around like a car salesman clicks his pen. And he had his dadda who came home for christ's birthday and made them repent their sins in the form of a whailin'. So yeah. This Kid got nothin' much.
But now the Kid got somethin' else. Oh yeah. He glanced around him surreptitiously, allowed his foot to tap. He cleared his throat and looked longingly at the window. He bobbed his head a bit, took a puff of the cig and made a face. He hated the flame in his mouth. Hated the taste, the smell... What he liked was the way people looked at him when he held a cigarette, and that little crackle sound they made when you sucked 'em. He thought that maybe that wasn't worth the hassle, except what else did he have to fight for, really?
Except this now. He admitted it to himself finally. He liked this. It was the coldest day yet this fall, and the sky was a claustrophobic, tight sort of grey. The wind was whistling up the holes in his rattie hoodie, but he'd never been warmer. Before this, he'd never felt more than reptilian, his brain as old as time, his desires as base as bugs'.
The song had long shifted to a slow sexy beat with a screaming trumpet muted, sounding more human than his momma ever did. He wanted to know what it was called, this music, those voices, the SOUND. He wanted to know so he could write the word out on a peice of paper and hold it close to him as he slept, like he did when he liked school and would write out names of cities and prime ministers and even just his teacher's name over and over again -
mrs. wallack
mrs. wallack
mrs. wallack
hello my name is mrs. wallack
- in his wobbly childhood script.
The Kid now sat huddled next to the building, hiding behind a yellow grocery cart.
No. He NEEDED to know. He got up, backing up from where he stood, his eyes fixed on The Window. He backed into the street in an attempt to see into the room it contained. A car screeeeeeeeched and honked.
"Kid! What the FUCK?!?"
In the driver's seat was a roaring twenty-something with a narrow cigarette and dreds. Her eyes said the same sad things that The Kid found himself thinking all the time. The car itself was held together by pure and simple hope.
The Kid was immediately in love with this woman, in a way immeasurable and never-before experienced. The shock of this and the imbalance of his current posture knocked him right over.
"SHIT!" said the girl in the car. The boy had reminded her of her little dead brother. And when he fell, she thought she'd killed him. Or he'd disappeared. Either way, it warranted an entirely too terrifying self-analysis that shocked her into a sort of frozen ineptitude that allowed her cigarette to burn her fingertips. "JESUS!" she exclaimed, leaping in her seat and then out of the car, shaking her fingers. A car behind hers beeped impatiently, and she made placating shapes in its direction with her other hand as she walked around to see about the Kid.
Meantime, the Kid was desperately hoping he was injured, and that the Woman would take him in her arms and sob over him. The intensity of his wish for this made him lie in the odd bent position into which he had fallen. He heard the car door slam and heard the beep of the other car. He winced.
The Woman was surprised to see an actual boy there. She was positive it would transpire she'd imagined it. She had such faith in her insanity that the sight of the Kid there made her scream and laugh simultaneously, which is a funny sort of sound. The Kid, it transpired, looked nothing like her dead brother. He was just the same age as he was when...well whatever. It wasn't him, thank god.
The Kid looked up at her and thought the word "alleluia" over and over again. She was glorious. She was closer to god than the Kid had ever thought possible. And in the background, a woman seemed to rap in flowing french as a scratchy sort of orchestra tapped and hummed along. The Kid would've been okay with dying just then. His life so far had amounted to far less than this moment, and he had no great expectations for any further bliss.
"What...the...FUCK?!" the woman said in gasps. The Kid got up, feeling silly, trying hard to forget his dreams.
"sorry lady." he said it with as much disrespect as he could muster for this, his only experience with religion.
"what were you DOING?!?" the woman, normally utterly devoted to maintaining distance from every other person in the world, was curious about this boy, his behaviour, his LIFE. she was sure she could rationalize this break with herself at a later moment, so for right now, she just went with it. the impatient car behind hers wended its way around them, the driver shaking his head and mouthing expletives.
"i was...nuthin'."
"you were nothing? that's not a sentence."
"i wasn't doin' nothing."
despite her excessive use of swear words in daily conversation, the woman was a grammar nazi...some remnant of her past. "well then you were doing SOMETHING."
the Kid was unimpressed with this stock response to his slang. it humanized his goddess, and that was an unpleasant experience for him.
"fuck YOU." he said, and turned to go. he was shaking a little, and he couldn't explain why.
"hey now. hold up! i'm serious, i coulda killed you. and i wanna know WHY that had to happen."
this was more like it, thought the kid. her words seemed to suggest fate and miracle, which is what the kid wanted to hear from her. he stopped and turned, but said nothing, waiting for more from her. he looked at her lips and craved something he couldn't name. he couldn't name it because his understanding of sex and sexuality was limited to the brutal noises that surrounded his loveseat-bed at two in the morning, and he certainly didn't crave that. he put on a front with his older friends of wanting to fuck, and he stashed porn like a real boy, but there was some segregation in his mind between that angry dominance and his real desires, which he had yet to find a home for.
"what's your name, kid?" the woman allowed herself to pity this ruffian. normally she wouldn't have, but it seemed to her like it was just him and herself against that sky.
"Gerry." the kid muttered it. he hated his name.
"what's that short for?"
well he wasn't going to give in that easy. "what's YOUR name?" he said, attempting to deepen his voice, which of course cracked noisily.
"Flora."
"like flower?"
"yeah."
there was an amicable silence between them, despite a whole eight meters of asphalt between them. the strains of jazz rose above them and danced in the wind.
"gerry's short for gerald." the kid said, and turned to run, with no destination in mind.
flora let him go, with an indescribable faith that they'd meet again. she'd heard the jazz now, and she raised her head to peer in the direction of its source.
it was dusk now, and a warm light made the interior of the room easily visible from the street. as she watched, a figure stepped into sight, snapping her fingers and reading a piece of paper. the figure was singularly inelegant, with crazy hair and a stocky presence. but she moved through that room with a sort of grace, snapping and sipping from a coffee mug and spinning about. she plunked down beside the window and noticed the running car there, and the woman standing in its headlights.
the two women observed each other. flora was frozen again. the other woman seemed to make a decision, setting down her coffee and her paper on the windowsill and moving out of sight.
around the front of the brownstone, each level of the building had two balconies, presumably one for each apartment. while flora peered immobile into the lighted room, the other woman walked out onto the balcony and bent out over the garden below to see the side of the building.
"hey you!" the woman shouted. her voice was husky and secure.
flora started and took two steps back, so that she was shielded by the car, as if preparing for attack. "me?" she asked, softly enough she was sure the woman wouldn't have heard her, so she cleared her throat to say it again.
"yeah you. c'mere."
flora thought about things, and decided this was a girl on her first apartment's balcony, and could do her no harm. so she walked around to the front of the building and looked up.
"what?" she said, attempting to sound casual, suspicious and confident all at once.
"watchupto?" the girl said it as one word, and it sounded like the name of some native village, some teepee-ridden land of cheap cigarettes and imposed culture. it was an oddly friendly question to ask, like they were already chums, and flora had no idea how to answer it.
"sorry?"
"why you parked there staring into my room?"
"oh."
"yeah."
"i was...well this kid..." flora stopped. she was sure there was something familiar about the girl up there on that balcony. "do i know you?"
"hard to say. come up here. middle door, up the stairs, door on your right." and with that the girl swung around and sauntered back inside. flora opened her mouth to respond, but reconsidered. instead, she walked with an even pace back to her car, got in, moved it to the curb and turned it off, and then walked back around the building and in the prescribed door. like spock, she thought to herself, oddly.
the hallway and its staircase was carpeted with institutional rough blue-grey carpeting that today mirrored the formidable sky. the air had that archetypical cheap apartment smell of cold stale tobacco smoke, pizza boxes left out in the rain and spilt beer. as she reached the top of the stairs, the door on her right swung open, and the previous smell was pushed past her by a warm, almost spicy smell of cooking activity and marijuana. the girl from the balcony was standing casually in the doorway, her brow furrowed. flora paused with her mouth open. no, i DO know this girl, she thought, but she was not certain at all where from. as soon as she finished this thought, the girl in the doorway made a sort of rapid exhalation noise and said, softly and with tones of great shock...
(and that's all i've got. i have to figure out some obscure way they'd know each other. and then the kid comes back into the plot a couple of days later and sees the two of them on the balcony, still listening to jazz. and this is where it could get mordid and tortured, because this kid is worshipping flora and all she stands for, and it's gonna transpire (obviously, because i can't write anyone other than myself in various disguises) that flora and this apartment girl (who looks like me yes, and the apartment is mine yes, but she's not me, i promise. i'm much more flora and the kid than i am her.) are totally shagging. and the kid's gonna be torn between what culture says is masculinity, what he actually desires, and his own angry jealousy. so yeah. we'll see.)

Another Attempt...

2005-10-22T15:17:00.000-05:00

...at understanding - this time Bataille's convoluted imagery of ecstasy. and this while simultaneously fantasizing about that girl that does the world music show on trentradio. and drinking coffee.

Part Of How I Feel About Sociology Right Now

2005-10-16T15:16:00.000-05:00

structuralism and why she's a smoker, crayola on printer paper.

A CHANGE OF PACE

2005-10-14T18:18:00.000-05:00

this page is now officially just about my random poetry and prose. if you're looking for clever and cynical quips about daily life, that's at livejournal now. peace.

Lamest Party EVER

2005-10-14T14:20:00.000-05:00

Being at this party was like watching a duck with a broken wing try to take off from the water. It was flailing and silly and painful.
But fuck it, that alone is worth a certain element of pride. I wanna get some t-shirts made for people who were there. "I survived the suckiest shindig ever in the history of sucky shindigs"
People thought it was ACTUALLY a study group.
Here's who was left: A recently divorced self-mutilating teenager, my street-smart salt-of-the-earth upstairs neighbor, a twitchy lout on oxicets, my drunken roommate and myself. And we sat on my couch and talked about boys and girls and sex and drugs. It was the saddest thing EVER. In the background, we listened to Bob Dylan and then Bob Marley. The tv was playing this lengthy black and white movie "Father's Little Dividend" (yeah...i dunno) We ate brie and drank an entire thing of vodka and most of the malibu.
There are several reasons why this party blew as it did:

i live miles from most trent people
i told them about this party the day OF the party, mostly as i ran between classes.
it's midterm season
i couldn't find any weed anywhere in this town. like, wtf?
my directions to the place sucked (as the few people who DID come remarked upon)
it was cold and drippy out, thereby discouraging adventuring
d.l. is a traitor and didn't show up despite being its greatest supporter.
there is a much cooler dress-up party that has been well-advertised happening toNIGHT, and people have to prioritize.
the world is a vacuous suck hole.

and it is number 9 that most informs my current emotional well-being, as i am hungover, bored and much poorer than i was before. it is also dawning on me that i have a bazillion trillion things to do. which i knew, it's just...you know...it's always a bit of a shock, that moment when school actually picks up and decides to make something of itself.

anyway, i'll get over it. as i said, it's with a certain level of pride that i accept responsibility for the suckiest party the universe has ever known. my place in history is secure.

and that's the word from your local nefarious cherrious. peace.

Mahhvelous

2005-10-12T17:30:00.000-05:00

There is to be a shindig chez moi this upcoming thursday at around abouts sixish until we run out of liquor. twould be marvy if you byob, but if you're an impoverished student, we're all commies here, so that's okay. I'm hoping the above map will be informative to locals and students but not to freaky stalker dudes or religious zoids, but it's hard to balance that out. anyway, so yeah...

I have just been informed of a rather marvy-tastic site for movie lovers. Check out the comment two posts ago for link. (thankee, doood)
In other news, if you're here because you found a random-ass CD in OCA W101.3, here's the place to ask for more of the same.
Along similar lines, here are some songs to look into. If you don't like them, your mind isn't open enough, and I shall ask you to leave.
1. Dans Ce Monde Trouble by Amadou et Mariam - GOOGLE THEM. they are miraculous, and their music is so chillin as to be comparable to Bob. Yes. I said it.
2. The Love Cats by the Cure - good for walking at night and such
3. Butterscotch by CocoRosie - I think this was on aforementioned random-ass CD. sweetest song ever.
4. Be Like Water by Sarah Fimm - hard to find but worth it. good gay theme subtext. her other stuff is also like this, and i rather enjoy her voice.
5. I Lost My Dog by The Fiery Furnaces - this isn't even the best of them. apparently their latest lp is narrated by their 80 year old grandmother. it's called "rehearsing my choir" and if anyone has any of it, SEND ME SOME and you'll win a prize. or something.
6. Another Girl, Another Planet by The Only Ones - okay, so i've basically watched the movie D.E.B.S. on repeat for the past three days, and half these songs are from the soundtrack...but it's a good soundtrack, okay, so piss off.
7. Train(something) by Jethro Tull - very plus plus cool rhythme to this shindig. and jethro's a god anyway. right up there with zappa where pushing instruments to the limit is concerned.

right well, that's that. peace.

