the gadfli

begin from the inside looking out

2011-10-31T14:51:00.001-04:00

they are there and you are here
you are inside yourself outside of them
(inside yourself is always outside)
and you watch them
sinews of thought and truth
wound between them
their heads bowed as
trees under the same wind
veins entangle them into a greater force and
there is re(cognition)
there is inside them something outside of you
inside of you is something needing room
instead you grow
you groan like old walls
you will keep stretching
limbs and chest weary
inside stays inside looking out
they stay there and you stay here
there is inside you something outside of them

(goffman + cvetkovich, basically)

i want you the way

2011-10-31T14:48:00.002-04:00

i want an 8-piece band to soundtrack my long walks through autumnal city parks and crescendo if and when you come around any given corner... something jazzy and triumphant with a snare drum building and maybe some brass...
and well now i've gotten carried away.

in these days of rumble and sawdust

2011-10-31T14:47:00.001-04:00

thunder comes at you from both sides
sky and earth harmonizing lullabies
for the restless sleep of the enraged
meanwhile
around the edges brews another rhythm
in the dusk hours, blue-toned silhouettes
grumble along the grid paper of poorly maintained
city side streets
it is fall now and we are again surprised
at the cold out there
(and the cold in here)
and the new beat goes on
between the vibrations of subway cars
amongst crowds and weather patterns
i can hear it whenever i say "no"
whenever my bike tire hops a curb
and i can hear it scratching
between that modicum of loose ink
and the paper soft
as a sunrise you didn't expect to see
there's a kind of humdrum to the days in between
and i think
it'd be a lie to say we're not just waiting
even if we're penning disaster
fanning flames
or throwing rocks
throwing ourselves into the conflicts of oppositional theorizing
whatever the case
we don't know what this undoing will smell like
all the allegories we can nail together pass as potentials
but only because no matter how ugly we make them
these scale models still hold onto all the limbs we'll lose
all the tiny digits of our thousand silent hands
all the cozy desires of our collections
when it comes right down to what might happen
fuck it we have no idea
so we fight the good fight with our necks craned
searching
for the face of some immutable hipster messiah
who can make it all clear
who'll make nine o' ten of us just as pissed off
because
frankly
we didn't make it ourselves
we bought their fairy tale
we're convinced the world's a multiple choice question
and all we can do is say yes or no
well fuck that shit, i know
fuck it but i just don't know
how else to write a love song
so i'm just gonna focus on perfecting this series of unmarketable skills
like drawing clever things
playing blues scales on the guitar
and baking the odd batch of prefab cookies
and maybe one day
i'll do something truly remarkable

My Day Today

2011-10-26T18:03:00.000-04:00

today i installed the last... oh... three boards of corkboard click flooring.

I KID YOU NOT.

i mean, i am a newb, but still. that's just ridiculous.

here was the emotional process (the first eight looped for the first couple hours):

I think we've all learned something today.

Life Plan V.356

2011-10-25T17:54:00.000-04:00

*ahem* a while back, i came up with a life plan. then everything changed. so here's the new life plan. it is FAR SUPERIOR:

live here, in Christie Pits, with Emily and Amanda and Max and Gratch, while I learn to build things.

design by far the coolest room ever. do it. do it now.
keep working for dee, get a reference and move on up.

in February, submit an application to the Industrial Design program at OCAD. just for shits, but also to keep me doing stuff.

take pictures of (1) above, as well as DRAW MORE. draw way more.

get an apprenticeship in electrical or carpentry, under some tough butch who is also really sweet and kind and likes folk music.
become an electrician/carpenter, make money and build reputation as brilliant sustainable designer
hire a slew of dedicated queers and build up a contracting company

make money for non-profit projects and art installations.
also. build treehouses.
renovate an old garage into a house for me/workshop with awesome windows and excellent location.

fall in love a couple more times
get another dog
save the world

as you can see. far superior.

also, if you google "life plan"? you get a FUCK TONNE of christian lady blogs. talking about dogs and how god is their life plan.

well MY life plan is queers. lots of them. queers and post-modern performative art and SEX and... and yes, dogs.

...

*sheepish face*

Just... Need A Job.

2011-10-16T19:10:00.000-04:00

I am really not one to talk at length about the ways in which I, a white, upper-middle class, able-bodied, educated person am oppressed. But something's emerging here, as I search for a job in this big ole city, that I need to talk about.

Reasons why I can't get a job in retail or customer service:

scruffy facial hair + tits = not cool
box-shaped body and 5 foot height does not adequately advertise 'x' store's clothes/trendiness/"health"
not enough experience in retail/customer service
"overqualified"
don't know anyone yet who isn't just working at a small business that never hires
hetero and cis-sexism hurts me all the time. specifically the latter. not knowing what to ask for ("use gender neutral pronouns, please" gets sidelong glances and awkward foot shuffling, often)
will not sacrifice my politics TOO hard, just to work minimum wage in a destructive capitalist industry

Reasons why I can't get a job in an office:

appearance not "professional" (read: normatively gendered and monied)
no master's degree in office arts or whatever the fuck.
don't know the right people
there aren't that many out there, and every arts undergraduate with bills to pay is hunting for them
offices often = misogyny + classism
don't want to sit all day every day

Reasons why I can't get a job as a server:

no experience
not pretty enough
don't know the right people
hetero and cis-sexism FOR THE LOSE!

Reasons why I can't get a job in labour:

"not a man"
"not a woman" yet a "woman" - my fears of strange and horrible misogyny here are not ungrounded. the Good People Of The World will say that people want "women" in the trades... no. no they don't. even if they did, they don't want "women" who aren't women.
five feet tall, just "not strong enough"
no previous work experience
hetero and cis-sexism hurts me all the time. see above.

So... where does that leave me? Here are the skills I have:

talented and efficient proof-reader/editor
fantastic vocabulary
affable, outgoing, well-spoken
physical endurance beyond reason
patience in learning new things
attention to detail
problem-solving skills for DAYS
excellent judge of space and dimension
quick at math, complex and otherwise
an ability to visualize potential outcomes
skilled communicator, trained in logic, rhetoric and ethics
tidy, well-thought-out sense of style
funny, interesting
good story teller
creative
amazing memory for small details
great with kids
speed reader ... and writer, for that matter
knowledge and adoration of formatting, fonts and design elements of print
organized, timely, precise

That, along with a degree in Sociology and History*, legs of steel*, a charming grin* and good posture*... that should really be enough to get a kid like me a job.

And here's the thing. Even the people who can say "a boy like me" or "a girl like me" can't get jobs these days. So maybe it's not my genderfuckery. I just know that it puts me further down the list. I've had people throw my resumes out in front of me. I've had people smirk at me for trying. I've been told I wouldn't suit the company's "image." They've told me that the "help wanted" sign out there was out of date... and when I asked again a week later, they had just started interviews the day before and meant to have taken that down. I can't really handle the rejection of footing it around anymore, so I've turned to internet postings - which are almost worse, because there's no way to stand out, no way to show that you're a go-getter, that you speak with confidence, that you'll show up on time and well-dressed for things. My resume, only a year or two out of university, is unremarkable. But I haven't really had a chance to change that, have I?

Anyway, I'll stop whining. Whatever my disadvantages, I recognize that they are not as violently felt as those others might experience. I still have a great number of privileges (examples of which are *'d above), not least of which is the fact that I can voice all of these concerns, that I have access to diverse forms of self-expression, and that I am currently sitting in my cozy living room having just finished a bowl of ice cream. So no, I don't have it that bad. And I recognize that I'll probably get a job at some point soon, and while it will seem as though it is due to my skills and qualifications alone, I know that it will also have a lot to do with my race, my ability and my cultural capital. And I hope the people of the 99% know this too. If things get better for them, and the whole system hasn't completely changed? It's probably at the expense of somebody else. That's how it all works as it is right now. A different leader won't change that. A week or two in a park or on the street won't change that. Saying "NO I DON'T LIKE IT" won't change it, no matter how many of you or how loud. We need a better idea. We need something we can say yes to. Something we can love into being together.

But I digress for now.

new here

2011-09-13T17:58:00.000-04:00

i am in a big city now so
i have acquired a new set of senses
that process faster than cars or iphones
i can see into the future
sometimes
and have made an indelible connection
between the smell of garbage
and the shapes of graffiti

my furniture is waiting in the Rural Wing
but i don't need a bed to know
my fingertips
my calves
my stray eyelashes
are at home here
amongst the dead pigeons
the dog parks full of chewed sticks
amongst the hipster throngs
their cumbersome sidebags
and the bike tires
soaked in old gum and oil spill
i don't need to know you
to know
i will
someday

I went looking for old resumes and found love poems.

2011-08-01T23:41:00.003-04:00

Days’ worth, piled and sorted and dated and full, ripe to bursting, with sensations. It was enough to take my breath away. The sheer volume of them. And I looked at the titles and remembered them. Remembered every love, every heartbeat, every lustful ache. I remembered the different kinds of love, the brotherly, the caring, the romantic, the disdainful, the tired, the devoted, the demented, the relenting and unrelenting, the requited and the unrequited. I found stories of adventure, of bravery and fear, of strength and failure. I have words for almost every day that stink of passion, heave with exhaustion, shudder with mirth and swagger with beauty.
So I’m sorry, father, that I have rarely made wise financial decisions. I’m sorry I didn’t keep my call centre job all summer and save and pay off debts. I’m sorry I forgot to pay my taxes for four years, that I’ve yet to crawl above the poverty line, that I keep needing your help every fall, when my thoughts turn to nesting and I need that boost to make it to first and last. I’m sorry all my careful work stops dead at the sight of a good adventure. I don’t want to be someone who needs your support. I can promise I won’t be an impulse buyer, an unsatisfied, restless consumer. Those are not my ills and never will be. I’ll try to do better with money things soon, but god damn it. You could never claim that I do not know how to live!

On Being Sure

2011-04-01T14:07:00.002-04:00

So I got a tumblr. Heh. Cozy little bandwagon lover, I am. As such, I've been reading a lot of really great expressions of gender identity and experience. Tumblr has become a really accessible community in that regard. Which is great. A really great way to see a lot of different presentations of self, discussions of place and belonging... etc. I approve.

While toddling around these various sites, I found a little bit of assurance. I'm not the kind to post pictures of myself in clothes that make me feel good, but I do wear clothes every day that make me feel good. I'm not uncertain whether I'm a girl or a boy. I'm positive that I'm neither. Not in the sense of the genders the world sees, not in my perception of myself, not in the way that I am sexual or in my sexual attractions. I am neither and that's really just ok by me.

It's not ok with the world. And that's where the discomfort comes in. Because out there I'm either a Miss or a Mister. A "Lady" or a "Hey Man". Frankly, it's fine, I'll deal. Eventually the world'll get over the binary, or we'll nuke our species off the planet first. Whatever. But in my case, my gender identity is something the world has to adjust to, not my body. That is not to say that things don't come up sometimes. I think, in my case, it's often that schism that makes me see my body in a bad light. It's that schism that reminds me; as much as I'm neither a girl nor a boy, I am also a failed girl and a failed boy. I meet neither standard effectively. Interestly, a standard of androgyny or genderqueer neutrality is being developed on many of these tumblr sites. There is room for contention and expansion of these identities, as well as affirmation that one can "WIN" at being neither, being a they or a ze or whatever. There are still a lot of issues in that space that don't get addressed, of course. Often, the generic "whatever" site becomes a predominantly white normative space, with additional tumblrs being created that specify "poc" status or identity. This could act to empower these communities, because of course that part of one's identity is very important in identity formation, but I would like to see whiteness made more visible... or conversely less dominantly visible? Know what I mean? Either call it what it is or create a way for the "unracialized" spaces to become more inclusive of intersecting identities and more responsible to the privilege of claiming first dibs, as it were. As well, in both the androgynous and genderqueer sites, there is still a lot of focus on being BOTH sides of the gender spectrum, instead of imagining a middle ground, a blank. Not that I can really contest the latter. My gender presentation is often mostly just butch with a side of paperboy. So I must refrain from positing that images people present of themselves are claiming one thing or another. That's for the individuals to describe. But often they do and overwhelmingly the statements are "sometimes i'm a, sometimes i'm b." That's a GREAT identity, and it's amazing that there is space for that. But what about "always i'm ab" or "i'm never either" you know? I'd love to see some more open discussion and presentation of that identity... I mean... realistically, because it makes me feel less lonely in this endless battle to be understood for who I am. The other thing is of course the idea of aesthetics in all of these fields. There is definitely space given to diverse body types, but overwhelmingly the rewards go to those who are thin(ish), fit (in masculine contexts: buff), symmetrical and fair of face and able-bodied. And that has to do with a lot of things, from the willingness of people to post pictures of themselves (self consciousness bred by society) and the willingness of others to complicate their notions of beauty and really adore variety and difference. The more we can use these communities to say... basically... that you can win at being you (which is what all these social networking sites are about, am i right?), being exactly who you are, and look at all of these ideas about what that can mean and who else might have similar ideas, the better.

Wow, horrible sentence. Anyway, rant rant. Suffice to say, tumblr's been rewarding, could be more so, but so far, good times. That's all. I'll add links to the sites I'm talking about later. Right now I'm fuckin... hungry as a horse.

wince don't hate me, little town

2011-03-24T13:20:00.002-04:00

hello. just thought i'd include a preface:

i'm actually pretty happy these days. i've got exciting plans for the summer, i'm almost done working at this horrible crappy job, and lots of good changes are afoot. besides that, i'm totally falling for someone really fucking great, feeling confident about my body and my agency as an individual, and maintaining really great close friendships with wonderful, challenging, interesting people.

that said, it's new, this happiness, and delicate. i think that in my writing and even in my cartoons, a certain amount of the poison that's brought me down these past few months (the past YEAR, even?) is being drawn out. slowwwly and suuuurely. and i mean, come on. we can totally be really happy about our lives and still angry about the things that blight them, am i right?

i'd also like to say, in case the commenter on the previous entry hasn't noticed my response, that my anger in the previous entry was and is TOTALLY LEGITIMATE. if anyone feels differently, by all means, bring it on up with me. i will provide you with a list of books and resources first, gently explain things to you second, and then tell you to fuck right off third, if that becomes necessary.

and now onto another venemous piece of writing. you'll note that this one IS a poem, because it says it is. let's let things and people speak for themselves more often, can we? i'm just reading yes means yes! and it's really great about that... i wish the whole world was better about respecting individual agency and identity and bodies.

but i digress. the following is a poem about Peterborough. a place that i have loved more than any place i can think of. a place where i've met and fallen in love with so many wonderful people. a place that has given me so so much. but it is also a number of bad things. so here are those things, just in time for my departure. it is not that they've become more clear or that i've become more sick of the place. but it is definitely time for me to go, and these are some of the reasons why. it's also just because i need a change, i need a place with more jobs, etc. anyway, i digress...

this is a poem for peterborough in the early spring
with its river running fast and black and roiling
away from me
along with the ink i’ve spilt here these past years

this is a poem for the town i am leaving
with its shop keeps and culture whores
dancing mad like acid dreams of puppets
tangled together in one meaning
one that’s barely understood

i’m tied in too but
this is a poem for walking away
as much as i don’t want to be here anymore
i’m not sure about anywhere else
because this monotony has become a kind of heart beat
and i don’t know if my drum will still hum without
the sickly sweet air of quaker oats to fill its sound

but i’ve been around too long
built up wrinkles here the way spring garbage builds up
around construction fences that
don’t seem to be temporary
i don’t wanna be that orange and brown
i don’t wanna fit right in
and i can feel the syndromes of these streets moving aside to make room
for my own subtle set of symptoms
there’s a gentle shudder of tightly fitted objects shifting against each other
like bricks or teeth

i’ve written too many sets of words
scribbled diatribes
loving diaries
for the shape of this place
and so i will footnote them to say
there are the good things

but there comes a time when the corrupt in anything
is too clear to turn from
and there is corrupt in everything
so don’t hold this to be exempt

this is a poem for a bubble
an enclosure of ritual and comfort and repetition
this is a poem for a place that could act as a metaphor for bad sex

this is a poem for peterborough in the early spring
when everyone crowds the cobblestones and brown wood benches
rubbing up against each other like bee’s legs on closed buds
waiting for the time it takes for any old flower to open
cuz any old flower will do
this is a poem for imported taste and recycled relationships
for patience and boredom and playing out roles
for rebuilt historical buildings standing as populated tombs
bustling pointlessly, bristling self-righteously, indignant
even as these words fall from my leaving mouth

don’t worry
i still love you
and i’ll come back to the only
place where the river never changes
where shops and lovers shift around like a con man’s peas
and i’ll drink with those of you who stay behind
it’s not for all to leave
but it should be for all to see
we are wrapped in an embrace that suffocates
a bit of mangled suckface that swallows tongues and happy pills

we have a rhythm of words like prayers that say
we are too sensitive and immaculate for the world out there
out there where people fight and die
and starve and believe in things we don’t
and arrive on time for things

we feed ourselves this myth over fire
built on the bones of others
the ones we have burned for decades
to keep our comfort boiling
to warm our idle hands

this is a poem for laziness and fear
for dodging our implications
for burrowing below everyone’s expectations
this is a poem for how much more we could be
if we fought the stream
and stopped loving a dead thing

this is a poem for peterborough in the early spring

gotta say it. (maybe trigger warning)

2011-03-16T11:09:00.003-04:00

that old grey slips in around the edges

the light behind the cremation services building goes on

slats of the fire escape hit the gravel snow

like ribs hit taut flesh

and i can't punch this anger out

my knuckles bleed for all the walls i've broken

a trial and error search for solidity

it's been so many rounds i've lost count

the only times i think i'm winning

are just times i'm beaten too numb to know better

and i've done it all to fix it

vitamins and early nights and calm calm calm

it worked about as well as any old bender

in the end i dodged straight into a sucker punch

straight into the crunch of ground teeth and

it must be blood in my eyes cuz all i see is red

the world is foul as fuck and i've known it too long

to be only 24

there must be some mistake of arithmetic

or maybe i'm adopted and

i was always small for my age

or maybe i just came out this way

eyes already black from all the nights i've lasted through

or maybe it was you

maybe you fucked it all up

with your good time at my too young expense

maybe that was the punch that kept on giving

and maybe you're all over the place

hurting my friends and lovers

and anyone i've ever wanted to protect

i would give anything to have dodged that first punch

or to take back the silence i sustained

the way atlas holds the world

or even

to be that child again

this time with THIS anger

this rage i've been working on since

and maybe

maybe a plastic set of safety scissors

and JUST the right moment

in the meantime

me and this anger

we're just playfighting

and the pain it gives me is scarifying

breaking bones to build them stronger

busting open knuckles to let my claws grow in

and you better hope

you better hide

because the next time i meet you

in whatever fucked up form you take

i won't let you have the time

to regret your indulgence

and they can call me traumatized

they can call me a victim

or a survivor

or a dyke

or a fucking angry feminist

they can say they're sorry

i had such a bad experience

they can say it's unfair

but this is bigger than me

i have seen the faces of too many fall

into that sadness and the distance

that i know without knowing

this is bigger than me

and this isn't really a poem

this is a promise

and a threat

Need The Dough

2011-02-28T14:24:00.002-05:00

At A Loss For Words

2011-02-25T12:55:00.002-05:00

So.

