Last night: power failure. Just as I had cracked a beer and arranged my reading materials for the evening: In Touch Weekly, an appallingly written celebrity gossip rag, and Bitter Fame, a Sylvia Plath biography lauded on the front cover by Joyce Carol Oates. Matt was off to a party and I looked at the darkening sky with dread; this was my Saturday night, and I wasn't asking for much, just beer and words. Is that a crime? An electricty place, an important one called Horsey substation, burned down regardless.
I decided to light my tea candles. There were only two. I decided to go down to the gas station and buy emergency candles. The gas station was closed due to power failure; the employees loafed about near the darkened pumps, smoking cigarettes. No lights on at the Stadacona Market, or even Freddy's Flowers, infamous for staying open 365 days a year.
After a long while I made it to Safeway, and the only options were extravegantly priced scented candles, the thought of which made my skin crawl. So I bought SEVENTY-TWO BIRTHDAY CANDLES! Took them home, planted them on slices of bread, read of Sylvia until midnight ...
Ryan in town, just in from Tokyo, says sept is prime hiring time in Japan! If we miss it, must wait till january! Work visas take one month to process!
Accept promotion, with pay-raise? Stay in Vic till January?
Would have to move. Can't live in temporary accomadations over winter. Would get sick. Basement suites only livable in summer months.
Can't move. Would be silly. Only want to move if moving to Japan.
Don't want promotion. Dislike job anyway.
Thought: unemployed and broke in Japan! Credit card debts! Confusion!
Is Ryan correct? Wouldn't it be possible to line up work starting in October?
Would have to move to Japan, wait one month, travel to Korea to pick up visa.
Student loan payments start in November.
With promotion at work, would be making around $10/hr. Job in Japan, about $25/hr. Hmm.
Give notice on house, give notice on work, cross fingers and hope to be out of the country in just one month? Cross fingers? Live in a youth hostel if it doesn't work out? Attractive option, in truth: would love to fit all my possessions into two cardboard boxes.
Thought: Homeless in Japan with all my possessions in two cardboard boxes!
Have I the energy to update?
No ... Reeling from an overload of cheap Canadian rye.
Had wanted to discuss: Morgan's roommates, "gaming night" with pseudo-in-laws, Cannibal: The Musical!
Will have to wait til my hands are steadier.
Wild. I was off to work at 11 this morning, just got back (around 10), off again tomorrow morning at 10. Bright spot: I'm a regular at the deli I used to work at. I order a toasted multi-grain bagel with herb and garlic cream cheese and slices of tomato, and they give me a deal. Not quite a union egg muffin and Kicking Horse coffee ... But nice.
Martinis with some old writer friends last night at Syn, quite nice, although I was demure instead of assholishly drunken. Not sure why. Previously Ben and I had gone out for sushi, and I bought two "boring shirts" at Value Village, in honour of the "business casual" dress code at work. But one of them I turn out to love! It's purple, has a rather punk-ish plunging neckline with a stripe around it -- I look like a circa 1970s bowling alley whore, yes. I bought Matt a present, a Metal Church tape, and Ben got Michael a cryptic brass key, very large. "It's for the executive washroom," he kept telling people.
Horizon: mini-potluck and "Cannibal: The Musical!" screening at Morgan's villa tomorrow night; Saltspring Island on Sunday with Steph, to visit Genevieve and her man. We'll get to stay in the guest cabin and smoke cigarettes and drink whiskey and be girls.