it's WENSDAY

2005-10-12T13:58:00.000-05:00

and i don't care what you say, that's how it's spelled. Lookit, Wednesday is how you pronounce Wensday if you have a stuffy nose. It's no basis for institutionalization. I don't CARE if bazillions of years ago it was based on some god or something, it's WENSDAY now. You traditionalists are making things needlessly complex.
The truth is, I'm pissed off is what I am. PISSED. I had one fucking class today and it managed to be the shittiest series of events about. I rode the bus there next to a HUGELY obese man in (get this) SHORT SHORTS. Now, I can hear you politically correct people squirming already, but this man CROSSED the LINE. He had seven knees, I swear to god. Now, I'm a chubby girl, I'll admit. And short, and really, not a specimen of health and vitality in any sense. But fuckit, I am aware of this. I rarely if ever wear shorts because I subscribe to the service of the greater good. And even if it means I myself have to be a leetle bit warmer, it means the public at large doesn't have to deal with my pasty-white gladiator calves. I think, really, it's time for a clothing policy. It should be like getting your driver's license. And this obtuse, sweaty man who sat beside me (on a relatively uncrowded bus, i might add. do i come off as the sort to be available to people with seven knees? because if i do, tell me, and i'll get some t-shirts made or...something) would NOT be licensed to wear short shorts. ANYWAY, as if that wasn't bad enough...I get to class and this ridiculously stunningly mind-numbingly endlessly gorgeous girl walks in, and choirs of angels start up. but that's fine, i figure she'll sit far away and I'll be able to breathe. But no. She sits two seats away. And she's miraculously adorable, I tell you. But I'm feeling brave, despite previous bus experience, so I ask her how her thanksgiving weekend was, if she went home, etc. And it's all going well, and I'm deliriously thinking of inviting her to my shindiggery, and the choirs of angels are settling down enough that I can breathe a bit, but then this...SMOKER comes in and sits between us, mid-sentence, and I can't talk over him, and I can barely breathe again because he smells like stale ashtray and mothballs. And he keeps bobbing his baseball-capped head around making it impossible for me to even peer surreptitiously at the goddess of a girl without bobbing my head in a similar, if inverse, fashion. NOT COOL. And the whole time he's exuding nastysmell so that I cough and choke. Okay, smoking's one thing. But the combo effect of smoking and not bathing...it's really stellar. It's really the most astonishingly narsty thing about. And keep in mind, this class is already shit-astic because we have an in-class midterm next week and I am utterly and inalienably not prepared at all. The only upside of this is she spoke to me like a human being. And she didn't turn out to have any sort of high-pitched girlie voice either, which tends to result in immediate choir evacuation. She had a nice simple husky canadian voice. Lovely.
BUT THEN. You see, I couldn't think of an excuse to talk to her again, so she left without a glance at me, which is to be expected. But anyway, then I got back on the bus and headed home. And who should be on the bus but this genuinely hep fourth year sociology dame i met at a disco party in september. so i manage to sit beside her and start convo, but then...I PUT MY HEADPHONES ON and KEPT THEM ON for the duration of the trip. I dunno. I dunno what I was thinking. And once I realized my grave error, it was too late...you know that general rule, once a certain period of time passes, further conversation becomes ridiculously awkward unless you're amongst good friends or room mates or family. And I really really wanted to invite this chick to my partay, and she was the sort to at least politely decline, therefore making me feel at least that I had accomplished some sort of communication today. She was also the sort to possibly show up and make the whole scene better for it. But no. I'm silly stupid chicken shit. This is universally what I am learning about myself this year. Because in Ottawa, no one talked to you anyway. Everyone just had their own comfy circles and never bothered reaching out of them. So I had an excuse. Here, people are generally cool and groovy, and totally up for shaking hands and learning your name. AND HERE'S THE OTHER THING! I can't remember names if my life depends on it. Well no, if we play one of those stupid roundabout games, I can totally ace them, but just you know, saying hi, i'm so and so, I forget people's names the INSTANT they leave their mouths. It's hopeless!
So yes. And now I'm back in my apartment all by my lonesome. In order to recover I must dance at least twice to Jill Barber's "My Baby Is In Love With Another" and then I must clean up the place a wee bit for the upcoming events, and go cash my government cheque thing and buy beer and do readings and get things accomplished, but I needed to rant that out first. Because it's astonishing how things like the above can so completely anihilate one's sense of well-being. Consider it a public service announcement.

2005-10-04T14:25:00.000-05:00

i drank coffee filtered through a love letter i wrote to you this morning in a fit of peak. i wanted to distill this agony, make it cleaner and less sharp. i wanted to be bitter and put some angry lense on what i see of you in my head. now it looks like i wrote it centuries ago and stored it in mud and mess. and i can't make out the middle bit. it's all the same anyway. all the same words i always wrapped you in. was i ever worth it? because if i was never worth it, why were we? was it some symptom of self-loathing on your part? some self-destructive phase you went through to shock your parents and force your friends to write bad songs about you that they'd sing to sold-out audiences of fame and fortune? i tried to read it aloud to you, that coffee-stained masterpiece. i tried to say the words and they came out something like the cries of a wounded eagle kept in a cage to, and this has never made any sense to me, heal. how can you heal in a cage and be expected to face the world again thereafter? no. it's human colonialism, that whole theory. because we spend our whole lives in cages, and expect animals to want the same. but if we ever knew what it was like outside, we'd never want these frameworks anyway...except the framework of you. except your ribs which nightly enclosed me as all i could hear were your lungs and heart and sometimes your stomach making funny moving sounds and i would giggle and my giggle would disappear into you because i became on those nights just another organ of yours and that was just fine. and now i'm like one of those...science projects trapped in formaldehyde. organs in the body make sense and hold a certain mathematical beauty to them. and they're all red and blue and pulsing. but in those big fuck-off jars...they make me and most other people wanna throw up. and that's me without you, see? i feel sick with myself. mirrors and pictures and windows and things that show me me make me ill. i want to run to a desert landscape - or maybe a tundra, so the cold outside matches the in. so long as there's no ice. no water. i want to die of thirst because it always feels like i am anyway and i may as well. was i ever worth it? you used to dance for me in front of fires. you used to ask me what i liked about you. you used to kiss my fingers at night and sing me silly songs while we rode the bus and i can't believe i bothered being embarassed. all the things i wasted time on are stomping on my heart like they're doing some cultural dance, some kicking and yelling thing that national geographic will look at as primitive. when really it is endlessly elegantly exquisitely painful, and it does all it needs to do. and its those fucking scientists that are the primitives. because they'll never get at what's worthwhile. because you can't measure, for example, what i feel for you. oh just tell me tell me tell me. was i ever worth it? because if i was never worth it...

2005-09-24T23:37:00.000-05:00

in homage to my tenth of the species, i went to see the new jodie foster movie, Flightplan. let me just say, there is nothing better to convince you of the astounding and mildly terrifying power of a mother. man. she always does these sorts of roles, you know, where she's so intensely strong and intelligent, while being so HUMAN...and then you see her stand still for a moment next to some actor and you realize how SMALL she is. just makes you wanna walk naked down city streets at night saying "yeah well FUCK you." she makes you believe you have that kind of strength. and i mean, if i was a mom watching that, i'd be all "hell yeah, i could do that if i needed to. for me kid, fuck. of COURSE i could crawl through a plane as it landed, ducking bullets and lifting some massive-ass six year old who's unconscious. if jodie foster can, so can i." it's really, when it comes right down to it, a revolutionary role. her movies are such that they empower women without making it so that power = "manliness", you know? she doesn't use guns or have underlings, and she is the INVERSE of a damsel. she's the epitome of strong woman, without being defined AGAINST what it is to be a strong man. you see? so in that sense...you know...i think maybe by NOT coming out, she's really seeing which battle can be fought, and fighting it for keeps. perhaps she's seeing that, without even STARTING on sexuality, women are still loosing the SEX wars where pop culture is concerned. so she's fighting that war by starring and helping to produce films that place women outside male definition and see them as indestructible, powerful people. or maybe i'm reading altogether too much into it...in sum, i really think it is worthwhile to notice that her movies are certainly in a genre to themselves, and i have decided to stop bitching and moaning with me mates about her closeted tendencies (see earlier imaginary notey). she's still totally fighting the good fight, unlike angelina jolie. i can barely LIKE angie anymore what with this brad bullshit and her skinny arms all over the grocery stores. NOT COOL. but kudos to jodie. hip hip hurrah.

here we go a rambling like the hippies of old

2005-09-19T23:26:00.000-05:00

so it looks like i got me some more time to kill. there is a metal bird-dinosaur that rocks endlessly back and forth and i wonder if it is the wind or the subtle tectonic shift that creates its dance. here i am with bad hair and a sweaty disposition trying desperately to disappear. if i was invisible or even one of those girls who no one looked twice or even once at i would be so much braver. right in front of me is a little wee thing of face paint and the sun beats its waxy aroma into the air in funny pulses that only i recognize as such. what i really wish was that these goths would see, there's more to makeup than looking endlessly like weeping antoinettes all over the place. he has inched his way closer to her. i commend his attempt but it is all for naught. we always have this psychic extrasensory upper hand in the battle, which is to say, dance, of the sexes. oh come on. it's not so bad as to merit pity in your eyes. well, maybe it is, but you don't know me. if you did you'd understand; i'm a bad luck child, through and through like all that moaning old school blues. my story would be at home told over a twelve bar beat in a husky voice after downing dark beer sitting on a sagging porch by the muddy mississippi. oh but we are all cultural thieves, trading, bartering, collecting it in jars like so many fireflies. and in the end, just like those darting lights on our small horizons, hold it too long and too hard and it dies. so i leap from each nearly melted iceberg to the next, just like everybody else while the wise amongst us are building steel ships thta may indeed last forever but funding will get avro'd just before completion. and here i am fantasizing about guerrilla warfare thanks to the sentiments of aforementioned face paint which gets me to reminiscing about those long summer flag-capturing days spent with water pistols and bikes and high-pitched hollering to each other through restricted backyars like the bad-ass twelve-year olds we always were. fuck what i'd give just to look normal. and i know i know, but its so hard to study people when you're such a research project yourself. and i've got mad hair and a dark eyebrows and a funny-shaped way of being...and now the pattern of this picnic table is coming out into the wibbly shapes of my letters. is it two yet? i have no concept of time and my tummy hurst due to too much coffee all at once and no food and i think my innards are still all dried up as hell due to extensive alcohol consumption but my GOD it was worth it. what HEP CATS those kids were, all aware and aching for emancipation for this failing structure, all endlessly preparing for revolution, capable at any moment of bursting forth into utopian colonization of the new generation. i hope my clever numerical presentation inspires its use, because those cats be my PEOPLE and i've been looking for them all this time and they're the sort that would listen if i sang them my blues and would help me write it better with the strains of theirs and would turn it softly towards rebellion and make it mean more than sadness...oh i am stoned without herbal supplements most days.

-written on a picnic table in the courtyard of lady eaton college while waiting for the history departmental secretary to get back from lunch so i could get a course add/drop form.

HUZZAH!

2005-09-19T11:04:00.000-05:00

This is a short notice to reassure...whomever...that Petey is recovering from his initial paranoia. He is now a great fan of riding around on my shoulder and sitting on my lap while I kill endless hours watching Ned*. I have built him a castle out of some boxes for him to play in during these outings, and it has three levels, a porch and windows for him to peer out of. I know this to be a symptom of my overabundance of time, but I've FINISHED all my readings, so fek off. Anyways, peace out DOOOODS.

*see post on reclaiming lingo.

This is Man. This is Woman.

2005-09-18T22:50:00.000-05:00

We are so much more than Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. So much more.

RECLAIM YOUR LINGO

2005-09-14T23:14:00.000-05:00

ladies and gents, i present to you the newest (if a wee bit trite and overdone) initiative of the Nefarious Cherrious Organization.

RECLAIM YOUR LINGO

a not-so-revolutionary idea that still needs some work.

HOWEVER.

so far, this is what has been established.

1. words or phrases often go through phases where they are highly overused. this is a social trait that defines a connection with a group. these words or phrases are often written off as "an inside joke" or "a long story" when outsiders attempt to understand aforementioned word or phrase. examples of this include:
paris hilton's "that's hot"
napoleon dynamite's "heck yes" and "jeez"
the ninja turtles' "cowabunga"
k.m.'s "IFTOC"
yours truly's "times ten and a three quarters"
PAPM's overuse of qoutation fingers
2. it is not necessary that these words or phrases actually be associated with "a long story" or any sort of joke. often, the case is that a dominant character within a group adopts the word or phrase apro po of nothing, and her/his underlings parrot it without question. this is not always the case, however it does seem common.
3. this is "lingo"
4. lingo can divide or it can create a bond or understanding between people who otherwise might not have connected. an example of this would be the phrase "friend of dorothy," used by homosexuals in times or places where it was necessary to remain closeted to allow one
person to ascertain the other's sexuality.
eg: "actually, i was just in New York last week, visiting a friend of mine, maybe you know her...are you a friend of dorothy?"
"i am yeah! wow...what a coincidence, eh?"
by answering yes to the question, the second person just made it clear that they were a homosexual. dorothy, of course, is a reference to "dorothy and the wizard of oz" from which the song "over the rainbow" has long been the theme of the gay pride movement.

what i am seeing of late, tho, is lingo of a particularly high level of vapidity and meaninglessness. and so i kindly request of the general population a general shift back to the good old inclusive,
pro-hippie and youth-driven lingo of yore.

examples of inclusive, pro-hippie and youth-driven lingo:
1. hep - like hip but more...hip
2. cat - person
3. gone - ridiculously cool
4. dig - understand
5. vibe - a general sense or feeling

eg: that hepcat has one gone vibe, dig?

and also, in favour of variety, i suggest that the following less inclusive but more interesting words be brought back to life:
1. chick - girl (chiclet - narrow girl)
2. dame - woman
3. mate - friend
4. ace - excellent
5. action man - macho man

and finally, i would recommend an investigation of the general uses of cockney rhyming slang. examples include:
1. gary player - all-dayer (all day drinking session)
2. april in paris - arse
3. after eight - date
4. bacon bits - tits
5. 10-8 - great
6. thomas edison - medicine
7. ned kelly - telly
8. kat slater - catch you later
9. west end thespian - lesbian
10. fishin' rod - PC plod (policeman)
11. manfred mann - plan
12. tin roof - pouf (homosexual)
13. rub-a-dub (also nuclear sub) - pub

so you can see there are many options there. really, all i'm asking for is a little effort on the part of the general public to maintain a certain amount of fresh language. that's all. but more on this later, i'm sure. it's my current fixation.

peace.

Don't call me Yoyo

2005-09-08T17:03:00.000-05:00

You know, I was considering briefly worshipping at the Tupac shrine, having discovered his words to be particularly meaningful, especially when compared to the excrement that has been produced of late. HOWEVER. If he'd lived like his lyrics, I'd be a fan. But he didn't. He was charged twice successfully for sexual assault, despite preaching differently on tracks like "Keep Ya Head Up" and "Dear Mama." He had wealth later on, but did he share it? Noooo. Despite the plight of his brothas, he kept it for himself and his shiny jewellry, as rappers DO. So what I'm saying here is that I'd have more of an ear for rap in general were its complaints met with an attempt to make it better. But they're not. While whining on and on about how hard life be, etc. they are out making it harder, endorsing violence and perpetuating the "black man myth" that leads to the further subjugation and prejudice of their sons and daughters back where they began. It's bullshit. I'm probably not allowed to say this, being white, but FUCK it, I've had hard times. I may be from a well-educated family, I may be going to University, and I may never have had a gun pointed at me, but shit happens. And if any of the things these modern-day preachers bragged about HAD happened to me, I wouldn't be bragging. I'd be fighting to make sure it never happened to me or anyone I knew as hard as I could. "That's the way it be" were the words that enslaved African-Americans for centuries. So I don't see why those words should be the gist of the lyrics of any of rap or hip-hop's rhythmes. These people have power and influence. They should use it towards the goal of improvement.