I just had a great visit with my dad. Just peachy keen. He bought me coloured pencils, combat boots and groceries, along with a lovely lunch. We were both kind of really enjoying each other's company until...

I started talking about privilege. My privilege, specifically, and how it interacts with my political action, and how I'm trying to learn how to use the privileges I have to act without reinforcing their power, and how that's hard and I think about it a lot.

And then he blew up. The classic small-l liberal blow-up. About how political correctness is immobilizing people and how I'm wasting time thinking about these things and it's better to just act. About how worrying so much about people's "feelings" is dysfunctional and people are too sensitive and REAL issues like unemployment and hunger don't need to have anything to do with identities or privileges. About the "death of the liberal class" and all that.

And then I blew up. The classic radical kid blow-up, with vehemence and a real, sincere, rage-induced lack of clarity. About how the liberal class could go fuck itself because it wasn't enough, as important as that work may have been at times and how it's helped. About how my friends and I certainly weren't immobilized, but we took the time we could to think about the structure of our interactions. About how acting without thought and consideration to the ways language and habit formed the very power structure that caused the issues we were trying to fight would end up reinforcing this power. About how the time to compromise was up. About how awesome my peers are and how much I'm learning. About how living an anti-oppressive life and being vegan was an important form of political action. About how I am no expert and it is my responsibility to educate myself on the forms of privilege I enact, and to work to consider the opinions and experiences of others in a real way.

And then he told me I was doing a good job of erasing my privileges.

ERASING THEM?!?!??

I guess to him, because I'm not in a salaried position yet, because I'm occasionally poor, because I don't have people listening to my sage-beyond-my-years voice yet, I'm erasing my privileges. And of course, that's possible. Clearly, because I am choosing to be immobilized by political correctness, I am suddenly able to truly understand what it's like to not be white, or educated (in a socially rewarded kind of way), or employed, or able-bodied, or English-speaking, or a Canadian citizen, or, or, or, or...

And here's the thing. His frustration is because he wants to see change. He does. He wants the world to be better and he wants everyone to live in harmony and so on and so forth. He wants me to be a part of that change the same way he wants his life to affect change SO BAD he barely sleeps at night and he works 18 hour days. He's a really great guy. And really smart and really honestly doing really interesting great things. And I love the shit out of him. It's just that... the way he works to change the world is different than the way I hope to. He works within a system I detest, mistrust and fear. He navigates it and manipulates it and trusts it because he knows it and because, whether he can understand this or not, he's REWARDED by it. It feeds him and his ego. It keeps him safe all over the world. It erases his positionality and streamlines his actions. He can act out his intentions as, simply, a "good person." And his expertise is unquestioned. His opinion is always valued. He has to prove himself, yes, and I think because he works so hard at this, he's unable to see the ways in which he DOESN'T have to prove himself.

After he said this, I got blue in the face, I blustered and cussed and shuddered with the desire for words I wish I had...

Because he's a lot of people that way. He's the mainstream. And because I love the bastard, I have to face it more often than I would choose to, but in reality, I think it's probably my responsibility to face this reality on the regular. And I really wish I knew how to do it better. I wish I could keep my calm and fight elegantly and cogently and without getting self-righteous or violent.

So I know this is another "oh poor me" kind of rant from someone with a lot of privilege dealing with something a whole lot of people have to deal with in a much grander scale, and you know, as distressed as this does make me, I'm still just fine, and I'm still fully intending to figure this shit out, but you know...

If anyone has any ideas as to how to deal with this stuff better, or if anyone just wants to rant about similar experiences, by all means.

Cuz I'm at a loss for words.

and then...

2011-02-16T16:07:00.001-05:00

ideas

2011-02-16T15:03:00.003-05:00

stop-motion film that follows the operatic conventions - no words just music. simple story. no human creatures. just shapes. distinctly queer plot. addressing issues of privilege, power and revenge.... it'll come to me.
"don't worry, it'll be summer soon" on the railway bridge... or maybe just "hang in there"... yeah... yeah...
toilet paper tubes + castles + dragons = awesome
i really should start running soon
you know what's SO underrated in this day and age? simple person-meeting-person-liking-person-kissing-person type situations. gotta say. everyone's all "oh the drama. gotta have the drama! the unrequited flavour! seasoned with a bit of unattainable! and complicated! delicious complicated." well i'm here to say, speaking as a poet and everything, there ain't nothing wrong with a little straightforward romance. life's tricky enough without all that sheeit. nawmeen?
you know what ELSE is underrated? kissing. i tell ya, i thought i had a problem thinking about sex too often. kissing is now the dominant neural pathway in my brain. it's like the gaddamn four oh one up there.
you know what's overrated? having a full-time job. jeezy creezy what a shitsticks position that is to be in. i'm just not cut out for that shit. gotta say.
the fantastic mr. fox is by far the best film (for my tastes) i've seen in like... five years. not that i have a specific film in mind that occurred five years ago. i just like animal stories and heist movies and shucks, that's just the best combo ever.

oh well. here's a cartoon.

2011-02-15T17:26:00.002-05:00

FUCK

2011-02-15T17:24:00.000-05:00

i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist i wanna be an artist

A Story

2011-02-07T17:23:00.005-05:00

so... the green eyed girl had never seen one of the lesser pyramids of south eastern egypt before. she had no idea how very tall they would be.

but she was determined to find a way to the top. she'd heard there were great treasures at the peak. and she needed the money to pay off her osap. girl's gotta do...

hmmmm....

luckily, the girl always kept a few giant cherries around, which happen to be the south eastern egyptian camel's favourite snack.

with a little bit of bribery, the camel was happy to act as a step to get up past the first and tallest incline...

after a little bit of hard work, she had reached the peak... and found the treasure!

then she just had to use a little more bribery to get back to town! well done, green-eyed girl! your osap will be paid off in no time!

also, less well done cell phone camera and plasticine sculpting skills. but hey. doin' what i can over here. :)

At Sadleir Again

2010-12-19T14:00:00.002-05:00

On hold with Agreement Admin. Today is crazy. Queues are full to the brink and bursting. You can almost feel their roaring impatience, as if they were outside the very building with pitchforks. And cellphones. And Macbooks. It's the damnable holiday that does this to people. And it's not the idea of buying nice things for people you care about that's the problem... though it is a problem. It's the sheer teeming millions of us. There's SO MANY PEOPLE out there, all moving around and trying to get what they want. And every single one of them thinks they're a good person, just trying to do their best, earning what they can out of life to live comfortably and happily. And individually, I can't argue that any single one of them is wrong. It's the millions. It's the masses. It's the fact that the decisions that so many are making are based on a common and easy lie.

So that was yesterday, around 5ish, at work. My mood picked up from there, after C.D. and J.W. drove out to visit me with vegan meatballs and little ketchup packets. We all huddled in the cold outside the building and shot the shit, and decided to party that night. Even with all that, I was a mere 3 minutes late back from my break.

Of course, we didn't party last night. Well, they did. But I passed out. Literally. I swear, I have never slept so heavily and so deeply. Not since tree-planting days, and even that was interrupted by rocks and winds. This was the kind of sleep in which the mattress below you seems to absorb your form and the blankets around you become an entire atmosphere of their own. I don't even remember getting undressed and under the sheets. Clearly I needed it, but I feel sad that I missed a good ole RhinoPosse Party.

Things that I have to do with my one paltry day off:

groceries
laundry
hang out with Emily if I can, definitely Charlotte
meet with Mason re: Centre
find a winter jacket

Things I will probably actually accomplish

maybe groceries
hang out briefly with Charlotte
meet with Mason

Feelings about this include

resentment towards work for stealing my life away
sense of failure for not getting to it earlier in the day
stress about when I can get laundry done so I don't have to wear boxers more than once *shudder*

But overall

i love everything
the snowfall is really pretty
i have lovely friends
all will be well with time

Cheers.

doop dee doooooo

2010-12-12T14:03:00.003-05:00

it is a beautiful snowy day full of packy snow and possibilities.
i'm at a friend's house with jess waite and dogs, and they are playing magic cards together while i float around the internet. perfect sunday behaviour as far as i can tell.
and all i'm really doing on the internet is reflecting upon all the little artworks i've accomplished. i'm going through albums on facebook and sorting out images... which... is fun for me. i feel confirmed in my ability to see wonder in things, just by looking at what i saw fit to capture, or in what i created. the internet here is dangerously slow, though, which is frustrating. but i'm gonna try and share a few of my favourites with this here blog.
the first is a sculpture i made at work, during training. his cheekbones were much more striking in real life. the second is one of the more mature of my snow sculptures i made this morning at the park, with max. the other one may have been a phallic addition to a pre-existing stone sculpture. the last one is a painting/mixed media thing i made on acetate to block out my window without blocking out all the light.

anyway, i'm feeling relatively positive, despite needing to hock a few unused video games to buy cigarettes for me and roommate today. sigh. desperate times. HOWEVER, both roommate and a couple friends are collectively speaking honestly about trying to quit soon, which gives me hope. i feel like if we're all going through the misery together, we'll be fine. and i'll be able to get through it. which would be great. and make my life far more affordable and wholesome. and drastically improve my overall mood and well-being.

there's become issues with this blog now. new issues. the politics of self-exposure have become murky here. this used to be a random thing that i posted out into the vague universe. none of my friends or family knew this thing existed. and now some people do. and i guess the frank honesty i have generally practiced here has become more... well, like i said, murky. i'd like to continue to use this place as a place for honest self-deprecation and -reflection... but i don't want anyone i'm close to to feel as though i'm more honest here than i am with them. it's just sometimes still easier to throw this out into space than to take up people's time with whining. at least if it's here, people can choose whether or not to engage at length with my own tiny personal issues. i guess it's a bit about social anxiety and guilt and wanting to appear strong at all times. which is horseshit. because anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that i'm made of tissue paper and feathers emotionally, and jell-o and pastry physically. tough is a myth i have of myself, and maybe maybe maybe it convinces the odd random passer-by, but it takes five minutes for my delicate underbelly to be exposed, even by the very nature of my performance of strength.

anyway... i digress. i'm just gonna try to stay honest somewhere anyway, and hope that i don't hurt anyone.

and if the person in question is reading this, despite claiming to not want to ever again... most times, i'm thinking of someone when i write these words. maybe i'm thinking of you. like right now. i'm thinking of you.

i tend to run into pretty girls when i am the least coordinated. thusly, i am wearing brown, blue, yellow, pale mint green, purple and black.

2010-12-09T15:09:00.003-05:00

bring on the beauty.

the smoke hangs low in the living room as i install various images along the walls, some pathological need to conceal and distract from the cardboard-beige. i want a power drill for many complicated reasons. i want the mystical hum of electricity transformed into a practical buzz, a functional and cyclical motion. and i want to hang musical instruments from the walls to display my intentions like artwork. they deserve that much at least. jess and i discuss upcoming albums like christmas day, but still the familiar adult irony taints our thrill. and while we can't afford the luxury of alcohol, our small dogs play with rubber mock beer cans that squeak plaintiffly between their aimless growls. we still don't have any toilet paper.

this morning i cleaned the entire house. i bleached the countertops and tables and the entire goddamn washroom. i scrubbed every pot, pan and dish that we own. i organized the garbage and swept every square foot. i made my bed, loosely, and polished the stove top and mildly rearranged furniture. then i mopped and folded the dish rags neatly. then jess and i made lunch and i pathologically washed everything between and after use. i did this and thought of my grandmother. i am not a spiritual person. i do believe in ghosts, though, and i think she may be there somewhere, in the smell of clean countertops and folded cardboard, in the shape of reused glass and plastic containers in the science light of the refrigerator. her sifting spirit moves through rooms like sunbeams, but colder. i know now that i will always miss what i have never known of her.

then i asked jess for a workout routine. jess is good at those things. jess' arm muscles look like the hilltops small children draw. i wrote down their suggestions in my notebook, including recommended number of repetitions and rest times. though we have worked out together before, i was in a more emotionally sturdy place, and less prone to debilitating embarrassment. i'll have to wait until jess is out tonight to start the day one routine. triceps. abdominals. pectorals. muscle names sound like lost language. strange grunting, hissing noises from a time before sentence structure.

now i'm at the centre. there are a million things i should be doing. i should be writing up staff manuals and e-mailing people about training schedules and filling out calendar events. i should be running laps around my politics, checking them from every angle with a fine-tipped pen, rinsing them down with good intention. but i am in a more morose kind of reflective mood with these bleach-dry hands and i want to rewrite my emotional turmoil. i want to microwave a lukewarm plate of yesterday's anxieties and eat them scalding. because i'm not done feeling like drowning in all of these to-do's and should-have's. and i've yelled at my dog's misbehaviour to the point that he is still and submissive, a rare treat that, unfortunately, coddling doesn't reward.

so my grandfather is reading this blog now, as well as my father and a few friends. there was an argument on google buzz over the last post. this kind of breying, hoof-like interaction is comforting, like buffeting heat from an open oven after making morning toast. there are people watching me, people waiting for words from me. there are people who would like to have a say in my future. because they care one way or another. and they want me close.

no, i don't know why they would want this right now. i'm still fairly certain i'm an interruption and a disappointment, like a zit or a splinter. but i'm sure if they keep showing me this in little ways, i'll figure it out soon enough.

New Aspirations

2010-12-02T12:33:00.003-05:00

So. I was hoping to escape the shittiness of this job sooner rather than later, but after spending an entire day on the phone with what seemed like the entire government, it transpires that my OSAP debt makes this impossible.

What this means is that, in order to ever return to school, I must make 6 consecutive payments toward the federal portion of my loan, and pay off the provincial portion entirely.

-_-

Ungroovy. It looks like I'm going to have to be a dedicated Minacs employee for another 8-10 months. Which is fine.

On the upside (HA.), this means I should definitely be able to garner enough material for this graphic novel. It might be less a graphic novel, and more a 32 page little strip, but hell, it'll be well worth it.

And in the meantime, I gotta chase me some plans for after. So here's the thesis:

Act as dedicated Minacs employee until lease here is up. Create CleverGraphicNovel that will make people laugh and cry and understand the inherent contradictions and superfluity of call centres. Work on some kind of artistic portfolio. Quit smoking. Start running again. Eat more vegetables.
Move to Toronto. Find a swanky little studio with a bathroom and cool factory-style windows and 12-foot ceilings for 450$/month. Renovate this space into a two-level shagpad, complete with insulated translucent window coverings, eensy little stove and bar fridge. Continue running. Also start lifting crazy weights and get buff as fuck. Make lots of new friends and lovers.
Get accepted into swanky arts program of sorts. Focus on social theory aspects of art history. Learn about symbolism to undo and rewrite it. Challenge dominant metanarratives through brilliantly subtle yet pervasive forms of graffiti and sculpture.
Work in public sector, fighting to rewrite the rituals and beliefs of unsustainable human habits with the arts. Create new global human mythology, rooted in sustainability and anti-oppression. Along the way, meet someone lovely who likes me a whole lot and fall in love. Adopt random scraggly child. Become immersed in a community of sorts. Magically, all of the people that I care about right now will be a part of this community, wherever it is.

So clearly, I have it all figured out. It's only a matter of time now.

Gee, I hope listing these things out loud isn't the key ingredient in making them not happen.

...

Shit.

Oh well, now I have an excuse if it all goes to shit. ;)

Cheerio.

Well, I suppose it's time

2010-11-25T11:55:00.004-05:00

Hi.

