On a break at work. It is terrifying to update like this! I could be wrenched away at any time.
Actually I have nothing to say, so this is pointless.
Except - Apparatus is nearly done! I swear this time! The images look superb, the bios are witty, and of course the postcard stories are little works of art crammed into tiny borders. It is altogether cute. Reading coming up in the next week or so.
The Liberals won - minority - merged w/the NDP they would still be one seat short of a majority. But there are recounts underway in at least 3 ridings that I know of, so ...
Tonight I feast on salmon cream cheese and mango slices! And watch the "Death and the Maiden" dvd Ryan lent me! There is a picture of a woman with a gun on the front, and a sunset.
Okay, so it's not really the campaign trail. And I haven't had sex yet. But trust me on the rye.
Matt and I have made an 'Election 2004' chart, similar to the "Cool Runnings" Jamaican Bobsled Team one, although instead of a blackboard in a thatched hut it's yellow construction paper and brightly coloured felt tip pens. We're updating it every half hour via globeandmail.com, and I feel excited and lame and terrified. So far the numbers are:
Liberals: 44
Conservative: 23
N.D.P.: 5
Green: 0
I'm pleased that the lesser of two evils is in the lead, though a little disappointed for my party, the N.D.P. Matt voted for Green, which is doing shabbily, but once they count the BC votes I'm hoping they'll win at least one or two seats. It would be a Canadian first.
Everything is so stupid. Matt and I are N.D.P. and Green supporters and they're the underdogs and I don't get it. Are we that freakish compared to other Canadians? I can't figure out if it's because we're artists, or some weird demographic/age/gender/education-level thing. I'm angsty but having a lot of fun with the Chart. I'll be posting a scan of it once this whole horrific nightmare is over.
I've been lounging in bed with Matt in late-afternoon June sunshine reading obscene poetry by Allen Ginsberg. I hate poetry, am scared of it, and contemptuous, and frustrated, scornful, hopeful, intellectually curious, emotionally bored; except when I read Allen Ginsberg. ("America why are your libraries full of tears?") People don't write poetry like that anymore, and if they do, it does not appear in the Canadian lit-rags. That in itself provides the motivation for me to give poem-making another try.
Three NDP posters hang in my living room windows. They are the colours of tangerine and lime sherberts, and unfortunately not too visible from the street. But they are reckless and jaunty, which I guess is the point.
To anyone who expects polite service when dining or drinking in Victoria restaurants: avoid Hunter's. You may be tempted by the fabulous martinis, but to be condescended to and lectured when you are trying to give an establishment your business is headache-inducing.
I went to the Dress-up-as-your-Favourite-Disease party last night, as chicken pox. Someone was herpes, another had narcissism, one was jaundiced, etc. Matt was supposed to have galloping consumption but forgot his bloody handkerchief and instead told people he had some sort of 'bleeding throat' disorder. I shot myself point-blank with a large super-soaker, thinking it was aimed at a fireplace. We watched Russ's spaghetti western short, which is fabulous! And I was accused of being a paid PR rep for auto-asphixiation. Strange evening.
Writing thing last night, which consisted of lots of beer, lots of cigarettes, a living room screening of "Meet the Feebles," poker, a drinking game, pie and ice cream, and exactly 3 writing exercises. I had fun, yes, but woke up frustrated that the writing thing has become more of a party thing. It's almost all my fault, because I'm usually the one drinking the most and suggesting we watch movies, etc., and this makes me feel bad. There's nothing wrong with parties and socializing but I do that all the time anyway and having Tuesday night set aside for writing is so important. I'm going to be very militant next week, try to lead by example. Ben has been hankering for the half-hour silent writing of longer works, which is what we used to do last winter, and it's high time we return to that.
This I know, for .... I went on web-reg today to check my registration date, thinking it would be in mid-July sometime, only to find out it is this evening at 1800 hours!! (that's 6pm, right? Right?) So in a flurry of stress in between customers at work I picked out my classes for the last year of university. Should be good - 4 workshops (fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, and drama) plus 2 film classes (feminist film and history of film). Rawr!
Drinkin the Moosehead. Just made breaded tofu and steamed bok choy. Ben will be over in 20 minutes (at 1800 hours, that is) so he, Matt and I can go over the final layout of Apparatus. It looks fabulous!
Matt just asked me, "Have you ever understood that 'Waste not want not' saying? I've never been able to understand what that's supposed to mean." I told him I thought it was karmic. Children are sober in India!
At 1900 hours people are coming over for the writing thang.
My brother updated. Hurrah! His blog is now technically ALIVE.
