Since when does the statement "Barbecues stress me out" translate into a diagnosis of "fear of crowds"? Blimey. Parades stress me out too, but it's more a terror of spectacle than the crowd itself.
Drinking: coffee
Listening to: Tom Waits
I seem to have a lot of small injuries today. A cut on my palm, from stabbing myself whilst spreading mayo on a sandwhich. A cut on my foot, from walking into the corner of my bed. A festering greenish-black bruise on my right shin, from plunging my foot through a faulty milk crate at work (tragedy on so many levels ...) Various gross foot problems, from walking to work and back every day in unsuitable shoes.
Yesterday I got home from work, exhausted, to see Matt and C settling in for an evening of raspberry juice and Vice City; looked at my house, which I haven't cleaned in six days, with mortification. Whirled around. Beer bottles and gin bottles; plates; chopsticks; abandoned hoodies; a ridiculous amount of shoes (five pairs -- how do I suddenly have five pair of shoes? I'm not that kind of girl); library books; trashy magazines; chequebooks; mail; empty cigarette packages; matchbooks; cat hair; Joy hair; rubber bands and beer caps and paper clips and pennies. ("Look at the Virgo go," observed Matt.) It only took ten minutes: but why can't I keep it clean consistently? Why can't I be a domestic goddess unless challenged with social ridicule and contempt? ("But it's just me," Colin protested ...)
Testosterone-soaked drinks at E's place on Friday -- his macho antics turned my normally sweet-natured, sensitive lover into a snarling asshole, complete with gun-play and hurled insults to strange, large groups of men on the way home (Rumble, anybody?) Wow. Had a splendid time with Steph though, going out for cigarettes every twenty minutes to deconstruct the social maladies of our men.
Colin's over; we're watching Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and I'm drinking rye: the good ol' days. Tomorrow? Job-hunting, dashing off a cheque to a collections agency (more later), and perhaps Us Weekly. Maybe.
So --- you're tired of health problems resulting from hormonal birth control methods? You're finally enjoying sex again since you got off the fucking hormones, and have decided to use condoms as your only form of birth control because hormones destroy you? Want to educate yourself about the best natural methods to use? Well then! Go to google.ca, type in "rhythm method birth control," plan to use this information in conjunction with condom use. Wind up at soyouwanna.com. Read this:
"Condoms are best for people who want to protect themselves against STIs, STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases), or those who are lazy (they don't involve taking pills or getting shots)."
Yep. I'm far too lazy to continue with a shot that ruined my bones and my sex drive, and contributed to mental problems. I'm also too lazy to take a pill, which would increase my chances of ovarian cancer, fatal blood clots, and yes, that ever-present female-malady: mental problems. Not to mention at least two dozen additional unacceptable side effects.
Go fuck yourselves with your generalizations, poorly educated hypotheses, and pop culture hip-mod slang-fests. You're scum, and your kids -- your un-planned kids -- probably hate you.
Drinking: Appleton's rum and Coke
Tunes: Ween's "Mushroom Festival in Hell"
(By the way -- had an involved fantasy on my way home from work today, of Matt and I in some sort of global kareoke championships, singing a Ween duet; me: "COVER IT WITH GAS AND SET IT ON FI-AH!" Matt shrieking and snorting the other lyrics. Gold medals and fame, a tense rivalry and mutual smear campaign involving the members of Ween.)
Last night: Woody Allen's "Purple Rose of Cairo." Achingly good. His most effective tragedy, most effective ode to the golden age of Hollywood cinema. Loss.
I bought an enormous ring, nearly a dozen small glass beads forming a butterfly. Showed it to a homeless man: "Look at the most beautiful ring in the world!" Gave him a cigarette; Matt gave him change. He was trying to collect $17 for a space at the Sally Ann shelter, which would provide a bed and three meals for one day. He didn't look like he slept on the street; he had the air of a husband recently kicked out, or a blue collar worker recently let go, no severance pay, that sort of thing. Should have given him my whole pack.
Observed, at the intersection of Fort and Douglas: a teenage boy wearing a black shirt with an arrow pointing down: I'm With Penis.