It's not like there's oodles of you out there reading this, but hi anyway.

It's about time I summed up my existence. Sometimes it just feels necessary. And to be honest, there's not a poetic or creative bone in my body these days. So the practical and rational needs to take over. Thus, what follows is an assessment of the things that are currently happening in my life and what I need to do next.

POINT: Maxwell is great. Best dog ever. Love him most of all creatures in the world. Except Teense, who of course I also love, but differently.

ELABORATION: I miss him all the time. I wish I had one of those cool hipster jobs that let dogs into the office/workspace.

SOLUTION: Get a better job.

POINT: I'm getting the hang of this crappy job

ELABORATION: This makes it no less odious. Despite having four days off (fluke of scheduling), I am wasting precious energy feeling uncomfortable about returning there on Monday.

SOLUTION: Get a better job.

POINT: I haven't had sex in a very very long time

ELABORATION: And normally, there's a corresponding drop in sex drive, as though my body is responding responsibly to a natural drop in resources. Not so. In fact, even as my "game" has completely disappeared and there's NO ONE I really want to have sex with around, my desire for sex has near-tripled in the past month.

SOLUTION: Get game back, go to Toronto or something.

POINT: (as above) I have no game.

ELABORATION: Due possibly to my cripplingly low self esteem and increasing frustration and anger management issues, I have no patience for anyone, no sense of self-worth, and consequently, no ability to appeal to others as a sexy, interesting character.

SOLUTION: I dunno. Be happier and sexier? Probably see below and above for solutions to that. These things are all so damned intrinsic.

POINT: I can't write poetry. Or draw.

ELABORATION: This. Is serious. Because I've finally admitted to myself that all I really want to do is be an artist. I want to write and be published, I want to finish a graphic novel and maybe publish that, I want to be a noted observer of human life whose words speak to people's souls. I want to create works of art with words or paint or sculpture that change the way people see the world. I want to hang out with artists and poets and radicals and be counted among them. And perhaps the pressure of this newfound clarity is silencing me, but whatever the case... it's an unrealistic dream which is relatively impossible to achieve, but my longing for it is bringing me down.

SOLUTION: Get real, kiddo.

POINT: My body is a minefield.

ELABORATION: And I mean this in a number of uncomfortable ways.

Issues re: personal trauma are coming up pretty frequently. Those terrors that grip me are becoming more pressing and frequent. This is probably due to a new kind of loneliness after having felt pretty safe with someone who's now out of reach. NOT to blame this person. We connected, had a great thing, now she's gone and it's done. I'm more than happy that we are staying in touch and planning on being good friends. I don't want anything further. Honest. But I guess it just takes some time to readjust to being alone in this body.
I am SO. SO. out of shape. Which is fair enough. All I do is sit at work all day, walk 10 minutes to and from work, and sit at home all night. Max hates the cold and would really rather cuddle a lot these days... and I'm too depressed to push myself into action. Also I'm smoking a lot and eating little in terms of nutritional content. Poverty does that.
My carpel tunnel does not like call centre work.

SOLUTION: Quit smoking. My roommate and I ran out of weed about a week ago and made a conscious decision not to buy any more for a long time. So that will help with motivation, certainly. But considering my joie de vivre can't get much lower, I might as well bite the bullet and go for the end of nicotine as well. And with regards to #1... I gotta make a doctor's appointment. And see if they can refer me somewhere affordable and queer-friendly. I need the talking cure, dammit.

POINT: It's damned cold out

ELABORATION: I know, I know... it's supposed to be. It's almost December. But fuck. Near constant grey skies can really bring a guy down.

SOLUTION: Suck it up, princess. Get some mittens from the free market and get out there.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT: I need a better job. Which might have to wait until I get to a better town. I also need more money, medical care, better nutrition, and sex. But my dog is great.

ON THE UPSIDE: ALL of the above is infinitely more mature and thoughtful and realistic than I've ever been able to be. And part of the reason I have no money is that I'm paying off bills on time, calling people and setting up payment plans, and buying bulk groceries like rice and quinoa to keep me at least semi-fed over an extended period of time. I haven't been drinking at all, and like I said, it's been a week since I smoked weed. I totally believe I'll be able to quit smoking, and that this will help my energy levels and self-esteem to no end. Soon, the debt will level out with my income and I'll be able to afford a little more of a carefree lifestyle. And while I might not be feeling social now, I do know that the friends I have will all still be there when I climb out from under the rock I've been living beneath.

So... Good. I feel relatively ok. Despite the shittiness of everything.

Cheers.

they tore it down

2010-11-18T10:06:00.004-05:00

i wrote this a good long while ago. sometime in the summer, when they were re-doing that park behind the baskin robbins factory. the 'you' is one of my best friends, and she's got a couple poems directed to her already. but hey, sometimes you just find someone that works to write to. my grandmother had als. her body slowed right down until, on monday, november 15th, it stopped entirely. she was, by far, one of the most tenacious and powerful women i've ever known, and like every twenty something, i spent far too much of my life not appreciating her. when she left, she was surrounded by her family. then they all drank toasts to her and cut out jam labels. i was really sad not to be there.

they tore it down
and you watched
we had nothing with which to arm ourselves
but we could still imagine
what we could've built
like my grandmother
whose hands
once spry
can still imagine catching fish
in creek water

i fought that tearing down
and many other things
the way i fought my parents
knowing in the end
they'd always get me in that
frilly fucking dress
knowing i'd always eat
my goddamn potatoes
when all i wanted really
was sunshine liberation
and a dash of moonglow

i left this fight
like those fights
just thinking i could choose
some other battleground
but it was just another way
they didn't let me win

because we can't choose when to care
about the wild branches we used to stare at
about the swings that seemed so perfect
for every midmorning pontification

they tore it down
and you watched
plotting the sly subversion
of the nighttime
sneaking answers out of uncertain navigation
nursing art heroics out of their irresponsibility
the way my grandmother
painted over his old practice desk
changing cherry wood to the colour of
lacquered earwax
like all the listening he didn't do

we watch them tear it down
prepare the soil for burial
without ritual or respect
watch dysfunction boil like blisters
bide our time and wait

the way i waited
stashed the sharpest scissors in my room
found the right moment
to tear my way
out of their way
out of that 40$ floral vomit
of a little girl's dress

for i was no little girl
and that was no mere swingset
and she was no doctor's wife
we were and are the sorry rebels
fighting the limitations of our form
finding ways to be seen
without lenses
without language
plying adaptation like wit
making our own tools
out of their own garbage

she will never know again
the writhing power of that fish she caught so fast
her hands the victor
but i will always know
the rumbling joy of my awe
at her strength

her hands are still strong
but her throat
unpracticed
seems to falter

now her will replaces hands
whose strength shocked me
when i was no little girl
falling off no mere swing set

now her will is by my own
and your own
as we sigh
staring at the space where a tree was
where dappled sunlight spattered dogs like paint drops
hid our kisses
stored secret messages

i would have her hands once more
to tear their machines apart
the way she peeled potatoes
or applied my sunscreen as rough as
all the world
like she knew i needed toughness
more than dresses

she knew i needed toughness more than dresses
like we need wilderness more than tarmac
like we need swing sets more than art
like i need her voice more than my own hands now
because these things
are going away
too fast

[if i had been there... if i had been around more before... i'd have read her this and that poem about the little heart that i read for the national slam competition. i'd tell her how sorry i was for fighting family visits tooth and nail. i'd tell her how strong she always seemed and how every layer i scraped off that practice desk made me feel closer to her and what kind of frustration she experienced. i'd tell her how much i wish i'd had the time and care to really hear her stories, to ask her for more, to really look in her eyes and be honest about who i am. if i had been there, i would've cleaned the tears under her son's eyes and made sure he knew i loved him and that i'd be there for him. i'd apologize for how i treat my body and i'd admire how she always treated hers to live this long and be so strong the whole time. i'd remind her about the time she broke her hip on the face of ottawa's winters and dragged herself to help with those sturdy arms. i'd tell her i love her and maybe try to picture some kinda heaven for her, even though we've never really bought into that kinda shit. because the idea of her just ending is shitty and horrible and no wonder people believe in that fairy tale. but really, the fairy tales she'd believe in would be grimm's, so maybe i'll just start seeing her in frogs and fish. and i wonder what stories she grew up with and i don't know anything about her family really. and now i really wish i could handle talking to my own mother without wanting to vomit with fear and memories and i hate what's happened to me and i really hope nothing like that happened to grandmother. and i remember that time she was babysitting me and peter and stormed out the front door and down the driveway and i thought she was leaving for good. and if i was with her, i would've told her how i've been on the other side of that now, and i understand the frustration and the need to get as far away from the offending child as possible in order to keep your cool. and i'd laugh with her about how crazy we must've driven her. and i'd forgive her for calling me fat when i was a teenager. i mean, i was, but that's not the point. i'd forgive her. and i'd probably be honest with her about how much smoking has helped me lose weight, and apologize, again, for not respecting my body at all. and i'd let her know that i'm gonna start respecting the endless life of tea towels and styrofoam and socks.]

a heart

2010-10-08T15:37:00.001-04:00

the moon sings the way it does because of tree limb translation

and i wait for you by the swingsets as dogs moan along

we've got time to decide

and i've got a heart as big as everything so you can fit right in

two little drinks of something and a cigarette perched where i shouldn't be

yeah i've got a heart as big as everything so you can fit right in

this is what we learn between the pitfalls that break limbs

and the sad songs that cheer us out of the overwhelming collectivity of it all

we learn that hearts keep pumping and the moon keeps singing

past the dawn of the everyday that steals mystery away

we learn to love more because it makes our muscles better for it

and that no matter how much we feel, it's nothing

nothing but the breeze and the sand below the swingsets

we cling to for the memories

and i've got bruises shaped like you and you and everyone who's ever touched me

but i'm prettier that way

and it feels good to know i'm a bruise for you too

and if you touch it, it stays longer

so touch me again with your sweet little gaze

make a tear in your side for me to slip into

and i'll nestle alongside those other memories

to weed the garden you keep inside you

and make it grow stronger and greener and more willing to share

all the weakness it has to the meaning in me

that keeps pushing at you and pulling at me

and maybe one day it'll add up to more

than what sounds kind of like gospel and closing doors

next to me the basketball sounds small and unsure

because nothing is real and we're all fully impure

made of bottles of vinegar left too long on the porch

once we were wine but we were never uncorked

potentials meet possible with a force like a storm

that tears coastlines apart with a wink and some scorn

but i've got a heart as big as everything so you can fit right in

and feed me apples of aspiration to keep me afloat

don't let go

the difference between ripe and rotting is a second at most

i've already written you love letters

2010-09-24T16:38:00.000-04:00

i've sent you words in lines

like soldiers to beseige you

to keep you up at night

to keep you certain you've got something worth guarding

i've already written you love letters

and snuck behind your castle walls

to sketch your statues and alleyways

i've taken note

unabashed

of your beauty and disease

and while you were rebuilding your battlements and towers

i was preparing medicines and tinctures for you

because some day this war's gotta end

our soldiers are in love

and they're tired of cleaning letters off the arrows sent to kill them

they want each other's arms

i've already written you love letters

as though they were the pamphlets for pockets of belief

that need the eyes that read them to exist

i've already written you love letters

and postered all over your town

all the vowels and consonants that add up to me

i spraypainted

tenderly

your monuments of self-assuredness

and stole the street signs that demarcated the territory i shouldn't see

and while your police force pursued me

i left trails of honesty and good intention

because one day you'll stop pretending

you don't want my wild abandon

on the streets of your body

i've already written you love letters

and strapped cylinders of fuel to my desire for you

and tried to find ways to decode your secret language

because you asked me to

with the force of forests growth

with a sweetness like the hum of bees

you asked me with lips that shaped themselves

like heartbeats against my neck

you'd written me already

with your hopes and pauses

and glances of emboldened spring flowers

you'd sculpted sentiment out of the dirt

of taking chances and lusty lungeing

how could i refuse you such a simple request?

so i've already written you love letters

and now they sleep next to you

instead of me

i've got no buttons on this jacket now

2010-09-18T10:15:00.002-04:00

can't find the time to fix it but i wear it out anyhow

because it's scruffy and ineffectual like me.

it's been a couple solid months of this self-deprecation shit. which is ridiculous. i'm either writing cheesy love poems or adolescent, self-loathing diatribes. what am i, sixteen?

fuck.

here's a sampling.

love poem no. 376

you curl between my ribs and knees and make the friendliest noises

creaking sweet noises and i

curl around your curl until

my chin is in your hair

our feet touch

you are the smallest magnitude

the expanse of you could contain the scent of galaxies

but you are

the smallest magnitude right now

i feel my organs gasp at your proximity

my lungs and stomach and heart

oh my heart

wants to protect you

to send you every vim and vigour mustered

oh little heart

you have me in you like an antibody

and i'll travel all the earth of you to heal you

you are monarch migration

watching you approach is

the sunrise racing toward oceanside.

see that shit? and that's not the morbid "i'm incapable of anything good and i don't know why i'm so miserable" shit. that shit's worse. it sounds more like this:

morbid self-deprecation no. 118

we have invented time in order to better idealize the lines around events

we have created the mortar that coheres unrelated phenomena

if we could see the space between these things

our escape might be possible

the good people of the world move like sand

all sealed grains flowing

all seamlessly

the good people of the world were rocks yesterday

full valuable shapes

that trees held onto

they were the earth when water held them

but they’re dry

and now nothing grows

i am that thing that does not grow

i have been hungry for too long

now

rabid

i hate them all for starving me

for keeping me too long without a night of wonder

little do i know

that it is my job to feed them

and i have failed

but i guess there are also little moments of hopefulness. the other day, i made a list of things i do to survive my job. it went as follows:

try to cram as many flattened boxes into the smallest possible unflattened box.
eat french fries with ketchup and steal grapes every time you go in the walk-in.
change the words to the oldies to better express your experience.
i.e. (to the tune of "my girl") i...hate...my...job... what.can.make.me.stay.this.loonnnng? incooooome. talkin' 'bout incoOOome. INCOME!
clean fastidiously but pointlessly. arrange cans by colour and size, polish the hinges of the freezers, etc.
coach friends' relationships via text.
mobile upload pictures of disgusting things.
build butter sculptures, or imagine urban landscapes shaped like the stacked dishes.
hide in the washroom or the back hallway and fantasize about being 'discovered' or published or SOMETHING that would get you the hell out of here.
nurse your own misery.
come up with functional dance moves as you put the dishes away.

as much as the above is also kind of miserable, i think it speaks to a certain degree of strength of will and desire to thrive in whatever context.

... i should stop trying to make sense of myself. fuck this narcissism.

she found me the other night

2010-08-25T14:52:00.001-04:00

thought i could hide again
but it turns out
she tied some kind of twine to me
and she’s tracking me down even now
there’s a thrill of fear sometimes
there’s an overture of heart and lung
such that i cannot hear the more instant world
but i won’t run from those eyes
and when she catches me again
she’ll devour me so soft
i’ll grow right back again
like mint or
dandelion

and when i find her
she’s so big and small

one time i ran through the woods
the moon was blue
i tripped into a doe who stumbled forward as i fell back
her immensity was charming
her solidity surprising
and hard to remember once i caught her eyelashes
in the grey of moon and riverglow
once i saw her limbs
which seemed like wind
or newborn trees

i found her like that
seeming solid but made of dreams
she is
she’s made of dreams
she’s got them all in her veins
and her head’s all up in fantasy and smoke
and then she’s got these limbs
and these hands that can
build things like
houses and
landscapes
and how can it be
that she has so much more hope than me?
and what can i give her
this good soul?
with eyes like rivers all dash and shimmer
when i am only pavement dust and appetite
i am only ash and forgetfulness
i am only this young flesh and longing

so will you

2010-08-22T19:27:00.001-04:00

they have people to clean the cities
bright at dawn until the light
has come to a boil
on the edge of some kind of horizon
but what do we know of that
between all limbs and buildings?
we are between the slats of bathroom stalls
we are the cracks in
pavement pale as
sky
and the morning comes to us
like some big city remix
of the geese of fall
in rooms that are not our own
we have grown accustomed to survival
we have means of
making true
this nature redone
has grown wild around the edges
seen the scurf of worse
and bleeds on like heartbeat
so will you

24: part one of the Good People series

2010-08-12T21:23:00.001-04:00

i’m 24
i do what i want
except for the time i sell to the kitchen
the grease traps
and the man.
except for the time i sell to my politics
all mewling infant things
with nowhere to put themselves
and i nurse them with
what i can
with what impassioned debate
i can scrape
from the bottom of some dirty pint glass
and the tail ends of cigarettes
i pawned books to buy

i’m working now
the way machines do all day
so i don’t know why i feel the right to complain
at least i get to cuddle with things and people
they just get oiled down every so often
it must shake their little love gears when they do
but they know they can’t do anything
this world’s not ready for
machine love

but i do complain
because i felt a little less
like less
when i was
hopping dumpster lips like
the little wiry hare i am
under all this human lie
i felt more true
when boredom and hunger
hit my stomach with the minute hand
for there is glory in that kind of filth

but there is glory also in this exhaustion
and the things i miss
i don’t know
but i hope i don’t
forget how clear it is to me now
what i really want
which is you
and air
and a little bit of time to think

all i know is i haven’t paid my dues yet
there are those that have worked their bones dry
they have ached their sweat into hours
the way we used to
ache tobacco out of ashtrays into stale rollies
to split between the five of us
scrounging souls

and all i’ve done is find the best way
to make enough money
to drink my cares away
all i’ve done is change the eternal diaper
on the ass of my underdeveloped ideas
and look around for something
that’ll kill me gracelessly
like tobacco
heroin
or anger

i’m 24
i don’t know shit
but neither do the good people
and at least i know that.

