Caught in a weird world of coffee, textbooks, vegan pizza, endless forms, empty in-boxes, poems crammed into blue folders, Madonna music (? This is not my choice), and the intense desire to make this peanut-butter-pineapple soup I have found a recipe for. Hm.
I have a desk at work now. It's rather plain. I'm thinking of jazzing it up - you know, bring in some daffodils, a framed portrait of Wifey and the kids. Funny "over-the-hill" birthday cards strung along the wall, maybe some pseudo-sexist stickers? I also want a fedora and a diamond necklace.
My 9:30 class was cancelled this morning so I decided to be an Eager Beaver and get up early, show up at work, tie up some loose ends, stay "on top" of things, answer angry emails, etc. Got all that done in less than an hour and now I'm slightly chagrined that I made the getting-up-early effort.
Except .... When I was racing out the front door at quarter after 8, late for my bus, I was confronted by a massive truck, in my driveway, many men milling about putting hard hats on and swinging lumber and shouting instructions. My landlord appeared and said, "Did you get our message?" No, I said, and confusion reigned, until I thought, "I bet MATT got her message," which, when I ran upstairs and interrogated him as he stood cute and sleepy in his black boxers, it turned out he had. It is impossib;e to get mad at Matt when he is wearing his black boxers.
So .... There are strange men traipsing through my living room as I write, "fixing" something. Sambuca will probably escape and roam Fernwood. Matt will furtively smoke weed in the washroom. I will try to wake up enough to go to my 12:30 class.
Margueritas last night. Danika is moving to Mexico. We're invited!
- On the t-shirt of a senior citizen: "Bite Me, Ford Boy. Real Men Drive Dodge."
- Ladies with wrinkly legs, shopping at expensive boutiques.
- The cleaning ladies cleaning, 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, 160 hours a month, 1,920 hours a year, while no one says Thank You and they clatter the plastic turquoise trays from pile to pile.
- Old people and young babies: their faces. I want to photograph them both.
- Fat girls with small purses. I wish they had the freedom to run naked along beaches in Malibu and feel beautiful.
- Old women who look terrified and walk slowly; spend hours sitting in the food court with styrophoam cups of tea, twisting their gold necklaces around their fingers.
- American brand names on every sweatshirt.
- Little girls dressed in pink, whining, getting used to french fries, eyes raised on TV.
- Me sitting here judging everyone, pretending I haven't just purchased a strawberry Julius, pretending I don't plan to spend $200 on clothes.
Tonight I volunteer at the Antimatter Festival of Independent Film. What madness will ensue? Not much - I will be taking money at the entrance and trying to scam a look at the film without paying - but I can't wait.
Highlights from the week:
-Lindsey wowing the crowd at Felicita's for the first night of the UVic Idol competition. He sang that "Touch Your Body" song and was far and away the crowd and judge favourite. So exciting! I scorned the idea of UVic Idol at first and wasn't going to go, but then I came in support of Lindsey and ... other than him and Russ's new roommate, a guy named Ben who sang a Hank Williams Sr. song, it was all pap and pop. So I am vindicated! But I shall go again.
- First real-life yoga class. One and a half hours of relaxation and embarassment as I tried to get used to doing crazy things with my body while wearing above-the-knee shorts. I hate shorts. Short people shouldn't wear them. But for yoga you must wear them, or spandex, and really now, what would you choose? The instructor wore spandex, of course, and was twice the age of most of the people in the class and yet she had a better body than any of us. Grr. But it was an awesome experience and I can't wait for next week's class.
- Dinner at Mike and Dev's - an amazing eggplant-mushroom-expensive-cheese thing - followed by "Coffee and Cigarettes," which just got better with a second viewing. Found out that Mike's cousin - or his cousin's friend - was rude to Justin Timberlake in Vancouver and forced him to pose for a photo, arm-in-arm. Yes!