(for all the girls in google-land who type in "side effects of depo provera" and get only one honest site, and then about a million propoganda mills)
I was on Depo Provera for 4.5 years. When I got my first injection I was told it would "likely" be safe to take as a long-term form of birth control, ie, well into my 30s (I was 19 at the time). At 23, I was diagnosed with osteopenia, a precursor to osteoperosis that may or may not be reversible. I was removed from the drug. The FDA is now recommending it be used for no longer than one year. Is even that length of time safe? Everybody's body is different, but here is a list of what Depo Provera did to mine over the last few years:
- paranoia
- depression
- mood swings
- weight gain
- sharp decline in sex drive
- hair loss
- loss of vaginal lubrication
- sharp increase in bladder and yeast infections
- breast tenderness and pain
- loss in bone density resulting in osteopenia
- headaches
- extreme fatigue
I have been off Depo for just over two months now, and have shown some signs of improvement already, especially regarding the emotional side effects and sex drive. If you are a woman recovering from this drug -- a drug I feel should be illegal (some lawyers seem to agree with me), a good resource starting point is Raw and Juicy.
A little snippet I found at The Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, in an article by Anant Phadke regarding the dangers of Depo Provera:
"Loss of libido has been documented in this study. However it is considered a minor side-effect by the patriarchal health care system. The same health care system does not consider DMPA [Depo] a good male contraceptive on the grounds that it reduces libido in men!"
I recall reading elsewhere -- unfortunately I can't find the link -- about Depo being prescribed to male sex offenders in the US with the hopes of lowering their risk to "re-offend."
This makes me feel sick to my stomach.
Thought: Perhaps Depo is more than 99% effective in preventing pregnancy because the girls on it have lost an interest in having sex. Assholes.
Bam! Got up at 8 today -- a triumph -- ground some espresso beans in my antique coffee grinder, brewed a pot, did my Morning Pages. With my ridiculous work schedule this summer (most shifts start at 11am), I should be able to swing this regularly .... I feel fantastically good, like I've accomplished something already. Next up: daily morning to-do lists, or, "daily goals."
I saw Constantine on Saturday night -- I hadn't realized it was going to be a scary movie, with demons. And fire and brimstone. You can take the religion out of a girl, but you can't take the girl out of irrational fears of eternal damnation and Satan ... Good movie though, Keanu Reeves is spectacularly awful, as usual -- there is a fabulous scene in a Catholic church where he is screaming things like "Why does God hate me," etc. I'd recommend.
What things did you enjoy as a child that you no longer do?
The big thing was watching TV, especially "The Walt Disney Hour" on Sunday nights at 7 ("After the dishes," roars my father). Also Star Trek: The Next Generation (mostly for my first crush), and this weird afternoon program called "Northern Reflections" that showcased Canadian short films and unusual news stories.
What things did you enjoy as a child that you still do today?
Reading. It was not unheard of for me to spend 8 hours a day or more reading as a child (C.S. Lewis, Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, Malcolm Lowry), and the same is true today. Different authors, though. Everyone who reads this blog will know who they are.
What things do you do now, that the child you were never thought you'd like?
Living a vegetarian lifestyle. I used to adore meat, especially red meat. In the mid-80s my mother imposed a semi-vegetarian diet on us -- bulgar, tofu -- and at the time this was the worst thing that could possibly happen to me. Dad would sneak us to Wendy's for juniour bacon cheeseburgers. Egad!
If you could go back to one age and stay there for a while, what would it be?
I enjoyed being 10. I went to a private school with only 14 students when I was 10, and we were all best friends and I had an English teacher who encouraged my writing, and we got to wear uniforms, which I loved.
If you could fast forward to an age (you do get to come back!) for a while, what would it be?
Post-menopausal! No birth control!
I decided to feng shui the house! I'm a little uncomfortable about the spiritual element so I"m skipping that (although I'm smug that the front door automatically faces south), and concentrating more on the aesthetics, the line of things and what-not. Started with the bathroom, with the simple idea of removing every single piece of clutter, like even my hairbrush is gone, and I'm shocked at how peaceful it all feels, very pristine. (Very common-sense: I really should have figured it out by now, you know, the neat=harmonious thang.) I just need to buy a fern to break up the sterility and then it's done.