the root

2010-07-09T16:38:00.005-04:00

the man across from me
has a mouth full of boring
it’s slopping out the sides
like egg salad
while his wife chews silence
like jerky

i’m drinking ice water and hot coffee
waiting for something special to happen
while this heat pours down
even through the summer rain

we all age in different flavours
bitter
sweet or
oak-barrelled like wine
and all the words we’ve had to eat
are buried in our jowls
and the pockets around our eyes
house the years of
crystallized tears
and the freckles we accumulate
become like capital cities
and highway towns
and our skin grows softer and coarser
creased where it folds over and over
we are maps and storage facilities
when we die
tiny bugs carefully catalogue our various stories
and pile them in categories
amidst the tree roots and quarries

but the boring man knows nothing of this
so he’s having an affair
with a girl like fresh berber carpeting
and his wife jerks off to youporn videos
of german women fucking appliances

this is not to say that there is anything wrong with these decisions
but if i were an earthworm

i might object

filing so many particles

in the same room

perhaps this is the root of our environmental disaster

we could tear this down

2010-04-21T13:40:00.001-04:00

i get this thing when i see you

a mix of awe and hunger

a taste of future. undoing. collapse.

i look for something like you

around every corner

through bookshelves

amongst the

crooked, queer and radical

plants and animals of this scene

and you

you stand out like sculpture

like a bomb

like the storm amidst the calm

like bleached rocks along the shore

you mark a chaos

expected

then ignored

you mark the landing place

of a seed

far from home

we could touch the way

tangled branches grow

we could weave around each other

like butterflies made of dust storms

like dust storms made of rubble

like rubble made of butterflies

wanting better than now

and more than later

knowing crumbling could be something

more substantial than solidity

we could tear this down

and dance laughing through graveyards

of repetitious histories

we could tear this down

with our roots wrapped together

through the winter of its last resort

we could be each others' food source

like ants and aphids

like the bromeliads of the canopy

like moonlight and owl feathers

we could tear this down

with our roaring orgasms

our perspiration

our respiration

our exhaustion

our mellifluous surrender

could season fields of bees

fields and fields

such that their flight would turn sky to darkness

to conceal our brewing storm

you and i together

could rally the earth's warriors

boil the sea with our body heat

reinvent and destroy

rebuild without buildings

with veins instead of wires

wind instead of wheels

we could tear this down
because we do not love now

we love next

we love the struggle

of bones and flesh

stone and water

we love more of less

more revolt

more paradigm-shift

more shatter

rattle

clash

more of less

our sexuality

could rewrite cityscapes with fingerlets of desire

could undo highways like buckles and cries

could plant gardens amidst decay watered with despair

i'm going to do it anyway

i'm going to tear this down

i boil hot enough on my own

and you could freeze pavement apart without me

but don't you see?

together we could level loathing

grind down museums

spread their dust with tornadoes

until everyone knows

we could chew up currency

spit out need and necessity

you and me

so much more than

you

or me

we could tear this down

but first

you gotta kiss me

this poem is for someone. i think it might just be clear to only that person.

i make a sweet butch to your tough femme

2010-03-23T16:58:00.002-04:00

you're bigger than me

and you

know about electrical

and me

i've just got this shirt

that makes my shoulders look

pretty broad

not as broad as yours though

lemme open that jar

lemme carry that box

lemme hold that door open for you babe

even though you can

just as well as me

if not better

i compensate sometimes

in the bedroom and i

know you're letting me

hold you down and i

know you want it that way

anyway

and then i

take care of that spider in the shower for you

and big spoon you with my

smaller arms and

smaller legs

wrap my whole body around you

to make me seem more

enclosing

i guess

but you're

tougher than me

and you

keep me safe

and you

aren't supposed to

are you?

or is it ok?

if i'm the butch and

you're the femme

well then

what's it mean that you can

firefighter-lift me

and you always win at

sports and card games?

what's it mean that i'm

five flat and you're

six two?

what's it mean to be me

standing next to you?

some days

it's not enough to say

that it's ok

sometimes i feel like

i need to be bigger

to protect you

to love you better

like maybe it'd make more sense if

you were 4'11

with long hair and lashes

floral scented garments

and

no knowledge of bikes or

ball games

but the truth is

i'm not as good at fixing things as you

and there aren't that many girls shorter than me

and i don't think i'd be as good as you

at making it ok

that we're different sizes

and anyway

if i start saying things like

i'm a boi

cuz you're a girl

and

i'm strong because

you're weak

well than i'm not letting you

the way that

you let me

carry the groceries

you let me

stare down the jock boys

you put your hands on my

chest

you

link your wrists behind my head

you lean into me

let me be the one to lead you

you let me

feel like the big tough guy i am

in this tiny little frame

and then i

fuck you to sleep

glad you're sleeping so you

can't feel the quake in my

little muscles shake

these things go hand

in hand

i make a sweet butch

to your tough femme

neither, both, between, amongst

2010-03-20T16:32:00.002-04:00

around and

down

through

and out

i have told you the answer to that question

you have asked me again and again

and i think you're missing the fact that

because you gotta ask

the answer is

neither, both, between, amongst

around and

down

through

and out

and none of your damn business

ask me how i drink my coffee

ask me what i listen to

ask me anything else

but that's not what nags you at night

that's not what

makes you

angry

why?

do i turn you on?

do i confuse your limp dick

perked clit?

do i fuck you

more than sesame street

more than one of those things

that's not like the others?

what would make you feel better?

ya wanna see me naked?

i'm gonna tell you right now

that ain't gonna comfort you.

my body's shaped like every kinda body

big muscles that call themselves a hug

big breasts that call themselves a chest

i got hair everywhere and curves that'd set you spinning off-course

so don't look at me and think you can

pick me up

box me in

cut me down

that ain't gonna work.

be comforted by the knowledge that you alone define yourself

and so i alone define MYself

and if it's setting you off

that you can't tell

well

maybe you should think about that

maybe you should try on a little

eyeliner next time you go out or

give yourself a nice

buzz cut

maybe you should walk with or without a swagger

whatever makes you comfortable

and FUCK what people like you say.

you'll be comforted to know

i'm more free than you.

you feel like you gotta be

one or the other,

either

top or bottom

not both

not more

and i'm sorry i'm better off than you

maybe that's why you're so angry

you're jealous

cuz i get to be

neither

both

between

amongst

around and

down

through

and out.

But My Life, My Love And My Lady Is The Sea

2010-03-07T18:31:00.003-05:00

I've spoken before about my confusion.

About how lost I can get in the trappings of my own body, my own clothes. There are a few things that remain constant, however. The above video captures a lot of who I am. I would be this person no matter what, no matter where. If I feel safe with people, this is me. I romp, I start shit, I giggle, I dance. I walk tough, but I ain't tough, and everyone in this video knows it. These are some of my best friends. With them, I feel like I could get through anything.

Things Not Understood

2010-02-28T18:13:00.002-05:00

EMAIL 1

At some point recently, we were talking on the phone, and you told me you were quite impressed by the way I was walking the walk.
I don't know whether you realize the walk I'm walking, and the distance I've already traveled.
I believe we make decisions every day that say yes to some things and no to others. I believe with every purchase, acquiescence, compromise and navigation, we lead ourselves and anyone watching us, mimicking us, respecting us, down a different path. This belief can be paralyzing and overwhelming at times, but I think it's important to think about our relationship to the world this way. I think it's been too many generations of people behaving without these truths in mind. Even if my choice to live with these issues in mind does NOTHING to change the world, I will not stand to be another selfish, indulgent, short-sighted beast the way that many of us are. I will not stand to compromise the way that I live in balance with the world in order to be more comfortable myself. We all deserve to be uncomfortable. Discomfort is the symptom we're all hiding with painkillers and popular media.
I don't believe in the current economic system. I don't believe in artificial currency built up by governing bodies historically linked with corporations whose goal it has always been to see some succeed and others fail. I understand the way in which we have all become dependent on this fictional economy, and so I understand that there are ways in which I must compromise. But I do so in as few ways as possible. I don't believe in any bureaucratic element of the government we have now. I don't believe in nations, borders or any defense thereof. I understand that, while there are problems with the government we have, we rely on it as well. And there are things that the government does that are right and good. Embedded within it, however, are racist, sexist and colonial ideologies that cannot be disbanded until the structure itself is rewritten. I believe that the chaos that would be necessary in such an upheaval is another part of the discomfort we are all meant to feel. We live in a country whose comfort is built upon the subjugation and enslavement of other countries and peoples. The idea of a nation is inherently oppressive, exclusive and hierarchical. It needs to be undone. I also believe, strongly, that in a lot of ways, it's already too late. Our cities may soon be flooded, we all may get cholera, the rich will move to higher ground, and the filtration of winners and losers will become even more extreme, violent and oppressive. But I will not move to higher ground. I will stay uncomfortable.
We may never understand each other.
But that's my manifesto. I understand there may also be contradictions between what i think and how i act, but i try to keep those to a minimum. And yes, I still have to pay rent and buy some of the groceries i need to be healthy. And yes, I sometimes buy beer when I should buy vegetables, but I do buy it from local breweries with good politics, which is more than most vegetables shipped from the u.s. can say.
Right.
Rant over.
Don't call me just to argue your point. But we'll talk again soon.

EMAIL 2
Upon reflection, this sounds rather out of character. I'm not usually as combative as this previous rampage. I just got in a fight with a good friend because they posted a piece of writing by this anarcho-punk vegan who was joking about eating rich people in a sort of ... modest proposal style. it was funny, but not as reasonable and rational as the modest proposal. its language took on a mocking, holier-than-thou tone and seemed to dismiss some people as unsalvageable and others as righteous. so i got in this big angry fight about effective advocacy and not alienating people for making different choices, you know? Anyway, what I wrote above was exactly what I try not to do with these politics of mine. I'm not really that certain in my beliefs to think that this is some kind of truth. I just choose to live my life a certain way. I have an ethic. And I never really talk about it with people unless they do or say something to attack the choices I make. It has only been through these various conflicts that I've come to a place where I know a bit about where I stand. Those moments of instant frustration or revulsion with a concept. For example, my journey through political science and political studies making me into an anti-nationalist. My journeys through feminist history have led me to transgender warriors and anarcho-feminists like Emma Goldman. Brief dabblings in economics and the way the market has developed has taught me so much about local economic trading and living outside the economy, leading me to revolutionary poverty activists. Friends who are english majors, or poets, or musicians, have taught me about how poetry changes when it's performed, and how "music really can save your immortal soul." (oh shameful lyrical reference) I once wrote a whole paper in song titles, and I've traded quinoa recipes over campfire. I have, throughout my education, been taught to unthink and rethink, undo and redo, much of the way other people live.
So I guess what I really meant to say was not a list of combative values, but the fact that I'm living in a way that I believe in. And that's how I make my decisions. And I may not be happy all the time, but I learn ALL the time, and I always feel ready for what needs to happen next. I'm honing skills for survival, not in the apocalyptic worldview I painted for you above, but in a legitimate, logical approach to the world around us.
And I wanted to say, as well, that Peterborough has offered these things to me. It is in this town and from this town that I have traveled. This is my training ground, my jungle gym. I need this now for whatever comes next. And I don't know what that is. But I like that feeling. The monkey bars are always the best if you can close your eyes and just reach for where you think the next bar might be. Honestly, you're the kind to have had a five, a ten, a twenty year plan. But only when the plan broke down and changed did i start to see you happy. And maybe that's my perspective of it, and maybe I'm being presumptuous... But I think these are important points to consider if you're gonna start noting my "gut of poverty" and making comments about my hair. Honestly, what I think about when I'm getting dressed, considering the well-being of my physique, cutting my hair or eating lunch is whether there are people out there who will be attracted to me and want to date me. All you need is love. And in this department. Well. I'm having a grand old time. I am who I am here. I don't need to wax my upper lip or wear matching clothes. I don't need to be a boy or a girl. I can giggle and gossip and then wrestle in the snow, fight off spiders with bare hands and then little-spoon til dawn. Do you have ANY IDEA what kind of freedom that is? How astounding it is to come across community with such boundless acceptance? It makes me wanna be just the kind of strong-sensitive-cowboy-of-a-lovesick-fighting-poet that I am to the best of my damned abilities. I can write songs here one week, poetry the next, and then organize a rally, train some dogs, build a root cellar, dumpster dive, start a rock band, hold an art show, host a crepe party, sell marijuana, shovel driveways, collect bottles, whittle wood, organize workshops, petition for funding, get the hiring done, sort out budgets, rescue kittens, learn to weld, trade magic cards, play super mario, hand out condoms, split packs of cigarettes, reroll roaches, share spaghetti squash, watch the sea otters, feed the horses, distract the police, liaison with the police, run from the police, write to the police, wait in the hospital waiting room, play "hassle-the-homophobe" and hockey, while learning cribbage all through the next month. There is nothing I can't do. No business I can't approach to fundraise, no artist I can't spoken to over cappuccino or cigarillos, no visiting musician I can't hang out with until dawn. Fucking Vizenor gave a speech on campus about redefining a postcolonial identity. One of the world leading theorists in post-colonial theory. My friends are in a class called ShakesQueer, where they meet at the only with a prof and two others, ordering piles of crappy coffee and the cowgirl breakfast and talking about the queer subtexts in Shakespeare. Amazing. And have you seen any films by Ackerman? I pop into a cultural studies 300 course now and again to watch films that relate to lacanian theories around psychosexual development. You know, the mirror stage and all that. Built on Freud's theories of the stages of human development. But contradicting them in very important ways. The point is, my life here is the most vibrant, full, rewarding thing I've ever experienced. I am in love with this city. We are in love. That's all there is to it. So whatever you may say about my politics or my life choices, you have to recognize that I am not leaving this town until the air has gone stale and I get itchy feet again.

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It's February.

2010-02-18T15:58:00.002-05:00

By far the worst month in the gaddamn universe.

Dark days, my friends. Dark days.

I'm gonna go ahead and tell myself that the following problems are simply a product of Seasonal Affective Disorder.

I am SO SICK of being dirt poor. Sure, it was fun for awhile. And politicizing in a way that is very important. But gee willikers I hate owing friends money and being late on the rent and missing out on coffee dates and feeling like I will NEVER have enough extra money for a tattoo or a new dildo. It's been almost a year and a half of scrounging now, and frankly, it's symptomatic of an economic system that does not value me as an individual.
I can't stop smoking. I want to, but I can't. I break down and bum smokes obsessively due to item 1. I also can't stop binge-eating in the evenings. Which is hard when you're living off dumpster grub.
My front tooth either has a cavity or is falling out due to my encroaching wisdom teeth. I haven't been to a dentist in four years. I haven't been to a doctor in one year now. I have no asthma medication and I'm running out of toothpaste. I stole a new toothbrush a month ago, but they're risky. Even in grocery stores, they watch the personal care aisles like hawks.
I feel fat. I am fat a bit. Not too bad, but enough that I feel heavy and like I can't run and jump and climb trees. This is due to item 2b, but also because I don't feel much like moving anyway.
I haven't left the same ten block radius for months. Initially, I felt positively about this, seeing it as a sign that this community is tight-knit and offers a person all they need, really. Now. Now I wanna get the hell out of this town, even just for a damn weekend. Fuck.
My dog is still enough of a handful that it adds stress to my life.
I've lost my orgasm. Going on three weeks now. I've also lost my libido. This ain't just dysfunction. This is a gaddamn identity crisis. Being a big perv is part of WHO I AM.
I've done stupid, shortsighted things with my hair, thereby ensuring I won't be able to get legitimate employ for months.
I've always been a bit dysphoric, gender-wise.... but lately it's becoming pressingly uncomfortable. I don't think it's a phase. I think I might just not be a girl. But it's hard to separate these things from my experiences of trauma. Ugh.
Everyone around me is coupling frantically. IT'S NOT SPRING YET, PEOPLE! STOP JUMPING THE GUN!

So. There. Good. I mean. There's more to each of these points but... lists make me feel happy about things. Especially lists that feel complete after ten items exactly.

If anyone has:

lots of spare money
an extra penis/binder
a car
alcohol, cigarettes and/or marijuana
a dog just like Max that's calm and really good off-leash
a source of employment

that'd be great. Let me know. In exchange, I can offer you:

self-deprecating humour
marmite toast
someone to fetch things for you when you're sitting under a cat
mediocre love poems
lots of good discussions about politics, queerness and gender

It's February, after all. We have to stick together.

Things that have been keeping me busy...

2010-02-11T12:36:00.003-05:00

Planning/organizing/attending the illustrious Self Love Week!
Trying DESPERATELY to quit smoking.
Dumpster diving.
Biking in the winter.
My bad dog.

on one of my first days at university,

2009-12-25T16:17:00.003-05:00

September 15th, 2005, I wrote...