Here's another ditty from the writing thang, not a postcard story though, more of a self-indulgent wank-a-thon. My first time writing from a lesbian viewpoint.
"Just a humble perk from my dad's construction company," said Jenny, and thrust the paper bag into my hands. I didn't open it until after I was home, the door locked behind me, Jenny's pearly fingernails, her lips, her combat-fatigued legs, safely on the other side.
I dumped the contents onto the surface of my waterbed: nails. Close to a hundred, it looked like, and expensive too. I squeezed on and watched as the skin on my fingertips turned white: the nail didn't bend, of course, and the metaphor was so downright obvious that I stayed up all night smoking American cigarettes and thinking What is this bitch playing at; I knew her father was a small claims attorney, not anything to do with construction at all, and by dawn I figured she'd pegged me for a lipstick lesbian, all hairspray and no home maintenance skills. When we met for brunch I didn't touch my shrimp-and-avocado omelette; just stared at those hard hazel eyes as I dumped the nails onto our silverware, daring her to do something rash, grab a hammer and pound my arm into the booth divider. Instead she blew onto her coffee, onto my coffee, smiled that underground film star smile.
"You've hardly touched your home fries," she said, and I couldn't grasp that blend of domestic and ruthless fast enough for her to understand I wasn't being rude, I just hadn't read her personals ad close enough.
(c) copyright Joy Waller 2004 - All Rights Reserved
I've been mean to a child. Sort of. I was expecting Ben and Steph at about 6:30 on Friday, and when the buzzer rang I grabbed my cocktail and simpered down the stairs to greet them, all swaying hips and a silly, 1950's lush housewife grin, only to see it was a boy of about 14 holding a clip-board.
"Hello!" I said, and took a sip. He told me he was trying to earn money for college by selling subscriptions to the Times Colonist. I lied and told him I already subscribed to the Globe and Mail (sort of true; I'm registered for their online version) and he told me he was also selling the Sun and the Province. "Izzy Asper owns all those rags!" I shouted, suddenly enflamed. He backed away, and I saw Emily in the driveway, waving and saying she couldn't come out tonight. "But I'm drinking gin!" I yelled, and the boy skulked away.
The movies were fun. Plenty of gin and juice in the third row, shouting wise cracks and criticisms, laughing at the emotional bits while the rest of the theatre sat in silence. I love my occasional Asshole Evenings, particularly the company - Matt, for example, wouldn't shut up for the entire duration of "13 Going on 30" about how Jennifer Garner was a Republican.
Later, candles and more cocktails on the patio. I polished off two mickeys, less a shot or so. Bam! Woke at 10 to go for brunch at Valentino's, where I ordered my eggs over-hard and received them oozing yellow-ness out the tops. I no longer complain about this, because really it's not a big deal, but I am fascinated and appalled that not a single restaurant in Victoria knows how to make over-hard eggs. Put a bit of an edge on the morning.
Then Willows Beach for about 5 hours. Cigarettes and white wine and GayBoys deconstructing the physique of every single man who walked by our towels. Jellyfish in the water, burned legs, strawberries, and a Panama hat. Do Saturday's get much better? Not in Joy's books. Homemade miso soup for dinner and a living room screening of Woody Allen's "Interiors." A great movie, even with the requisite demonization of motherhood theme.
The heat is oppressive! But I've got a bottle of gin and a bottle of sangria coming my way. I'll have to think of some scandalous way to tip my bike courier.
Tonight we're going to see offensive teen flicks at the Roxy. One of my favourite pastimes is watching horrible movies at the Roxy, and then critiquing and analyzing them afterward. A senseless thing to do, but oh so fun - like critiquing BC Report was - before it folded - ha!
Finally got my voter registration card yesterday, after calling the elections office in a panic because it hadn't arrived yet. An apt quote from Paul Simon:
Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon/
Going to the candidate's debate/
Laugh about it shout about it when you've got to choose/
Any way you look at this you lose/
(of course, the next part goes Where have you gone Joe diMaggio/ A nation turns its lonely eyes to you, but we'll disregard that part)
Lunch: Vegi goodness and gin-tonic. With a nice boy.
Movie: "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)." A funny movie, but tasteless. I don't normally get bugged by tasteless movies. This one bugged.
Thought: I should become a politician. As long as I don't have to wear a pink micro-mini. Which seems likely.
Clothes: Ankle socks, striped brown shoes from Tokyo (size 39), purple courderoy skirt, two shirts: one white, one blue, and a green necklace.