I've been flipping through my Submissions Record, a handwritten list dating back to May 2002, that tracks every story and poem I've ever submitted to literary journals great and small. The tally: 21 rejections (two of them handwritten), 4 acceptances, and 2 pending.
Aging: tomorrow my little brother will be 22. In eight days, I will be 24. We'll both be divisible by two!
I'm slowly changing the musical atmosphere at Work. Yesterday we listened to the Amps, the Pixies, the Smiths, Metric, and Slurped, remixed funk from the 60s. Felt gloriously powerful. Ignored the sneers from middle-aged America, who seems to have nothing better to do on her vacation but shop. (That's unkind. Some of them are great. My favourites: the Romanian count who has hinted he would like me to join him and a leather briefcase filled with a million dollars on a jaunt across Europe; the elderly Irish ladies who fret about me being in the shop "all by myself"; the Thai woman who filled a $79 Samsonite suitcase with $200 worth of boxes chocolates.)
(Tonight a prominent local writer-spot, at which I have read, sent out a group email, which I received, asking for a 750-1000 word fiction or non-fiction work on the above topic. Here is what I sent out.)
This summer I obsessed over a piece of graffiti I read two summers ago on the sad piss-stained walls of Vic High School -- it said, in black skateboard-hip spray-paint: "stories and stories; what is the meaning?" I tried to think of who would have written this, wanted it to be a flunk-ish type, bad grades, bad drugs. In June I moved to a genteel hippie-neighbourhood with no graffiti at all, just wild rose bushes and haphazard faux-British gardens and well-groomed teenagers and strapping dogs. Crisis.
This summer I drove down Oak Bay Avenue eating organic raspberries with two gay men after an expensively decadent dinner at Splendid Chinese Restaurant and in less then 60 seconds ripped my dear friend Steph of her independence by proclaiming her the city's greatest hope for the next vixen trophee wife. Had meant it to be a compliment: had meant that she was taller than me, hotter than me, more at ease in social situations. I hurt her feelings terribly.
This summer I was late for work twice and my lover drove me downtown on the back of his bike, made me walk when we hit hills, told me I was beautiful and argued about Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes: who was better, whose heartbeat pulsed harder for the revolution. Both of us hungover; anger and recrimation as we passed Government House on Rockland. Shouting insults into the wind, while everyone who saw us fly past thought it was some sort of romantic excursion. Me with a cigarette, an ill-fitting helmut, neon green. Kept sliding off.
This summer I worried that, if Robert Downey Jr. met me, he might find me strident and refuse to be friends. It is terribly important that Robert Downey Jr. would like to be my friend. I need this.
This summer I saw a piece of driftwood on a beach that had 300 rings. I freaked out. I smoked four cigarettes, even though it was hot out and I was thirsty. I wanted to know who I was 300 years ago, if I had met this tree, if I had seen it.
This summer I visited my parents in the Okanagan for the first time in four years and bought a straw hat with a floppy brim, trimmed with a scarlet velvet ribbon and a fake rose. People at the Bean Scene, Vernon's greatest coffeehouse, complimented me, and I was bashful and pleased for the rest of the afternoon.
This summer I worked in a baggage shop. Yes. Women would come up to me with fake crocodile-skin clutches and ask me if it matched their outfits, and I would say, "That is hideous," or, depending if I was hungover, "Buy two!" I was a dreadful shopgirl. I learned the poetic mysticism behind the words Samsonite, Swiss Gear, American Tourister, Roots, but never used it. I could brush my fingers above a $24.99 trend handbag and deduce if it was leather or vynil. Always, always say leather.
This summer I didn't write a single story but I thought about meanings: how drinking gin will make you write a sexy ending, how with rye it will be violence. Organic tea can mellow things and a cigarette will keep you from screaming, from accusing. The best story, I think, is to sit at the edge of the Pacific Ocean with a bottle of red wine from Montreal, and look at someone as though you had never seen them before, and try to hide the sex from the two locals who have come up behind you with a telescope for watching the stars. Then walk home and argue. Forget about narrative.