SPEAKING of people who have power and influence and choose not to use it, in this case due to cowardice, here is a hypothetical letter to a one Ms. Jodie Foster and/or her publicist's employee:

Dear Ms. Foster's publicist's distant employee who sorts the fan mail,

As I know this will never reach the mecca that is Jodie Foster's fingertips, I'll speak my case directly to you.
This is neither a fan letter nor hate mail.
This is a political message.
But not from any party or lobby group or charity.
And it's a bit of an emotional message as well.

My message is this:
I ADMIRE Ms. Foster's policy of stubborn silence on this, our fame-crazed culture's most abhorrent and prurient trend. The sexuality of actors is none of our damned business, nor is it important in judging the skill with which they pursue their trade. On this point I agree.
However.
Our culture is such that sexuality has become a defining trait. And our bullshit system of binaries is such that one sexuality is defined as either better than or worse than another. SADLY, these binaries carry far-reaching consequences. In this world, there is NORMAL, which is heterosexual, and there is ABNORMAL, which is homosexual. Normal people get rights and freedoms. They get advertisements directed at them and storybooks in their language to read to their children. They get pop songs and high school dances and billboards every other block that day after day worship their lifestyle. Abnormal people get dark, dirty bars and one day or week a year where the presence of rainbows must somehow make up for a full year of invisibility.

I am going to be frank here in saying that I have felt alone a great deal of my life. Even surrounded by friends and family who loved and supported me. I have felt like an alien life form, like some funny-shaped fluke plopped into an otherwise unified landscape.
There is a cure for this loneliness. And it lies in representation.
Representations of lesbians have been primarily secondary and stereotypical. This leads many lesbians to feel that they are the sidekick in their own life stories, because that is the role a powerful and omnipresent culture has placed us in. Granted, recent developements within the past five or six years are beginning to change that, but even in this new era of pop cultural presence, we are the lab experiments and prurient practices of a heterosexual culture that remains in control.

The only way sexuality will not matter is if sexualities of all sorts are seen to be on equal footing. This will never happen if publicists the world over contort into "no comment" grimaces when the idea of being "different" is presented. We are not "different." We are the same we've been for centuries. We are not ABNORMAL, because we occur as normally as do different eye colours. But if this is to be SEEN as the case, actors who have been seen to be hiding something MUST say to the world with confidence, "yeah. so what?"

Jodie Foster's sexuality is none of my damn business. But Ms. Foster must take responsibility for the position of power and influence she happens to be in. With one word, she could make the lives of millions of people easier and less lonely. She could help hundreds of uneducated people understand that lesbians are normal, wholesome and talented people. And there are other "representatives" out there, but that's not the point. Straight people don't need designated "representatives" in culture. It's taken for granted. We're the "others," the "invaders," the "freaks." But if actors such as Ms. Foster were considered to be utterly fine with who they were, maybe this wouldn't be the case.

Just a thought.
Thanks for your time.

Respect and Admiration,

NEFARIOUSCHERRIOUS

Aaaanyways, I mentioned earlier of the addition of a one Mr. Petey Quaife to the NC Family. He has turned out to be quite the little chicken shit, for which I blame the pet store. They were keeping my darling all alone in a CIRCULAR TANK in the middle of the store with just a few pitiful tubes to hide in. And they probably let snot-nosed kids fondle and squeeze him, too. Poor bugger. He may never recover, but I hope time and a safe, quiet environ will help. He does need a friend though, but that will require a bigger cage and lots of searching through this new town o' mine for a suitable matey. So time, basically is what I'm saying here. I'm going to build aforementioned bigger cage, so it shouldn't cost too much. But yes. That's all the news. More updates on that story are in the making. Tata.

Tales Of Travel And Romance

2005-09-07T15:53:00.000-05:00

Ah, rrrromance!
This is a truly happy ending, yes yes.
But I digress, as it appears I have got a bit ahead of myself.

I was your common singleton, one might say. Fashionably well-off, with all the latest in gadgets and goods. Here is me in my swank vehicle, who was dubbed Rose Rouge after the very cool St. Germain song. I was a sophisticate, I was, always travelling and going on mad crazy outings with my friends.

Here I am with Milly and Agatha in High Park snowshoing...They always were a bit camera-shy.

Some called me a flirt, others referred to me in more biting terminology. All I knew is I was never alone. Expecially not at the beach...

But alas, though it was the best of times, it was equally the worst of times. I oft found myself lonely and bored of a Tuesday night in my spiffy yet solitary digs. I attempted to find refuge in the creation of a gang. My group of thugs spent many hours loitering under signs telling us not to, especially around the docks, where we could be seen spitting and leaning in a most offensive manner all about the place. But it was of no use.

After studying the writings of a one Mr. Jack Keruoac, I decided the solution to my unnamed yearnings was to take to the road. So I did.

I travelled all over the US and Canada, taking in some of Mexico as well. And I made many new friends.

The Girls In 3-B

2005-09-07T14:17:00.000-05:00

Pulp Fiction is back with a vengeance, mateys. Get on board.

In other news, there's a new member of the Nefarious Cherrious family tree. His name is Petey Quaife, named for the Kinks' bassist. And so we say welcome aboad, Petey. May your contributions to the cause be great and numerous.

Aside from that, watch for the upcoming Tales Of Travels and Romance as performed by our familiar friend, cartoon-NefCherry:
These will be carefully and painstakingly constructed out of very plus plus old school postcards over the next week, as I have nothing better to do, it being I.S.W. and all those mad sprogs of frosh running about my place of education. In the words of a favorite amigo of mine, NOT COOL. (props and such - she is now alone and unsupervised in the town of bureaucracy.)

Hemingway, lotso love and support to the world and n'awlins especially. fuck the man in this case. fuck em. Also, I would like to add that Dickens kicks some booty in the character department. Peace out.

On and On and On and On and On and On and On.

2005-05-02T10:30:00.000-05:00

i have found myself in my own search. there i was sitting by stream and street. there i was. and it was only in portions that i revealed me to myself. in stressed and messy portions that i collected casually, thinking it to be merely the litterings of passerbys. someone else's casual hatred. out of GUILT i pieced me together, not wanting to waste the paper. and a trash can was too small for the completed creation. so now what? i have found me, but i am tattered and scattered, torn and worn, broken in places where i wish most to be strong.
i wish these stupid little shapes could feed me, could make my mother proud. but instead i am hungry and shamed. fuck i hate me. i hate this creation, this form. i hate this skin and these trappings of self. i would blame someone else, but that would make me futile. instead, i take full responsibility and cry and cry and cry.
someone tell me these words are worth time and effort. because they are me they are all i have they are me. and without them i am alone and mediocre. i am what i have railed against and spat upon.
my words are small i know...but so am i. so small.
so small.

jesus. i mean i KNOW i'm a burden. I GET THAT. got the memo, grasp the concept. i know i am the sound of all your hopes falling into asphalt. but fuck you, that's not my problem. i let you down but it has nothing to do with me. it has to do with who YOU thought I was. which is not me. see? oh i see it on your faces, you miserable middle-class mediocritys. your own dreams fell once, so you made little cardboard copies for my brothers and me. now they fell too so what are you gonna do? dare to dream for yourself, live for yourself? no, you lost that creativity along the way, cardboard being a difficult medium to dream in. i dropped yours because FUCKIT, this world makes it difficult to hold my own above this soaking sewage water. mine are already breaking, but i promise me this - i will not pass this on. it will stop with me, i won't entrap further generations into my hope. and i'll try my best to stop destroying this empty stone. unlike you, you bearers of bad news and bad moods. you vacuous puddles of squandered illusions and unopened closets full of moth-eaten beauty.

maybe one day i will die. the only thing i will miss is observation. if i can observe in death, in invisible untouchable finito, i don't know what i'm waiting for. even watching, you understand, is torture. we keep exploding, imploding, destroying, tearing down, trampling, toppling... even a blind death, come to think of it, seems a tempting option. there is not much that holds me here.

mm, except touch. except the shape of her. the forms of her alone. tell me i am not alone in this endless adoration, this hunger in the pit of my stomach, for the forms of her alone. the length of her which, in shimmering gratitude, i have travelled. the length of her. and she aches so mellifluously under sweet dark night. her eyes are two gods winking at me. her lips are windsoft heaven. heaven, in her forms alone. and in her laugh, more than measurement, more than all the world combined. her hands. no there are no more words. despite my worship of them, they are not as noble in my religion as she is. she is. she in her many forms. she is why i live. she is all. ALL.

she told me...but she lied. oooh she lied and it's often the case with these...i don't know...humans. words are tools for them you see. little silver shapes to fix and build. they are not the world itself for most people. and in this i see myself again. covered, saturated in difference. maybe i am from a different planet. one where there are no forms outside of sound. outside of these shapes, these codes...these little rythmes etched in our ears. and i was dropped here by accident. i am fated to misunderstanding. to seeing tools as truth.

i don't know why i do this. i want to not be alone. i want some sign of empathy, reciprocation, understanding. i don't think there is. but everyone is alone really. they just find ways of coating it in candy and serving it to themselves in manageable chunks...like overdosing on candy-coated advil.

i want i want....i want there to be a song that applies to me, or to be good enough to write a song that fits. i want to be somewhere in a dictionary. i want to fit into some television advertisement. i want a mirror that works. i want to be normal, nuclear, healthy, marketable, quantifiable, controlled. not some random floating form, some unwritten idea, some lost concept of some casual boardroom gods.

i wanna hold her. fuck i wanna hold her. she's all crumbly across the room and then when she curls into me, she's the only solid thing i've ever felt. she is the paradox of distances, she is the equation that solves how much we need people to need us. i need her. and now madness. madness, madness in this shuddering abode. without the endlessness of her heartfulness, without the solidity of her name...

...i have fallen, jumbled tumbling into wisps upon the ground.
curl-ed fronds of wispy little into corners all around.
love is not the word here, not the phrase or meter nor...
is it the simple bedframe nor the window nor the door.
no i cannot say i love her for i hate her all the same.
in her distance oh i hate her oh i hate her blessed name.
i cringe upon her doorstep and i wimper in the dark,
for my arms have more purpose. for my heart, it has no mark...

...and so i cry. tears as big as skies. for her.

more words strung together

2005-04-26T20:58:00.000-05:00

this serpentine road
like a spine
with my hand out the window
air feels smooth as skin
somehow less than substance

i am such a clumsy poet
it's hard to be cool
when the very air around you
sets my heart to awe

"i am a lonely painter" *
who wouldn't dare
paint an earth like you.
i am an athiest
but the idea of blasphemy
still seems a present threat

i am a danceless dancer
i am homeless
i am
i
i think you take thise words from me
and i am often afraid
your eyes are conspiring
to steal my breath as well.

*from joni mitchell's case of you. duh

i am ill tonight. sick beyond all measure and reason. there is nothing more to this disease than the stunning realization of the lack of movement, the lack of growth this world has experienced.men still hold all the beads, and women will still do anything to get them. not so that they can use them, exchange them, for things that will make them happy, but so they can further compete against each other, against friends and justice, to appease the men. why? because this is all they believe themselves to be. all they can be is the prettiest trophy. all they can be is some dick's warm hole. all they can be is the ugly, derogatory, repulsive black and white of pornography, prostitution, rape and marriage. time has changed nothing but the nature of the crimes this culture inflicts upon us. instead of repression it is overt sexualization. instead of outright inequality, there is the merciful myth, the idea that we can become equal through some magical male, some god upon high. but that is not equality, that is unnatural selection.i am sick of this. i have barely begun to fight, and already i have discovered my future loss. i don't understand.i don't understand that they don't understand.when i look at women, i see ebony and alabaster, hued complexity and perfectly balanced imperfection. i see poetry and romance and novels and love songs. i see the form alone of them as testimony to their strength, their grace. i worship them as wonderful humans. why then, do men see things differently? why do they not grasp that they are using them as toys for their needs based on some innate fear of losing their sexual organs? what is with this objectification? THEY ARE NOT OBJECTS!!!! HOW CAN YOU EVER SEE A LIVING GRACEFUL BEING AS SOME BOX SOME TOY CAR SOME LITTLE TRIFLE TO FUCK AND TOSS?!?!i am ill tonight because i see my sisters, lovers, friends torn between themselves and men, and consistently choosing the latter, for no reason other than it appears the only option. i want to tell them, but we are competing, you see. apparently we are enemies. and the only time we love is when a boy is watching. and the only time we talk is when there aren't any boys around, just to pass the time. i HATE THIS. it makes me feel sad and so alone so angry so alone. SO alone. and it makes me want to raise a boy. it makes me want to prove that it's this social culture, not their biological construct, that makes this so unfair. it's the men in power, the wealthy men. from years and years ago even, maybe the evils themselves have died, but it's the overarching capital-t truth that remains, this toxic definition.
- after "naughty gras" on st. patrick's day

