June 27, 2005
Earlier Than Most
I hope it’s not an imposition; I’d like to be shown around. Being a porch-dog is the same thing as being a veranda-girl, both look out onto the same garden, from different floors, different heights. One might have a greater quantity of matted fur, but as things stand that’s highly unlikely. Free phones, round yellow table in Chinatown parking lot, us three sitting at it with no small feast and the sun going down. I am very grateful--least of all for the white grape juice, but you know--near close to tears. There's a good chance I will be going back to Calgary in July. We'll see how things go. There's nothing to miss in me. Today I am dusting for money. Right before I collapse. You have no idea what I pulled out of the bushes in the alley last night, right down to the heated water, what vivid, point-by-point TERRIFYING dreams it brought me. Jumping up and down on the stairwell, screaming, screaming for my mother. I woke up in the dark and expected her not to be there--she wasn't. The most terrifying, suitably melodramatic dream I've ever had. I still don't know what was in it, at least not everything. I tried to work it out in clumps, under the low light. Tho' always the same, same consistency smeared on my hand. I could hardly see a thing, grain from grain.
June 25, 2005
You're Already Asleep
Stretchyball bent & what is it with me and I must go to sleep and what is it with me and I must go to sleep and I’ve been in your purse and I’ve described how it happened and what the fuck is it with me with my stealing beer but I found it be back in five minutes got work to do if you refuse you'll hurt my feelings got work to do great suit you're wearing it's the right size, fits you like a glove like a motherfucking---I just met him this morning and he sold me a suit and I promise I'll do whatever it takes to control my jumpy nerves.
June 23, 2005
Caroline, Would You like to do Some Lines?
Two nights ago-- bevy of Scots, who were men, my finding out what aquaboard is from them as they fought over the basic definition, its specifications, manly arguments, burly burls, rum & coke, rum & coke, blah blah, beer, pint, beer, beer, pint, beer, pinkie promises made with a Scot . . .blah, blah, stripper bar, signed stripper poster dropped off at Bulford’s and Xavier’s late at night for them to find in the morning (I'm a freak), Evo for dancing, blah, blah. Men bustin' caps over me, blah blah, ended up breaking the pinkie promise for my own ends and finished things off by doing coke with a Bostonian of Puerto Rican descent. Oh, and learned how to play G Major on the guitar. Also learned that A minor is usually a natural progression from it. But, who knows if that’s true. The coke was good, though. And so is the massive Puerto Rican hickie on my neck. What wasn't so awesome was the Puerto Rican BEGGING me to stay longer at his place: please stay! Please don't go! Please don't go! But, it actually was kind of awesome. When is being begged by a floundering co-dependent who just WANTS A BIGGER TV AND BETTER GAME SYSTEM not awesome? God, I lie, I so lied earlier. This is boring. God, my life is boring. I’m bored. haha! Moral of the story is: I USE MEN LIKE NOBODY’S BIZZ-NASS, BITCH. I adore, ADORE this stage of caring less about any of them, high low or to the motherfucking side. I seriously feel no sense of attachment right now in the romantic sense. Though the Romantic sense is something entirely different. & all because of a little plastic, pink-eyed beaver. Beaver Bring Luck--v. much like Mink Bring Joy. This is only for starters. The real story is that I'm a total bitch and am all too comfortable with it.
June 21, 2005
Me & Mat(t) (Friday Night), Photo by Xavier
So, we're in an elevator after picking up some other people, going to see The Primes at Logan’s. I would be nowhere without the gay. For real. Though I'm not about to cry about it, nice as it is.
June 19, 2005
Headbutting and other assortments
I just looked down to realize my hand had bitemarks all over it. Holy anxiety attack. The saliva is drying now. But when are the trees not full, some parts of the world inquire, having the right, outright through history. It shouldn’t irritate me when he breathes out music, the count of it, penciled scores on the kitchen table should not make my eyelids harden. Holyshit I need to go.