Next: bedroom. The book I'm reading says the only thing that should be in your bedroom is the bed. Revolutionary! I'm making an exception -- the bedside table and lamp stays -- but all the clothes, dirty laundry, books, and knicknacks are being destroyed or relocated. I'm looking forward to being ruthless.
I just checked two autobiographies out of the library -- Rosie O'Donnel's and Wil Weaton's. They are wild! Wheaton's features excerpts from his blog, which is rather fascinating.
Plan: erotic paintings of literary personalities: Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates, Carol Shields, Dorothy Parker, Virginia Woolf, Erica Jong, M. A. C. Farrant. I will have to find someone else to do the painting; I will provide creative input ("Have her holding a wine glass! Naked! In a completely empty penthouse with a view of skyscrapers outside the window!"), and of course see to the details of the opening -- gala, drink specials, the Press, etc.
I mentioned to Elisa that I was jealous of her ability to create visual art, that it was the one artistic medium I long to master but never will. She said something along the lines of Nonsense, everyone can paint, you simply have to start painting, but I'm not sure I agree. I always sucked at drawing, even as a child, and as an adult I've purchased paints and had a go at it, also tried to teach myself portrait drawing, but some link is missing. Perhaps it's like writing -- the authors of self-help books who espouse philosophy like "if you can read, you can write," well, they niggle me ... I have met a lot of student writers, and some of them, no matter how much they want it and how hard they try and how diligently they practice, will never, ever succeed. And some people succeed quite brilliantly, without even trying, or caring, and to make matters worse they don't stick with it, they go into business or something and waste all that talent. Talent? Yes, I think so ... I think some people are born with "it" -- well, everybody has one thing, for example my father is absolutely brilliant with mechanics, Matt is a drumming genius (self-taught!), I write well, my mother has enough intuitive knowledge and independent education to open an alternative health care practice, Elisa is a visual artist, quite a good one ... I suppose it would be boring if everyone was good at the same thing, and there are some things we're just never meant to do -- like paint Dorothy Parker reclining in a den of leopards whilst tapping at a typewriter, parrots flying above her head, and it's raining ...
But I really want to.
It seems that should count for something, but I don't think it does.
Criminy! Late for work again! Seven minutes, this time. *Someone* turned the alarm off, and *someone else* (me) was still very drunk when this happened, and suddenly I was outside with wild hair and a throbbing head, and a cigarette that was making me cough, and I was climbing onto a bicycle. Matt drove me to work to make amends for the alarm thing. We sailed through Rockland - I think I kept up a running commentary of my life, my failures, the time, the weather, all the way downtown. People were smiling at us indulgently, thinking we were doing something romantic -- it is a bike designed for one person -- but it wasn't romantic at all, it was rushed and I was hungry and had no coffee, plus the wind had blown away my cigarette. Matt dropped me off beside the homeless man who spends his days singing Spare a little change, today in a mournful, heartbreaking tone -- Matt and I kissed, and I ran the two blocks to work -- ran right past THE RUNNING ROOM; the irony made me ache with, what a sense of fullfillment, or anti-failure; something? Work sucked, I had a Taco Bell bean burrito for lunch, DO NOT EAT THOSE THINGS, they are poison, though the mexi-fries are delish. Tonight is a full moon. *Someone* ate the sushi I had been saving for dinner, but I suppose it's fine since he paid for the sushi, anyway. Off to Safeway for some decadent-good thing to eat. Perhaps a blueberry muffin! Or an avocado! Or chips, wonderful salty sour cream and onion chips, with dip. I'm very hungry right now.
Indeed, couldn't we? Mangoes, slices of avocado, bags of sun chips? Wine on the beach, seals barking in the distance? Moon and sand and love?