if there were to be a story between you and i, it would go like this:
---------------------------------------------------
"chris? chris!"
at that distance, i was just a shape, but you knew it was me. because of the way the air was, your voice sounded right next to me. three dogs walked between us, but a tree also swayed and fourteen drops of rain hit the ground.
i lifted my arm but did not smile. the thing is, i've never wanted to lie for any reason.
you walked at the same pace. but something made you seem to move faster than you had when i'd first noted your approach. i was sitting under a tree with branches that reached out and out, starting right near the bottom. it had giant elephant wrinkles in it and when the wind moved through the branches, they whispered "time" over and over again like a heartbeat.
and then you were there, standing not so much over me but across from me.
"_______. hi. this is a beautiful day."
"it's going to rain soon."
"i know. that's part of it."
at this point there was a pause. but only in our narrow view. across the street and down two blocks, a woman backed over her son's bike. on the other side of the world, a man asked a beautiful woman to marry him. in that pause.
"do you come here often?"
you laughed at me. my search was endearing.
"today was the perfect day to come, so i came."
"same here. the first perfect thing i've ever done."
"where are you from." you didn't ask it. it wasn't really a question anyway. it was a little statement of lack of knowledge.
"nowhere in particular. you?"
"how do you mean?" now it was a question.
"military brat. and nomad at heart anyway, so it works out. now where are you from?" i wanted to know. these little things we want to know. the reality was, if someone said later "she's probably from _____." then i could say, "actually, she's from _____." and move on quickly. an air of mystery requires a lot of solid facts, ironically.
"________." i paused in order that you could hear what i was really saying.
"i know. small town, hick town. why am i not a redneck, that's what you're wondering."
"often, the larger the mountain they have to climb, the more people make to look like the sky."
"what's that from?"
i laughed. i never know what to say to that question. it happens sometimes. it makes me feel special and horrible simultaneously.
"what...did you just come up with that?"
"you just came up with that perfect thing."
"i was just commenting on the weather."
"and i was just commenting on ______."
"fair enough."
another narrow pause here. the seconds seemed to swell a little bit.
"but no. not fair enough. where the hell do you come from, and be honest."
"honesty."
i paused again. i think more gets said that way, but people don't often let moments like that happen. i was enjoying that you were. it made me feel safe in a way i haven't for a long time. but in the end, i snorted."could you define the terms of that question please." i said it with a smirk, but regretted it right after. because we started moving in a different direction.
"alright, smart ass. where were you born and where, since then, have you grown up."
"wait no. go back."
"what?"
"go back a little bit. i..fuck. i don't know. it just seemed like something changed just then. i liked the way we were before."
a dog barked and you did that wonderful thinking thing lots of women do, where they place their hand right above their breast, notsomuch touching but with fingertips resting, smoothing out some nonexisting wrinkle in their heartfabric. then you sat down beside me, but not as much beside me as a little bit around the tree from me. because you had to sit on a root in order to avoid the spring mud.
"it's starting to actually rain, chris."
and it was, but what made me happy was your tone. it was back to the way it was before. back on track.the world smells so perfect in that instant RIGHT BEFORE. and sounds get different too, farther away, muffled.
"perfect."
you laughed at me again and i looked upwards. the trees were all still bare, without even the funny looking growth of buds on tips. you looked up too, and i looked over at you, just in time to see a drop, heavy and glowing, fall perfectly onto the center of your forhead.
"perfect." you said.
---------------------------------------------------
two days later, you sat down at a narrow cafe on bank street. it was sunny then but the wind was blowing. for some reason, the activity in the cafe empathized. the only table that was free was a single round table big enough for one elbow and two coffees - a bad measurement indeed - with spindle legs and wobbly chairs. it was right near the line up and the door. you didn't take your coat off because you felt like you were still travelling to somewhere.i was ten minutes late. but i know you didn't check the clock once. it has been two days, but i knew you a little bit already. you get into a place where time doesn't exist and you think about things without names. you don't even know that you do this yet. you call it "phasing out" but you're more "in" then than any other time i've seen you.
"hey, sorry i'm late."
"no problem! it's pretty hectic here, actually, i was thinking of looking for someplace calmer."
"of course. let's."
---------------------------------------------------
after the perfect raindrop, i gave you my number and walked slowly away. when i got back to my room, i sat down, took my coat off, and the phone rang.
"yeah."
"do you always answer the phone like that?"
"do you always call ten minutes later?"
"i was...well i thought maybe..."
"never mind. sorry. that was mean. i was going to just wait around anyway."
"would you have called me right away?"
"no. i'm young. i still want to seem cool."
"oh and i'm old."
"you're mature."
"there are different kinds of..."
"haha, yeah. there are."
"so why did you leave?"
"when?"
"back at the perfect park."
"i'm young. i still want to seem cool."
"hahahahahah, well that's going to have to stop."
"mm, okay. deal."
"i'm on my cellphone. i'm walking towards the parking lot behind the architecture building. my car is purple. honestly, if it isn't the only purple car there, i'll implode."
and then you hung up.
i smiled wider than i have all year.
---------------------------------------------------
"you know where we should go?"
"where."
the radio was on but the volume was down. that bothered me so i turned it off.
"i was listening to that." you said.
"i'm hurt!"
"well i wasn't REALLY. but still. it's my car."
"is it?" i laughed at you. you looked at me, smirking and turned it back on. "well fine then. i'm not competing with the radio." i crossed my arms and looked out the window. for a split second. you turned the radio off. we were at a stop light. you waited much longer than three seconds, then you leaned over quickly to kiss me on the cheek. only i was turning to you to kiss you on the cheek. we met halfway and it was like lady and the tramp. i spent the whole brief peck worried you'd pull away too fast for me to catch on and i'd be left there, stranded over the clutch and the cupholders. but we pulled away slowly, simultaneously, and i immediately regretted all that wasted thoughtspace, wanted your lips back to properly analyze.
a horn honked behind us, embarassing us. we wouldn't have been embarassed except for the knowledge of a third party. i'm sure of that.
---------------------------------------------------
our next kiss was not until that coffee date. we spent the days between that moment and then talking endlessly. we watched four movies, but they were white noise. we drank good coffee from your coffee pot and i knew where you kept the cutlery and the mugs and the cat food by the end of those two days. we had left the cafe in search of another similar locale. but as soon as i left, i knew i wanted something different.
"you know where we should go?"
and you kissed me. just like that. you were walking with your arm brushing mine, and you grabbed my hand and swung me. this time i didn't waste it.
the thing was, your lips were nothing extraordinary. but it was you behind them and that made it astonishing. and it had been years since i'd kissed a girl with braces and it was so incongruous with you that i loved it and i smiled into your mouth and put my hands around your face.
it was over in an instant.
"where should we go?"
"oh i forget."
"i have coffee at home."
"this is true."
"and there's room for two elbows on my table."
"see?"
"what?"
"where's that from?"
"oh psht."
---------------------------------------------------
we didn't drink coffee. we pulled one of those "making out on every wall" entrances into your apartment, and we didn't even make it to your bed. it had been a near thing in the elevator, an almost instinctive need to undress had come over us. what made it even better was that it was a very old woman upon whom the door opened. a woman who had assumed heterosexuality to be the only option. the couch in question was more of a loveseat. and the cat fled its arm as soon as we walked in the door, as if giving us permission.
and your eyes glowed then. and your skin soared. i loved the way you rippled then, with barely the room to do it.
'beneath my hands, your small breasts are the upturned bellies of breathing, falling sparrows...'
and you fell next to me on the loveseat we just fit into. and the cat re-entered gracefully, looking at us with silver eyes. and we looked at her and laughed simultaneously.
you got up then, gloriously nude.
"you know where we should go?"
i followed you to your bedroom.
---------------------------------------------------
our first fight occured on the night of daylight savings, some bizarre allegory for our current situation and so we exploded. for some reason, dusk occurred made me want to fight more than i wanted to breathe.
"i don't understand you."
"exactly."
"no, but i don't need that to love you!"
"i think you do."
"i love you, why is that NEVER enough for ANYONE? what more do you want or need? i'll give you everything, i don't understand."
"no, you'll give me everything you don't understand. like a pretty little box for me to solve, and then you'll take my scattered solutions to your perilous problems and make them me in your mind. that's not fair. you don't know me."
"not yet, but i love you. why are you doing this? don't you love me too?"
"i think you're overestimating my stability."
"i think you're underestimating my love for you."
"NO. I DON'T LOVE YOU. okay? is that what you wanted to hear? honestly, you don't need me, i NEED you to not need me. i NEED it." and then i leave. i leave in less time than i should and forget my jacket.
it is cloudy outside. and a wind blows right up your narrow street that goes right through my skin. this is the part where i feel like an idiot. because i do love you. more than anything i have ever felt, it is this that i know. but i can't do this. i can't be what you are making me into, a little poet puzzle, a magic eight-ball, a voodoo palm reader, battery-charged.
so i talk a little different than the droogs in the bookstores and the troops in the bars. that does not mean my words hold any more potency. they just have a different rhythme to them a different rhyme. why is that so challenging to your sensibilities?
so i go back. i go back because i know i hurt you and that hurts me. who's to tell the difference between altruism and selfishness?
---------------------------------------------------
in reality, you never forgave me for that moment when those untrue words hit your ears. and all of a sudden, my words were meaningless. it was back to the way every other relationship is, based on reality, based on tangible truth. and i hated it. my ability to act seemed so much less than my ability to tangle you in words and make you see with magic. i wanted you to wrap yourself in me again, as you had. begging me just to talk to you. begging me for an explanation of things. i hated it because all of a sudden i was nothing to you. the only talent i really have was lost. i was just a girl with a clever tongue. i was just good sex and silver eyes and eager childish dreams. which, in sum, equals nothing.
and you paid the rent on our little apartment. you had so much knowledge and limitless potential. you were what the world saw as success.
so that fight, the first of a thousand, was the end, you see. we went on for two more years in this haze of mediocre loving. and then i ran away, like a nameless cat.
---------------------------------------------------
i wrote a book away from you. it published and was worth millions and the world saw me as a success. but you saw right through it, didn't you? them as can't do speak. them as can't act write.
you read my words the way an old woman looks at torn photos from old worlds. and then you shelved it and turned into your own world with joy.
i could die, i'm so jealous.

to jess and fez and all those other girls...

i would have her painless
i would have her saved in a land of milk and honey
but she likes her coffee black
and i must respect that

the thing is
her perfection is due
to her living
and i cannot be her captor

so then
give it to me
as much as i can carry
i will

and i have broad shoulders
and a young back

i think if i could
i would enter your wounded heart
and kiss it better
though its tears would stain my lips

i would enter your wounded mind
and dust the shelves and mend the tattered volumes
that lay there weeping

and were it not against
all the writings in your church
i would hurt him so badly
i would tear him

and this above all things
is on my mind
because i am not you
and i cannot be as good

Flaked Light Tuna

2005-04-14T11:42:00.000-05:00

The days here are young, this being the season thereof. Ooo, babay babay it's a wild world.
This is all true.
In other news, things once present have fled. The significance of this must not go unnoted.

SIGNIFICANT

There's too much confusion going round through my head.

SO THEN. Onto important matters.

The truth is that I am utterly selfish. I am painfully and meticulously self-absorbed. And in this, I want no harm to come to her. She is my religion, for whom I shall die exactly seven thousand times. A daily thousand. Until my fickle master changes her fickle mind and I worship a new idol.

So this is why I shall die alone. It feels as if I cannot hold my heart still. It keeps fleeing to foreign but familiar lands, each mysterious in their subtle differences.
Is it curiosity or callous nerves? Is it a fear of too much or a fear of too little?

I want her. But I never say her name so that next week, it can still be true. This is what I know. This is what I have seen in my own silly words.

And then there is me myself. I am nothing to be proud of. I have a clever tongue, but words are best unspoken even with me. I need someone to love these feeble shapes I throw at blankness. Because to be honest, that's all there is to me.

I am an empty room. I am a tentative bookshelf. I am a lot of nothing waiting for ink to make it something. And then, when I finish this, I am a lot of nothing soaked in ink.

what?

2005-04-13T22:58:00.000-05:00

is it that i'm just not allowed?

not allowed this elusive joy?

maybe there is a god.

and maybe he's your god.

the kind that wants me suffering

in unending flames of hell.

well this pulse of mine.

it's hell enough.

because a heartbeat without you,

that's suffering.

Wednesday Night

2005-03-30T23:28:00.000-06:00

Do you think there is anything in it? I always sound out of place in this place. I always sound easy to write off as eclectic and silly and radical. But that, I think, is due entirely to my having some thing that is important to say.
Mmm. I have this thing. It is a little bit vague, this unsaid thing. It is similar to potential or promise. It is like a little possibility hidden between the middle and the lines we always draw.
Many people speak for the sake of it.
But not many people exist for the sake of speech.
Mmm. I am not entirely sure who I am. I am not entirely sure of anything. Apparently this is youth.
So without face creams, we remain forever young. It is funny that people so deny their youth while simultaneously begging the world to make them young.
Well that's that then. On a Wednesday night, this paradox floats into littleness.

So I took a walk

2005-03-14T17:41:00.000-06:00

time here seems a little surreal. i swear to god, that walk was hours and hours.
however, other things need to be said, so i shall let that remain.
the sunsets now seem to have a certain hope. a hope full of promises that the evening will be mauve and delicious for a moment longer each night.
i wonder, though.
i wonder.
because there's death in spring as well. death of the black and white clarity of the snow and bare branches. death of the softness of the sound muffled by frozen particles.
spring is like being born.
i wonder if the life of spring screams a bit as it comes forth. i wonder if there is pain before the tense young beauty of it takes control.
spring is like waking up.
and if the life curled asleep below the surface is dreaming of simplicity and uncomplicated innocence, why would awakening to this world, a problem waiting for solution, be welcomed?
sometimes it's just not cold enough for me, no matter how cold it really is. sometimes it's just not biting enough, not painful enough, not vicious enough for me. i want something to fight against, something that makes the inside of me grow tough and calloused.
because, it seems to me that more practice in the art of being hurt is needed. the world hurts so much, why isn't learning all about that?

There is a moment here...I shall use it.

2005-03-03T14:30:00.000-06:00

All I have time to say is, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for this year and for this sadness in me that is void of hope at the moment. I have hope, but not for now. For a future time. I never thought I'd say I was hopeless. But here I am saying it. I really thought that part of me was untouchable. I thought that part of MOST people was untouchable, that the people who commited suicide were just...built differently, without a wall where there should be one. But if I were trapped here. If this was all I had...well...But that's not the case. I have this sense of the tomorrow just out of reach. As long as I have that. As long as I have that.

And now, an interlude for the ridiculous

2005-03-02T11:37:00.000-06:00

gnomeyness

naughty llamas
cheeeeeezie emotional display
clown incapable of camouflage

The effects if this...

2005-03-02T11:23:00.000-06:00

are numerous, far-reaching, viral.
i have found a fundamental flaw in my personal philosophy. i have been educated in this anger of mine, and i have found myself truly ignorant.
she said "it's because i don't want to hurt these people" and the reality of her selflessness was made evident.
i boil like a red sea, i beat against their personalities and rail against the night of this place. i hurt myself and i hurt them. and all because me in misery alone is the most terrifying thing. all because i am selfish and lonely, hateful and afraid.
and i know how to hurt. my weapon is precise and sharpened, and in my retaliatory violence, i forget that i take more than an eye in payment for my blindness.
so enough.
enough of this. i am capable of learning from this. i am capable of the necessary and basic change to my foundation. my edifice will have to hang by strings for the work to be done. but at least at the end of this horrendous ten months, i'll be able to say i grew. maybe this is what this year is for.
that, of course, and the valuable anti-drinking games lesson learned earlier.