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.

sum pomes

2009-12-25T15:49:00.003-05:00

this is not a letter.
okay, it's a letter.

my room is two parts bird's nest
one part lighthouse
above the street's tarmac
so crumbling it could be cobblestone

now the snow is here
the houses across the way
look about 70% more
like gingerbread houses
and the stray cats
are 56% less agile

i am torn between listening to ella or miles or the music of this semi-silent house
were i to hold a vote
75% of the respondents would agree on nina simone
even though she hadn't been on the ballot
that kind of anger and lust i deny is always there anyway

i am alone at the moment
the dog and the cat
form spheres of warmth
on either side of me
and the various items around me seem to stare

the sun sets at four now
another good reason to wake up before noon
i can already see the blue of my veins through my skin
the subtle blue of early dusk or the blue of country roads on a map
and my skin the colour of frosted prairie fields
my body makes no sense to me
unless i make it far far away

her body
however
is the most reasonable thing
and when i leave her
i come back to find everything where i left it
like a home

but she's the kinda girl
who'll take a statement like that too seriously
so lemme just clarify
i don't trust her anywhere
but there
in the entanglements
in the sagging centrepoint of her mattress
under a spider's nest
until sunrise and sleep
and what's wrong with that?
i think she'd find that comforting
how completely i've stopped thinking
about her
when we're not naked together
i should think she might even aspire to that attitude
in her lovers
i would think that
i did think that
but i've been wrong before

anyway, i'm breaking my own rule
because like i said
i'm alone now
lining up tracks on cassettes
the cat and dog still curled around me
as the saddest song in all the world comes on
and i think of all the times i didn't ask to kiss you

i tell myself what others have told me
that these things happen for a reason
but i can't see any damn reason
why id didn't ask you every time it occurred to me

but outside
the world makes sense
things fall down
ice is cold
wheels go round
flames make smoke
cats and squirrels leave footprints
everything dances just outside touch
for the most part

sometimes things do touch
and we make note of the heat and weight
of the point of contact
assessing its meaning
merit
and value

songs are written about such simplicity
that's why it's so important
not to just go about touching things and people
so that each contact
can potentially
start a fire

or perhaps because each contact
can potentially
start a fire
i'm actually not sure

i'm pretty sure you and i could start a fire

and when it's cold like this
fires are 43% more important
and the pretty cafe girl is 87% more concealed
so i need to use 35% more of my imagination
to undress her with my eyes

i walk there some mornings
along dirt on the sidewalks
like cinnamon on wonderbread
and i pull my shoulders back
and pretend she doesn't smile at everyone like that
these and many other rituals both comfort and embarass me

but despite the past-tense lover whose body felt like home, and the cute cafe girl i daydream about
i made this lighthouse for you

i don't even know who i'm talking to
when i say "you"
really
i don't know your last name
or how old you are
but i wanted to say
when you mentioned that you could fall for me
i should've promised that i'd catch you
because i would've
i should've said it'd be ok if you fell
because it wouldn't hurt
and it'd be fun
like toboganning

but you're gone now like the geese and the robins
you left after them
as though you were their janitor
tidying up the last bits of autumn and packing it away for next year

you took with you
your eyes like two powerful little suns
so all the heat has gone out of the air
and i'm not quite sure when to wake up
so i sleep 14% more each morning
and my dreams seem 29% better than real life

but there are things to do
the grey winter seems to say
something about indifference
but that wouldn't be accurate
these days we
make posters and
we write words
all in lines like ducks or hailstorms
we learn to cook and count
we put in hours at minimum wage
we walk our dogs
and
drink beer

this is the winter
after all
we don't see very much life
the bird's nests are empty
but it's all there
underneath
waiting
like me
for you

i can't find you

i can't find you
and you're all i'm looking for

because it is equally unlikely for you to be anywhere that i am
i muster my imagination
and imagine you everywhere
every corner i turn
i envision you and that smile
and the way that you'd greet me with a kiss
and i imagine you explaining how you came to be
wherever i am
and that you engineered this feat of coincidence
because you had to find me
had to
right away
and tell me that you love me
and that you're staying

this is not possible of course

in another fantasy
i wake up alone christmas morning
with some sort of trained excitement
and i mock myself as i tumble downstairs
i let the dog out and start grinding coffee beans
when i'm done the beans
i hear his bark around the front of the house
and i grumble and toss on boots to fetch him
i walk out the front door already yelling at him
and i crash into you
and we laugh and i gasp
and you say
well
you liked what i had said about having a quiet christmas to myself
and you thought maybe you could join me
and i laugh and say
that was all bullshit
i was so lonely it hurt
til you turned up
and that would be how i felt about you generally
and we would know that
so we would kiss long and deep
and it would be the best christmas ever

this is unlikely of course

i can't find you...
all i know is
i've never been more certain
that two people feel exactly the same about each other
than when i look at you
and that's the rarest thing in all the world

when i first saw you

when i first saw you

i was tempted to boldly introduce myself

the way a gentleman might have

in some decade past.

i thought about the mamas and the papas cover of

"dream a little dream"

and had romantic fantasies about asking you to dance

even though there wasn't really any dancey music playing.

in this fantasy

we would dance to nothing and laugh

i would buy you a beer

all before my first poem, which you would think was best of all

in this fantasy

we wouldn't get to talk in the post-slam chaos

so it would be a couple of days before we would run into each other again

at the only

my friends and your friends would get drunk

and talk politics

while off to the side somewhere

a part of it all

but not

you and i would get drunk

and talk about how great

you are

i am

heartbeats romping together like puppydogs

fingertips flirting

eye contact intoxicating

almost impossible

we would BURST with things to tell each other

BOIL with the collective effervescence of our mutual attraction

and COLLAPSE into bouts of giggles

shudders

sighs

all sheep's clothing for the wolf of our desire

shortly after that

in this fantasy

we'd probably spend three or four days in bed

shirking responsibility

walking the dog

eating cereal with soy milk

letting the bed get irreparably unmade

our limbs so entangled

i would feel you stub your toe

and you would feel me pinch my finger in the kitchen cupboard

eventually however

the days or weeks or months or even years

that make up a love affair

would end.

even in this fantasy

we'd emerge from our reverie

to desire more

or less

or differently

to feel inadequate

or frustrated

or undervalued

or trapped

and to leave

to leave to hurt SO BADLY we would feel as though we could never feel that much again and live.

i'd probably have to hate you for awhile, or you me

we might have to make sad playlists

or sleep around with people we didn't care about

or drink too much

or start smoking

again

or watch crappy romantic comedies

or eat nothing but kraft dinner

or...

or maybe that's just me.

the point is

sadness and discomfort

...probably.

...most likely.

whatever the case

i was thinking i could risk it

i was thinking it'd be worth it

to boldly introduce myself

when i first saw you.

All that silence did get me thinking, though.

2009-10-25T10:58:00.003-04:00

Talk can often feel like action.

Throwing words around, creating shared meaning, discussing terms and plans and possibilities and problems... But talk, primarily, is not action. It lays the groundwork for action. It can, bureaucratically in a sense, create the space for action...But all those things we talk about doing do eventually need to get done. And so much of what we talk about doing is just more talking. Especially in the kind of economy within which myself and my peers function. Words on paper, words through telephones, across the internet, words translated into other words, words to sell things, words to emotionally "fix" things, words to schedule things and manage people... Words alone become our bread and butter. They pay for our food and shelter and clothing and habits and everything else that means anything to anyone. So no wonder words get given so much value despite the fact that they're essentially vibrations in the air, electronic pixels of light, or chewed up trees covered in chemical swirls of pigment.

So if words are not action, what is? When I try to understand action very simply, I think of growing food; planting seeds in little furrows in the dirt, watering them, treasuring them, protecting them into fruition. I think of building houses or shelters; collecting wood or making cuts with a circular saw, measuring things, the sound of a hammer or a power drill. I think of cooking food to eat, teaching children how to cook or build, how to take care of themselves and others... These things do require speech if you're doing them with others... Which is how these things are done, generally. Some even benefit from writing.

When I think about "doing" something, however, especially when I push myself to ask what I WANT to do, deep down, I think about words. I mean, I would love to learn some of the skills affiliated with the doing of things. But to be honest, that's out of my survival instinct, and out of a need to legitimate the amount of time I actually want to spend with WORDS.

Why?

The very root of me knows how hollow they are, how powerless and small and pervious, so why am I so drawn to them? Why, when I feel anything at all, am I driven to write about it, to record it, to understand it through language - a language whose heritage and functions and meanings I also have huge ethical problems with - so much so that I get lost in my own damn words?

As this writing soothes me, so too can I become aware of other things that words have DONE and can DO.

The tricky thing is that line between making something happen, and doing something. If I give a speech that leads to 12 people storming a government building, stealing the acts of parliament and setting them alight, have I done something? If by their symbolic action of torching what are basically more words, 300 people decide to start a squatting cooperative in an abandoned building (or an occupied building, for that matter), 500 decide it's time to leave the country and 2000 people decide to buy the paper the next day, 2000 more than would've before... whose words have done what? The acts of parliament have power, my speech had power, those who acted to destroy previously existing words had power, and now the newspaper has power. No, words can definitely act. Words can definitely do things... But it still comes down to action. Word are a part of that.

I guess.

Ugh. But do you see what I mean?

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about... Wish I knew what you were.

by any means

2009-10-15T12:13:00.000-04:00

the problem with the lifestyle I’ve found myself in is that it is the cause of my revolutionary politics. As such, I can’t dismiss my educational history or my position of privilege as unnecessary or unethical parts of my being, because they have led me to where I am. What I can say is that the way I have come to my politics has been a series of happy accidents and a great deal of arduous unlearning, a process I am still and will always be undergoing. What I’d like to offer as well here is the idea that where we come from – our positionality – can be a tool. When we rebel, we must remember that we are rebelling as much against ourselves as the system that created us. Knowing that we came from the very place we now find repulsive can be inspiring of a reflexive state pf being necessary to continue the internal revolution. Julia kristeva discusses the need to be in a constant state of revolt – discomfort, interrogation, anger. we need that within ourselves, towards ourselves, just as much as we need to maintain that towards the state, the institutions, the structures of control. with this in mind, however, it is also important that we accept parts of our past as a part of the path we’re on. we have a responsibility to that past, as much as we may feel we have overcome it, challenged it, changed it. we may be completely different people, believe different things, live different ways, but we once lived that way, believed those things. as we progress, we must remember that past self in a sense to remind us that we are never not learning, to remind us that others too can learn and change, but also to take responsibility for that person, and how they might have used and abused their power or their position. through this self-analysis, we can come to see the structures that have given us privilege and power over others. as people who have benefited from these structures, it is OUR responsibility to destroy them. they must be destroyed completely. to ensure that we have the strength to do what is necessary, again, we must maintain and cultivate our disgust at these systems of inequality and violence, and at our past selves. we must simultaneously maintain the memory of ourselves, while destroying all that made that person possible. in the process of this destruction, think about the things that led you to where you are, the things that tore your blinders off, that enlightened you, the things that made you uncomfortable enough that you had to change. think about these things as ingredients in the creation of a better path. nurse them even in the present. as you destroy the oppressive forces in yourself and in your world, think about what it would take for a new set of eyes to grow into anarchy, to avoid taking the privilege of existing systems, to understand the importance of avoiding systems altogether. what did it take for you to see? how would a child grow up without these systems that you grew up with. without imagining the eyes of a child, we’ll resort to the habits of our own parents. this cannot happen. the family is the first institution that must be destroyed, but we cannot destroy the concept of new life. we must find a way to educate without institutionalizing…

Yeah, alright, ya caught me...

2009-04-14T23:12:00.005-04:00

...I'm a directionless heartbroken fool. some semblance of a person walking 'round with half-finished tasks and acquired tastes and compromises upon compromises. but so what if that's me. got me thinking... it's bullshit to say we aren't all walking around like that. and we all pull that same myth over our eyes - that this is how we keep going. this is how it all works out.

and you all have your dreams and aspirations, your goals and obligations, and you ask me in all seriousness again and again like you're checking my progress...

let me tell you now. i've made no fucking progress, no fucking "plans for after" - that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns. Now you've really caught me. Me and my... apathy.

see, everybody wants to be the hero because we all know heroes have PREDESTINY. they are born to reach something, defeat something, end something, start something. and we all chew the same lie about "oh i want to be in charge and forge my own path and find myself" yada yada. but deep down, we'd all rather know than suffer the trauma of a million defeated aspirations and trails gone cold. we all wonder what we're doing with our lives.

outside of that hero's knowingness, we're all just compromising. every time you feel that pang in the pit of your stomach that's a little like regret with a touch of almost fear, or that not quite but almost rage every time you step down from something because you know you'd be all alone... that fearless part of you that climbed to the top of trees or sang really loud when everyone was looking or threw fits at the grocery store or drew all over the living room walls or snuck into abandoned houses or asked a million questions without even noticing their annoyance...that part gets smaller. and you become less of what you really are.

but it's not your fault. see, the world's made places for everything it thinks it needs. the goal now is not to be who you are, but to find a place. because if you don't have a place, the world doesn't need you, and if the world doesn't need you, you don't exist. and that is the sad arithmetic of a world we created. in fact, we recreate it every day. every day we wake up, and we make this happen.

A lovely moment in history

2009-02-21T22:24:00.003-05:00

And so it was.

Despite the trials and tribulations

the noise and postulations

there came a time in this normal boring girl's life

that all was well.

She found herself surrounded by a number of positive individuals, having been carefully selected to balance her

to jive with her

as though all a part of the same scale.

Each personality fell after the other with harmonic variation,

building upon the tempo and texture

of a sweet simple melody.

And the normal boring girl sauntered from verse to verse,

pre-chorus to chorus

chorus

and as she did she drew allusions

to the best and the brightest

of music's contemporary offerings

her tone was sigur ros-ish meets devendra banhart on pj harvey

his chords were beirut and farms in trouble, lotus plaza

her breath was camera obscura, little joy and gemini

mm and her lips were hello, broken arrow with a hit of murder city devils

so though she had so very much to do and write and think

she found that she was doing it

amongst the bars and measures of her life.

heheheheheh

so. so perfectly.

i heart everything.

everyone's so fucking beautiful.

night night lovas. off to read and write.

life is a shit hole.

2009-01-21T20:09:00.003-05:00

So yeah, so i've been kinda down lately, and overwhelmed by the emotions of others. E and L, two friends of mine who've been together for 4 years, just broke up, and they're both big messes, both talking to me about it. C, another friend of mine, is in between depression medications, and while she's almost humorous and self-deprecating about her depression, her energy is the most negative thing ever. She's mopey and sad and can't focus on her schoolwork at all. And yet she's the best, sweetest soul ever and deserves happiness and comfort. And it makes me sad I can't fix her. Meanwhile, I'm making a bunch of new friends, and when you make new friends, there tend to be a series of questions that are pretty mainstream for most people, but harder when your mother was abusive, your father was distant, you don't know whether your doing the right thing with your degree, and you feel insignificant compared to their achievements. K, for example, edited the school's paper last year, confronted the whole political studies department, and when she was attacked by homophobic thugs outside a bar, she charged them, and then changed the whole police department's attitude towards hate crimes, and now they take anti-oppression workshops as part of their training. When I was attacked, I lied to everyone and pretended it didn't happen. In fact, most of the horrible things in my life have gone unconfronted because at the time, it was easier to pretend it hadn't happened. At the time. Now, in most cases, it's too late. In others, I don't think it would help, but it still stresses me out. M is an amazing musician, lives in a beautiful loft, and learns a new instrument monthly. H with her sciences and her focus and her son and her self-respect. And then add to that the fact that I just feel it's somehow unfair that my ex got into a new relationship so quickly and easily with a girl who is basically a younger, smarter, more stable me. I feel like I deserve at least as much happiness as she has, but I don't have it. And though I'm surrounded by single women, they are either into me and I'm not into them, or they're into other, less available people, or they're not single at all. It's just a hundred levels of suck.
And the only people that live in this city that I can talk to are my ex and E. E is clearly in her own misery, so when I'm with her, I am to be supportive and positive for her own well-being. So I texted my ex, who has become a friend, and whom I have supported through numerous things, last night, just saying "dude, I wanna talk, gimme a ring." she texts me back saying "i have to do my readings, we'll talk on saturday." which is when we were meant to take the bus together to the burra to get picked up by U to go to limestone city for the night to party with S and U for S's birthday. initially, we were going to stay at U and S's place because it was just going to be me and C staying over. because my ex wanted to go, i asked my dad, who isn't even going to be in town, if we could stay at his house, so there would be room for everyone. i made sure she could come. so it was tuesday when she said she'd talk to me on saturday. like she's not going to have any spare moment between then and saturday? but the reality is, she's not going to have a moment when her new girl isn't with her between now and saturday. and with her there, she's not lonely for human interaction, so she needs me for nothing. and she's hooked on the feeling, like she was with me, and pretty much ignores everyone to spend every moment with her new girl. so i called her this morning, even more sad and lonely, and told her i really needed to talk. she called me a burden. i said all i was asking for was a friend, that i just wanted someone to talk to. she said she "can't do this" and so i got angry, said she was being self absorbed. she said i was the only friend she had who was so draining. i said i was the only friend she had that had gone through what i'd gone through, and she said "oh you're gonna pull that card." and hung up on me. then she sent me a facebook message saying "for the time being i'm taking you off facebook because right now it's the best thing i can do for me, and in turn, you." what the hell?
it's all about what's easiest for her.
so that adds to my misery. because it's not fair. i'm a good person. i work hard for my friends, i support them when they need me, even if my life is distracting or it doesn't directly serve me. i'm honest and kind, i would say. it's bullshit that she gets a happy loving relationship, and everywhere i look i'm getting turned down and rejected.
AND i don't know WHAT to do about school. i feel low energy and angry and hopeless about grad school applications. what if i don't get it? how embarrassing would that be? gah!

and american idol is fucking stupid.

and and...

and i haven't had sex in like two and a half months.

and...

blaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh.

boo.