This insane spat of irritability has got to go! I've got to stop accusing people of thinking I'm fat, and faking their laughter when I make self-deprecating jokes! Is it happenstance, I ask you, that the character in "Happiness" who is actually named Joy is laughed at through-out the movie, only to have her sister say, "We're not laughing AT you, we're laughing WITH you," and then she responds, with that look I know so well, "But I'm not laughing"? I think NOT!
A man, who I love, has just cancelled an evening of movies. Is it right to rage? Is it right to accuse him of evaluating the quality of movies over the quality of the person he would be watching them with?
Hm. Now he has un-cancelled. I told him I was just being "light," and he accused me of mood swingery and took up his guitar. Does he love his guitar more than me? His guitar, after all, does not read books for hours when he wants to chatter. It also doesn't spin around in circles shouting, "What's going on?" I feel like a wedding cake that has been left out in the rain, but even that is a rip-off - Auden, I think.
Today I was lectured and condescended to by a man wearing sunglasses indoors. I want to die.
Lately I've accused many people of condescending to me. Am I even spelling that word right? I'm being too sensitive again. I think the customs people hate me for my shoddy shipping procedures which isn't my fault; I was misinformed and now I know and why did he wear sunglasses inside? I'm in the Feminist Angst stage yet again, which has been dormant for a while, but now I'm running around raging to people about how I have to work twice as hard at everything cuz I'm a girl and when I make mistakes I am judged more than penis-people would be, and I'm sure I'm annoying all my friends and that makes me feel superior but I'm tired of feeling superior because that's not true. Except for maybe my hair. Except it's not consistent.
A week with no Internet. For which I will be charged. For which I had to experience condescending "customer support" staff who made insane demands and insisted, among other things, that my phone number was actually not mine (they lost my name) and that for my Internet to work smoothly I would need a "shorter phone cord." I want to scream. This is worse than late buses. A change in service providers is pending.
Matt is calling me a druggie now becuase I've done mushrooms twice in one week. Last night was intense: young children vomiting in Oak Bay; Susan Musgrave's car, which has hundreds of plastic toys glued to it; ranting Allen Ginsberg poetry; an ocean with ducks; the powerful need to write lists of people who have borrowed books of mine and not returned them.
Work has been stimulating - I have a new position with the bookstore which involves a lot of on-line work and grapplings with international shipping rates. I revamped the filing system and feel powerful and competent!
Semi-Louise played the UVic beer gardens on Friday, and they were fantastic: they all wore black and wailed and were permitted an encore performance. I ran around telling everyone (well, 2 people) that I was fucking the drummer. I think I wanted attention.
Matt just fed me rare mushrooms at an Esquimalt bus shelter, and then I was entranced by black leather trnch coats, moths, and women with masks instead of real faces. They've yet to really kick in, and I fear that night with Colin in Vancouver a couple years back, when I decided to walk in a straight line through "Vancouver," as I called it, to "interact," and walked into people's houses because they were "in the way" and was eventually thrown into a white pick-up truck, with no shoes, roaring to the Burnaby Emergency Room where I was told to stop screaming at the "snakes," and then when I tried to go to the washroom, was halted by the "white woman sillouette witch" on the door. But whatever.
"Coffee and Cigarettes" - best film I've seen in ages. Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Meg White, Jack White, Wu Tang, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchet, Roberto Benigini, many more .... A series of black-and-white vignettes saturated with cigarette smoke and the steam drifting off black coffee and innane conversations and smugness and arrogance and a poignant, quiet ending .... My only criticism of Jarmusch in the past is that his films tend to go on 15 or 20 minutes more than necessary; this one ended at the perfect spot. *****
Tried to buy clothes today but nothing fit; went to the store where everything fits and bought myself a 26. Returned overdue movies, shopped for a digital camera with Matt, ate a mighty sandwich and red grapes, read some Amy Tan. What's going on tonight? Not sure yet. Whatever it is, I want the Magnetic Fields to be playing, loudly, in the background the entire time ("My mother told me gently 'You can can buy her a Bentley, but my son, she'll only drive it away'").