Friday night’s amorphous events and eventual party can best be encapsulated with the young French guy, pulled off his adversary post-scuffle, yelling through the distance of the basement, “I’LL PISS ON YOU AND YOU’LL DRINK IT LIKE COLD MILK!!” Me and Xavier just chillin' in the doorway of the washroom—suppressing glee, admiration, disbelief, laughter, cops upstairs on a noise complaint. Went back upstairs after the glare of headlights stopped shinning through the glass at the top of the door. Watched girls giving lap-dances to each other.
June 15, 2005
Idiot's Route Leads to Sunstroke
I walk by him every day, where tourist town meets uphill. Today, eyes to the ground until I was passing his side, I imagined myself being married to the guy: the guy who tells us all to come to Julia’s place. Though he totally disgusts me, he’d be an easy marriage. He’d come home with his chef’s hat sticking up in the air, his white apron, bunched and ruffling at his knees, as if he owned the place. We’d live in a hovel. The sort of hovel that people like us aren’t supposed to afford anymore. You know: the rebel sell, things and places, circumstances that have been usurped by people, entire segments of the population that wouldn’t have these sort of detached fantasies—maybe some of them have even taken his advice, had steak, mushrooms, drinks where he told them to. I'll have to tell him first, one day, that I'll never actually come to Julia's Place.
Today I learned that employers are terrified of colour, literal colour. Though the word terrify wasn't actual used, by my make-shift and quite momentary bread and butter coach, at least. What escaped my mouth was quite a different story. I'm sure she, loose long hair and political science degree in the making et al., expected me to come at something with a knife, hidden weapon.
Package
Why do the penises in my life keep getting larger with each consecutive man? I just don’t understand myself. This is so standard.
The penis thing is disturbing. Must have something to do with how I keep going west.
June 12, 2005
Full Stop
Someone just found this page by googling the following:
human intercourse with colour photo
I feel so fucking honored. For real.
Early Night
Not a river, but a rolling of the dice. So, one leaves the landing up to chance. I live in an area with a lot of stained glass and more wind than most places surrounding and outskirting. She dries mint, ties it to the cupboard, to turn the leaf into something that can flake or crumble when rubbed, ground more readily. When out, she wears black, velvet hats and is attacked by a murder of crows. Recounts--a few fell swoops, attempts to protect their young from her headgear. The tragedy of fashion, really. Gives me clear jars to put in my toilet tank.
Two hours (& twenty minutes) on the phone with Elliot last night. “Do you know anything about physics?” I asked.
“Unfortunately.” He has a degree in Engineering, as well.
Phone to ear, I settle myself in bed so I can more aptly visualize, eyes closed, the sinusoid curve, the hypotenuse, string theory-why it's significant, Bayesian theory--with many analogies, dimensions, a sphere in a box. “Keep talking about it,” I said. “This is good.”
June 11, 2005
Shortly
Apart from the fact that Elliot went down on me for half an hour, we went to the beach with provisions, strawberries and rum in a thermos among them. This all happened on Thursday. Rum, while sitting on a rock (pun here is too easy).
Yesterday was a show at 50/50 (Xavier), most of which I am still processing, in terms of intrapersonal significance. I mean: I was placated like a child, point-by-point, like out of some fucking manual, by a friend. But, other than countless, and I mean countless because I’ve actually lost count, spoken and unspoken irritations, I danced till there was no more to sweat and I started to harden all over. These past months have made me start living in my bones, instead of my body. Hard, can outlast anything--bones, you know. Fossils.
Am worried that I am not respected. As an artist. The textbook placation has been running through my mind all day. It was a base judgement and my first experience of being misread in a long time. Though: none of this is really my problem. None of this is my issue. I woke early. I read all day.
Elliot phoned today. After spouting names associated with economic theories and expounding on the theories themselves he asked me to come over for fruit, Carver, Bach and cream sherry. I either want to spend all night at home, writing, or sitting with topped glasses, text between our spread legs. Haven’t yet decided. I'm not even sure if my phone is working properly--I haven't paid my bill. I have no time for anybody right now, not really. Not emotionally.
