The phone here is this strange two ringer. One long ring for upstairs, two short rings for our place. I'm used to it now, but when I'm expecting a call and the phone rings, there's the impulse to pick it up, cuz it obviously for me, right?
Wrong.
Just picked up the phone, girl's mom phoning for upstairs girl, long distance, from overseas. So I go upstairs looking for the girl, only to find a different girl trying to communicate to me with a mouthfull of toothpaste "riii nnn bk, rii nn bk, rii nn bk," pointing at something, me, pen in hand, realizing she's just said "right in the book." So I do. Here's what I wrote: Steph, mom phoned, sends you love and 1 hug.
Now I'm waiting for job. I have a few options laid out for me, who knows. I need work. I'm a fucking bum, but I'm writing lots of songs for not the album coming up but the one after that. So far I have six complete/incomplete songs on the go. If it's 2005, this'll probably be 2006-7, so I'm ahead of the game, except where employment is concerned. I'm a bum.
Two Blue Spots On The Tip Of Her Wing
It is not often when a butterfly snaps my attention.
I'm a busy man, lots on the go, assessing business.
On the concrete steps up from the haunted crosswalk
in a muckity-muck neighborhood, a monarch sets
upon an azalea and winks her honey-molasses wings.
I peer in close, drink a rootbeer, and open up to an afternoon
underneath a breeze, a few garry oak lording over pebbles
and a tabby cat in the grass. I'm reminded of a dead woman
who dreamed of work in the afterlife, designing wings
on flying things. I knew her well enough to read the pollen, dust,
the ribs in this butterfly's wings. I read them and she sings:
grandson, you'll never know if I jumped, or if I fell.
Skipped out on work today due to rain rain rain horrible spitting rain. Gardening in the rain? No. Instead I slept in (naughty boy) and accompanied J. to UVic where we drank coffee, read newspapers and trashy magazines, ate Union Egg Muffins and doted around chatting to the fucks who work there.
Last night J. and I watched "What's New Pussycat?" and "Wildman Blues," two Woddy Allen movies. The first one was his first movie, which was hillarious until the final act, where it got a little too zany. The latter film was the documentary about his New Orleans Jazz Band tour across Europe. Allen is a spoiled whiner. Cute wife, though. I think Soon-Yin and Allen's manager get a kick out of bossing him around, making him do things he doesn't want to do. The music was good though. Crude, as they say.
The past week has been strange. Feeling myself coming back to normal, the hysteria of Van Life (as opposed to Park Life) gone in the way of basement suite and gardening my own garden for once in my life. I really hate the idea of going back to work. But it must be done. I've been googling my name again, a vanity I feel comfortable sharing.
I'm currently reading "The Vanity of Dulouz" by Jack Kerouac. It's a memoir type thing, which is very well written. Canadians are very anal when it comes to non-fiction. Kerouac, for example, spells doesn't doesnt. No apostrophes. Why? Who knows, who cares. Why should a few dozen apostrophes get in the way of a good read? The voice is very present, and he has a way of writing with descriptive life and a laissez-faire attitude towards authority, which is important. You can't let authority get in the way of what you want to accomplish, unless you want to walk in the ranks. File in and complain about the weather for the rest of your life.
The plan in the meantime is to work as soon it gets sunny, and truck up to the Mox for the weekend to chill out with the parental unit.
The other night I dreamed of people who are close to me who are either dead or dying with protective family members swooping around. . .
Currently in a coffee shop sipping a vanilla thing I got the girl behind the counter to make. It's very white, with milk and such.
Digging the new digs, got quite the garden on the go: a yoda head with bamboo out the top, wine bottles dug deep into the earth with wild-flowers stolen from the local provincial park, store bought flowers, pepper grass, arugula. A Beaut.
Zeus! Apollo!
Tour was brilliant. Lots of hours in the van reading comic books when the landscape didn't interest me (re: prairies). Montreal was great, lapped up as much as possible. Manitoba is now Mani-douche-bag, as the van got busted into, CDs stolen, blood everywhere, gear all acounted for. . .
Mmmm. Summer is here. And I have the ol' ball 'n chain back. Tis great.
-M