Today would be the Leap Day. Instead it is UnLeap Day.

2005-03-01T03:04:00.000-06:00

there is no air here. but that does not change how far i must run.
there is no air here. each of us lingers in each room after we have left. our own special smell, our own remaindered identity. like the boxes outside bookstores and how they smell after the rain.

when i land there, i will not place a flag from my nation upon this silver soil. instead i will take a flag of there and pierce my hand with its pole. i will claim myself as property of it. i wish though, that i knew what colours the flag of that mystery nation of my homecoming has, so that i could properly coordinate my shabby belongings.

i do not want to be here. it is...all i can say is my time is running out. when i am here, it is like man on the moon. i can walk about, but not the way i was meant to. i must wear only one colour, and i must soil myself again and again, as there is no other option. and because i cannot breathe here, i must carry with me artificial air. and there is only so much i can carry. so i take short little breaths and try to hold on without it for as long as possible. it is the height of discomfort. in a moment, i will not even have any artificial air. and i will die. i will die.

i know this is not who i am...

fun is not oblivion. interesting is not gossip and lies. freedom is not money. food is not fries. friendship's not laughing at another who's crying, love is not fighting and hope is not wishing.

this is how i know who i am.

but in favour of safety, i deny it all. i am stagnating. it is like i have less blood in my body. like somehow forty percent of it just flowed away one night, stepping softly so as not to leave a mark. like these fucking wounds, these tiny numerous wounds, numerous as the seconds on the clock. and the tiny tears of these wounds are immediately swallowed by the thirsty thoughtless air. no evidence. no tangible evidence. if i had that, they'd let me go. but for now i am a prisoner. my crime is fatigue.

this is how i know who i am. but that does not change how far i must run.

Poisoned Apple

2005-02-28T22:35:00.000-06:00

my closet is full of fruit. apples and oranges both ripe and rotting. evidence that reality screams to us little messages disguised.
i feel a sort of strangulation as i run out of things, words, trifles. and at this moment all i can think is that i remain a voyeur in my own lifestyle. i remain the third party, distantly tending to her own wound pretending it does not belong to her.
what is this cursed faith, this heavenly damnation i find myself held suspended within? this is not the life i had planned for myself. i am so simple in my desires, why are they held so far from me? perhaps that is what hurts the most. how many complex and tragic souls find each other today, yesterday, tomorrow? how many todays yesterdays tomorrows will see me simply alone and simply not?
i am held in a poisoned middle ground, and it is exactly that which i had so earnestly fled.

starve me or feed me. do not wet my tongue and leave me, cruel goddess, cruel woman, cruel saint!

Dreams of late...

2005-02-14T16:48:00.000-06:00

i had a dream that i was living in a disorganized little house with a girl who had multiple personalities. all we ate was corn flakes and ice cream sandwiches. i worked at a bookstore with ridiculously tall bookshelves and those slidey ladders. i had a girlfriend with purple hair and a tongue piercing and we fought all the time. my bed was suspended from the roof of my room by thousands of strings and i had to jump on a trampoline to get into it. very detailed without any apparent logic or meaning.

i had a dream of a tree in winter. it was too cold for the lifes in the limbs, and so the little green lifes packed up their little green things and headed into the ground. there, they had little green parties and played cards. when the gale winds shook their summer homes, the little green lifes comforted each other and the tree itself curled its big roots around the lifes to tell them it would be okay in the spring. this is fall and winter. this is what i love to watch. this is why i am canadian.

i had a dream of a long walk and the wind was so cold. so cold. all i could think of was the cold. how it bit down and held onto me. how it was so stubborn and so straightforward. i saw the black branches and of leonard cohen's words "raving like absalom between sky and water." i thought of monet in the summer and how blindness was clarity. i thought of me in the winter, how nudity is clarity, how there is no more to things than the sum of themselves minus all that decorates.

i had a dream of the innocence of snow and the anger of ice and the reaching aching quality of those reaching branches.

i had a dream of diving into a pool of the coldest water. it was so cold and blueblueblue and it stung my eyes but i kept them open, and it choked my nose but i for the first time i felt like breathing. so often i don't. so often it seems poisonous, this air. i had a dream of this shocking plunge and i woke aching for it again and again and again.

i had a dream that i was in a black and white jungle. and it just wasn't beautiful. this is the thing. some simplicity is beauty - canada in winter, the shapes of stones and the contours of hips and lips, the crackle of fire. but if you try to simplify that which is beautiful in complexity - jungles of green and gold and red and brown and bold bold brightness, the thousand lines of eyelashes and the patterns of finger tips - they become a muddled ugliness. this is suburbia. this is the photocopied version of your self. this is cheap food and fast food. this is pornography. because there is no black and white. there is ebony and alabaster, or there is colour beyond measure.

there is no black and white.

I HATE THURSDAYS

2005-02-10T15:51:00.000-06:00

this is hellish i tell you. class from dawn to dusk, literally. well, it would be so were i to endorse such madness through attendance, but i am of a much stronger moral fibre than others. still, it's ri-frickin'-diculous. and now, a small silly little poem:

these in between times
and their transient houses
of belongings unbelonging.
these moments uncaptured
stray madly from place to place
as if some force of fire
is beneath them.
if i could just...
but if i could
they wouldn't
if i could just...
and then they've gone
winking in a silly way
above all silly little things.
these in between times
know something
MORE.
if i could just...
but then they wouldn't.
oh if i could just...

The Thing Itself

2005-02-07T15:30:00.000-06:00

ah, but you are the thing itself,

a painting,

a searing image.

had i not placed you

in such a category,

i would've long since strangled myself

over the agonizing distance

between our surfaces.

and i've wanted!

oh i've wanted...

but at least this way

all i've wanted was a moment

and a paintbrush,

instead of a lifetime

and your heart.

A Little Experiment With Brevity

2005-02-07T12:17:00.000-06:00

i gave myself three lines to get something across...but now, because i know what i wanted to get across, it seems obvious. i shall have to mark myself at some later date, when significance has slipped away a bit.

an interesting development

this heartbeat here

i wonder if it is my own?

why false brickwork?

if, as children, we had not seen it

would we need it now?

he is wearing too many colours

redbluegreenbrown

in such modern art precision

these flaws are numerous

and exhausting

but ignorance has never been bliss

anyone who can turn

a black shirt into a sex symbol

has my utmost attention

the toes of her shoes

contrast too much

with the tips of her breasts

she's checking him out

does he appreciate

her silver eyes?

the fucker

he's got girlier hands

than me

i wish we had a uniform

or giant cartoon arrows

in this cloud of normalcy

i told myself

"i'll be responsible"

but i ignored me

she might be

but would i be

the one to see?

they put the lightbulbs

in little cages here.

what was their crime?

their pens agitate the air

do they think

or do they write?

i think coffee

is the antidote

to neat handwriting

our importance

as percieved by ourselves

is always less than

these pale blue lines

may be trying too hard

to tell me something

if i could capture this moment

it would somehow transform

and unbecome itself

everything is

in and of itself a reflection

of some other thing

i made a mark on myself the other day

i washed my hands and now i miss it

he marches to the beat

of his own drummer

literally.

An Essay On The Essence Of The Love I Have For Her

2005-02-06T05:10:00.000-06:00

now, this could help
as it seems the very essence...
the crux of the argument remains
of course
your eyes
[a stab wound would hurt less
than your absence]
but this
this seems the very essence
this small habitat i've found here
somewhere between
your chin and
your neck
o you kill me with your mercy
o you suffocate me with life
alas...
i must add another stanza
to this lovesongessay
because
when you woke this morning
in your breathless dawn purity
sweet hand i held
placed upon your goddess neck
a heart i gave you months ago
mmh to BE that pendant
nestled next to hearts heart home
and that
in simplicity
is why.

note to self: no more pot use. it makes simple things complex. but then, living does that too. all i wanted to say was...i love her still and the memory of that time hurts every time i breathe. i think it's the similar weather. twas this time of year when last we were. the smell in the air is reminiscent and it burns. anyway...

two poems

2005-02-03T01:30:00.000-06:00

let's just say, poli sci was particularly redundant, and this girl in front of me was particularly pretty:

this inability
is agony.
i remember even the tone
of your sigh.
real or imagined
i hear
the melody of your eyelashes
and i would hurt myself
to forget it.
never having known more
than the surface of you
my soul stays afraid of the dark.
see?
there is a painful silliness
a lack of wisdom
in this construct
of time.
it is dividing moments
[breaking hearts]
in order to measure them.
it is asking for the equation for wind.*

*yeah yeah...i still like that phrase, so what? jewel used the phrase "fragile flame" four times on her spirit cd.
that poem is totally about unrequited love, of which i've had MORE than my fill. and even tho i know the stupid pain i'm putting myself through, it keeps happening, like i'm meant to be in misery.
anyways, this one worked...mwa ha ha. may not be so unrequited in my affections any more.

oooh pretty girl

do you know what you do?

i can see you in the morning

tallying up the hearts you'll break

if you wear that shirt*

i can see you in the evening

placing all the parts of hearts

in a shoebox in your closet

tell me if mine stands out in any way**

for i swear i bled twice

the normal amount

*(or...tallying up projected stolen glances / at your form...or...tallying up the eyes you'll imprison / with your weapon of choice...i used the first cuz it tied in with the following lines...plus people like archetypical words)

**(or...did mine stand out in any way?...this depends on whether you're saying it to someone or writing it down)

so i don't even know her name. honestly i don't and it's embarassing right, because she knows my name and the sweet little goddess talks to me all the time and i'm always numbed by the simple fact that all i can say to her is "hey you"

which she seems to be totally fine with. and eventually her name'll come up. i mean, she's in two of my fucking t.a. groups, there's no option really.

oh, she is a pretty girl. mmm, and those sweet eyes. and her tiny little shoulders.

so in poli sci, right, she's sitting sort of diagonally in front of me, and i'm bored and she keeps doing this little hair shake that sends her shampoo careening through the air like little dandelion seeds. so i start flirting, but not that anybody ever gets my flirting. i'm just funny as hell until they think "what's this she's saying? what's this theory she's put right here on my brain?" and i never get to that point in this burg anyways, so let's just say i'm being funny.

and she's laughing fit to be tied, i tell ya. that prof tho...i gotta thank him one day. the NETWORKING he has allowed me to do with the ammunition he's provided me with...i swear ta god.

and then after the break, she (oh in that soft voice.) tells me "come sit with me, so you can write to me." which is basically saying "hey, you may be a loser in real life, but why don't you woo me with nonsense anyways"

so i do.

the prof actually stopped talking and looked right at her for like ten whole seconds, she was laughing so hard. and even that barely killed the giggles.

i felt kinda guilty...just cuz she was on her own, and it's not high school, but i don't wanna get her in trouble right?

so yeah, then we turn to a serious note...something about the famine sparked a more sombre discussion. and then there's kind of a pause in our discussion so i start writing little nonsensical things. little odes and poems. and then i write that pretty girl poem. thinking of her yes, but not thinking of her in a "oh she's actually kinda reading over my shoulder" kinda way.

so she reads it....and she BLUSHES, which, given her skin tone (mm, damn good lindt chocolate, i tell you, almost red-caramel...) i didn't actually think was possible. and then i start blushing like hell, and then i slam my binder closed and mutter apologies and am basically clumsy and stupid. and then she puts her hand on mine and says "no. it's totally fine. TOTALLY. thank you."

and i know it probably means she's indulging me and that she's probably just really secure in her heterosexuality (tho...my gaydar says no. short nails and a wandering eye indicate otherwise)

so whatever. whatever happens. anyways, it's a pleasant thing. and i kind of like that poem. so there you go.

Bus Thoughts - evidence of insanity

2005-01-19T15:57:00.000-06:00

On The Way There...
the sky today has four cities. two of them are by the sun, one above and one below. little cloud alpacas carry items for trade from these two cities to the south. the city to the south is smaller than the suncities. it is a city of short buildings and wide empty places. and to the north, the city there, it dresses itself in silver and takes itself too seriously. perhaps because it must define itself in opposition to the peach south.the girl in front of me is laughing to herself. i am trying to discover the meaning behind her mirth, but attempted identification would be too conspicuous. however, her lack of any sort of shame is admirable. in the end, though, it is evident that she spends too much time on her hair.the trees and plants are all deep gashes in the otherwise simple landscape. they run up and down like stitches, quilting sky to earth. the only thing complicated about this land in winter is the stark and unavoidable knowledge that white has one million colours in it.even this black and white clarity is embedded in some intrinsic complexity.look at that icemoat! how do they escape?i have felt this funny need to disappear of late. it is by no means a convenient or logical requirement on my part, as the timing is ugly. however, i have decided on servicing the essential insanities this month. they have long been ignored and i think maybe that is why i am dying in this.the highway for me represents one of the largest dichotomies in mself - on the one hand: endless freedom, change, evolution and the sweet gentility of constant speed. on the other hand: waste, pollution and a sort of classy imperialism that measures and weighs what is left of the untamed.

On The Way Back...
one day, i'll travel these lines as if they are my own. i have images of it as if it has already happened. [it is a two hour trip but it seems that most have settled into it as it were decades. they have made little nests out of their transient belongings that have a sort of muted permanence.]houses seem lonely here, and the sad truth of their half-assed purpose is displayed with clarity. those wasted years. that time spent worrying about meaningless things. that time spent killing moments in exchange for meaningless technology. even if someone had told me, my behaviour would not have changed. it's as if the entire human race is destined to desire an encore to those years. "if i knew then what i know now..." but one day, i'll travel these deep wounds on the landscape as if they are the scars of a lover, matching my own. as if the earth and i have suffered the same torture. because we have, i believe. and so the earth and me, we own each other, in some bizarre, pseudopsychic way. and i think, on that one day, all the wasted years will fall away. i will recognize the world again. i will recognize myself again. and the lines of these old wounds will seem a friendly image. they'll be mine, but i'll feel no painful ownership. like the true true trust of make-believe love that sets each lover free. of course, silly me, that trust only exists in one, never the other and ends up destroying the one. twice now, for fuck's sake. at this point i blame myself. it is either empathy or dumb confidence that brings me to trust time after time. either way, i wish it gone. even masochists instinctively push away what hurts them. except for me. oh except for me. i tend, instead, to fall in love with it, so that it leaving me hurts as much as the thing itself. women. for fuck's sake, women. and drugs and alcohol and politics and war. these things KILL me. they will kill me. i'll die of one or all of them, i know. something must be done.