2008-12-25T22:44:00.000-05:00

One day, I'm gonna make a road trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania.

2008-12-12T00:23:00.001-05:00

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A Guilty Habit

2008-11-28T12:09:00.003-05:00

So, I get it. They are excrutiatingly unhealthy. They kill you, slowly and quickly. They serve the goals of evil multinational corporations and they burden the health care system. They serve no actual purpose, neither actually calming you nor making you cooler. They smell bad, turn your teeth yellow, transform your hair into straw and raise your heart rate. They are more addictive than heroin, and because of this, end up costing you a ridiculous amount of money. You are better off to run into walls repeatedly, or play chicken on the 401, or potentially, jump from rooftop to rooftop a la "Stepping Time" for cheap thrills.

But. I have always loved smoking. Always. I love it so much. I love the click of the lighter, the initial smell of burning tobacco, the smell of a fresh pack. I love OPENING a fresh pack, I love having something to do when I exit a place. I love getting that social chance to slow down and stand around with people, talking about things.

And, since I began, I have loved the variety of cigarettes. I love the different flavours, smells and textures of each brand and grade. And I have consistently made it my mission to "collect 'em all," as it were.

So here, as I nic-fit and try not to smoke (because underneath it all, I like living and breathing and not smelling like ass better than all the above), I will address the differences between a few brands that have been formative in my adoration of cigarettes.

I start, of course, with my LEAST favourite. This is the brand that is most effective for me to quit on. Because they taste like ass and smell twice as bad. They leave an ash-y cabbage-y taste in your mouth long after you've smoked them. This is the brand chosen by my ex's mother, who has "tried" to quit unsuccessfully for years. To be honest, the smell of her post-cigarette convinces me that smoking is no good. No good at all. *shudder*
PJs are the mid-range mid-quality cigarette of choice for the most people. I know more people who smoke PJs than the sum of all other brands. I would say, of the smokers I know, about 65% smoke PJs. And it's not like they have some mad brand loyalty. In fact, in many cases, if you've got a Belmont or a Du Maurier, they'll bum one off you, even if they've got a fresh pack of PJs. Because, as inoffensive as it is, flavour- and smell-wise, it's a cheaper brand. It lacks the oomph of other brands. I would go into the differences between PJ light and PJ regular, but I think it goes without saying. For the most part, anyone in their right mind would prefer a PJ light. The regulars taste too.... iron-y, really, is the only way I can capture it.
Ah, Du Maurier. When and if I am 1) not concerned about money and 2) smoking without shame, this is my brand du jour. It reminds me of McGill and girls wearing political science-looking scarves. It reminds me of my first love and Jill Barber and the smell of fresh snow. Isn't that HORRIBLE? All these brilliant beautiful memories tied up with a brand of cigarette? TELL NO ONE. Regardless, this cigarette has a mature, almost fruity-cigar-y flavour, especially when fresh. Unlike both previous brands, which have the kind of loose packing that occasionally reminds one of the dreaded "native" cigarette, each Du Maurier cigarette is packed perfectly fully, unlikely to break with an exuberant flick, and burning slowly and elegantly from start to finish. I can say nothing bad about this brand, except that it's connected to horrible corporations and lung cancer, like every other brand. *sigh*
Belmonts are for those with moneys. They are also, according to a friend of mine, the favoured selection of the pot-head. I have seen less evidence of this latter statement. But they are damned lovely. They are the smoothest of all the brands. They remind me of a well-dressed lawyer who sings jazz karaoke on the weekends and drinks gin and tonics with two lime slices. This girl would be an excellent driver, and she would never raise the pitch of her voice at the end of a sentence in supplication. But I digress. The only thing I don't like about this cigarette is also the thing I do like about this cigarette. It's almost too smooth. I like a bit of a grab in the back of my throat when I smoke. Makes me feel alive. I know. Most ridiculous and disgusting thing ever.
Camel is not a favourite of mine. I bought one pack once because I read a Tom Robbins book that spent a lot of time talking about the design on the pack, and out of blunt curiousity. They are a nutty smoke, very cigar-like and rich. They typify a strange quality found in American cigarettes. They taste good but bad. There is a weird, almost burning poop taste to them. I don't get it. They all have that vibe. Just a little too rich and thick, you know?
THIS. This brand was my downfall. I blame my favourite high school teacher. She spoke about the French Philosophes and how they "sat around at cafes, smoking gauloises and theorizing the future." The whole concept was so romantic and exciting that almost immediately thereafter, I got a friend of a friend of mine to buy me a pack. At first, it was only as often as I smoked weed. I would sneak one when I knew I could explain the cigarette smell through some other person or party. That first pack lasted me almost a whole year. Then I "quit" or rather, didn't buy another pack, until I moved to Peterborough. It was October. I smoked Matinees at that point, because my roommate smoked them. Never again. When a new smoke shop opened on George street, I was back on Gauloises, which my neighbours, also smokers, called "Frenchies." They had the added benefit of being rejected by them, because they hated them. This meant that they would come to bum, and leave empty-handed BY CHOICE. I would offer them, and they would turn them down. Because they were habitual bummers, and rarely returned the favour, this felt great.

This brand typifies everything I like about smoking, and only two of the things I don't like. Their smell, the shape of their pack, the colour of their filter and paper (the paper is not white, but a very very white off-white, almost the colour of moleskine paper), the design of their emblem, their history, how well they're rolled, how long they are (king and regular is another whole topic. Gauloises are always king, but also, just a slightly longer king than other brands), how thick the smoke is... oh. How I love them! And while they still stain my teeth and give me cancer, they're smell is distinct and musky enough that I don't smell literally like an ashtray. I smell like an old man, really, but not an ashtray. And if you know me at all, you know all things Old Man are adored.

There are other brands of course. Brands I couldn't be bothered to find an image for.

Number 7s, regular and king, are the most excrutiatingly painful brand to smoke, but as such, excrutiatingly enjoyable.

Matinees, mentioned briefly, are too mild, but not in the way Belmont's are. I always end up cutting the filter shorter, and then regretting it. With the filter, you can't taste or feel a bluddy thing. Without it or with less of it, all you can taste are chemicals.

Marlboro's, comme le Camels, are a skeezy american brand, but occasionally enjoyable, especially with a nice Canadian beer.

Players taste like blood in your mouth. Booh.

Natives range from bad to worse, and they remind me of Tim Horton's coffee. People smoke them because it's convenient, cheap and because they are really really addicted. There is no art or enjoyment in them.

So there's my therapy session for the moment. I hope this makes me feel better. Admitting you have a problem is the first step, right?

*shudder*

Now I'm gonna go smoke. I hate myself. *sigh*

Let This Be A Lesson To You!

2008-11-20T12:09:00.002-05:00

i have lied to you

i felt nothing before this

lovestruck's not love

now i know

and trust me

it'll never happen again

i would rather feel nothing

than feel this

so i choose nothing

i CHOOSE nothing

over loving you

or any other thing

2008-11-19T22:46:00.001-05:00

What if I can't learn not to love too much?

2008-11-04T15:52:00.002-05:00

It's been another one of those meandering days, trying desperately to get this extensive bibliography annotated without my mind wandering and getting overwhelmed by endless, poorly supported, half-connected ideas. In the meantime, I'm also getting distracted by the cat and the temptation of leftover halloween candy and a newfound addiction to arizona red apple iced tea and the potentials of room decor and the other four things i have to get done for tomorrow and previous thoughts I've had and the meaning of life and that pile of laundry there and my anti-virus software....

Suffice to say, it's been another one of those minefield-of-other-things-you'd-rather-be-doing-than-whatever-it-is-you're-doing-right-now days.

Gawd.

To feel better about my life, I've decided to post all my favourite computer background creations on 64 Crayons, a subsidiary blog of mine. So if you're here now, go there next, and catch some backgrounds. Because I'm so fucking talented. So much so that if I were to drop out and retreat to British Columbia in a VW lovebus, I would survive somehow. THAT is how fucking talented I am. Right? Right?

One Bitter Motherfucker

2008-11-01T20:15:00.002-04:00

This guy who is sitting ahead of me with two political science birds is a pompous ass. Every story is about him and his wondrousness, his wisdom, his numerous and meaningful experiences. Yet another example of the training the women in his audience have recieved. He leans forward onto the table, his laptop and his oversized headphones and his elbows taking up all but tiny triangles of the cafe table. Their coffees perch precariously in the remaining space, and the two girls sit back in their chairs, smiling mildly and giggling at all the right moments. He pontificates on what constitutes the middle class, who can be considered "the university type" and counters any short story they manage to express with a renewed volume in his voice, increased physical movements. When he's got their attention, he drops to a low rumbling tone, barely breaking for breath, so as to not allow them a moment to interject. He has been trained to be male, to protect himself with a guise of power. The women he appears to command have equally been trained to protect themselves through soft voices and demure body language. The girl in the purple shirt looks as though she wants to challenge him from time to time, to call him on his shit, to shut him down. The girl in the turquoise shirt flips her hair nervously from time to time, and now, as she tells a story, she holds her own despite numerous attempts by mr. man to state the answer to a dilemma she poses. "oh well that's because of this" "no because there's no that there, it's more like this" "probably because of this then" "no, it's not really like that either..." But again, the training overcomes her, every phrase ending upturned, like a question-statement, like a wispy little flower. The man claims truth with progressively larger prefacing terms to begin each sentence - because, probably because, it could be that, well maybe, i don't know but... - but at the end of every sentence, his voice ends on a low note, like a thump. like the period at the end of his sentence was a boulder landing in dry dirt.

I hate a culture that strangles the voices of both men and women. What does this man's voice sound like when he is uncertain? How can he ask for help? How far will he try to carry his performance, how much does his mask call him to perform the violence and domination and oppression it embodies. Do these women even know how to speak with fortitude? To say what they mean without sounding apologetic or appeasing? What will they do when they have something of value to contribute to a room full of men trained not to listen? What will they do when they know what to do? HOW can society function based on a system of gender identities that delegitimates and silences fully 50% of the population? More if you consider the fact that men who speak effeminately are ignored, children are ignored, women over 40 are ignored. We are trained to recieve people in very specific ways, and those ways trap us in a destructive culture. If we do not find a way to hear every voice, the whole fuck-off world will eventually eat itself, the way it has been, slowly, for all of human history.

I fucking hate this fucking world. GAH.

THINGS MAKE MORE SENSE

2008-09-30T12:10:00.001-04:00

when you stop taking yourself so bloody seriously
so you were in love
and things were lovely
but hard and impossible
and your heart broke
but it didn't really
and time keeps ticking by
and things keep happening
hearts renewed keep beating
so suck it up, princess
and see the beauty in the everyday
and enjoy that coffee
and forgive her.

Here's What Happened.

2008-09-18T23:32:00.003-04:00

As far as I can tell, the girl I loved for the past two years was actually a small inside part of a much larger person. Like a virus or something. So the girl I loved was the affliction of this other girl, who kind of acted like her biological host. And just recently, the girl I loved died. Her biological host killed her off. So she was never really that person who is so excrutiatingly shallow and selfish and without scruples. She was just some temporary state that particular horrible, valueless, whoreish, completely dependant person existed in for two years! That explains everything! That softness in her eyes was the fever of a virus. So now I just need to find someone else who has that same decent, upstanding, soft, honest, heartfelt virus in them! Easy peasy, right? Right?
Grr.
Or maybe love is real somewhere, with someone. You never know.

All You Need Is Love

2008-09-11T13:33:00.003-04:00

and shelter
and nutrition
and a source of fresh water
and self-worth
and a good government
and respect
and ownership of your own body
and a skill set
and freedom of speech, of assembly, of belief, of ...
and equality
and justice
and literacy in so many ways
and something to believe in
...
so much more than love.
love is a symptom of privilege
a sign that you already have the basics
it's a longing encouraged by ipods and cable television and physical comfort
so mr. lennon
what good do your brass instrumentals do
to those who have no time
for this idea of love?
love is a want, a shallow and self-indulgent desire
it is not even close to "all you need"

i think of love when i'm warm and safe, when my belly is full and my bank account means a certain freedom. and the thought of love manages to make me feel cold, hungry and poor. love is the perfect inadequacy of a capitalist world. it makes us buy silly clothes and products, makes us feel lonely enough to be convinced of a need to purchase more and more.
what if we stopped believing in love as a necessity for our own happiness? what would we focus on then? what would our music speak of? maybe we'd figure out what's really important, and stop being so self-indulgent.

the sky is blue

2008-08-19T11:53:00.004-04:00

and deep
and if i stare long enough
i feel my body fall away
the way it feels when you look up
from the bottom of a pool
and the sound of this fourth floor apartment and the vp roaring
is similar also

eventually
my eyes fall to the ground
the same way eventually
you push to the surface

a small furry dog with a curly tail
and a pretty owner
shits
delicately
on the front lawn of the neighbouring apartment building
and kicks at the grass upon completion
of his task
a sign announces 1, 2 and 3 bedroom rentals
and a man swears at the curb
inexplicably

directly across from me
crowded balconies sit abandoned
in the bleaching sunlight of high noon
i think about smoking
and fucking
and other things i'd rather be doing
than sitting here
trying to work

my eyes turn inwards
the fan rotates
and
every four seconds
stirs the leaves of the plant
my bike smells of wd40
and this mixes with stale coffee
from this morning
and the cat litter
and the green "melon" scented candle

i hate the cbc theme
it hums from the television
out of sight around the corner
and i hate the breathless eager voices
of the victorious athletes they interview
even though
as they won
i loved them

a mirror east of me
tells me that i am overtired
and that my head hurts for good reason
it tells me my hair is unreasonable
defying gravity the way it does
and that the fan
still rotates
every four seconds
and the sky is still
almost impossibly
blue

Gaydar

2008-08-15T23:13:00.002-04:00

Across the great electronic void, someone wrote that some are seeing straight girls as the new pink.
Since I was in high school, it's been kind of "in" to be bi. Kind of. Now, like some sort of chihuahua infestation, like some hail storm of kolor sunglasses, seems like every straight girl's gone gaga for the girls.
So.
What do we, the genuinely queer, do with this information?
It's dangerous waters, to be sure. All of a sudden, we're not safe to stare at that girl in the subway. All of a sudden... they're aware that we're looking, because, just out of curiosity, just in style, they're looking, too.
Now. I'm not one for us/them lingo. Seriously. I'm not. But I hate to say it, they're them. And you know who they are because you, being one of us, have a little thing called Gaydar. It's a damn useful skill, but now it's become even more vital.
I used to explain gaydar to my heterofriends as a sort of mere observational skill. I told them that all I did was "look at them looking, to see where they looked." But in times like these, if you want to prevent being a mere experiment, if you don't want to end up tossed aside like all those small curly-haired dogs and aviator sunglasses and socklike winter boots, one needs must tone the gaydar muscles.
Gaydar is not just about looking for looking. Gaydar is a whole body language. Gaydar is nails, hair, shoes, yes, but in the city, diversified and professional dykes are rampant! One can't just hope for converse and olive canvas. Besides, diversified and professional lesbians like ourselves might just not dig the hungry artsy student lezzer look. With increasing visibility, we've come out of the closet for a second time. Before, we married asexual men. Then we dressed like men. Then we dressed like the two queer characters on tv. In every sense we took a step towards being seen and tolerated and accepted. Now, it's such that we are expected at every street corner. Our businesses and schools use "partner" and read stories about "alternative families." This is all good news. Great news, really.
But, to be quite honest, it makes each other harder to find.
There was a time (HAH, as James Brown would say) when I was entirely willing to be the tested waters of youthful sexuasion. There was a time when I practically defined the territory. Hell, I was THE lesbian in my high school. Hell knows I had my fun with that. And with every girl who got a sense of freedom, with every girl who knew her body better for having been with me, I felt like some kinda superhero liberator. But now I'm here, 22, having just got out of a 2 year relationship with yet another woman who thought, maybe, yeah....but no.
There was a time when experimentation was both fun, interesting and admirable. But now. Now I know what I want. And I want somebody who knows what they want, too.
So. To the gaydarmobile, batmullet! Surely I've still got it. Right? It's just like riding a bike! Right?
But it's not. I've lost it, folks. The L Word and my past experiences have me practicing approach-avoidance like a kid scared of dogs. And it helps I work at Babies R Us, surrounded by pregnant women, and just praying (literally, to the gods of retail) to bring me two cute little adoptive fathers or, the best I've gotten so far, the lesbest friend of an expecting 30-something, and, sigh, her drop dead gorgeous life partner. There are no queers in Babies R Us. None that want to be there, anyway. There are far more moral and alt-friendly stores, and as many places as the gays can be these days, there's still places where we just aren't. And because I got this job while I was IN aforementioned relationship, one of those few places just happens to be where I am.
And here's the thing, here's the thing. It's just... I... I like girls with long hair, long legs, soft voices, chapsticked lips. I like girls who smell like some kinda tropical something-or-other, who paint their toenails (NOT their fingernails...I mean, really that would not work) and who obsess about hair products in a completely incomprehensible way. But at the same time, I like girls who can install light fixtures, heave a bike over their shoulders and climb the subway stairs, throw me up against a wall and make me sit funny the next day. I think... I think the confusing thing is the desire for duality within unity. I want someone who is completely different from me (for example, I do not paint my toenails, will never smell tropical and really, I could use 2-in-1 no name dandruff shampoo for the rest of my life and not notice) and yet miraculously the same (for example, I could toss you up against the wall and make you sit funny the next day, after we'd biked 30k across the city and eaten nothing but jamaican patties and banana cake). THAT....that is something gaydar can't see.
How are people ever happy, really? How do people find each other in this sea?
This was supposed to be a funny banter thing. It turned into a universal question.
Where is the right person? Is there one? How long will I stay lonely?