Men in Black II -- what a pleasant surprise! I'd wanted to see it years ago but got wind of the plot beforehand -- evil alien disguised as sexy female underwear model who must be destroyed to ensure safety of the planet -- and avoided it, but now it turns out the sexy alien, well, she is quite sexy, let's be frank here, and it didn't feel like there was an anti-woman subtext, just that the villain happened to be female, plus it was funny, good pacing especially, which seems to be rare in sequels. The drunken worms were excellent supporting characters, and I love all the little Men in Black deliberately cheezy sci-fi details, in particular the entire universe contained within a bus locker ...
Bocci-ball, or whatever it's called, on Saturday for Colin's birthday, a painful experience, I am not terribly athletic, or coordinated, and this has always made me sensitive due to the Girls Can Do Anything Boys Can Do philosophy, and it was horrible to have lots of really nice boys kicking my ass at this game and saying things like, "Is that too far for you to throw? Do you want to take ten paces in? We don't mind," etc., because it was all rather chivalrous, and I love chivalrous, but the context was wrong and I felt weak and spindly. (Flashback to mini-golf last week, same kind of idea, Clint says lewdly, "Would you like a six stroke handicapp Joy?" Wild.)
On the agenda today: some furtive readings of trashy magazines at the library, house-cleaning top-to-bottom (or right-to-left): dishes, floors swept, things in the bathroom washed and scrubbed, laundry, etc. A proper dinner -- this means salmon or tofu, at the very least. I didn't have any protein yesterday! Disgraceful. Oh -- I also intend to give the ol' postcard blog a present.
The Mad Typewriter Gang shall take to the streets tomorrow, and it will be wondrous -- haven't seen WildCat in exactly two weeks.
1. How much money is in your wallet right now?
$6.84.
2. How much money would you need in the bank to feel secure? Rich?
It depends. $30,000 would pay off my student loan nicely. But $1000 would pay off VISA, and $20 would get me dinner at the Japanese Village. It's all relative, I suppose ...
3. If someone gave you $100, no strings attached, what would you do with it?
Pay the fee for processing my passport application.
4. If someone gave you $1 Million, no strings attached, what would you do with it?
Good Lord! Pay all my debts; pay all my parents' debts; pay all Matt's debts; buy my parents a house; hire a maid, private driver, and a jet; put together some sort of fund for my neices' education; open a retirement home for dogs; adopt a baby girl from China; buy Greece; get a decent lap-top; open a bookstore-cafe-arts venue; and buy only organic produce.
5. How much does something have to cost before it starts counting as "real" money, as a purchase to be considered and evaluated, but below which you'll buy without really thinking about it?
$25, I suppose. That's about the price of a brand-new book, or a 26 of the better whiskeys. More than that and I hem and haw for a bit.
What a cracked out day! Had pleasant dreams in the morning hours, then woke at 10:35 -- yup, 35 minutes after I should have left for work. Stormed around the house putting on yesterday's clothes, hunting for an elastic to tie back gross hair, reflecting on a bitter hangover (where did that 26 go?), and miraculously, I had a toonie for the bus. Double miraculous: caught the bus, after jogging through the rain, becoming dizzy, and realizing I had no tampons. Five minutes late for work. (this is crushing, to a person like me - only the third time I've been late for work in seven years) Work is a blur, though I do have time to look in the mirror and catch sight of a massive hickey on my neck, prompting co-worker to ask curiously, "What did you get up to last night?" Oblivious, I say, "Oh, nothing really, had a couple of drinks and did some reading ..." Lunch - bump into Naked Dave, scarf down sushi, back at work, receive a naughty phone call which caused a bit of a scandal around work; someone else has dibs on blogging it, so you'll have to wait ... Jay showed up to chat with me and the co-workers assumed he was the naughty phone call maker, so I started blushing, and it was all so surreal ... Then the lover shows up with three packages of take-out sushi which we dine on, off to play pool and drink beer: a man in a cowboy hat says to Matt -- "Want to play doubles? I mean, my girlfriend is really bad at pool, and ..." "And so am I," I said glumly. We played. Took the Rockland route home. Tonight: "The Primer," a movie with a time machine in it!!