Afterwards...
philosophycurse

this whole wide world is more than i'm ready for.
maybe i'm meant to die soon, at the agonizing beginning? i feel too young to speak, too old to try for life again. too tired to lift myself, too fearful to look about me. i feel at the end.

what is most agonizing about all this is the stupidity of it. there is no cause o this. i have no reason to be so philosophizing on death. i have no vector of sadness to explain this vacuum of joy.

and this misery is not boredome, for there is too much to see, too much to know.

it's as if some part of me knows more than the rest of me. for if it was the knowledge of my inevitable inability to know the world, that would somewhate explain this unidentified ache.

in some ways, i wish i were dying of some terminal disease. it would be some excuse for my fated ignorance.

but but...no one knows it all. why does this not torture the rest of the world? no. there is something i know without knowing that is hurting me so.

Light Freezing Drizzle

2005-01-12T15:33:00.000-06:00

that is the ugliest thing i've ever heard.

These are The Questions

2005-01-12T15:11:00.000-06:00

I'm sick of these shallow internet questions. Here are the real questions:

God? Yes, No or Many?
If someone told you "this is beauty" and they were wrong, would you correct them?
You are living in an apartment building. The people above you are always having parties...but one night the screaming is not joyous. Do you rollover, call the police or go upstairs and knock on the door?
Do you overuse the word "love"?
Do you overuse the word "hate"?
When you think about it, is there any death that does not touch you somewhere?
Do you run the tap while using the washroom?
When drunk, are you joyfull and friendly, angry and accusatory or horny and sexual?
When high, what do you feel for the world?
When you look at beauty, are you jealous or gratious?
Is anything in your room right now ugly? What is it?
Do you like dark sheets or light sheets on your bed?
Who would rescue you if you were drowing? Caught in a burning building? Lonely?
Do you feel uncomfortable wearing clothes that do not suite you and why or why not?
If I gave you an orange helium balloon and told you that you'd understand, would you?
What is agony? Is agony ugly?
Define sex.
Name a formative book or movie from your childhood, that you find yourself referencing more and more as you age.
New music, old music or both?
Why did you fill this out? Why did you read it over and NOT fill it out?

By Nefarious Cherrious on this date.

On The Under-Understood Nature Of The Human Form

2005-01-12T13:38:00.000-06:00

have you ever blinked and been blinded by the madcap ridiculousness of our own human form? honestly, just observe the creatures about you one day. where is the evolution? where is that which has become for the sake of survival? where is that which is useless, obtuse and reckless about our mere shape? there are so many things about being human that seem to be the result some drugged spaceman-engineer-god taking chances on aesthetic design. the length of our legs, the bizarre height of our heads from the hard ground, our feeble skin and weak nose and eyes, our long long fingers with no claws, our crooked stubby teeth, our sticky-out bits... we are ridiculous.

and yet some inescapable logic is there, fizzing condescendingly out of reach of our manufactured logic. it's as if that same spaceman-engineer-god is saying, "well i knew YOU wouldn't understand. but it's not like i'm wrong just because you're dumb."

2005-01-12T13:28:00.000-06:00

angelina jolie is the goddess of sex, the only universal sex symbol, the one person everyone with eyes can agree on. hell, she's even got a sexy voice. BLIND people would find her sexy. at the same time, she reminds me of the bliss of vision.

no. there is nothing in this world more painfully seductive. she makes the straightest girl question herself. she makes the gayest man consider the impossible. everyone understands.

and this gives me hope. shallow though this agreement is, there is a standard. there is something we all have in common. and though that thing we have in common may just be about her undiluted sexuality and intensity, it is still a leaping off point for one million other agreements. like that breakfast at tiffany's song.

hey, it's a place to start. and until we work out these differences, at least we have something intensely attractive to view while we wait for some alien absolution.

And now for a Rambling, brought to you by Pillsbury Toaster Strudles

2005-01-07T11:54:00.000-06:00

I love them, i tell you. A little less than I love making them. You see, they come with these little tubes of icing which you apply yourself. And the heat of the strudle itself makes the icing go all lovely and melty. So you can create little illustrations and watch them stretch meltingly around the surface of the strudle as you eat it. It's marvelous.
In other news, my feet are cold and I have a racially balanced collection of images of women around my desk. How the hell did that happen?

this house - a reminiscent recording

2005-01-07T11:49:00.000-06:00

this house
with its macaroni and cheese smell
my brother's loud music
beat
beat
beating on my ears
my mother complains
the dishes pile up
and up
and then fall down
light from the window over the sink
cuts through the kitchen in
tangible
textured rays
my father's face over the newspaper
in shadow
he always looks so angry with the
times new roman
font
but why not?
it is such an ugly beautiful day
and faith in goodness
has fallen
smashing with the dishes
to the floor
which is
too ugly to observe
too sensible to replace
and my little brother's poet heart
beat
beat
beats against the dinner table every night
so full of
pent up
poetic
bullshit that it tends
to explode on us
and this house
with its macaroni and cheese smell

Hi Mum

2005-01-06T13:10:00.000-06:00

Apparently she's reading this now.

Egad.

This Is Noise

2005-01-01T18:45:00.000-06:00

This is. This house and this world.
I am finding myself increasingly distracted by the level of noise in this community.
But then, that's the whole idea, isn't it?
It's all a distraction. Human beings were built for worry. Our minds constructed to worry away at problems, to create new links between already installed ideas, and to seek out more ideas in the world around us. We were MADE to problem-solve.
But those holding money and mayhem in their back pockets are rather fond of our mediocrity.
"Nero wished a single neck for his enemies" (for more on this, see the poetry of Jim Morrison, during his angry pre-death years. For a superstar, he's pretty uber anti-media) and so do these maverick men of much too much. Television, you see, and magazines. And pop music and cotton candy and mainstream movies with chocolate coated ideals and artificial forward movement and lies and lies and lies. And this is all all all in our community of brains. And we are all all all as numb as can possibly be.
And so we worry over fake problems like mortgages and car financing and who's sleeping with who on the O.C. and what the magazine tells us to wear and what our body shape is and why he didn't call and the deep psychological reasons behind it all...
IT'S ALL TRIPE. BOLLOCKS. FUCKWITTAGE.
It is nothing worth our precious time and worrying energy.
Our minds have the capacity for great things. All minds are different, and all of our experiences SHOULD provide for one million different solutions for whatever problem we put our mind to. Why are we allowing our own individual brilliance to be homogenized? And if we hold onto our individuality, why is there no system of community in which all of our differences can be put to good use?
I don't understand all this wasted time, that's all.
Happy 2005. Turn the volume down and think for yourself for all of our sakes.

I am in limbo

2004-12-28T10:03:00.000-06:00

and not the fun limbo performed at cheesy las vegas parties. the ugly kind reeking of doubt, insecurity and homelessness.
i don't live in ottawa. it is not my home. it is a lovely city and i am staying in the worst of all possible camps/motels while attending some sort of pseudo-educational cult/winter camp. but it is not my home.
kingston, the city, still feels like home. i know the streets and i know who lives where and why. i know what the sleepless goat is cooking and i know the smell of the army surplus store and the look of the waterfront. but it is not my home. these feelings of familiarity are false.
my room is a storage facility for the remaindered portions of my family's divided lifestyle. it smells of starch because they iron their clothes in there. it smells of sweat because they have placed an obtuse machine upon which to sweat in there.
and they're using a different laundry detergent, so everyone smells different. and they have maids now, so all the toilet paper has little gold stickers on it like it's some sort of transient hotel which falls in and out of disrepair, depending on the time between the moment and the last cleaning visit.
i don't know where to put the recycling anymore.

I borrowed Lily's tape

2004-12-20T20:07:00.000-06:00

i functioned well until
high both employ
and employ organiz...
belong to the union of agendas and states
socially unacceptable foibles and feebly expensive determin...

or ?

never toward unitary (abolish

"sort-of" w/in larger nation

that seeks.
and agree...

treat for agree or oblige among sovereign mod rights and freedoms

if you would just tell me how to forget

2004-12-20T09:51:00.000-06:00

here is a little shell

it is a present for the girl who has eaten the insides.

i have wrapped it miserably glorious

in a bow of blood

a red bow of my bright red blood

because she has named herself my friend.

here is a little shell

if you hold it close you will not hear the ocean.

you will hear the sound of sobbing

of a little girl sobbing

of a silly girl sobbing

because she has read the wrong fairytale.

i can write a million love poems when i'm all alone

2004-12-19T21:54:00.000-06:00

i hate this

equation for wind

2004-12-19T21:48:00.000-06:00

she said do you know the equation for wind

i said well wouldn't that be the end

when you can measure and weigh

this beautiful day

you know there's no soul in the land

no, there's no soul to be had

it's got something to do

she wrote in a note

with the texture of grass

and the volume of hope

i said maybe baby maybe

it's just plain crazy

cuz you know there's no logic to love

now never and not to this love

no not at all to this love

she added it all up

in her little black book

i said so

gonna let me take a look

she said nono it's mine i wanna own it wanna hold it

wanna put it in writing and sign the bottom of some official-looking papers saying no one else can touch it

so don't touch

mm hmmMMmm baby don't touch

i said maybe baby maybe

it's just plain crazy

cuz you know there's no logic to love

most definitely not to this love

no not at all to this love

no never...never to this love.

too too pretty

2004-12-19T21:44:00.000-06:00

mm-mm
i give you a glance to give you a hand
out in this sunlight forbidden land
all these cogs in my mind
leave only leaves to find
this walking step is hiding
what i think might be some meaning
kept shining itself patiently out of reach of plenticity

mm-mm
no no no i tell you no no no
this angersa gotta go go go
you killed my song
cuz this world did you wrong
cuz what it was i liked to sing
was too too pretty a pretty thing

uh uh
no i got nothing in this pocket of crime
nothing save this pocket of mine
saving the holes because they my wounds
saving all my knives because they aren't spoons
like smoking hot fire just to stay cool
drinking green death just to save the fool
holding hands when you letting go
preaching hate cuz you love us so

mm-mm
there's nothing here for a no one
gotta be somebody if you want some fun
carry lotta dollars just to get some sense
of what it might be like just to have some friends
that's what you said
that evening before i wound up dead

ooh ooh
i said no no no i tell you no nooo
this angersa gotta gogogo
you killed my song
cuz this world did you wrong
cuz what i liked to sing
was too too pretty a pretty thing
too too pretty
too too pretty too tooooo pretty

On The Merciless Murder Of Time And All It's Uses

2004-12-19T21:01:00.000-06:00

prior to this, i have spoken on the nature of killing time. it has become a hobby of mine.

miserably, i am held captive in this rotting residence for another four days. my last exam on the 22nd, poli sci, looms just out of reach of concern. and so the past three days have been spent in futile and meaningless bliss.
i have created:

four (4) playlists that move flowingly from genre to genre and each have a deep and meaningful overarching theme and metaphor.
one (1) cd of aforementioned playlists designed with a catchy title, artistic cover design and themed to suit my mother's taste - for xmas.
one (1) bong built out of an empty aunt jemima bottle, which works DAMN well. (kudos to lisa and roomies for the use of their washroom for hotboxing)...this was after creating...
one (1) dead hunny bear in an attempt to make a billybeebong. *sigh* next time, next time.
several (several...their individual forms are hard to define)large piles of mess, organized sporadically about my room
eighteen (18) different possible schedules for each of the days in which nothing was accomplished.
five (5) "action plans" for next semester, to prevent this sort of behavior, AND
two (2) sets of ramblings written while under the influence.
four (4) cheesy poems, two of which i am cocky enough to publish right after this bugger.

in relation to #8, the first rambling was on the nature of "her theyes" in which i cleverly (ya, no, not at all) combined eyes and thighs to write a cheesy and rather raunchy poem about an imaginary girl.

GOD, i'm lonely/pathetic.

the second rambling was dedicated entirely to trying to escape the light glaring off the page i was writing on...by writing in the shadow of my hand, which, to my suprise at the time...kept moving.

*sigh*

drinkers would say they'll never drink again upon viewing such evidence of their inebriation. but smokers accept defeat. and instead, they publish their insanity in whatever medium is available for their use.

vis to wit.

along with time, murdering braincells comes in a close second on my list of past times.

the thing is. (and there is a period there because it is meant to be said as an entire statement, built of surity and solidarity, filled with Truth. so there. read on, macduff.) i would really like to go home right now. i would really like to justify my uselessness by being amongst my family members, all indignant and powerless in their self-righteous self-definition. i would like an explanation of why i feel so bloody important.

because. (see above) in these moments of inactivity, these aching seconds passing like highway cars with unreadable liscence plates, i feel an inescapable and immeasurable guilt. almost catholic guilt...like something defined and placed upon one from above. but being an athiest, i find this hard to locate within myself. because, obviously, anything defined as above is actually our own internal heirarchical design, fabricated out of our own socially instilled insecurities. and i was not raised to fear these imaginary gods.

however. i was raised to save the world. and maybe i myself was partially responsible for this self image...

but right now, i would like to be happy and ignorant. i know this is too much to wish for with this impassioned awareness that i love and hate with equality, but i would still like it very much please.

the above is an example of my insanity. i have taken to prayer. WHO THE HELL PRAYS?????? i don't even think fundamentalists PRAY... they chant and utter and repeat. they allow their tongues to learn the dance of words...they don't PRAY expecting response, expecting some friendly ice cream truck full of promises and petty funding to pull up in front of their bent knees and arched necks.

but i do.

because

INSANE.

now honestly, something must be done. that's all there is to it.

so i leave you now. to drink cheap beer. alone. well no. in residence, one is never alone in aimless misery. in fact, i join a crowd.

tata for now, peaceout...and all that shite.

