Plathological

the lovecats

White cat watching! And been vodka drinking with strings, dangling, and: on a stick! Where did the time go? I’m surprised at how little I have to say. It’s torturously ridiculous, next to nothing. Except for that room upstairs last night, its tenants gone on a trip. It's set up in the round and we have our roof sitting out-the-window, and the deaf cat clawing the air hour, after hour. Poured energy drinks in our vodka and lemonade just to keep up with its tiny white spine, limitless motions preying on the string weaving all over the hard dark floor. I don’t know. Graeme’s been back in his ripped white Ts and Eraserhead hair, and I’ve given up thinking for cuddling (and reading stories with satisfyingly disturbing endings and playing with cats—since everyone seems to have at least one, if not two), which is the point I haven’t made very well at all until now--some cats have fleas, some have tubes in their side, some can't hear a g'd damn thing, stomping foot by their ear. I’m in love—how do I even put that anymore? Total disregard for the documentation of events, seems to be the way I’ve been doing it. They've fixed the clock tower on city hall. Each hour is chimed in turn, with one ring to mark its mid-point. It's nice to hear it from my window.

Ended up coming home last night, smashed as all smashed and trying to watch Fellini special features while eating half a sandwich. Trying to watch. Or rather, trying to take in the brilliant surreal parade of images in the colourful short, while trying to decipher the small, white text running like a condemned man at the bottom of the screen. A life or death scrolling race and only catching half of any dialogue until Ok. I can’t take this anymore. Can't focus on two things at once. Shutting it off! Shutting it off! Let’s listen to radio dramas coast-to-coast! Really loud to sober us up! Ok. That will work. That will work because listening is easier than reading the marquee at this juncture. And falling asleep to . . . .:

Also, every night for more than a week straight and counting, I’ve been having sleeps filled with grotesque nightmares. Every night without fail and I don’t know why and I wake shaken and shaky each time. Any ideas as to what’s going on? Or better yet: as to how to put an end to this nightmare plague? CURES?? It’s kind of hard to take.

The Body of Canadian Icons

So I’m nearly blind because I haven’t blinked for about three minutes of shock. I was doing some reading on Karla Homolka because of the creepy Tim Horton’s statement she made during that interview with Radio-Canada (the first thing she wanted to do when released from prison was have a Timmy Ho’s Iced Cappuccino etc., etc.—Karla and Kandahar?! Wow, guys, sure hope to see all that macabre alliteration and bloodshed in upcoming campaigns depicting your shiny thrown as Canadian Fast Food Iconoclasts: RRRRROOLLL UP THE LIMBS TO WIN! One more "K" and you'll have to give free shares to The Clan) and eventually found out that this coming fall of 2006 will bring the release of KARLA, THE MOVIE (though it was already partially released in eastern Canada this past January--?) , with Laura Prepon from That 70’s Show as Karla. The families of the victims apparently had a private screening of the film and had no objection to its release. Now, my heart's still racing too fast to provide any sort of adequate commentary or opinion on this film, but I will say that its release and take on the crimes seems to rely heavily on the good old marketing virtues of "we're not exploiting" we're “instilling public awareness” of sexual offenders and “not glorifying the lives of the criminals,” etc. While that’s all well and good and obviously unavoidable marketing strategy (Ontario Premier wanted a boycott issued on the film), what about the fact that this will no doubt be one of the most controversial films of the year and as a result will probably make an obscene amount of money at the box office, and will no doubt subsequently go on to become a cult classic at video stores across the nation? Supposed good intentions or not, are we not still egregiously capitalizing on the deaths of Tammy, Leslie, Kristen, “Jane Doe,” and possibly other girls? Isn’t that the bottom line? Hasn’t this been sensationalized enough? Or is this film a good thing? I don’t know--this film has been the recipient of many a "Official Selection" at film festivals type of accolade. I’m more than a bit disturbed and wouldn’t be able to hold food down right now if I tried. But that may change later. Anyway. The film’s website has a trailer. You should watch it as I’d really like any sort of opinion you may have on this. Let's start with the slogan on the poster above, "Evil has a beautiful face." Not to get all Women's Studies on you, but is that some sort of insinuation of Karla's "femme fatal" status? Is this film's catch phrase attempting to sell the film on Karla's . . .sexiness??? "Instilling public awareness" of her hot blondness?? Oh no, "not glorifying" at all. I just threw up in my mouth. But that may be because I don't exactly find her a turn on, sorry* to disappoint those with certain fetishes for blond serial rapists. Under the "News Updates" section of the website, news of the film's progress, press and release are on the lefthand side, while news of Paul and Karla runs on the right. The top of these two columns houses the red letter(ed) phrase, "When is a movie more than a movie?" Holy fucking god. If we give her her fucking Iced Cap' to suck down will she disappear** already?