I'm so sad and mad I could cry. The #27 bus was 10 minutes late. 10 minutes. It only RUNS every ten minutes, for fuck's sake. It skipped a run. I raged, and Matt said I was being unkind. But the bus driver told us to 'MOVE TO THE BACK." As if WE were the ones who were TEN MINUTES LATE, on a bus that runs every, oh, ten minutes. This has happened before. I have missed a job interview and a date for late fucking buses.
Weirdest thing that happened to me today: ate alone at a sub-par sushi restaurant while a Japanese band covered Abba's "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)" - in Japanese! - and a dubious couple with a small child at the next table discussed whether or not their terrible fights, induced by "winter" the woman said, would be the best environment in which to raise their offspring.
Bought 4 books:
"Highways and Dancehalls" by Diana Atkinson - about stripping - on page 50 or so and I think it's one of those "autobiographical fictions" which I find so confusing.
"The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan - been getting into Amy Tan lately - this is supposed to be her best one - and my name's in the title!
"Dinner Along the Amazon" by Timothy Findley - a short story collection - have read the title story before and it's fabulous, kind of like snowy Canadian Woody Allen with less neurosis and more raw misery - tres cool.
"Open" by Lisa Moore - Hrm - will it be as horrible as everyone I respect says? Will the stupid cover that is cheap and shock-value-y be transcended by the words within? Judge a book by its cover! Judge a book by its cover! Damn.
Crikey! Just worked out that with the free coffee I got at work all summer, provided by Kicking Horse, I have scammed $360 in potential brew sales. Wow.
What follows is one of those narcissistic "tell all about yourself" survey things you normally get as a mass email. I love them. So do a lot of people. A lot of people hate them. Categorize yourself, and decide if you want to read on. (It's a long one, compliments of Elisa. Yay!)
Name - Joy
Location - Vancouver Island
Height - 5.1
Birthday - the last day of August
Screen Name - joyous
Eye color - blue
Hair Color - brown
Sex - female
School - a lefty university on the Island - one year to a BFA
Mascot - I am my own mascot!
Personal quote or saying - "My pen!"
YOUR FAVE:
Color - green, blue, and red to wear; purple for bathroom walls; yellow to look at
Number - 26
Song - "Where is My Mind" (the Pixes), "Empty" (the Amps), "Top Floor Bottom Buzzer" (Morphine), "Wake Up" (Rage Against the Machine)
Smell - coffee, Fernwood air at dawn, garlic and onions as they're being fried
Sound - Sambuca's purr
Sport - roller blading and figure skating
Animal - wolves and dogs
Flower - daffodils
Store to shop - second-hand bookstores
Gum - I loathe gum!
Drink - rye and coke; gin and red wine and peach juice
Thing to argue about - Everything. Honey. (read between the lines)
Food - sushi
Candy - I loathe candy! ("I work 14 hours a day in a candy factory ..." "But that's terrible! How could a little girl not like candy?")
Movie - "Lost in Translation" (Coppola), "The Royal Tanenbaums" (Anderson), "Breathless" (Goddard), "Stranger Than Paradise" (Jarmucsh), "City Lights" (Chaplin)
Actor - Ben Stiller
Actress - Sarah Polley
Place to go - Mocha House
Fast food service - Who, the hell, do you think, you are?
Type of music - blues, political stuff, what was once called "punk," jazz
Board game - Boggle
Magazine - "Bitch" and "Geist" and "The New Yorker"
Holiday - reading break (what shall we read today? How about a bottle of bourbon?)
Best quality in a friend - oooh, oooh, a car!
Some of your good friends - Matt, Ben, Morgan, Colin, Steph, Jess
Funniest friend - Oh. No matter what I say, they'll all start viciously fighting.
Highest on themselves - Ditto.
Weirdest - And it goes on ...
Craziest - And on ....