0238 on a thursday night

2004-12-16T17:33:00.000-06:00

this was written under the influence of stress. enjoy:

i am writing as a prisoner.

i am a servant and a feeble aimless soul.

what i would really like is to escape.

i think the best way to do this would be to grow some wings.

they would not need to be particularly glamorous.

i would like them in some shade of white or blue, so as not to clash with this giant sky.

i would really like it if there was some way i could take my guitar.

i think that it is my only friend.

because friends are meant to understand...or to attempt.

friends are meant to appreciate.

so i think that my guitar is my only friend.

i have yet to discover my course.

i am not so sure there is to be one.

you see, i like leaving things.

i have just found this peice of self-identification recently, while cleaning up my own daily chaos.

but one day, what i would really like is to stop leaving.

i would find some sort of love.

i would own some sort of home.

i would hold some sort of truth that would give me something to sigh about as i fall, content, into sleep.

i knew this once, so i know what i am looking for.

but i left it.

so i am now looking for a second chance.

and now that i have made this request, i find myself ice and fear all at once. i find myself all-one in this commune-ity. this makes sense if you read it right, but i still find it hurts this little bit of me. this litle bit is located somewhere between my eyes and then directly down to the middle of my diaphragm in an s-ing shape. and the hurt flies along this little highway in me at fast paces as i blink through each agonizing moment.

but enough of this. i am going to tell you a story now, one that moves in an upforward sort of direction. here:

once upon a frozen land there lived a princess who had not a favorite colour. this seemed to the people of the land to be a great atrocity. how could the princess understand herself? how could she understand what beauty was without some rules behind it all? so the people of the land grew divided. they all wanted the princess to like their favorite colour best. they divided themselves into reds and blues and greens and yellows and oranges and purples. the princess held her tongue and loved them all. she gave them all birthday cards with their favorite colours on them. she gave them all beautiful things of every colour, so that every person would see beauty sometimes anyway. but the people kept dividing. there became more groups - dark blue and light blue and navy and turquoise and baby blue and sky blue and robin's egg and perriwinkle and one million shades of difference. with every division came new pride. because pink wasn't even part of RED it was just PINK, they lost where they'd started. the princess would spend hours a day in her indescribably coloured castle, mixing paints for the beautiful things and the birthday cards. the princess did not sleep, answering to all the different groups and states and organizations and clubs and factions and sects and ideologies and parties and communities and races and nations and sexualities and shoe brands. still, the people kept dividing into smaller and smaller segments of themselves. and as they did, they saw less and less beauty. they saw ugliness in all that was not who they were.
and one day in this onceuponatime land, the princess died. and the people of the world looked to each other and saw that there were as many colours as there were people. fierce in their difference, the people of the world sufferred alone for a few days. they agonized over their identity and sovereignty as single powerless individuals. they drafted resolutions, declared war, signed peace treaties, sang in tones of immeasurable sadness their own lonely national anthems. next, they all simultaneously came upon a sort of wisdom they had not seen before. all of a sudden, they understood. there are as many colours as there are people, as many religions, as many races, as many sexualities, as many shoe brands. though the people still held pride to their hearts, it was not a division any longer. all of a sudden, everything was beautiful. they could finally appreciate all the princesss had created.
because when it comes right down to it, the princess's favourite colour was life. the only colour is life. so live.

2004-12-15T12:24:00.000-06:00

Good day.

Allow me to introduce my cartoon incarnations, as myself and as NefariousCherrious.

I'm the one on the left. If you know me, this is sadly accurate. The one on the right exists in theory only. She looks a bit taller and sexier in this fantasy-land - like Rosie the Riveter in angrier military gear and red red lipstick.

I'm hoping to use both of these characters in a sort of comic strip-type arrangement. It might happen, it might not.

2004-12-07T15:04:00.000-06:00

life as a series of disappointments

2004-11-06T10:37:00.000-06:00

when you're small you just believe in fairness. you start with the notion of a just world. then the tv tells you there is a cheap plastic toy that will make you a superhero so you get it and it crumbles in your hands. and the world is such a pretty place but when you step outside, eeryone tells you to be scared. and then you go to school and everybody tells you to meet friends, but everyone you meet isn't very friendly. and then a kid takes your toy away so you hit em and you get in trouble. and it's not fair it's not fair... yeah well life's not fair, kid, so get over it. but... didn't we all start off fair? weren't we all the same mewling infant? weren't we all equally weak and strong in the most basic sense of our humanity? were we not all educated methodically in injustice? and then your mummy tells you she loves daddy and daddy loves her, then why are they always fighting? is fighting love? and sharing is caring, but no one shares with that homeless guy up the street. and don't talk to strangers...but isn't everyone strange before you know em? and they tell you knowledge is power, but the more questions you ask, the more they tell you to shut up. respect differences and treat people equally, but women earn less, racism abounds and you hide who it is you love. reach for the stars but know your place. dream big but get real. be free but pay for water. be yourself but dress like britney. love is blind...but not that blind.

...life is a series of disappointments.

ode to the death of a mad dog

2004-10-18T15:41:00.000-05:00

the wind whistled a goodbye tune

and the sun overhead turned the sky maroon

and a thousand tulips donated dew drops as tears

and all the fat white men affirmed their fears

the day the mad dog died
she had lived on the street far away from me

i knew her well however, she was easy to see

she stood real tall on the corner of a street

and waved her hopes wildly at all the hopeless feet

civilization! bullshit

this simply can't be it

the day a mad dog dies for me

is the day i sell my soul for free

the street can't be that old

you men can't be that cold

time can't grumble to a halt

between the lanes and soaked in salt

the day a mad dog dies for me

is the day i sell my soul for free

her eyes were soft and brown like the insides of a heart

the day she died a baby cried and simply fell apart

her angry ribs have made a cage to crash atop us all

the death of a lonely dog today will lead to our downfall
hollow hopes and nameless fears will dance along the sky

pigs and fish and businessmen will quickly learn to fly

her name never spoken will hang amidst a cloud

and ne'er again in the land of sin will children scream so loud

civilization! bullshit

this simply can't be it

the day a mad dog dies for me

is the day i sell my soul for free

the street can't be that old

you men can't be that cold

time can't grumble to a halt

between the lanes and soaked in salt

the day a mad dog dies for me

is the day i sell my soul for free

On My Lack Of Activity

2004-09-29T22:28:00.000-05:00

It seems I have no time to do the things that matter, as it takes too many hours out of the day merely trying to survive. Little is known of the cultures that first fought their way across the wild for this same reason. It seems my activities at this moment are only the steps TOWARDS history, never worthy of history itself. But then I am being self-indulgent to assume that I and today's society will ever be worthy of historic note.

I cannot see the life as I try so hard to live.

a thousand daily suicides

2004-09-22T15:08:00.000-05:00

Gabriel Evans has a voice like a scratchy jazz record. She started smoking at twelve because her mommy already did, and Gabriel has always wanted to be in charge of herself. When she turned fifteen, she started calling herself Riel, like Louis Riel. She was never very forgiving if you happened to mess it up. She listens to sexy smoky jazz because it sounds like her inner monologue. Why else does anyone listen to anything?
Riel just got her G2 in September. Every day after school we meet in the parking lot and drive into the country, into nothingness. Like some sort of daily suicide, ending the day with one endless moment in her mom's boyfriend's beige Volvo.
She's not so much bisexual as curious. She is known to have sex with someone simply because they hold themselves in originality. Her body is a chem. lab, she tells me over Summit Williams, a no-name jazz singer from the twenties, whom she has just discovered. I have known her all her life and so when I look at her, it is always with a mixture of understanding and anger. Because she has known me all her life too, and I will never appear original to her. (But I am.)

In Grade Two, all the good little boys and girls play marriage and house. And everyone knows that boys marry girls and girls marry boys. Even I knew it in some tiny part of me. My mother’s country music made me cringe whenever I saw Gabriel coming towards me across the schoolyard. I was in French immersion, so we weren’t in the same class. It has always been my sneaking suspicion that this was why I was in French immersion in the first place. But we stayed friends, mostly out of pure bull-headedness. We would sit together on the top of the playground and beat up any of the little boys who came to propose to us.
“Gabby?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re friends forever, right? No matter what?”
“A ‘course, fart face…” By a child’s standard, there was an awkward pause. “Come on, let’s go chase the seagulls!” I had my assurance, and I never again doubted her.

Her hair is dirty blonde, but it manages to be political about it. Like well-known whores wearing white to their wedding, Riel's hair is an exclamation point on the end of her self-sentence. She had dreadlocks last year. And over the summer she had it in cornrows. And last month, she had it in hundreds of little spikes held in place by brace’s elastics. Today, it is not yet long enough for a ponytail or a bun, so it just falls around her silver eyes and sarcastic eyebrows in lazy ringlets that shimmer despite her best efforts. She isn't smoking yet, but we've only been driving ten minutes. She is telling me the story of her drunken boyfriend. She doesn't notice my cringe.
"I don't know what he was thinking, if he was at all, cuz we were at a party and he was groping at me in front of everyone. And I kept telling him to stop but I guess he couldn't hear over the music or something." She pauses to clear her throat. She doesn't look at me. She knows me too well. She wouldn't tell me this stuff if she had the choice. "So anyway, I get up to go, cuz it's grossing the shit outta me, and he follows me, and he's all sweaty and slurred and it's almost as if someone's drawn him with crayon the way he's moving." (These moments of poetry dance in front of me and I want to hold her so that she knows what I feel) " So anyway, I'm outside now, and he's got this look like 'oh, so you want it THAT way,' as if that's what I meant by coming outside." She takes a deep breath and lets it out with a shudder that she tries to hide afterwards by whistling along with the jazz for a second.

When Gabriel discovered herself in the Editorial section of the Toronto Star in Grade Eight, she locked the door to her room and wrote a goodbye note to me in purple Crayola marker. Then she walked calmly into the bathroom and cut three lines into her preteen wrists with a Swiss Army knife.
She was sleeping when I visited her in the hospital. Her mom was so small next to her bed, I thought she’d get lost on the tweed waiting-room chair. When I walked in, my mother wouldn’t let me go next to the bed.
“Look, she’s asleep. Let’s come back another time when she’s awake.” She spoke as if speaking to a toddler. I hated her then, so completely that it scared me. Gabriel’s mom looked up, a willow tree hit suddenly with the wind.
“Wait!” Her voice was grumbling like the coffee maker in the morning. “She wrote this for you.”
My mom ushered me out, and I clutched the note to my stomach all the way home, as if there was a bullet wound underneath it. When I got home, I locked myself in the upstairs bathroom and sat in the empty bathtub.
After I read her sad little note, I didn’t cry. In my family, we do not cry. It upsets the balance of our suburban home. I flushed the empty toilet and folded up the letter really small and put it in the bottom of my back pocket. It went through the wash and disappeared forever. I pretended that it didn’t happen, that the marks on her little wrists were a dog bite and that I had saved her from certain death by carrying her on my bike to the hospital.

"So he's all over me and it's so gross, you have no idea. But there's no one around so I kinda wait for a bit for him to calm down, but it's like he doesn't even notice that I'm pushing him away." (Why wasn't I there? Why wasn't I there to kick his ass? Why wasn't I there to save her? That's my bloody job.) "Anyway, I finally push him off and run for the car, and he's so plastered, he just sorta wavers there for a second and by the time he gets to the car, I've got all the doors locked." She clears her throat. Now she's going to laugh it off. I wait, and she doesn't. I'm held in Jell-O for a moment and I look over and she's looking right at me. The car is crawling.
Her eyes are like looking directly at lightning. They hurt in an indescribable place, and it's as if someone's thrown a birdcage down onto cement. What sucks is that she's waiting for me to say something. Time is a single snowflake crumbling from the indifferent sky.
" And that's why he's your ex now, right?" I don't mean to sound so cold. A twig snaps somewhere. It could be my imagination. I have always been uncomfortable with comforting people.
" Not yet, but for sure." She turns back to the road, cranks the music and clears her throat again. Inside my chest, my heart sighs at my head.

Riel and I are both socialists. We believe in reincarnation and we hate the church, the Man and the army. We drink organic coffee and smoke pot on the weekends. But we are alone in our tireless unity. And so, our disagreements are more intense than is normal.
Riel is not going to University. She tells everyone she’s taking a year off, to work. But I know her. She has no silly little dreams.
“Besides,” she declared over coffee one mid-afternoon; “University is all about forcing yourself into some box forever and ever, amen.” I knew she would say something like that. I also knew I’d have to say something back.
“No, you silly bitch. Life is boxes. You don’t have a fucking choice about boxes. University is about multi-coloured boxes and triangle boxes and CHOICE. Stop hiding your desire for ignorant bliss behind your elitist and meaningless self-knowledge.”
After I said it, I wanted to kiss her hard, the way they do in the movies. She wanted to leave. She swallowed her coffee as she stood up. The back pocket of her jeans had a hole right over the label, and I remember thinking how weird that was.
I walked to her house from the coffee shop and sat talking with her mother about Days of Our Lives. I had never watched it, but it was easy enough to guess. Four hours later, Riel stormed in, a shadow of herself in beer and smoke skulking after her. She looked at me with melancholic fear and sighed in this hollow wooden way that made my lungs feel small and tight.

Empathy can hurt pretty badly sometimes. Me, I'm from this upper middle-class family in a nice house with my two biological parents and my little sister, Sally, who listens to Avril Lavigne. I play acoustic guitar and I get good marks. I'm going to university because I have silly little dreams like every other decent human being. I have a part-time job at Tim Horton's, but it's not vital like Riel's. It's not for food and shelter. It's not so I can buy the gas I need to drive as far away from reality as possible. It's not for booze and pot so I can think as far away from reality as possible. So because it's not so bloody difficult for me, I feel guilty. Of course, that's never the only reason.
Riel has always been my rebellion. Outside of her, I've been everything my mommy wanted me to be, including straight, blonde, smart and skinny. I dress the part, too, with new shoes for every season and pastel colours and pop music and braces and Herbal Essences hair conditioner.
She's such a bitch, my rebellion. She tells me every day how wrong I am, how hollow and meaningless my hopes are, what a lie I live. I laugh at her or bite back or turn the other cheek, but I never leave. (Oh, how much easier this lie would be without her!)
Even she doesn't know. But if I ever tell anyone, I'll tell her first. I decide this to myself as heavy little snowflakes fall from the sky with intensity. The snow here is just starting in February, and the country around us is sepia and gray, tired-looking, asleep.