----------------
Now playing: James Brown - There Was a Time
via FoxyTunes

the kinda girl i want

2008-08-12T17:09:00.002-04:00

it helps, really. to write lists of this nature, one must take stock of one's life, one's values, and one's future dreams. so here it goes.
the kinda girl i want needs an infectious, sudden laugh.
she needs to be light-hearted and easy-going. but always on the go.
the kinda girl i want believes in equality.
she hates gender, but loves a good set of heels.
she shaves when she feels like it, and she doesn't when she doesn't.
she performs for no one.
the kinda girl i want has a vocabulary that she adds to regularly and recreationally.
she has a love-hate relationship with reading, and an obsessive personality.
the kinda girl i want will be able to keep plants alive, because i cannot, and i like plants.
she'll cook when she feels like it, but it'll be achingly good when she does.
this girl will love her body without having other people's eyes tell her why.
she'll want to excel in everything she does.
the kinda girl i want will have an odd assortment of skills, and she'll be more mature than her years. she'll soften the more i know her, she'll cry at movies, and she'll yell at the news as if her voice alone could change the course of the world's events.
the kinda girl i want will take to the streets when she believes in something, which will be often. she'll be able to list her top five artists of all time, and she won't be able to decide on her favourite colour or her favourite musician. she'll be equally at home at the opera and on a hiking trail. she'll collect strange small things, and she'll be shy about her quirkiness.
the kinda girl i want will be the talker of the two of us, but when she listens, she'll remember every word.
the kinda girl i want may be too good for me right now. on the other hand, the kinda girl i want might be looking for a girl kinda like me. a bit rough around the edges, tense sometimes and sad. maybe this girl's looking for a girl who cries at the olympics and snorts at the news. a girl who wants to play every instrument, but can't afford that right now. a girl who fantasizes about being a superhero, using this dream as a reason to run faster, to do sit-ups, and to eat well. maybe she's looking for a girl who knows there's one person out there who will make the world seem small, a girl who likes quirky wallclocks and plastic jesus figurines and wants to collect art her friends have made on her walls. maybe she wants a girl who picks her nose unashamedly in front of anyone she's known for more than 5 months. a girl who doesn't really know who she is, but only thinks about that when she's supposed to be writing papers.

maybe this moment right now is the moment before the day before the week before the month we meet and the world makes perfect sense. maybe i'm a hopeless romantic, and nothing happens for a reason. maybe successful relationships are only either a product of dumb luck or endless scheming. regardless, i'll toss this thought into the electronic void.

In the City, Post-Break-up: A Vital Playlist

2008-07-18T01:24:00.004-04:00

Supergrass - Moving
Blind Melon - No Rain
The Weakerthans - Confessions Of A Futon Revolutionary
Nina Simone - Trouble In Mind
Alice Smith - Fake Is The New Real
Joan As Policewoman - The Ride
Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees - The Passenger
Party Ben - Walking With A Ghost In Paris
Melissa Etheridge - Like The Way I Do
Tori Amos - Precious Things
Uh Huh Her - Explode
Dresden Dolls - Coin Operated Boy
Metric - Combat Baby
Mika - Grace Kelly
Diana Ross and the Supremes - You Can't Hurry Love
Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert Soundtrack - I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine

Soon, I'll figure out how to podcast this stuff to y'all.

----------------
Now playing: Nina Simone - Trouble In Mind
via FoxyTunes

Natalie, my new guitar!

2008-02-06T00:40:00.001-05:00

ah, the second of my two true loves. best present ever. her name is natalie, and i love her. dammit.

Surprise, Surprise

2007-12-03T21:36:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's that time again, and as per usual, a girl's thoughts turn again to procrastination and self-indulgence. I can be the most diligent worker when there's no work to be done, but as soon as the crunch hits, my mind wanders.
Is it intentional, this maddening distraction? Is it my self-conscious self-destructing? Or is it the reality of laziness, the fact of my own stubborn aversion to work of any value? Or, is it that I am afraid to succeed, much more comfortable with the level of responsibility asked of the mediocre? But how to overcome it? Unplug my internet access? Kick the TV and the Playstation to the curb? Lock all my animal compatriots away in a closet? Turn off all the radios? Take the strings off my guitar? Force the Mac's milk to temporarily close? Lock all the doors and board up all the windows? Burn all non-related texts? Take down all decorations? It seems my list of potential distractions is endless, and impossible to avoid. Even the painstaking removal of distractions is a distraction of its own. But if I know I have to do this work, and there's no time to really dawdle about, and if this is truly a matter of academic life or death, how is it so difficult to stay on task?
I've exhausted all other procrastinations. I've looked through every facebook application, triple-checked my e-mail, re-written all of my events on my google calendar, fed and played with every single animal in my house, watched an hour of tv, played at least half an hour of guitar, masturbated twice (If last night at two counts as one for today), clipped my fingernails, plucked my eyebrows, cooked food, watched movie trailers on youtube...and you know what's funny is that there's a lot more functional ways I could be procrastinating, as well. I could've done my laundry, or the dishes. I could've piled my books into functional piles. I could've gone to get my health card, or talked to my old history prof about a reading course next year. Did I do any of those respectable things? No. I have spent hours doing nothing and have nothing tangible to show for it, outside of pleasing eyebrows, pleased pets and a pretty calendar. Horrifying, really.
Well now, I'm going to get to work. Come hell or high water, I plan to have an outline for each of my take-home questions by the end of tonight. I'll make my piles of books, flip through the index for useful pages to read through, and formulate a thesis of sorts. Dammit. If it's the last thing I do, I will create something here tonight. And not just an aimless blog. No. Far more than that.

In A Much Better Place Now

2007-10-14T15:48:00.001-04:00

Thanks to OSAP finally coming in, and a whole lotta change since last we spoke. By we, I mean myself to myself about myself. GOD. This is a very self-indulgent process, this whole thing, but dammit, I think it's good for ya, really. Near-constant self-reflection is all a post-modern girl can do to better herself. Seriously. Can't travel abroad because that tourist behaviour is imperialist in overtones and violent in economic implication. Can't read the canon, because we've challenged the hell out of the value of those texts in speaking to the human experience. Can't learn another language, because language is the expression of experience, and it's not your root, etc. There are all these "problematizations" that really feel like they cut your legs out from underneath you, really. But at the same time, this has been the trajectory of the lifestyle of the upper middle class - ever increasingly fewer and fewer acceptable activities. So I jog and listen to music and reflect upon myself. The only experience I am allowed to speak for is my own, so here it goes.
I am happy in the calm, zen-like way that I've searched for most of my life. Something about being with her like we've always wanted to be together, having a bedroom that's just a bedroom, getting caught up on my workload and feeling connected to my friends and my community...all of these things that i've searched for most of my life and never found...i feel like i have them now and if i can just hold onto them without trying to hold onto them, you know? then it'll all be fine. To be honest, however, I still haven't stopped thinking about smoking in a casual way, as though I need that vice to avoid in order to keep me listing my motivations and counting my blessings. And there's a part of me, especially this weekend, that is sad to see her headed back to Scarborough for school and evaning. I felt like I barely saw her. But she's mine and I'm hers and that's all sorted out finally, and her home is here with me and that feels damn good. I wuv her so much, I only wish this whole thing could be easier on her, really. You know? Just less complex. But frankly, I think it's perfect for her, and the moment I start taking her stress on as my own in more than a merely empathetic way is the moment I start making her feel like crap and over-estimating my self-loathing and worthlessness. You know what I mean? Anyway. That's all for that. I am taking responsibility for myself and I am helping her by being strong and positive...and that is that. That's what she needs from me and it's what I need from me, and she's already giving me all that I need from her, so there. It's all good.
And that is just that. Peace

To Fit Another September Post In...

2007-09-28T21:58:00.000-04:00

...I will stop at nothing.
Today, I spent four hours looking up fountain pens on the internets. Yes. Not for any particular reason, just for shits. My how time flies when you're hopelessly bored. Slash, no.
Despite my earlier claim that school is my driving force, there are several reasons why it is not fulfilling my need for direction as of yet.

I have not bought the necessary texts because I have no fucking money.
I have no fucking money and therefore cannot buy the good food that would make me feel like I have any kind of energy at all.
I am a wee bit on the depressed side of lonely and bored, and I am therefore finding it hard to get motivated.
I have no fucking money, and this is the main preoccupation of my mind currently.

So instead, I use my internet connection for evil, not for good, and kill time watching sitcoms on tvlinks and looking up fountain pens.
God, they're so hot, some of them.
I read so many blogs today that epitomize what I am terrified of becoming.
Because you know what?
I hate to admit it...
but I'm a hobbyist/collector waiting to happen.
Up until this point, I've quelled my urge to obsess through smoking, both grass and tobacco, drinking, doing dangerous things with my body and my self, eating too much, having too much sex, and engaging in obsessive insecurity in relationships.
But now that I have cut most of the above out of my lifestyle, and now that I am also trying like hell not to return to them in any way, I find myself becoming the healthy nerd I was in public school. I collect facts about strange things, revel in the entirely uncool and bathe myself in habitual behaviour of the third kind.
That kind being the stationary, web-based variety.

Here is what I would rather be doing with this energy.

Working out
Learning how to cook for myself
Doing my fucking laundry
Obsessively reading and writing
Meeting new and interesting people
Talking to people at coffee shops about their random experiences
Learning more sweet guitar riffs
Teaching my guinea pig tricks
Drinking more water
Holding fortnightly fancy soirees
Listening to new music
Learning how to play the harmonica
Styling my hair
Plucking my goddamn eyebrows with a vengeance

Now. This is not to say that I am not doing some of the above things. Numbers 6, 9, and 14 are happening on occasion. And I did build my G.P. a sweet little house with an awning and everything out of carboard the other day. And number 7 can now begin thanks to the kindness of a one Ms. L.P., who loaned me her daughter's underused fender acoustic.
Some of these things cannot happen however. Because items 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, and 13 (now that I've run out of the last of my hair products) require money. Which I don't fucking have. The others that I have yet to start are due to my complete lack of motivation. NOT that there's an excuse for that, but whatever.
So here I am, having retained nothing un-nerdy to say thanks to a day spent washing my eyeballs in electronic glow. And dammit, I'm going to post this miserable piece of work, because if nothing else, I will consider it an accomplishment among few for this lame September month. Fuck. Almost as bad as that Green Day song that makes me want to pluck my eardrums out with barbecue tongs.
I digress.

SCHOOL!

2007-09-08T12:21:00.001-04:00

holy balls, no joke. it begins in two days and life will once again have meaning and direction.
being someone who can't just let things be, i always take this time to wonder and worry about what it will be like after all of this meaning and significance is over. what will drive us each to wake up every morning, to read books that would otherwise be balancing crooked cafe tables and/or holding doors open, to write words that seem to come from some unknown place between our wrists and our spinal column but certainly not often our brain, to argue and debate and push for things we are not yet sure we believe in? will all the questions we have now (what is the meaning of life? do i believe in the political structure we have or...can i imagine something better? is it wrong to eat pizza for breakfast? am i cute? should i really be trying to succeed and thereby buying into the capitalist regime/university accreditation process that jane jacobs says will create a new dark age? does god really hate me because i like women's naked bodies? is it okay to call them back five minutes after i leave? where did that fucking hamster go? can i get another extension if i cry at office hours? is s/he really as dumb as s/he's acting? am i only pretending to be intelligent? is anyone really fooled? i wonder if this would make sense on drugs? what on earth does "the sampling distribution of means" mean? minute rice or basmati? will i have enough OSAP left over to get a new tattoo?) suddenly evaporate upon graduation? sadly, i feel nearly completely certain that things will remain largely the same. but here's the thing, the one solitary difference, between university and the rest of your life.
university is for you. you may claim that you are educating yourself to better save the world, but that's bollocks. it is the one thing you will do with vast quantities of your/the government's/your parents' money. you may never again spend that much money completely on yourself. firstly. secondly, everything you do in school adds to you as a person. whatever you learn, however high your marks are - these are benefits and bragging rights that go directly to you. do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.
after university, no matter what you studied, what field you are going into, who you end up working for... for the most part, after university, you will be doing things for other people. either because you are in an entry-level position, because you studied teaching or development or social work and that's your job, or because your boss is an asshole. all of a sudden, all the same worries are there (am i good enough, interesting enough, smart enough, hot enough? do i have enough money for rent, groceries, bills, tattoos? will i die alone?), but you're out in the world working under someone or another to earn money. and that money disappears. partly to pay your osap, partly to pay living expenses, partly on fun things that are indeed for your own enjoyment. but it disappears. your life is not your own anymore. reading becomes some recreational privilege because you don't have time for it, and frankly, you start to feel like you don't have the right. going out to get drunk isn't some social brewhaha that makes you feel good - it becomes something you do at the end of a work week because you have to stop thinking about the odious cycle you've gotten yourself into. if you're lucky, you will have ended up in a situation that you chose - you're teacher and you really feel connected to helping those students, or you're a social worker and you feel like you're helping to build good community, or you're a science major and you feel on the brink of solving problems for the whole world, or you're a writer and you feel like maybe soon you'll be able to move people to tears, or convince them to recycle. if your work was what you wanted all along, it still feels like it's for you. but trust me, the number of people fresh out of undergraduate degrees who get work that they wanted all along, let alone knowing what the fuck that might entail, is slim to nil. and i think it's just healthy to face that fact now and move on.
once i finish thinking and worrying these things, the fact that school is my driving force doesn't worry me so much. i stop aching for meaning and start reveling in the simplistic beauty of education for education's sake.
so my message today is, despite their ridiculous prices, stop and smell the textbooks. they may very well be the last thing you do just for you.

I Can't Play Guitar Because I Am Infested With Warts

2007-08-22T23:25:00.000-04:00

Yes.
Warts.
And because of this, I have to soak them in warm water for five minutes, snip at them with nail clippers, and put noxious chemicals on them. And because of that, I have to wear band-aide's on my fingers. And because of them, I cannot play guitar.
That's the story.
Morning glory.
As gross and inexplicable as it is.
Also gross and inexplicable is my appalling lack of employment. But I guess there's only so much sitting around and waiting for a job to fall into your hands will do. A couple interviews, a lot of waiting, and some dead ends.
My lazy ass is currently in debt. And my lazy ass doesn't even have a credit card. My lazy ass owes someone she LOVES money. Isn't that great?
But it doesn't end there. My lazy ass has also been a bit of an asshat lately - pushy, inconsiderate and selfish. So my lazy ass has no love to call her own currently. And my lazy ass has to deal with that fact.
Silliness aside, I'm in a bit of a bind.
The thing is, it would be easiest to leave. But it would also be easiest to stay.
The hardest thing would be to leave. But it would be just as hard to stay.
So if the easy thing isn't always the right thing to do, and if the hardest thing is often the right thing, where on earth does that leave me? And is it only my weakness that makes this question even come up? Is this uncertainty all my fault, or is somebody else uncertain here? Who's calling the shots?
The truth of the matter is that aside from losing a lot of weight and facing a lot of memories, there's not much that I can honestly say I'm proud of over the past year. I've picked fights, mistrusted honest people, shirked responsibility, shown my ugliest anger, lost myself to jealousy and sadness, procrastinated to the point of near-destruction...I haven't learned anything outside of the recreational, the stuff that's been presented to me on a silver platter, the easy-to-memorize stuff. I haven't been as loyal as I've been thinking I have - always being the first to leap to the demolition option, always keeping one bag packed, a back door open. I've been pushy and confused and selfish, while simultaneously neglecting myself and letting myself become another responsibility for someone I love.
In short, this has not been a good year for the gadfli. Oh, I can chalk it up to survival, to healing, to my age. Excuses pile up in my head at times like these - self-pitying diatribes that demand further attention, further care, further adoration and pity out of those around me. But as much as not a one of these excuses is untrue or unwarranted, that does not make my behaviour cool and groovy. And it does not make it any easier for me to face the reality of myself currently.
I have little to be proud of. That's the long and the short of it. When she doesn't look at me and think I'm pretty, I sure as hell don't, and that means I have NOTHING to be proud of. Because my physical and emotional health are all I've really worked on this past year, and the latter has not been consistent in any sense, so we can't count that, now can we?
The thing is, life is hard no matter which way you turn. But it's okay if you can close your eyes at the end of a day and count a few things in your mind that you're proud of.
Staying in this means a few things; It means I have to work hard, day in and day out. It means even if I do become a better, more responsible person, I'll be that better person with someone who has seen the very worst and weakest of me, and with someone who may never fully forgive me for that which she has seen. It means that I have to be okay with the fact that, no matter how hard I work, things may not work out here, so whatever I do better damn well be for me and by me, or else it's just artificial growth, and I'm wasting everybody's time. And it means that I have to be okay with that uncertainty.
Here's the thing - I want something to be proud of. Something I made for myself, and something that makes me a better person for others. I WANT to work hard, and I am sick and tired of the feeling of failure, and of disappointing others.
I love her. I wish things were certain, I wish I was all that she needed, and that she was all I needed. I wish I was a fuller person when she met me. But all this wishing is not doing, and it won't help either of us now. Whether she can accept this past year as a fluke of crappy, whether she can forgive all the many kinds of bad I've been, even that may not fix this. This may be as far as we come in terms of a relationship. But I know I want to be with her still. With her and all that comes with her. I know I want to be MORE in her life, not less, and if there's a way that myself being stronger and better can allow that, that's great, because that's what I was going to try and do anyway. If a better me is still not allowed in, still not good enough, or just still not what she was looking for, that's too bad. But it's not like both of us haven't learned a great deal.
In any case, I love her, and it's time I started making myself something loveable - because the fact that I can't even like myself right now is cause for concern.
I have to stop wishing and start building, stop waiting and start working, stop dreaming and start living.
That is all.
Good night.