Back to "War of the Worlds" -- I enjoyed it spectacularly! -- which stunned me, you understand, as I generally dislike action movies in general and projects involving Tom Cruise and/or Steven Spielberg specifically. I had gone for a laugh, because it was the Roxy and there was gin involved, etc. But I liked it. It was a scary movie. The alien monsters were scary, yes, but the worst was the way humans reacted to other humans in a crisis -- made me want to purchase a vial of cyanide -- does cyanide come in vials? -- in case of any sort of national emergency. I wouldn't be caught dead with a human being I didn't know, if you know what I mean.
The only cheezy moment was an oblique one: near the beginning of the film there is a rather impressive and frightening scene, with the earth splitting and such, and at one point a massive cathedral actually appears to move down the street. It was terrifying in its own way but I couldn't stop laughing because it brought to mind the Monty Python sketch where an atheist is attacked by a church that hurls itself from its foundation to lumber down his driveway and disrupt afternoon tea. Wow.
A bunch of teenage girls in the audience, screaming "We love you Tom Cruise!" I was aghast. Matt said they identified with Katie Holmes. "But she's 26!" I said. When I was a teenager I had crushes on Elvis Presley and James Dean. Briefly, Harrison Ford as Han Solo in Star Wars. ("And I thought these things smelled bad on the outside!") Patrick Stewart from Star Trek. Who, by the way, has an amazing role in "LA Story" as a banker who reviews the financial files of prospective diners at an exclusive restaurant ("You think you can have the duck? With a chart like this?" "He can have the chicken." "Eight weeks!").
Interesting google hits for the ol Shots for Breakfast in the past few weeks:
"nudist shots"
"im on my period and camping"
"my girlfriend preferred a dog instead of me"
"TAMPON SHOTS"
"hickey on the neck jpg"
"skandia golf Kelowna"
"worst shots sambuca"
1. If you could invite five people to dinner from history, living or dead, who would they be?
Margaret Atwood, Sapho, Anain Nin, Jack Kerouac, Richard Nixon.
2. Why have you chosen these five individuals?
Margaret Atwood so that I could -- if everything worked perfectly -- say something intelligent to her, and then for the rest of my life I could tell people I had done so. Sapho so that she could tell me detailed stories of life in Greece. Anais Nin for glamour and the sex appeal that tugs at this mostly-straight girl's loins. Jack Kerouac to see if he is my spiritual twin, as I've suspected all along ... Richard Nixon just to hear his wonderful, gravelly voice.
3. What would you serve for dinner?
Baked salmon with asparagus and wild rice and organic salad; soy ice cream with fresh blackberries and raspberries; Jack Daniels.
4. What would you like to ask them?
"Is that all there is to the circus?"
5. Do you think everybody seated at the table would get along? Why or why not?
No! Marge would hurt people's feelings, by accident, with her super-intelligence, and I would take her side. Sapho would probably be homesick or hungover or something. Nin would probably like the men well enough, but might be intimidated by Sapho and Marge's bibliographies. Jack would be morose; I just know it. Nixon would maybe make friends; would depend if he likes Jack Daniels, or not.
And with the tip of a bright red mailbox handle, I've sent two of my children out into the big wide world, to deal with literary journal fiction editors as best they can. "Deconstructing Dinner" and "Age" are on their own, now. They better not drink too much and make an ass of themselves right when they have to make a good impression.
Today I look like Janis Joplin.
And tonight, I will eat rice noodles with a soy-ginger sauce, and stir-fried shrimp, green pepper, and avocado. Topped with sesame seeds.
Last night at the Roxy Cinegog I sat beside a 40-something corporate tax attorney type, and in front of two middle-aged moms who were counting the number of children who got into the PG-13 movie. In the thick of all this, I was trying to unscrew the cap from my bottle of Boone's sangria, mixed with copious amounts of gin and tonic. Stress. More on War of the Worlds and Batman Begins after a brunch at Floyd's and mad-mod shopping! Also, some notes on a dreadful remix of Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is," blared from a stupid frat party on Bay St. Philistines!
I've just started reading "The Opposite of Fate," a collection of non-fiction pieces by Amy Tan, one of my favourite writers. It's smashing so far! This is the sex education Ms. Tan received from her mother:
"Don't ever let boy kiss you. You do, you can't stop. Then you have baby. You put baby in garbage can. Police find you, put you in jail, then your life over, better just kill yourself."