June 9, 2005
Tweed Gets You Hot Men
Get this:
Hop on the bus at around eight in the evening after coffee & brownie with Bulford at Il Torrefazione (the usual, random, homeless man mistaking us for a couple, “give your
Glances back, furtively. Twice. Oh. Well oh. Holy shit, he’s stunning. Holy SHIT I want him. This is what I’m thinking. There was a way in which I didn’t quite know where to look. Sure, baby, I’ll move my knees down for you. Is what I think. And I do. And I start breathing harder. And he turns around, says, “Hi. Sorry, I saw you downtown earlier. Just wanted to say that I think the jacket is fabulous. It’s herringbone tweed." HE KNOWS THE TYPE OF FUCKING TWEED.
HOLY SHIT THE JACKET XAVIER GOT ME AT VV IS GOING TO GET ME LAID!!
Is what I immediately think.
“Oh, thanks! What are you reading?” I wait for a beat or two and then can’t help myself (he has gorgeous locks and looks so fucking academic and tweedy I’m nearly squirming) and sit upright, lean forward into his seat. His aquiline nose.
Why, he happens to be reading John Ralston Saul's new book. I try not to froth. I ask him may I and grab the book, flip through, read headings, first paragraphs underneath.
“Oh,” I say. “Have you ever seen him read?”
“ No, but I’m going to see him this Friday at the main theatre downtown.”
“The McPherson Playhouse?”
“Yes, tickets are five dollars.”
We’re at Cedar Hill X now, and he asks me out for immediate coffee. I counter with a proposition for immediate drinks--sweet rum, gin. He immediately agrees. We hop off and walk through the residential area, the park, talking about literary theory, Chomsky, TS Eliot, Atwood. . . . .
As we walk, I ask him his name.
“Elliot,’ he says.
“Like TS,” I say.
“Yes, but he spells it wrong. With one L.”
Did his BA in English in Holland. Is now doing is MA in Economics here, at uvic.
Used to be in a Jazz group (under his full name). Plays jazz guitar. We have drinks and he goes on, and on and on and on, talking about jazz and music theory. I relate what he is saying to various writers. He knows of the writers and particular works I am referring to. He's frantic and damnably European and slightly mad (sound like anyone we know? . . .ahem), but also a Jazz musician.
Over coffee, Bulford said, “I think you’re destined for an older man.”
Elliot (God HIS NAME is Elliot and he’s OBSESSED with TS Eliot) is, I would say, about 30 something or forty something. Who knows? Who cares? He talked my ear off about everything from: why he is too critical and too overtly outspoken sometimes because he once answered his Israeli friend’s emails with . .back-story about Jewish Ascension, called the Aliah (?--spelled WITH an H?) &tc., . .
Answering simple, direct questions takes him as much time as it does me. Which is a long, long time. Everything has a too many contexts. I talked his ear off, in turn.
Gin, and a walk back through the park to get me to the bus stop. He stopped off at his place to get a literary comic for me that is done by the guy who does comics for The Guardian. It’s about, who else, but: TS Eliot, Joyce, Woolf, &tc. &tc. Oh, there's TS again! Oh god the references are brilliant. It's a detective story. THANKS XAVIER. Oh, did I MENTION that he went to the same high school that I went to, in Calgary? What the. His mother lives in Kensington. She's here in Vic for a visit.
& cute boy (HB boy) phoned again last night, at 9:30 or so. I obviously missed his call-- again. Hope he tries again. He IS cute, after all. A lot of agains. Pardon. Men will put that word into you. They have that tendency.
June 7, 2005
So Fucking Depressed
Clearly, I just want a job so I can get a full liquor cabinet to peruse at want & will. With great care.
I applied for two (more) jobs today. I want to die. Or at least drink myself to death. Moreover, I missed a phone call from a cute guy last night by about two hours. Let’s hope he tries again, because I sure as hell am too depressed to lift the phone. Fuck everything. Fuck it to Parnassus.
June 6, 2005
Honey Wine
Cenamorous:
“an intimate meal, often laden with aphrodisiacs, whose intention is to arouse feelings of passion. From Italian cena, ‘supper.’” [Gastrabulary, A Future Terminology of Eating: Ken Alba and Lisa Cooperman]
Sure, I’ll blanch the quart of almonds, and will never have to see their original form again. Pound them, using a mortar, take note of phrases like: stir well together, over a gentle fire, come to a fine paste, take care and, perhaps most tellingly: serve when hot.