Plans: To read the news magazines at the library before my 5 o'clock shift.
Injustice: They cancelled our play break at the calling job. No more play break! Yesterday was awful.
Anxiety: The usual. Really. The usual. I'm so boring I could have an anxiety attack.
Craving: Loretta Lynn's new album, which Jack White produced.
Received more porn spam today. I replied with the following:
"Hello,
Did you notice when you spammed me that I have an undeniably female name? And that, on the chance I was a lesbian, I would not be interested in the artless pap you sent me? Please do your research before spamming me again.
Sincerely,
joy."
Naturally, the email was returned because the forwarding address does not exist. I feel depressed and robbed.
Severe emotional trauma underway yet again, from (what else) reading the news. I am experiencing anxiety attacks about the upcoming federal election. I am scared shit-less. If one believes the polls (which Matt doesn't; he says it's all propoganda to sway the votes), the Conservatives will likely win this election. WHAT THE HELL? JP says Stephen Harper has child molestor eyes, and apt though he is, it doesn't even begin to get into the sick and twisted mess our nation is mired in. How could Canadians be so ignorant? How could the majority of voters even consider electing a man who is homophobic, sexist, racist, American-lovin, animal-and-environment hating, and a diehard capitalist plunderer to boot? I'm almost angrier at my fellow citizens than I am at him.
In the last federal election, when I was 19, I voted for the Alliance party. There were three reasons for this terrible mistake:
1) I was young and inexperienced
2) I listened to my mother's propaganda
3) I was too lazy to actually read the party platforms and see what these monsters really stood for
Now I am 22, and have friends who have experienced homophobia; friends who have been raped and had the cops practically laugh in their faces afterwards; friends who have suffered racism and the trauma of immigration laws. My father, who worked all his life to provide for his children and wife, was laid off from his job at the age of 59 and now works a part-time job he is overqualified for. My tuition fees have skyrocketed and with one year left till graduation I am $20,000 in debt. The homeless in my city are starving and I walk past them every day, unable to help. People with mental disabilities, single parents, and the uneducated are walking the tightrope track of suicide.
These events and experiences have forced me into feverish research regarding the best candidate for our future prime minister. The social horrors I mentioned above will not be solved by either of the two leading candidates in this election; all they care about is lining their own pockets and getting in bed with America. As a firm socialist and union-supporter I am voting NDP, but there are other options - Green, independent, and more - and anyone with half a brain and half an awareness of not only their own life but others' must prevent either of these two so-called politicians from gaining power. About 40% of Canadians won't vote. Why not? If all of them did, the polls would be bullshit and it would be anyone's game - true social democracy in action. I don't want this country to turn into the United States. I don't want all the imperative human rights that have been won over the period of the Chretien administration to collapse. If Harper or Martin get in, I don't want to be a Canadian anymore. But I love being a Canadian, and everything that stands for. It could all change in an eyeblink. I am so scared.
Is it possible to have been born in the wrong era? I am listeing to Miles Davis, have just finished reading Hannah Green's "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden," and am still recovering from last night's living room screening of Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby." I feel utter bliss. Bring on the baguettes, the olives, the flapper hair-do's and clunky heels and swing dances, the Little Tramp and sailors and phonographs and Mae West and silver martini shakers and woodstoves, train stations, handkerchiefs, jazz at dirty coffee houses, scotch on the rocks, suede dresses, red lipstick and pearls. I don't care if that's all in the same era or not; I just want it to be that way again.
"Rosemary's Baby" was astonishing. I had nightmares about Satan after. It has been called by many 'the horror film with no horror,' and I would agree - there is no blood, few special effects, and hardly any screaming, but the psychological tension and terror that builds with each scene, coupled with Mia Farrow's breathless, strong-willed vulnerability, is traumatizing. (in the best possible way, of course) There was also a creepy subtext around the nature of women's bodies and doctor's authority, not blatant in the film but chillingly hinted at, and I imagine the book (by famed feminist writer Ira Levin, who also penned "The Stepford Wives") focuses more on this element. I've been reflecting on all the dim-witted "classics" I have been forced to watch at school on my way to a film studies minor (notably "Last Tango in Paris" and "La Dolce Vita") and questioning the wisdom of these selections ... A positive thing on the whole, though; I am inspired to self-educate myself - rent my own damn movies, etc. - which is how they did it in the old days, anyway, and people were smarter then.