I purchased a cleaning product for Work today, an incorrect one. Shame. Feelings of incompetence.
I got my period! After four years, I got a genuine, bright-red, perhaps-I'll-even-have-to-buy-a-tampon PERIOD! I feel as excited as a 12-year-old. Who cares about the cramps and the PMS, I've got my body back, my vagina feels like it's working properly again, yes.
I still have a pleasant glow from the Camping Trip. I think it was a combination of Family and Nature -- two things that, somehow, I have neglected over the last year or two. It was an incredible feeling to hang around a campsite with a big brother who would say to a little neice, "Does someone need a hug?" and the little neice says shyly, "Yes," and they hug, and then I walk the two minutes to the ocean and stare at the horizon for a while. Very wonderful, very include-more-moments-like-this-in-your-life-ish.
I seem to be hitting a kind of "groove" at work. Even with the purchase of an incorrect cleaning product, I felt productive and able today, actually enjoyed myself for stretches of fifteen minutes at least! The other staff seem to be opening up to me a bit more, and while we're not charging down to Big Bad John's for a drinking spree after work yet, we've started discussing things other than, you know, company procedure and stuff.
I look great in rolled blue jeans, black tough-girl shoes, and a black shirt. I mean seriously, I look amazing.
I am immersed in M. A. C. Farrant's "What's True, Darling," yes, immersed. She writes in a sort of nonsense, magic-realist, Monday-night-writing-thing flavour that makes me crave Shaolin Soccer and poker with whisky-stained cards. Tales of boys who trade bras instead of marbles, what to do with boring relatives, the final days of Dorothy Parker. Quote: "But there were things I loved more than words: Scotch and dogs top the list. I've always preferred a dog to a man and I've had a string of both." (from "Dorothy Parker's Dog") Bam!
So began my first vacation in an entire year. Splendid stuff -- Rathtrevor Park, cute neices, bro, sis-in-law, the lover, Naked Dave, and Weaselpee (who was, it must be admitted, Naked Weaselpee for a brief period in the ocean). Several different kinds of beer, a hammock, Asterix comics, drunken discussions of Fourth Density stuff (apparently that is the place I glimpsed when on that terrible mushroom trip when I was 18), MINI-GOLF, which I turned out to LOVE, only a day after saying, "I abhor mini-golf," my first pickled egg, other things.
Three good stories to do with kids:
1) A child from another family came up and started bitching about his broken kite. I said, "Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes, the bar ... Well, it eats you." He looked at me with cool disgust, said nothing, and left. Last time I ever quote the Coen Brothers to a five-year-old ...
2) A kid named Kelly was hanging around and I was talking to her, but she was like two feet shorter than me so I crouched down to be on eye-level with her. Very solemnly, she crouched down as well. It was cool because I remember doing the exact same thing at her age, being utterly baffled as to all the crouching.
3) When my neice Laura gets into kindergarten this fall, and they ask her to write a "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" story, she might just start it with: "I went camping with Naked Dave and spilled wine all over my shorts."
Now I'm back in the old Vic, with adamant plans to camp at least twice a month, and to play mini-golf LIKE A MAD-GIRL.
Matt and I have decided to purchase the Roxy Cinegog in 15 years time, when we are old and stable: to play only old movies -- Casablanca, and Breathless -- or newer movies too, ones we approve of -- The Big Lebowski, Happiness.
The Roxy is a world where time stopped. It was sometime in the 70s. Cheezy, colourful paintings line the walls, the popcorn maker is ancient, nary a Starbucks or a Baskin Robbins in site. Only one place to buy your ticket. Only two tills at the concession. The scent of 50-year-old popcorn in the air, framed pictures of James Dean, Spencer Tracey.
But in 15 years, the clientelle will be unrecognizable. Babies who are born on this day will show up for the double-feature, wearing clothes we haven't yet invented, listening to bands with lead singers who, today, are only five years old. Their eyes will be different, they will have grown up with a different sense of history, of context. Nothing will be the same any more, they will be both better and worse than the 15-year-olds of today, which I suppose is also, in a sense, timeless.