Thus, Pilaff Bey instructs me on the making of Almond Soup, the first recipe in Venus in the Kitchen or Love’s Cookery Book. This is aphrodisiac cooking as captured in the forties, peeling, chopping and melting with the intention of getting laid or, at the very least: finding the life partner of my most subconscious/Jungian dreams. All I’m asking is: he better not be a skinny little shit, though it’d be easy enough to fatten him up nicely with Pie of Bulls’ Testicles (you take four of them, Bey informs. And, after boiling in saltwater, you must promptly strip them of the membranes that cover them). That should do the trick—how can boiled bull parts fail me in any way?
All is well with me, save for the fact that I’m spending my afternoons dressed in tight-fitting tweed under the sun while scanning the pages of Love’s Cookery for phrases, (because for me, phrases are enough) that will get me off. Bey took twelve years putting this book together (“twelve years is a long period of time,” he writes in the preface, “but my leisure is not wholly given up to researches of this kind . . . I have other ‘hobbies,’ as they are called, such as the collecting of Persian carpets . . .” and who could have denied him such divine pleasures?). I, for one, have tightly bound principles. Trusting a man who collects Persian rugs as a “hobby” with telling me how to get my sex life going is definitely one of those principles.
Though I only know of his flair for recipes and subtly sardonic tones--little else, really, I love Bey. Here is a man who has handled the testicles of lambs, adding a good-sized pinch of powered cinnamon, and quite possibly served the dish to a lady for the purpose of testing. There’s just something about a man who’ll handle mounds of stripped animal testicles just to see if you’ll lift your skirt for him that I find grotesquely, perhaps dangerously, intriguing. I also find it hot. Obviously. I want him to serve me. I want to be served.
Bey also has brains. Fried Brain of Beef, Brain with Truffles, Brain of Veal a la Mustafa, even the flutter of Sparrows’ Brains. I’ll invite a follower of Foucault or Derrida (i.e.: one who lives to deconstruct and add suffixes, prefixes onto any word that will take them) over for Brain with Truffles (how could he resist such an offer? I mean, there’ll be a steamy-hot brain dripping on the table, served as the main course). Be sure to clean (the sheep brains) well of red veins, so as not to, you know, terrify the poor bastard off, fork in hand. Nothing says flaccid cock faster than veiny sheep brains dripping red.
Perhaps Sparrows’ Brains might produce more desired results. Apparently, “Sparrows have always been praised as stimulants,” Bey says from the recipe’s get-go. Makes sense. Chaucer did use the phrase “lecherous as a sparrow” in The Canterbury Tales, did he not? I think we’re all in agreement here, especially with that literary reference. So, let’s get to it: “Whoever wants to test this should take several brains of male sparrows and half the quantity of the brains of pigeons which have not yet begun to fly.” I find the last portion of that instruction to be highly poetic. It makes me want to read recipes all the time. It makes me want to take dead things, things that have not yet learned to fly, and create flight with them, cover them with goat milk sauce. Flight in my own (sex) life. I mean, I'm easily taken that way. I can be got with one phrase or twist of phrase, alone.
It may be difficult to tell whether I am being at all serious. What tone am I cooking up here, anyway? We’re talking coercion, sauces, sex: in these matters, one can either take things all too lightly or all too seriously-- rare, well done, charred to the bone. Regarding sexy recipes, I mean every word. I seem to be matching Bey, tone for tone, quip for quip. So it seems.
There are drinks, of course. Alcoholic ones. Give me one sip of red wine and I’ll want to molest the person sitting next to me, gender or previous history (or lack thereof) with me not an issue. If one can simply get some box-wine, get drunk off his or her ass and put one’s tongue through the first desirable (or handy) mouth in view, why bother with something so fully loaded with overt intention, something so time consuming as the reading up on and gathering the ingredients for aphrodisiac recipes? Because, as Bey points out, the usual drinks are not enough in the Lover & Co. department. Apparently, I have been missing out on something big all these years of carrying gin & tonic in my little flask. Maybe Bey’s drinks can make the one night stands even better. Maybe I’ll start to forget faces, as well as names. Wouldn’t that be dandy? All that sex, so little baggage.