There was no snow on the first few days of Christmas break. On the twenty-third, at dawn, pebbles from my driveway snapped against my window.
“Come on! We’re going to find snow!”
I packed an extra pair of jeans and a toothbrush. Riel was wearing my favorite T-shirt, the one with the sarcastic looking musician holding her guitar like a weapon. I had loaned it to her a month earlier. (Oh well. It looks better on her.)
“Where are we going?” I asked casually as I threw my backpack in the back seat. She was playing Tori Amos, which isn’t technically jazz, but it’s damn good driving music.
“I told you, we’re going to find snow!” She sounded like a kid just then. And her eyes shined the way they used to, when the world was fresh to her. It made me want to cry, how much I missed that face.
But I snorted at her. “What, are we just gonna drive north?”
“Yep.”
Riel is morally against highways, which made going directly north more challenging. We kept getting onto roads that eventually curved southward and had to drive through forest dirt paths at twenty kilometers an hour until we found another potential route. We had no map, but Riel had a compass, and we just weaved our way through the blank brown slate of the Canadian Shield. Around two in the afternoon, my stomach growled. Riel laughed with her head thrown back.
“Don’t laugh, assface. My stomach makes a good point. Did you think of this before dragging me out here into nowhere?”
“In fact, I did. So there.” She pulled over, which seemed silly, since we hadn’t seen another car for five hours. From the trunk she pulled a massive picnic basket. It seemed odd that she would own a picnic basket, so I laughed as she heaved it into the front seat. Despite the lack of snow, it was freezing out.
“Where the hell did you find this behemoth?” I said with awe.
“My mom’s boyfriend’s sister got it for my birthday…I know. Not anyone’s perfect gift, but it’s come in handy now, right?” Her eyes were still glowing. (This is the perfect day.) Her mom’s boyfriend was one of those creative people who came from an impoverished family of lunatics. He treated Riel like a little sister more than anything.
Riel had packed every pre-packaged food item she could find in her house, so we sat in silence eating Hostess junk food and granola bars. We left the picnic basket in the back seat and headed onward.
“You know, my mom’s gonna be pissed if I’m not home for Christmas Eve.” Oh, the annual guilt-fest spent surrounded by manic grandparents and buzzed aunts and horny uncles and nauseating cousins and chewy fruitcake and a hundred uncomfortable silences. I would’ve given anything to miss it.
“Yeah well, you’d give anything to miss it.” There you go. Damn her.
“But not for the aftermath if I dared to try.”
“Mmm.” She looked like she was holding something back.
“What?”
“God, you can be such a worm! Who lives such a shitty life when they don’t have to? Fuck, I’m not afraid. Why the hell are you? You go on and on about the reasons … you spend all this time trying to compensate for your mom’s little image of you. Then you talk of rebellion like it means something to you? FUCK. What could they possibly do to you? Kick you out? Cut you out of the will? FUCK.”
(She’s right. She’s right. She’s right.) “You’re WRONG. God, you think you know me? You think you know what I feel? You who can’t even decide on her favorite colour? Fuck YOU, all right? Fuck you.”
(Some argument that was, stupid dyke.) There was a pause. What else was supposed to happen? What could she say to outright denial? What could she do?
She smiled at me. And I started to laugh. Damn her.
“Yeah well…you wish.” She said it like a friend, so I took it as such, and laughed so hard that it was the perfect excuse for the tears cutting through my cheeks. (Oh God.)
We drove on, talking about the minute differences in various jazz musicians. For four hours we drove with relative ease, having found a byway that headed pretty close to straight north. There were tall trees on either side, so if there was snow there, we couldn’t tell. Finally, the trees fell away. And ahead of us there was a field, so wide that the trees on its outskirts were blue with all the sky between us. And the field was white, perfectly undisturbed. So white our eyes hurt. And Riel pulled over and we watched the snow turn orange, then red, and then blue with the sun’s motion as it set.
“Perfect.” She whispered. I looked at her as if to say, good job, but before my eyes could say it, she was crying. Riel never cries. That’s not Riel. She gets mad and frantic and frustrated and dangerous, but never sad. Never quiet sobbing in the middle of nowhere. Never looking as small as her mom did by her bed in grade eight. Never. (Never.)
I leaned across the gap between us and held her awkwardly, and she had no bones to hold her up.
When I got home the next day, my mother was baking, almost done all that needed doing.
“Good.” She said without looking up. “You’re not too late. Go get changed. Uncle Sam and the boys’ll be here any minute, their train got in earlier than I thought it would. Your father’s picking them up. Go get changed.”
(She knows. I know she knows.)

"Snowflakes are prettier than stars, aren't they?" Riel says out of the silence, the crunch popping of the gravel under our wheels. She glances at me through endless eyelashes. Her lips are odd shaped, like someone drew a cartoon cupid-bow really fast. Her cigarette is unlit in her fingers. She is reaching for a blue lighter in the glove compartment.
"Riel?"
"What? Do you see my lighter anywhere?"
The lighter is by my left shoe. I hand it to her.
"Thanks." snap, click, snap, and she's smoking. She's always more talkative with something to dance between her fingers and her lips. (Just say it.)
"Riel."
"Whad'ya want, fart face?" She says with unmistakable warmth as she taps her cigarette out the window and glances at me again with those eyes. (Those eyes.)
"I love you.” There. That was it. Only took fourteen years. Only took her endless eyelashes and her accusations and her cigarette leaping back to her funny lips. Only took finding snow and a thousand daily suicides and smoky sexy jazz and three neat gashes in her white white wrist. Only took learning what love is and what hate isn't.
A pause without time now, and her scratchy breath. The end of the song came with a G7sus9 chord and a single drowsy tap on a snare drum.
Gabriel Evans has a voice like a scratchy jazz record. She started smoking at twelve because her mommy already did, and Gabriel has always wanted to be in charge of herself. "I love you, too."

Gospel

2004-09-16T13:40:00.000-05:00

your eyes send my heart chuckling madly away from my skin and poetry has kidnapped me, i'm lost without direction but this feeling of rejection warms a part of me that was born yesterday to the sound of swooping swallows and raging robins, so you've sent me happily out of time and space now i've fallen from this tree of life and live on your good grace where cold winds blow around my nose as you watch and giggle gleefully, while your mother in the other room tuts so distantly; she has always been on a different plane, and because of this you speak a different language than i do, however we have an understanding, you and i: a sexy whisper winding up my neck, like your tongue around my navel, sounds of hands softly scraping skin, rough and rolling forms of exhaustion and surrender... oh hold me like you aren't and love me like you hate me, be naked for me fully clothed and clean beneath my dirty hands for i know the way i like it and it's how i know you love it and you love the way you love it while the sweat on my stomach smashes all those high school dates, the time you faked it for your friend, the sacrifice to self you made, but despite this act of your salvage, no one can know but you know it'll show first thing tomorrow morning when you'll wake to find i'm in your mind, naked and delirious and you'll go to work blinded by a smirk and see me at lunch for a coffee and all around this coffee shop sit your friends who feel they know you and you challenged me to come here to see if you could take it but you can't and ben around the bend can see your smile from where he stands and news rolls round like rippling muscles of a well-tanned jogger and rumours become fact before fact can even comprehend its replacement so that you are known now and the girl you smiled at yesterday is hitting heavily on you today because we're not dating, we're just fucking, that makes you fine fresh meat and quiet little catalyst, me, sitting firmly next to thee, says not a word to calm the buzz, i've wanted this all along so that no one will hear my name or accuse me of this fall to fame and simply you will know at once the truth within this endless hum of girls in second cup and boys without much luck who are baffled because you told me three weeks ago that boys were your thing and now we know the truth and all the world shall sing that truth is beauty and on you, my god how it does shine as you let these rumours swell and grow and all this time you let it show. and the black lesbian goddess in the sky saw that it was good, and it was good.

Some Pretty Pictures

2004-09-01T10:51:00.000-05:00

This is a bit of a scene, I'd say

2004-08-31T12:54:00.000-05:00

Which Ani DiFranco Album Are You?

Brought to you by Tracie

And Beyond What I Remember

2004-08-27T16:23:00.000-05:00

and beyond what I remember this is all I have to keep

the smell of your hair in the morning

the taste of your lips late at night

the glint of your eyes in the sunset

the curve of your hip in the sunlight

and after all we have shared

all is left is a lock of hair

and beyond what I remember this is all I have to keep

we walked o’er the tallest mountains

we swam through the deepest seas

we kept our gods on our insides

we kept our fingers linked

and after all we have held

all is left is a dusty shelf

and beyond what I remember this is all I have to keep

...

She looks like rain

2004-08-27T15:46:00.000-05:00

she looks like the rain.
that aching anticipation of an oncoming storm
quivers behind her eyes.
and direct eye contact makes this fear contagious.
but it is a fear bourne of nameless longing,
a good sort of fear that motivates passion.
just as the earth reaches
for the first spare raindrops on this day,
so do your eyes reach for the storm in her.
she looks like rain and you need her.

you need her.
the thirst in you is quenched by her.
the love for her is deep within.
desperation is unending now.
you ache forever for her sin.

ah, but if you were blind, you'd avoid her.
if you knew the future you'd let her leave.

It has been a long morning

2004-08-24T11:49:00.000-05:00

The kind that starts at dawn. And not the sort of dawn you write about in poems, but the grumpy smoggy dawn of a dusty suburban basement bedroom. The blinds were drawn and my guitar looked pissed off at me.

The night before this rude awakening had been pleasant. A soft visit from a friend who had been missing in action prior to her reappearance. Her eyes were still lightening, and a good conversation was had into the dark night. My room still smelled of candles.

But we had parted in sadness. The lyrics to 'Hey that's no way to say goodbye' by Leonard Cohen had been topical and accurate. And so when I awoke much earlier than intended this morning, it was with a type of death on my mind. But she gave me her shirt. People, when you love them, become their own perfume.

My guitar was pissed off at me because I'd promised to play it last night, but a more beautiful shape came to visit. Vianne is a jealous lover.

And so it has been a long morning. It has been too much thought in a short period of time. And I can't escape the fact that the distance between this friend and I is irrevocable and irrepresibly painful at the moment. But I'm here and I smile at my co-workers. They always look so tired. What do they have to be so tired about?

Their mornings were not so long.

A Simple Question

2004-08-20T07:35:00.000-05:00

Why are you afraid?
I have done nothing worthy of fear. I have not harmed you or questioned who you are. I have not cornered you with my beliefs and imposed regulations upon your heartbeat.
Why are you afraid of me when all the reasons to be afraid fall upon my shoulders?
Why are you afraid?
Am I too strong for you? Too weak? Too quiet, too loud, too much for your daily sensibilities?
We have always been here. Just as you have, so have we. In love and war we have been present with as much humanity as you. You have stood beside us for your own causes, but turned us down for support of ours. And when you learn of our name, you quake.
Why are you all so bloody afraid?
WHAT CAN I DO TO YOU? I have no passion for revenge, no anger enough to fuel violence. I have no more strength than you. Were we to fight, it would be from equal footing. But I won't fight, so why are you so bent on building your armies against us? Just live, for god's sake. We shall not steal your children or burn your houses, as you have done unto us. We shall not rage against your barred windows and doors, as you have done unto us. 'An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind' so WHY ARE YOU AFRAID???

Oral Sex is Sex

2004-08-19T19:53:00.000-05:00

And the kids these days don't know that.
Of course, it helps that the overwhelmingly heterosexist culture would have that mentality maintained.
Sex in the context of 'the ACT of sex' is the shortened word for SEXUAL INTERCOURSE. The word 'sexual' is a vague one at most, and refers to anything involving ANY of the following:

sex organs
sex hormones such as testosterone, estrogen and basic human scent pheremones
anything stimulating to the aforementioned things
anything using the aforementioned words AND
anything in CONTACT in any way, shape or form with the aforementioned organs.

So sexual, at one point or another, is EVERYTHING. Well, not everything, but you get the drift.

Intercourse is an equally vague and non-specific word. It can be used in a variety of situations:

Social intercourse - the interaction or communication of two or more social beings within a social environment.

Intellectual intercourse - the exchange of ideas and concepts in an intellectual space

Intercourse, said plainly, refers to interaction or communication - some plot line in which two things meet and share one thing or another with each other.

In the case of SEXUAL intercourse, most people believe the 'intercourse' part involves the exchange of bodily fluids, as well as the connection between two (or more, if that's your bag) people.

How does oral sex NOT fit under the definition of sex?

If you know the answer to this rediculous cultural misunderstanding - where its roots are, how it came to be - please do post something. As an anthropologist, this intrigues me no end.

Killing Time

2004-08-19T01:46:00.000-05:00

Real philosophers, apparently, hate questions like 'what is hate?' and 'what is truth?' because they are asking the wrong thing. By asking 'what' something is, one is requesting information on the matter present in that something. But things like hate, truth and joy hold no actual physical matter. They are ideas not present in any molecular form. The correct form of the question most people are actually arguing over when they use this inaccurate and blunt tool is 'how do you personally define _____?' And due to the endless indiscrepancies between the analysis of language, the depth and breadth of the human experience and the immeasurable content of the mind, coming to some sort of consensus as to how one personally defines any concept like love or hate is impossible. So basically, 'real' philosophers dropped that line of questioning not long after Aristotle first presented the poser.
And back to the notion of killing time.
If only we could.
Time, like the aforementioned line of questioning, is a blunt and inaccurate tool of measurement. The minutes and hours and days and years we have constructed hold no physical matter. Unlike, perhaps, half-life or chemical decay equations which calculate for the difference in the molecular size and shape of that which they measure, time holds no flexibility for our own endless humane differences. One day in one life seems a week in another. And so expression of time is often lost. Like language, time is another tool invented by mankind, and therefore too weak to account for the pure and endless differences within each of us.
So, it has become my endless goal to end this cycle of misunderstanding. I intend to do my best to kill time.
By the way, what is time?

The Bible

2004-08-18T15:19:00.000-05:00

Think of the bible as one hell of a creative funk-ass novel. Think of its poetry as relative to the time. Think of it as an allegory, a science fiction/fantasy story. Think of it all as a game. Please.

Too many people have suffered through your ernest interpretation of creative expression as utter and inalienable truth.

God is not black and white. God is not male or female. God is not a solid, a liquid or a gas. God is not IN things or lacking in certain places. Please.

Too many people have died for godliness and fought godlessness. Too many people.

Evaluation

2004-08-17T18:58:00.000-05:00

How do you e-value-ate some person, some equal and decent human being? How do you measure good and bad within the perfected imperfection of a human frame?

Chaos

2004-08-17T16:58:00.000-05:00

The thing that consistently captures us about chaos is that, in comparison to our own man-made and broken truths, it has an unaltered freedom to it. It is the sympathy we feel with this utter lack of boundaries that draws us to chaos in all it's forms, as a form of catharsis, release. After all, we see birds swoopdivedance and so we learn to fly. It follows...