*that wasn't a real apology.
**I realize the existence of this post isn't helping to deter the media propagation and is therefore in a way defeating me.

witnessed falls

Evening started like a salvaging: a laundry battle. Some man in the building was trying to do laundry at the same time as me. I never saw him in the course of battle, but knew it was a man because his clothes were the color of wet sand, thick, heavy material like waterlogged bodies washed up on a beach. With each load, we in turn practiced the pre-emptive, unloading the dripping mounds of each other’s clothes on top of the machine they’d just revolved in before placing our own inside. Should have been there at the end of the cycles, neither of us ever making it in time for first second the spinning settled. Evening ended with Graeme’s call, meteoroids cascading on his end to the earth. I could see nothing of them, my windows face east, the remaining directions barricaded by the brick walls of adjoining buildings. Clothes hung or laid flat and still around me, their final dampness being eaten by the air, I listened to him describe the fireballs as if he were telling me of a dream he once had, not asking him if they vaporized mid fall or hit the earth, not bothering to move from my settee, knowing there wasn't a chance I’d see their glowing tails from my position, which, despite this island, seemed suddenly landlocked. A day later and he tells me he’s coming home on the overnight bus.

. . .

When I think of you I think of fraying skirt stitches? Active verb. Small frays.
. . .

!

he missed the mini E dress-up/dance partii on saturday--but hey. more to come.

housing

Sooner or later, it’s time for every woman to spend an evening with a strip of measuring tape and her breasts. Home is, of course, how you break the space. I have not done this, but I’m cutting my home up, and my bra looks too small.

Pomp and Circumstance

Before leaving to visit me, my father turned down the temperature of the fridge to better ensure the preservation of food. Upon returning home, my mother discovered a jar filled with borscht had exploded in the fridge from the cold pressure. “Can you imagine?” she said. “It was like a blood bank fridge.” Then she went on to give advice about “safety precautions: first!” To which I agreed—be aware, you know, if you really are too drunk to be listening to Elgar and Tchaikovsky at the inner harbour after dark, be aware, you know, that you’re swaying from Pilsner since four in the afternoon and are kinda sorta bummed at not going to the symphony regularly anymore and those two facts alone are likely to make you fall, flat, on the concrete. So, just: be aware, first. Anyway. I managed not to fall because I was super aware of sway-a-sway all safety precautions: first! all over the place, but I did manage to get some kind of . . .trick baton (?) that rolled to my feet on the walk there. It has a fuzzy end and I stuffed it into my bag like some prize and kept forgetting about it until each time I opened my bag to reach for something else. I've been advised to set the fuzzy end on fire, which I think is pretty good advice. Last night was one of those nights where in the final hour of drinking the body does everything in its power to shut me down because it feels its been drinking for eight hours and fuck you, caro, that’s long enough you bitch you do own a bed, you know. It’ll start doing stuff like enamoring me to black lint balls on the carpet, being unable to properly grasp plastic cups of gin, being unable to discern the tread of a conversation once it reaches upsidedown space ships! and, if that doesn’t work then hiccups for the first time in years get into and out of this cab and fall into that bed right now, right now or I’ll never let you breathe again.
Ah but wait. I need to put you through more. Have to call back Graeme first. I have to let him share in this the first sign of my body truly giving up on me, which I was convinced, at that point, was those hiccups. Painful enough, sailors. The funny thing about hiccups is that there's this intense moment after each one where you think this one. this one will be The Last One. They just can't go on from there. But we all know they do. When they're that angry with you, they stop when they want to stop and no amount of holding your breath will get you out of this one.

the body electric

Could my nightmares be anymore realistically terrifying in a supersonic way? Holy crap. Who was that woman in the plaid bathrobe with skin glazed and sucked back into her body until all her bones stuck out, pulled back like wires with resistance? HOW DID HER EYES STAY IN HER HEAD? What was with all the freshly decapitated deer heads and why were they electrifying one another once stacked like totem poles? And why did the woman have to give birth to the most wheelin’ and dealin’ executive baby who only chose to speak at the end, just in time to give props when things went his soft-skulled, baldy way in the diner with all the overcast light? Ok. This is the second time I am vowing: now more resin for me. Halo, David Lynch. Halo, I’ve seen performance art pieces with muscular, naked men, painted all bright blue, writhing across the floor like worms being stepped on, only to rise and smash concrete with hammers bigger than their heads, right there in the gallery. And that was less scary than this woman who went into some kind of electric shock of skin tissue, even though I'd been sitting in the front row at this performance with pieces of conrete banging right under my feet.

wait, where's door number three???