What am I even doing UP at 7:30? I dunno; it's weird. Decided to get some laundry done before work, because AFTER work, the fabulous elder brother is picking up Matt and I for two nights of camping! I'm very excited; haven't been camping in years, it seems. (The laundromat at 7am is even stranger than in the afternoon -- lost souls, an eternal quiet, and all that.)
Odd dream: Michael and Ben have a mansion, they go on vacation, I break in and live the good life while they're away. Party it up with someone's mom, who pukes and then suffocates on her own vomit. I have to hide the evidence, etc. Suddenly am on a rock that sticks out into the ocean, huge waves crashing, danger. I wonder how B and M can afford such a large, beautifully landscaped yard ...
Das Experiment. Good Lord! And I thought the SUBtext crew got tetchy at times ...
9:30am: coffee, cheese-on-bread for breakfast.
10am: off to Camera Traders to pick up an $85 cheque!
11am: I see a massive and intimidating purebred Rottweiler walking down the street, balls this big, and although I am a dog-person, I shy away, only to see that he is clutching, protectively and sweetly, a teddy bear between his jaws.
12:45 - 9:30: slaving away at my conservative, corporate job. Listening to conservative, corporate music. The one bright spot -- a friend of mine, who shall remain nameless unless she chooses to comment, showed up about midway through looking like a whore, a diva, a shattered genius -- all of these things; beautiful, wondrous, dazzling -- all heavy make-up, tousled hair, and tight-tight jeans -- looked at me with amusement and asked in a sultry way about some merchanise I was sorting. Bright spot number two - lunch of toasted multi-grain bagel with herb-and-garlic cream cheese and slices of tomato.
9:45pm: a cup of coffee at a well-known bistro, crying over the newspaper as I read of bull injuries in Spain.
10pm - 11:30pm: Meet up with the lover and try to play pool at seven different places, without success (Strathcona Hotel games room, Hugo's, Belingo Lounge, Prism, Johnny Z's, Comedy Cellar, Steamers).
11:30 - midnight: Pizza and beer at the Brickyard. Many hooligans and punks making out.
12:10am: Matt is nearly run over by a cyclist on Yates and Vancouver. The cyclist is naked; I see his dick.
12:10 - 12:50: the big walk home. We discuss the significance of voice on writing, ie, Ginsberg's monotone-intensity, Kerouac's slightly artificial optimism. The way Bukowski can make beer bottles, fallen from a tabletop, seem crucial. Also, the inconsistency that produces "a picture is worth a thousand words" simultaneous with "a movie is never as good as the book."
1am: Blog.
1:10am: Sleep.
My clearest memory of Matt's birthday: breaking the news to Sayaka, John's girlfriend, that Canada had imprisoned Japanese-Canadians during World War II. "Canada's shame," I kept saying. "The shame of a nation."
Best part about the next day: being treated to breakfast at the Shine Cafe. Though it was difficult to get there, I kept stumbling and complaining, holding my aching head, etc, wearing the Famous Sunglasses and becoming upset when Oak Bay teenagers judged me.
Read Nick Hornby's "About a Boy" -- quite good, it's been ages since I've read a male fiction writer (aside from the brilliant works of close friends) -- it was zany and British, but didn't piss me off for some reason. Sensitively written, rather self-depecrating -- the main character is always being treated poorly by others, for example, but instead of getting mad at them he "sympathizes" because they're just doing what he would have done, had their positions been reversed ...
Work is abysmal. Really. Today a certain someone told me that I "smelled like the mall," and it was too much.
Shock: The Desperate Housewives' Teri Hatcher played an actress playing Cleopatra on one memorable episode of MacGyver! Wow!