Prettiest - Hm. Well I'll have to say Nora, who I haven't seen in forever and is drop-dead. She'd had like three marriage proposals before she was twenty. Twenty!
The one with the shoulder to cry on - I've never actually cried on Ben's shoulder, but I've raged for a long time.
Your friends online - But ... But online people aren't real, guys ...
What you first notice when you first meet a person - I usually scrutinize their fashion choices.
What you first notice in someone of the opposite sex - The size of the jaw. Men with large jaws are not to be trusted, or at least spoken to nicely.
Person you would want to meet - Sylvia Browne. Or Margaret Atwood. Or Joyce Carol Oates (would have to take tranquilizers first, to prevent any .... accidents ... )
Do you have a crush - Yes - he's blonde and rugged and has great taste in both music and drinking establishments.
Your first crush - Josh Ternent, grade one. He showered me with flowers and plastic rings.
Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend - Well, I have a lover.
Have you ever had feelings for a "friend" - Only when "Party Monster" is playing and I'm on a huge bed suggesting an orgy.
Most romantic place to go - Salt Spring Island.
Ideal place to propose - I think it would be funny to propose in a canoe. What if the other person said no?
Who do you want to spend the rest of your life with - Matt.
HAVE YOU EVER:
Been out of state/province - yes - Alberta.
Been out of country - Only to the USA. A terrible mistake.
Been skinny dipping - Yes, in Kal Lake and Mabel Lake and Carla Smoes' swimming pool.
Streaked - no.
Smoked - Only to look cool.
Sang - Yes, on some horribly misguided kareoke evenings. (Tainted love ... )
Drank - Only to look cool.
Got drunk - Sometimes.
Been on a train - Yes, up to Comox. I drank Sambuca (the beverage, darlings) on my way to meet Matt's parents.
Subway - no.
To a concert - yes - top 3 were Pixies, Radiohead, and the Headstones.
Disneyland/Disneyworld - no.
Camping - yes
Ditched school - Well, I didn't really go for grade 10. Not really.
Been seasick - no.
Met someone famous - yes - Joseph Sabovcik. He's famous to me, dammit! First skater to land a quad. Though not in competition. That was Kurt.
Gotten arrested - no.
Cheated on anything - Grade 4 math.
Won any special awards - Some writing and theatre stuff.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN:
Love at first sight - yes
Magic - yes
Fate - yes - but I think we get to plan it out beforehand
Destiny - see above
God - yes
Guardian angels - yes
Aliens - yes
Yourself - If my hair is doing okay, then yes. Should I get dreads? Been considering.
FUTURE:
Son's name - If by "son" this means "dog," it will be Kahlua.
Daughter's name - If by "daughter" this means "dog," it will be .... Hm. Kahula as well. I just want one dog, and I want it to be a girl.
Job or career - writer, director, healer.
Place to live - Vancouver Island
Goals - Short-term? Schedule my life better.
OTHER STUFF:
Color of pants you're wearing - blue.
Last 4 digits of your phone number - I'm not falling for THAT one.
Would you be a purple or silver crayon - purple.
Where do you want to go on your honeymoon - Honeymoon? Heewah? Not likely.
Current weather - Sunny but with a nice breeze.
Last person you called - Steph.
Do you like the person who sent this - yes
Book you're currently reading - the Rebar cookbook
Do you wear contacts or glasses - No.
Your siblings and their ages - Clint (30), Lance (28), and Jeordyn (21)
Worst feeling in the world - yesterday when we went to Logan's Pub and it was CLOSED for the holiday. There is nothing more pathetic than crying in front of a closed bar.
First thing you think of when you wake up - What time I have to be out of the house and where I have to go.
Do you like to dance - only to certain ska and punk music.
Your worst sickness - Bladder infections. They suck.
Are you too shy to ask someone out - Of course not! Just the other day I asked a man out for Hime Sushi, and he said Yes!