Let’s get started! As I flip through Bey’s section on Drinks, I come to something called Hysterical Water. Sounds simply mad! Good enough for me. But, in case it wasn’t, let’s just say there are a lot of roots involved. Beaten roots, added to a quarter of a pound of dried millipedes. And, if getting drunk off of a pile of desiccated insects that appeared in the reoccurring nightmares of my childhood still isn’t enough to make me jump into the mugwort water, then at least there’s Bey’s ever gentle, well mannered use of the English language: “You may draw off nine pints of water, and sweeten it to your taste.” Yes, I may, darling. “Bottle it up,” he says.
Despite my obsessive fascination with Bey’s sexily quaint old-world deviant phraseology, my bottom line is this: serve a man a good enough meal and he’ll no doubt go for seconds and will have to unbuckle his pants anyway. But, in the mean time: “Take a good piece of tenderloin. Beat it well,” to, you know, brush up on your Loin of Beef.
______________________________________________________________
Addendum: I have not tried any of these recipes since the food bank feeds me, and, unless any of these recipes can be made with fruit from a can, smooth peanut butter, macaroni and cheese from a box and frozen loaves of bread (which they can not), I assure you, Bey’s grand dreams of improving my sex life with dishes that are “very stimulating indeed” are bound to fail. So, I guess my real Bottom Line is: find me a job and I'll either a) be your best friend or b) give you the best blow job of your life. As long as the job does not involve the giving of blow jobs, because I'm clearly better than that.
"Why am I so hot?" (asks Caro over The Beer) "Because you are! High five!" (says Bulford) :D :D
Intersection on the way home, red light, my way: roadworks. Tanned man in near blanched t-shirt looking down into a manhole, arms propped on a ladder that reaches all the way into the waterworks, sewage still--down on the gravel, he’s crouching, “it doesn’t get any better than this,” he says to his work-pal down in the hole. “Or so they say.”
Why was I the only one laughing at that crosswalk? How could anyone else not have found that supremely and majestically hilarious and fitting to Real Life? Oh, right: because everyone around me was a bloody tourist, from America, and stuffing peanut covered ice cream bars into their burned and chapped faces.
Isn’t the sun just incredible? Aren't travel expenses just the sheepy brain?? Oh, keen.
June 4, 2005
Deep Throat, Come Time
THINGS TO DO BEFORE I KICK THE BUCKET:
--Mix drinks, mingle. Have an orgy with two homeless guys ripped on acid and my best gay friend while listening to The Knife: I don’t like it easy, I don’t like it the straight way . . .and we raise our heads for the colour reeeeeeeeeeed rreeeeeeeeeeee----eeddd.
Oh, . . .wait: I TOTALLY did that last night.
One more thing marked off the checklist. Why haven't I been having orgies all my life?? Why haven't I been introduced to this SOONER? Why am I such a fantastically good whore? Time and place for everything, Caroline, time and place. You're in the COMPUTER LAB, for christ's sake. Calm. Down. Oh god I love myself. As a person. But even more as a woman.
June 3, 2005
Rather Telling
When I check books out, the library people must take quick note of the books I have previous fines from over two years standing and laugh, and laugh, and laugh (quietly, to themselves):
Measure of value : the story of the D'Arcy Island Leper Colony / Chris Yorath.
Death notebooks. / Anne Sexton
Awful rowing toward God / Anne Sexton.
Feeling good : the new mood therapy / David D. Burns ; preface by Aaron T. Beck.
Isn’t that a fantastic little character-telling list? That LAST title is the perfect culmination. It was, of course, recommended to me by my shrink at the time. He thought I’d hate it because of its bright yellow cover. He was right. I also hated the Case Histories. Obnoxiously close to home, and therefore useless to me. Anyway, I owe 19 dollars, so I'm good for take-off.