Hey everyone. Are you actually kidding me? I’m starting to see the humor in this and it’s not as absurd as I may have once thought. I saw two people walk through a wall tonight on my night-trek. There was no door so I’m convinced I saw a set of ghosts and I’m frankly kind of pissed that they didn’t bother to stop and give me a message. Unless walking through a wall was The Message, and in that case, I guess I can see what they mean. Like, you can be dead and still totally walk through walls, or in fact maybe that's the only time when you really should. But other than that you're actually kidding me. All of you--nice trick.

I'VE TRIED TOO LONG AND TOO HARD, YOU SONOFABITCH!

My main problem right now is that it’s midnight and I have a 2.25 L. jar of pickles (Slavic parent food obsession) and can’t open it for the life of me because my hands are too small to properly grip the gigantic lid circumference. This says nothing about my dick size, only about how I handle one. If you have like . . . six inches in girth, I don’t think there’s much my little hands can do for you. Sorry.

"it's a nightmare situation," joy division

At the Sally Ann yesterday, a Polish Holocaust victim bought a vintage Shakespeare book for me because it was Senior’s Day and that meant 20% off for her. She spent two years in a German internment camp before being granted status in Canada and slyly passing me the book outside, so the cashier, as she said, would be none the wiser to our ploy. My parents just left and I’m actually surprised at how sad I am about their departure--people who love me unconditionally and drink with me nightly until sleep. I know every time my mother leaves me her heart shatters. Her manners struggle and she can barely contain her sorrow; it becomes difficult for her to streamline herself. She tells me to listen to the radio more because people talk on it, and sometimes it's interesting talk. Last night in my wave of Pacific Pilsner and Shiraz induced sleep, I dreamt about all the people that are not physically present in my life right now. We were all sitting in a circle inside. Mat, Xavier, Graeme, my parents, Julia, Sheika, Steph, Joy, Bigelow, etc. were drinking wine and looking at one another from the corner of our eyes, attempting to peripherally communicate all they and I had at one time experienced together. It bordered on unsettling; I've gotten into the habit of actively missing people this year. This morning the landlord had his gangly weekend assistant in hand and together they powerwashed the courtyard to clear the air of pigeon shit and feathers, cigarette butts and used tampons. Now a few of the pigeons are bathing in the puddles of cleaning water. A couple are lapping it up. I’m scared my courtyard will house some sort of pigeon hybrid now as a result of this chemical marriage, or there'll be a sea of pigeons on their backs, beaks to the sky, feet tucked gently back into their bodies. Eyes prehistoric and red, my watching their half-closed, cruel designs slide down by the second to seel into the two bottom lids. I'm terrified the timing will be perfect.

fathers!

Are we over the substance abuse shit? Can we say this yet? Well, OK: Why my father is in fact awesome despite the fact that it took me years of therapy and disorder to get over everything he used to put upon me:

1) Walking around town, Mother asks me, “Why do you carry such a big bag around with you?”
“So she can carry beer in it,” Father says, “high five.” (Do I high five him? My father high fives at every opportunity. My mother is, periodically, ready to send me to a drug and alcohol detox clinic after all she has seen and heard). So my hand action’s half hearted, but only for the greater show of mother.

2) “The Smiths? The Smiths are music for Special People,” Father says.

3) “I’m turning on the lamp for a second,” Father says. “Do I turn it right, or left?” Ok. So he turns it right after I affirm direction for luminosity, lights up the room, brings his shoe into our sitting area, seats himself, takes a massive drag from his smoke, exhales into the shoe. We all watch the smoke float from the shoe. “What’s this?” He asks and we ask him what, still watching the exiting smoke puff from the shoe.

“An Iraqi waiting for the bus,” Father says.

And a little after I die, I start to believe my mother when she says, “You have a personality just like your father. It’s uncanny.”

We mimic our crazed oppressors? Well. I fucking guess so. An Iraqi waiting for the bus? There's no way a person could regret saying that in the morning. Which is why he's my father.