!!
I picked up a pamphlet for a fundraising walk, proceeds to the Heart and Stroke Foundation for Women, or some-such. Nodded as I read, decided I would like to go on a fundraising walk. I prefer charities that work specifically with children or animals, but surely heart and stroke research is important? I sought answers in an information box near the front flap of the pamphlet. It turns out that heart diseases are a number-one killer of Canadian women! I read on --- Did you know (it said), that over 2 million Canadian women SMOKE?
Criminy! The only thing more enjoyable than a cigarette after sex or during beers is a cigarette - or six - on a 6-k walk -- seriously, folks. I fear I'd give the wrong impression? Perhaps addle some survivors? Get some unkind press in Victoria's righty news conglomerate? There's also the issue of raising funds, which I find embarassing to do.
Delight: a maintenance man who works at a downtown establishment -- on his break, dirty and tired -- smokes a cigar. Every day. I thrill to see it.
Also: A bald man, hair tattooed onto his skull. Walking down Oak Bay Avenue.
The artist who paints long-limbed black men playing pianos, saxaphones. In a coffeehouse with yellow walls, organic muffins. Coffee to go.
Moon imagery. Clouds. Dusk. ("These uspeakable giant bugs drop onto --" "Bats aren't bugs!" "Who's giving this report? You chowderheads? Or me?" Calvin and Hobbes)
Playing Taboo with my relatives. It's like verbal pictionary -- make your partner guess your word, only you can't use certain words to describe it. Matt and I kick ass. "Can you believe that I --" "Banker!" And then, "It really tied the room together ..." "Rug!" Shocked everyone. Won. Were told we shared too many private jokes.
Fresh blackberries from Fiona's blackberry patch.
Lighting a cigarette with a match. Successfully.
A man at the bus stop: "I had the best summer! I went to Rome, to Norway ... Montreal ..." Glorious vicarious enjoyment. One day I will walk in Rome.
Lunch with Ben: a salmon roll at the strange Bridged Place in east Oak Bay, where B was once attacked by a duck. An outpouring of frustrations re: female parental unit. Cigarettes, later a coffee.
House is like sparkle-fuss! Went on a cleaning binge in retaliation to M's refusal to move. Soaked the place in disinfectant. Opened windows, beat rugs. Swept. Scrubbed. It's a grim battle of wills: "I will like you; I must, I must!" "But I suck! How could you possibly like me? I'm going to win, you know." Bitch.
Hugo's tonight? No cover, cheap cocktails, free pool and a dj? Kitchen open til midnight? Give me a shout; we'll plan something.
New spinny chair from St. Vincent de Paul's! Sambuca has claimed it. She won't let anyone else sit in it. She's going through her terrible two thousands. Ah, didn't I mention it? Sambuca is immortal; she told me last night ...
I live down the block from the worst dollar store in the entire universe. No welcome mats. No tea towels that aren't emblazoned with shitty looking registered trademarks. No pencils sold singly. Significantly, no forks.
(Saturday)
Back at the Bean Scene! Purple crushed velvet easy chairs, pixie barristas with dyed red hair, a tall glass of iced mochacinno with a straw. 1940s swing music drifts down from the speakers, and people sit at scuffed wooden tables scribbling in notebooks and reading newspapers.
I have just purchased an enormous straw hat with a floppy brim. Trimmed in rose-coloured velvet. A flower.
(Seems I had forgotten that Vernon is a desert, despite always blathering about it to people who couldn't care less. I am wilting, I am sunburnt; the lake seems very far away, and I have no shorts.)
The drive from Vancouver: A traffic jam. A garbage truck, on fire, just outside of Merrit. Simone de Beauvoir's All Men Are Mortal. Thai food in Westbank -- cauliflower, tofu, green onions, carrots, oyster sauce. No cigarettes from 10 in the morning (on the ferry, where I bummed a Players Light from a fast-talking ski instructor) till 7:30pm, when I bought a package of Number Sevens at Butcher Boys and smoked some at the exact centre of a large, impeccably landscaped field. Stared at the mountains. The mountains of Vernon are mournful; very beautiful; bleak. If the Pacific Ocean, washing against the rocks at Dallas Road beach, is a 20-something moon goddess with green eyes and a silver amulet on a chain about her neck, then these mountains are a weary, slightly distressed patriarch with an uneven beard, and regrets. The two would never mix well at a cocktail party.