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Another Tuesday Ten thing, courtesy as usual of Jason:
1) What is your current living arrangement?
The rented ground floor suite of a Bhuddist commune in Fairfield. Shared with Matt and Sambuca, partners in crime. Organic gardens everywhere, a compost, faux hardwood floors, tiny but fully functional kitchen, extra bedroom!
2) What artwork do you have on the walls?
Not much at the moment -- a postacrd of John Coltrane that has been in every living space I've had since Green St.; a photo of Mae West smoking and looking sexy with the caption "I used to be Snow White, but I drifted"; Jack Kerouac, holding a cat; the infamous Empire Records quote "I don't feel a need to explain my art to you, Warren," framed.
3) Does it inspire you, or is it merely for decoration?
Both. I know nothing about art, as in art history or famous artists, but I do love black and white photos and art in which the subject is either faces or words (or Mae West smoking a cigarette). When I "settle down," should that ever happen, I would like to buy some weird and expensive art with strange frames, you know, butterflies circling Armageddon or some such. That would be, as they say, merely decoration.
4) What color are your walls?
Yellow in the kitchen and bedroom, white everywhere else. If it was my choice, purple, blue, and orange walls would be added.
5) Describe your bedding…
A crimson sheet, a white duvet, a large pillow with a brilliant orange case, reappropriated from Jess and I think rightfully owned by Bridget.
6) Name the first five things beside your bed?
A sea wicker bedside table, a lamp I've had since I was 10, my alarm clock, a coaster, Fay Weldon's Wicked Women.
7 How do you wake up in the morning?
Unwillingly. I love mornings and truly wish to be a morning person, but years of trying has shown me that I just can't. I snatch every moment of sleep I can get, even to the point of setting my alarm clock an hour early so that I can have the pleasure of awakening every ten minutes, just so I can turn it off and fall back asleep.
8) What kind of music do you listen to when you clean?
Things I can daydream to: Rage Against the Machine (I like to pretend I am Zach de le Roca and that everyone respects me and lusts after me), Ray Charles (me skating to it, exhibition performance after winning Gold at some Olympics or other), the Amps (having a heroin problem and making a movie about it).
9) Any quirky habits about your ‘space’?
I've become a compost nazi. Every bit of organic scrap must be placed in the special bucket. Matt unwittingly threw some mango peels into the garbage last week, and it upset me very much.
10) What is your usual sleeping position?
Curled on my side, arms under the pillow.
Went to the beach last night to sit on driftwood and stare at waves with Matt. In some off twist of geography and fate, we were treated to not one but three Independence Day fireworks displays from across the ocean in the States! Had thought it was a lightening storm at first.
Happy 25th Birthday, Matt!
Laundromat culture: rich, full of potential short story plots. The scent of poverty, or in my case, a broken washing machine. People drowsily reading newspapers, mystery novels, want ads tacked to the community bulletin board. Young children who scamper. Various sounds: the ping of machines finished their cycles, passing motorcars, cel phone conversations. The seduction of other people's underwear and socks: navy, beige, crimson, emerald --- spinning passively.
Clint is about as cool a big brother as a gal could ask for. Read up on how he pissed off an entire campground.
I've been doing some pissing off of people too, mainly, by eating Matt's last piece of bread, lying about it, and then having to watch as he packed up his eggs, salmon, and cheese as his breakfast was then officially ruined. Off to buy bread soon.
Interesting google hits re: my blog --
samiches
with sagging tits gets
pederast and others
breakfast, two cigarettes and a coffee
christianity is a sexist
jude law and religion
how to talk to your mother
The first thing I ever wrote was a poem. I was 5, it was about a robin.
Then I wrote a short story about a cat.
When I was eleven I embarked on my first serious work, a collection of short novels about a girl named Chelsea Snow who lived in a reform school (it was about her madcap adventures!).
Then I wrote the usual teenage angst poems. ("my life is a distillery / fermentation / aggravation / must life be always misery?" etc.)