June 2, 2005
Survey, From Mariko (I had a lot of the same answers, big wow there)
TWELVE MOVIES:
12. Tampopo
11. The Remains of the Day
10. Eraserhead
09. Lovely & Amazing
08. The Magdalene Sisters
07. Basquiat
06. Wit
05. Deconstructing Harry
04. Happiness
03. Russian Ark
02. Storytelling
01. Manhattan
ELEVEN GOOD BANDS/ARTISTS (aka: fuck you):
11. Leonard Cohen
10. cocorosie
09. Nigel Kennedy
08. The Raygun
07. The Magnetic Fields
06. Arcade Fire
05. Bloc Party
04. Velvet Underground
03. The Knife
02. The Postal Service
01. Combat Furniture
TEN THINGS ABOUT YOU:
10. more than anything I want to be useful. As a person.
09. I long to be part of something greater than myself.
08. I’m really uncomfortable unless I’m the centre of attention in most situations.
07. I’m concerned with raw ideas, rather than their physical and practical application.
06. I can draw, if you didn’t know it already.
05. I will go out of my way to please my friends.
04. I write mainly from life.
03. My mother is a better person than I am or will ever be.
02. Nothing injects more fear into my heart than money, and the concept of money.
01. I hate crying in front of people.
TEN GOOD BOOKS:
10. Any short story collection by Raymond Carver.
09. Ulysses - James Joyce
08. Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
07. Dancing Girls - Margaret Atwood
06. The Early Stories - John Updike
05. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
04. Self Help – Loorie Moore
03. Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You – Alice Munro
02. Beautiful Losers - Leonard Cohen
01. Atonement – Ian McEwen
EIGHT FAVORITE FOODS/DRINKS:
08. Milky, black tea (orange pekoe, Assam).
07. Diet Coke.
06. Gin.
05. Cottage Cheese, 1%.
04. Ahi tuna.
03. Golden Delicious apples.
02. Sushi.
01. Dark roast with whole milk, brown sugar or sweet & low.
EIGHT THINGS YOU WEAR DAILY:
08. Blazers!
07. THE SEX.
06. Wristbands.
05. My favourite gold bracelet fell down the toilet last week.
04. Black eyeliner.
03. Vanilla body lotion.
02. Usually, a knee-length skirt.
01. two-fold geometry.
SEVEN THINGS THAT YOU HATE:
07. people who can’t take things organically.
06. most children.
05. dogs.
04. virgins.
03. vegans. Because wheat is murder.
02. people who call me blazer girl.
01. people who demand too much of my attention.
FIVE THINGS YOU DO DAILY:
05. smoke cigarettes.
04. read.
03. write on screen or paper or plan for it later with specific specifics from my head.
02. procrastinate.
01. talk to myself.
FOUR SHOWS YOU WATCH (but I don't have TV.. still, I’d watch any of the following..):
04. six feet under
03. sex & the city
02. family guy
01. ali g
THREE PLACES YOU'VE LIVED:
03. Istanbul.
02. Victoria.
01. Toronto.
TWO THINGS YOU WANT:
02. A steady, reliable non-corporate job.
01. to support and connect with in a platonic manner.
ONE PERSON YOU WANT TO SEE RIGHT NOW:
01. sheika—she is in Calgary. My mother--she is in the same place
bloodline(s) & Glands
save a life, save a sightline: click on this or die (of shame).
(The man behind the mink & mammary).
I'll Be Dirtier Than you, But My Space Will Be Spotless
Of course, take me there; we'll love the phrase real Jew. Just adore it. I'll wear twin-sets or tweed all the time and my ailment will be heatstroke. I'll have eczema on my ankle and mustard on my toes. Nothing will cure me. At four AM, you'll hear me building fires from chopped bundles of dry wood and toasting my drugstore sandwiches inside them. You'll watch me learn to do things without looking, push-button, though sometimes I'll burn the side of my hand, not from touch, but proximity. My strengths will include having a second nature. Embedding it into the wee hours, showing it through automatic movement. I'll find old bikes with missing peddles, and there'll be people to fix them. The seats long enough for five people, one after the other. I'll know how to negotiate the cost of repair, from previous experience. The chain, of course, will have to be replaced. The bolt on the handle tightened.