I Find Pokemon Soothing

2007-04-23T10:14:00.000-04:00

I feel that it's a symptom of that fine line between brilliance and insanity that I need to do exceedingly stupid things to calm my nerves.
Only recently, I found an old Game Boy Colour version of Pokemon Silver in my "jewelry" box (and by jewelry, i mean a sort of childish assortment of bottle caps, broken friendship bracelets and random beads). I was in a situation of extreme mental fatigue - I had just ran all over town looking for a key for my work, all the while stressing about the potential housing situation that was being explored in Toronto by members of my close circle of friends and lovers. Tension abounded and I was trying like fuck not to smoke. And along came this little game. So I played it, and lo and behold, my problems dissolved into the intense task of training an assortment of mythical creatures to fight other mythical creatures in a small children's game. Much like the allure of a four-year old friend of mine's tv shows (especially Backyardigans, because it doesn't stress me out with lame-o gender and racial roles like Timothy Goes To School and Winx club and etc. tend to), this game is simple and innocent enough, with enough depth and choice in it to keep me captivated.
Sometimes the best thing to do is to take a couple steps back from the time you're meant to be existing in.

In the spirit of the above, and for the same reason, here is a cheesy song I wrote that very same day. It sounds like a country song, adding to the cheese value of the thing, but forgive me. I thought I should share nonetheless:

my soul has been abused til it's black and blue
i've stepped on so many heads i've got blood on my shoes
i've wandered all over what this is about
but i know that i know nothing inside and out

on days like today, i feel like everything's alright
all those loose ends seem to tie themselves tight
i know that tomorrow won't feel like today
but right now i guess that i think that's okay

yesterday i cried three separate times
felt like i'd lost all my sense and my dimes
i thought maybe i'd love you until i died
but i changed my mind every time that i tried
i wanted to be stronger for you and for me
be mature and understanding like you want me to be
but i'm young still and foolish - i feel angry and sad
even more so when you tell me there's someone less bad

but on days like today i feel like everything's alright
all those loose ends seem to tie themselves tight
i know that tomorrow won't feel like today
but right now i guess i think that'll be okay

tomorrow i'll tell you that it just isn't fair
you've got too many people all up in your hair
too many people being better to you
just because i'm so different - to you, so brand new
i want you all to myself, all the good and the bad
it's not fair you go elsewhere when you're feeling sad
i feel out of control and like i'm useless to you
but on a day like today i know that's not true

on days like today i feel like everything's alright
i just want to surrender without any fight
wanna lay down beside you and turn off the light
wanna hold your heart close all through the night
cuz i know that tomorrow won't feel like today
but i'm hoping you're thinking that that'll be okay

yes folks, only the highest and stinkiest quality of cheese here at the Gadfli this fine pre-exam midmorning. can't go wrong there, because going wrong is the whole frigging point.
anyway, tata for now.

And Now The Dreaded Searching Process Begins

2007-03-31T17:57:00.000-04:00

agonizing, how long it takes. frigging agonizing. alas, here i am.

BBC has a series called "people like us". listed are "the journalist" "the vicar" "the doctor" "the policeman" and "the farmer". for kids? hmmmm... let's see.
grr. the sound isn't working except on audiograbber. poopy pants.

in other news, did i mention i was bored? as heck? and feeling like poop?
oh
i did.
well then.

i should be responsible and try to read some of this stuff.
tata for now.

So They're Here Now

2007-03-31T16:42:00.000-04:00

smoking, drinking (green tea, to be precise) and carrying on (about boobies, to be precise) and i still feel lonely and bored and i'm worrying more about my paper than i should be, really, because my exam is a far more pressing concern, but the words won't go in my head in these in-between-cd moments and i'm feeling antsy and tired and sick of all this scene, but i did hear some good tunes, by Arbra Hill and Kate Reid, the latter of which really spoke to me and i so think we could jive because she's talking about small towns and road trips and her heart being behind her guitar and how hard long-term relationships are and all those classic folky things but at breakneck word-flinging speed more attuned to a rap or a beat poem, so i like it better than most folk, though i think her voice isn't that great but she's trying, right and that's what counts in all this madness and i was thinking about wirelessness the other day and wondering what that does to your brain, all those things all floating around, but there are so many more damaging things floating around, i can't help but think, because of all these smokers and drinkers and phobics all exhaling fumes and rude remarks and it matters what people think deep down, you know, because it comes out at people at odd moments and that's what makes people feel bad or uncomfortable but that doesn't make all this political correctness any less wrong because it's stifling, it is, and how are we supposed to have a dialogue, a discussion, without people being able to say what they really think and how are they, those who would say silly dumb things about other people, supposed to learn if we just tell them "no you can't say that because you're not supposed to" and so on, and the cd's done ripping so i gotta go, but there are my thoughts for the moment and i think i need to do this more often even if it's to no one in particular, so that i don't get out of practice, cuz that's what happens and then i don't tell my love all the random things i think and then she feels like she's in the dark, and rightly so because so much goes through my mind in a minute that even i feel that way sometimes, so why am i so fricking quiet all the time, except when i'm performing for people i don't care about at seminars and dancing for people who make me nervous, when all i really should be doing is being as open and honest as this for the one, the one person i've ever trusted with all this madness and here it is, for her and for me, and now i have to go rip another cd. peace.

I Feel Like Poop

2007-03-31T15:46:00.001-04:00

I Feel Like Poop
Because
I Called My Love
To Tell Her All About
What Her Body
Is Doing
In My Head
And Then She Told Me
I Was On Speakerphone

The Worst Bit Was
I Also Told Her
About A Poo
That I Had Only Recently
Had

Luckily
That Came Before
I Told Her About Her Body
And So I Heard
The Uproarious Laughter
From The Car
Filled With
Her Mother
Her Son
And Her Ex-Husband

I Feel Like Poop

in other news, i'm here at work, with no one around, and they're playing "audio art" which is basically the art of confusing people into thinking their radios are not tuned properly. uck. but hey. whatever floats yer boat.
i feel confident enough in saying that no one sees this to add to my poem a short explanation of how pretty and sexy and lovely my love is. and there it was. a short explanation, which i always want to spell "explaination" as "explain" is the root word, and also the root meaning. but, like wednesday, that would make too much sense for english. anywhoooooo...
it's been altogether too long since i've been completely de-clothed, outside of showering occasionally, of course. and being de-clothed is an action, as well. an action that hasn't happened TO me, as it were, for nearly three weeks, i swear.
it goes without saying, i hope, that these are the expressions of a girl who is stressed and tired but horny as heck, and are not to be taken seriously at all.
i feel like singing in italian some soft drifty song that turns out to be all about how the singer wants sex. if i knew italian, all of the above would seem far less dirty somehow.
poop, just for further explAInation, is my personal word for DAMNED EMBARASSED. which is to say "em-" (as in the prefix meaning "to make") "bare" "assed". the sum of the parts is that i feel no less like a child than i always do, no less observed than i always do, and no less an embarassment than i always do, and no more free to be who i am than i've ever been - meaning NOT free, really, when it comes right down to it.
i mean with her, yes. but our lifestyle is such that being with her is not ever JUST with her. but oh i am the saint of patience (not really, but i'm meant to be. if i really was, i wouldn't even be saying this stuff) and one day, over the rainbow, we will have some privacy at some point. not from her son, of course, but that's okay. it's the myriad of other people that make it feel so crowded.
of course, maybe i should just be less embarassing. maybe it's strange to tell the one you love about your bowel movements, or about how naked she is in your head. maybe it's strange to draw with chalk in your twenties, to want to make strange tea-hot-chocolate combos in the wee hours of the night, or to play guitar mid-afternoon in your room. maybe i'm strange. maybe i should be less strange and then all of this em-bare-ass-ment would be less omnipresent. but i have a strange feeling that the one i love wouldn't like that very much, because it would be fake. and i have a feeling that the one i love is just as strange as i am, when not observed by those who would judge her. i want to see all of her strangeness, so i assume that she wants to see all of mine.

if she does, she knows where to look.

i feel like poop.

Ten Reasons Why It's Okay To Be Gay

2007-02-27T19:29:00.000-05:00

The part of the bible (Leviticus) that argues against homosexuality (calling it "an abomination") also argues that mixing fabrics and shopping on Sundays are "abominations." Leviticus is equivalent to Hamurabi's laws - They were believed to be innate and reasonable at the time, but laws change. Leviticus, the word, is derived from the latin for "law". These laws are not all followed by even the most devout Catholic today, because they were outgrown by an expanding society, increased medical knowledge and many other reasonable and practical changes. It doesn't mean the whole bible is necessarily out of date - if you feel it isn't, it isn't. But even the authors intended Leviticus to be a law-making session, and LAWS CHANGE.
Birds do it, bees do it... animals of all shapes and sizes practice homosexuality. Our closest primate, the Bonobo, practice it in spades, in every way imaginable. Female bonobos have even evolved enlarged clitorises in order to practice it more effectively. Outside of chimps, dolphins, arguable one of the most intelligent species around, enjoy blow-hole male-on-male sex frequently. As Radclyffe Hall in the Well Of Loneliness says, "you're as much a part of nature as anyone else, only you've not found your niche in creation."
Despite this lack of niche, arguably, in an over-populated world, homosexuality acts as a great balancer. We, the homosexuals, adopt children that would otherwise be shipped from foster home to foster home. We, the homosexuals, truly appreciate these children, because we've had to fight for our right to be parents, an experience heterosexuals take for granted. Homosexuals are more closely watched as parents because many people believe us to be inherently bad for children. Because of this, we often make it our bound duty to be the best parents ever.
"oh we like men fine. we just don't want to see them naked." - two nice girls. And frankly, who does? By acknowledging on equal footing the beauty of our own sex, gay men and lesbians subvert the competitiveness of a heterosexist, capitalist society. We make love, not war. Interesting that two men kissing is a shock to the cultural system when two men killing each other is just a part of everyday life. Wouldn't it be better if it were the other way around?
Homosexuality, not as an act but as a lifestyle, has been around for millenia - Sappho was a greek woman who cultivated a society of women who were dedicated to poetry, song and knowledge. She wrote millions of love sonnets to women in an open frankness that seems shocking even today. Why, if it's been around so long and so publicly, is it still "wrong"?
Speaking of art and culture, who but the greatest of cultural producers have been gay? Michealangelo, Andy Warhol, Elton John, Shakespeare, Sappho, Amy Lowell, Jeannette Winterson, Renee Vivien, etc, etc, etc. Even great warriors and revolutionaries like Alexander the Great. The list goes on. From fashion to architecture to poetry to politics, great minds love alike.
Culture is right in on the game. It started with the sneaky sexual tension in Xena:Warrior Princess, grew boldly forward in Will and Grace, moved from there to the strange popularity of Queer As Folk, the burgeoning success of The L Word, and now full-length feature films such as Brokeback Mountain, Another Gay Movie, My Summer Of Love...and there's even talk of Beyonce and Eva Longoria remaking Tipping The Velvet, a book that was translated into a British three-night series. Love is all around. ER has a gay character, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has a gay character... It's becoming more and more an accepted part of pop culture.
Homosexuality is about choice. Although some, including myself, may have found their experience with homosexuality to be an innate part of their sexuality, and not a matter of "preference" at all, the perception that homosexuals choose their love is a liberating one. It speaks to the idea that love is love is love, and that it need not be about reproducing or being supported economically or so on. The idea that people can love whomever they please is an archetype throughout history. People overcame class differences, racial differences and sex sameness to be in love with whoever it was made their spine tingle.
If homosexuality IS innate, which scientists might just prove, that doesn't make it any less powerful. That means that, if you believe in God, God made gay men and lesbians just as much as he/she made heterosexuals. It means that homosexuality is part of the plan, part of the great balance between being fruitful and multiplying, and saving the earth "God" gave us. It also proves that to lie yourself into heterosexual unions is denying your very human nature. It means that following "instinct" could very well lead you to a same-sex love affair. It means you're natural, normal and beautiful just as you are, just like anybody else.
Homosexuality can be part-performance, part-reality. It draws attention to the falseness of gender roles, the artificial nature of the innately romantic boy-meets-girl story. It allows an expression of self that is not limited to culturally prescribed norms around gender, sex and love. It frees us, in general, from the confines of culture, allowing for new answers to old questions and a radical reformation of the ideals of normalcy. It means that men can soften up and women can support each other instead of being supported. It means a whole lot more freedom in a whole lot more ways.

Homosexuality, like race and class and a myriad of other differences, has been something people have had to overcome. With that comes a certain strength, a certain understanding and respect for ones ability to stand strong for an ideal of justice and fairness and equality. Any battle that pushes for these qualities is a good one, and contrary to competitive ideologies, it adds strength to the struggles of other groups to attain the same rights. Because we have had to earn the rights we have, we use them with dignity, hopefully. The right to adopt, where it applies, is taken as a privilege and treated with care. The right to be open and public about ones affections is met with carefulness, tact and education, because we understand our openness to be at risk.

The problem is that not everyone sees it like above. People see homosexuality as an abomination or, arguably worse, as "a phase". Legitimacy is rarely afforded a same-sex romance, and violence and hatred is a daily risk. But there are places where this love is safe. Peterborough is one of them, Kingston wasn't bad, and Toronto is safe on certain streets. We are now officially protected under hate laws, which are important if only for educational purposes. There are a lot of next-steps that need to be taken, ie/ making same sex relations an accepted part of sex education in high schools, in order to protect homosexuals from misinformation and therefore the spread of sexually transmitted infections, and in order to stop gay kids from feeling like they're sick or mentally ill because they don't want what is shovelled at them as the only way to DO sex. The fight for gay marriage was a justifiable one, despite my qualms with the institution of marriage in the first place, because it affords a sort of visual and outspoken legitimacy to our relationships and our partnerships that before this was left ignored and sidelined.

The thing is, lots has changed since the raid on Stonewall (which, by the way, was actually a transsexual bar, not a gay bar. I feel the need to mention this because transsexuals have an even rougher time of it, and we can't just use their rebellion as a symbol without giving back to the movement in general.)

I hope, one day, that all that I write here will go without saying. It does for me, now, but for others, and for those that I love, it's not been so easy to be who they are.
Anyway, that's my ramble for this evening. Tata.

the gadfli

begin from the inside looking out

i want you the way

in these days of rumble and sawdust

My Day Today

Life Plan V.356

Just... Need A Job.

new here

I went looking for old resumes and found love poems.

On Being Sure

*wince* don't hate me, little town

gotta say it. (maybe trigger warning)

Need The Dough

At A Loss For Words

and then...

ideas

oh well. here's a cartoon.

FUCK

A Story

At Sadleir Again

doop dee doooooo

i tend to run into pretty girls when i am the least coordinated. thusly, i am wearing brown, blue, yellow, pale mint green, purple and black.

New Aspirations

Well, I suppose it's time

they tore it down

a heart

i've already written you love letters

i've got no buttons on this jacket now

she found me the other night

so will you

24: part one of the Good People series

the root

we could tear this down

i make a sweet butch to your tough femme

neither, both, between, amongst

But My Life, My Love And My Lady Is The Sea

Things Not Understood

Last

Last

It's February.

Things that have been keeping me busy...

on one of my first days at university,

sum pomes

All that silence did get me thinking, though.

by any means

Yeah, alright, ya caught me...

A lovely moment in history

life is a shit hole.

boo.

One day, I'm gonna make a road trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania.

A Guilty Habit

Let This Be A Lesson To You!

One Bitter Motherfucker

THINGS MAKE MORE SENSE

Here's What Happened.

All You Need Is Love

the sky is blue

Gaydar

the kinda girl i want

In the City, Post-Break-up: A Vital Playlist

Natalie, my new guitar!

Surprise, Surprise

In A Much Better Place Now

To Fit Another September Post In...

SCHOOL!

I Can't Play Guitar Because I Am Infested With Warts

I Find Pokemon Soothing

And Now The Dreaded Searching Process Begins

So They're Here Now

I Feel Like Poop

Ten Reasons Why It's Okay To Be Gay

wince don't hate me, little town