Stupidest thing done - Hm. See the "My Life is a Stupid Novel" entries.
Do you like scary, happy, or sad movies - I like sad ones the best. But they have to be bittersweet and witty as well. Like "Happiness." (You're shit, baby ... And I'm champagne!)
The most important thing in life - loving other people
Do you sleep with stuffed animals - Sometimes I sleep with a stuffed rabbit named Coal when Matt is away.
Are storms cool or scary - I like them. There aren't enough thunder storms in this town.
Your first car - Is this some kind of a trick questions?
(Ben, if you've reached the end of this, you HAVE to do it! Remember the old days?)
So - Friday night: excellent, at first - couple pitchers of beer at Felicita's with kids from work, the smuggling in of bourbon which was mixed with free Coke (-a-Cola), general friendly throwing of lemon rinds and jokes about marriage.
Then: Matt and I went home. I thought all was normal. We planned to watch "The Family Guy" and chill on the couch with gin; what resulted was the following.
- Family Guy is turned on.
- Joy shouts, "The fucking BBC! What did the fucking BBC ever do for us! They should have given us jobs!"
- Matt says calmly, "Why should the BBC give us jobs?
- Joy shouts (close to hysterics), "Stop patronizing me!"
- Matt starts to ignore Joy, feeling this is the best defense.
- Joy staggers over to Matt's computer and starts randomly un-plugging cords.
- Matt: "What the hell are you doing?"
- Joy: "CESE! Does that word mean anything to you? CESE!"
- Joy runs over to a drawer and opens it, closes it, opens it, etc.
- "Why won't your fucking computer go on?"
- "You un-plugged it."
- "If I'm late for work it's your fucking fault!"
Then, many harsh words were exchanged, all of which I don't remember and which Matt helpfully supplied to me this morning before (RIGHT before) I left for work. So if you want to know, you'll have to ask him.
Me? I awoke at 6 to Matt crawling back into bed (he'd spent most of the night curled up beside the living room couch); then I had some cigarettes and cheese and went to work. Life is stupid.
Very cool play last night - it was an amatuer production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," set in UVic's Finnerty Gardens, with each scene taking place at a different spot. I've never seen Shakespeare live before and was quite impressed; the diction was great, some astonishing physical comedy (fights on the bank of a murky pond), and good chemistry between the four principal characters. The best actor was the woman who played Puck - blast, they didn't give me a program, I know nobody's name! Except Colin - he was hilarious as one of the Athenian travelling players, and acted the part of a woman at some points. I think he got the first laugh of the play with the line, "But, I can't play a woman ... I've, I've a beard coming in." (Perfect casting - Colin is somewhat baby-faced.)
Now it's Friday, I have a little bit of money, and I'm going to buy books and clothes before a drink-fest at Felicita's around 6. I'm not staying for the evening - just a drink or two - which will turn into a pitcher or two - which will turn into shouts and broken glasses and arguements with bouncers - "How can it be last call?? It's not even midnight!" - or, maybe, just a drink or two, and then Family Guy with my Matt.
Beer and fries is such a horrible idea. Unless you're hungover, which I wasn't.
Part-ay on Tuesday was uber-fun - lots of nice presents, good food, edgy people, Jess saying "Who, the hell, do you think, you ARE" over and over again in a British accent, eight people on one bed smoking and discussing "naked chickens," sullen arguments in which points were awarded, more joints than I have ever seen in circulation at one time before, and a suprise visit from the police - this was about midnight, when most of the people had left and there were only four or five of us in the living room with the music turned on low, chatting in soft, friendly tones. Random. The police looked embarassed.
Today's work highlight? Trying to type the word "reading" and being unable to do so, at which the customer laughed and said drolly, "Not an English major, are we?" and a co-worker, who shall remain nameless, laughed louder than was necessary. :P
Off to see Colin's play tonight. I haven't seen him on the stage since high school. And this is Shakespeare! And in a park! I better be entertained.