Ugh. What a horrible, horrible day. (Disclaimer: don't read further if you're looking for something interesting. I'm just going to whine for a bit.) I actually left my beautiful lover laying in bed and RAN for the bus, almost self-destructing in the process, and got to the stop in time, only the #14 decided to act in character and BE EARLY, so I missed it, and then, again in character, the next one was LATE, plus there was construction by the college and so I was five minutes late for work, which bugs me to no end. I was SUPREMELY hung-over, and hungry, so at noon I went for a union egg muffin with no ham, but they only had the ones WITH ham, and I stupidly bought one thinking, "Oh, I'll just pick the ham off," but I lost my appetite as soon as I touched it and of course the ham was all like ground into the cheese and it was a worthless thing for me to do and I gave it away to someone and my hands shook from the hunger and the coffee and I read this totally depressing book in the "They Died Too Young" series about Sid Vicious and how he killed Nancy and GAAAAAAAAH.
Last night was fun though. And totally worth the hangover! The writing thang happened, a bunch of us watched 'Heathers," and I won $7 at poker. In bed by 4.
Salt Spring Island ... Joy, Matt, Colin, and Steph on the ferry, bottles of rye and socks of beer, wind, thumbs out at Fulford Harbour, one smooth ride into Ganges with a red-haired mother blaring punk music and telling stories of the coffee trade in Columbia, four solid hours underneath an ancient pavilion shielded from the rain playing cards and drinking Blourberg from paper cups, smoking cigarettes and weed, a picnic of vegi bagels, chips, baby carrots, more wine, then Genevieve shows up with a huge truck and a huge grin, we jump in the back and take photographs of hair whipping in the rain, then, the "Man Cave," more alcohol is consumed by all, we do token writing exercises then drink more and hike to the lake, where memories and ditches assault us; back up to the homestead where we retire to the 17-yr-old's "suite" (it has a pot-bellied stove!) and drink rye, play more cards, misunderstand each other, and give sloppy hand jobs.
Morning. Teeth that are so fuzzy they do not feel like your own. A rooster crowing (yes, this is true). Getting up to feed the horses. Eggs, pancakes, and faux bacon fixed by G's lover David. Smoking in the driveway while the dogs (Baxter, Rembrant, and others) chase sticks and bark. A hike through ten acres (of course we didn't hike the whole ten acres) of G's man's property. Leftover wine. Salmon burgers at a harbour restaurant. A nap in the cabin with a see-through roof that shows an ancient rain forest. Genevive's book about scurvy. Another truck ride. Homemade popsicles. Another ferry ride.
Joy falls asleep happy.
When I was a little girl, I dreamed of being married when I grew up. Every little girl my age did. Our parents didn't talk about us being diplomats or politicians or foreign policy critics or actors (God forbid we would be actors! Oh, the dens of iniquity!) or writers or gurus; they talked about how beautiful we would be on our wedding day, and how proud they would be. At 6, marriage was inevitable. We wanted it. We planned it. We had all the dresses picked out.
When I was a teenager, I couldn't wait to get married because then I would be allowed to have sex.
When I was a young woman, I had vague notions of getting married "sometime in my 30's" or "after I get my degree." Marriage didn't seem necessary but the ingrained expectations drilled into me from childhood made me assume that it would happen sooner or later.
Yesterday, I was reading a Conservative American news-magazine by accident and I stumbled over a "news" story in which an old straight white guy railed for over twenty inches about the "sanctity of the definition of marriage" and why gay marriage didn't fit into this definition and, obviously, should be prevented at any cost. Something fractured in me, and when this man went on to say that he wasn't being homophobic, because after all if a dyke and a fag wanted to get married, why, that would be no problem, because that fit the definition, I decided that there is no way I ever want myself attached to such a definition.
What does marriage mean? Traditionally, it meant the ownership of women's bodies, finances, real estate, and children. This is why you needed a legal contract to get married; the wealth was transfered over to the male party and the woman lost her identity as a human being and instead became a commodity. That system makes sense to me - if you want to own things, well, you BETTER get it in writing, otherwise you're going to get screwed, and I don't mean raping your wife on the honeymoon. Recently, however, men are less interested in ownership and increasingly wooed by the idea of partnership, affection, companionship, consensual sex, and harmony. I'm not sure how a marriage license fits into this equation. I'm not sure why my mother won't let my partner and I stay at her home in the same room unless we have this license. I'm not sure why it's better to be legally married and abuse your partner than to commit to another person without the aid of witnesses and signatures and devote yourself to love.
People who want to get legally married should - it's all in the personal definition of the word, after all. But no one should have to live with someone else's definition, and no one who wants to join the club should be denied a membership card because they love someone that someone else says they shouldn't.
....... more to come .....