At 16 I wrote some short stories.
Ages 16 and 17 were spent with dramatic works, "Prime Numbers," "The Invitation," etc.
I started my memoir, and first actual non-fiction work, when I was 18.
At 19 I suddenly became a bona fide fiction writer, a teller of short stories, and proceeded to write eighteen of them.
The point of all this? The point is I started with poetry, explored many things, and wound up a fiction writer. And from casual conversations, it seems that everyone started out with poetry, and now they work primarily within the fiction or non-fiction styles. These are the two types of writing that are the most popular: every week in the newspapers you can read about the top ten sellers in these categories, and of course, you read this information in a non-fiction publication. What happened to poetry and drama?
I used to think most people wrote fiction because storytelling is innate: it was the first artistic form most of us learned, usually via a "How was your day?" scenario. But that makes no sense, because that type of automatic storytelling is actually non-fiction.
Poetry's gone, it died when we were teenagers and still knew how to rhyme things in a poignant way.
So does it come down to time management and vices? Stories -- good ones! -- can be written between 10pm and 7am, with a bottle of gin, if it's due the next day. You can't do that with non-fiction -- there's planning, there's research -- and you can try it with poetry, but it doesn't usually work.
And drama ... It's just too foreign. Real life is not divided into thirds, there is no rising action, there isn't really any dramatic tension when you think about it. Not of the condensed sort.
But fiction is not real life; the very definition of 'fiction' is the opposite of real life: an untruth, a fabrication. A method of escape. Something one constructs.
So: walked 45 minutes to town to sell camera and video camera, camera shop closed, walked the 45 minutes home.
Oath: Stop drinking and smoking and save four hundred dollars a month. How did it get to this point? Seriously folks, as in Serious Coffee serious.
Sadness: for Matt. All the pictures from cross-Canada tour, gone. How? Why? For what reason? I feel sick about this.
Observed: a fat ten-year-old boy wearing an "I'd Rather Be Golfing" t-shirt. The tragedy of this was shattering, ruined my whole outlook on life. It's Serious Coffee again, guys.
Fretting: how do I bring up the bounced cheque to upstairs tenant? It seems she hasn't noticed yet ... Fret fret fret, because I sort of want her to forget about the phone money as compensation for the $25 bounce fee. Is that kosher? Would I be ripping her off? I don't know the rules for this one.
Bright spot: my father offered me money because he and Mum sold the homestead. I refused, but he brought it up again. I'm thinking of accepting. I don't know how much it will be ... Anywheres from $100 - $1000. Bright spot.
1) Two weeks ago I wrote a $20 cheque for the phone. Two days ago, it decided to get cashed. It bounced, because it was budgeted for two weeks ago. For this bounced $20 cheque, bank charges me $25. Oh - and phone is not paid.
2) Just got paid for two weeks' work, and due to NEGATIVE amounts in my account re: fee for bounced cheque, I will have to transfer money from Visa to pay rent. (concerns though - when will the rent cheque decide to cash itself?)
3) Am on my way downtown to sell things. The only thing of real value is my camera, which may fetch $70. Gravely, gravely considering my remaining books. I can't sell them. I can't. But I'll see.
4) Awful thought - man at garage sale offered me $1000 for Sambuca. Consider?
5) The empties!
6) What's the going street price for a blow job? Not worth it, I think - say it's $25, that would be 32 blow jobs before I paid off my Visa.
7) Student loan, I shall not think of you. You are reserved for November, at which point I will be rolling in the dough that is Japanese yen, and laughing, yes laughing at you.
So -- if "we all die," according to Cat Power, perhaps we should ... Wait, is that all? Is that all there IS? Somehow I keep remembering trailer homes in the Okanagan, honeysuckle bushes, wild strawberries ... How the fuck did I NOT become a nature poet? Because I didn't. No siree. Oh no. Not me. I'm not ready for that final disappointment ...