(Sunday)
In a patio lounge in Kelowna. Big Rock in a chilled pint glass. Alice Walker's Pullitzer Prize-winning The Colour Purple. Off-Centre Magazine, the Okanagan's version of Monday (with Savage Love!). A hot young surfer boy/man just walked by and said, "Joy! Wow! Long time!" He turned out to be one of the grade 8 drama students I tutored when I was in grade 12. He has way better hair now. I feel old.
I'm wearing rolled jeans, a crumpled polyestor shirt in Neopolitan ice cream vertical stripes, and a long necklace of plastic disco ball beads. Mum and I won it after playing the vicious "smash-the-gopher" game at Skandia Mini Golf and Games -- my mother was an animal, smashed the gophers far harder than I -- bang, bang, chortle -- young children watched, wide-eyed -- she just about beat the high score. Smash! I was proud. We also played mini-golf, and I missed par by something like 20 points.
The arts district in Kelowna is a curious mixture of Victoria-hippie, Enderby-gypsy, and Vancouver-sketch. Lots of independent bookstores and imaginatively named delis ("Dawn of the Fed").
Visited a mechanic's garage with my father. Oil, dirty mops, top-40 radio, wrenches. Two mechanics, named Gary and Gunther. Prior to this experience I had slotted men I meet into two categories: those who take an aesthetic interest in my anatomy (titstitstits etc.), and those who enjoy the intellectual side of me ("Socialist wasteland, you say? Well now --").Sometimes a combination of both. These mechanics shattered my stereotypes. They barely glanced at me (despite my awesome dad's introduction: "This is my favourite-ist Number One Daughter!"), and turned their attention to a truck on a raised platform with a cellar underneath! They walked down the stone steps into the cellar; stared up into the bowels of the truck. The poetry of this, the mysticism, fascinated me, and I got down to take a peek. This was the only time they looked me in the eye.
"No customers under the trucks," they said.
Then it hit me. I was not a truck. I held no interest for them. An awe-inspiring moment: my ego floated into the 40-degree sky like a carnival balloon and I realized I am not the centre of the universe.
(Shit, I'm getting drunk -- have to meet my mum in an hour when she gets out of church.)
Madness! I'm off to Vernon tomorrow, 9am ferry sort of thing. First time I've been to the land of my birth in 2 and a half years ... I'll get to see my parents, grandparents, and the impish Bear and Jaggermeister. The one person missing is Keto .... She was always one of the highlights of my trips to the old homestead. Che serah, serah ...
Have decided not to take the promotion at work. My soul would die. My soul is already dying, bit by bit.
When I started this job I told myself -- sternly! -- not to compare it to the magical bookstore, because that would only make me angsty, and any new job should stand on its own. But I've changed my mind -- why shouldn't I accept, and even demand, a job the fulfills me? Why shouldn't I be critical of one that doesn't? In terms of short-term contentment I had plans of forcing myself to like this job, but such psychological calisthenics are making me batty, and overly emotional to boot.
The best part about my job is the walk to work: It is 2 miles, takes about 45 minutes, and leads me through stunningly beautiful Victoria neighbourhoods. There are the grandiose gardens of Fairfield, wonderful sloppy things with wildflowers and roses spilling around overgrown grass and ancient fences; then the multi-coloured hippie shacks of Fernwood; the exciting sketch of downtown: beggars, street musicians, tourists from every country in the world, and usually a face or two I know. I often stop at an independent coffeehouse for a dark roast to go, and sip it while smoking my three morning cigarettes. Sometimes I stop at the market for an organic apple. I love ritual; I love this walk.
But then ... I arrive at The Corporation, change into my business-casual uniform, put on my sad, much-hated name-tag, and spend the next 9 hours in an agony of repetition, false smiles, adherence to company rules that were designed at Head Office in Montreal, allowing for absolutely no input here in the trenches. My walk is forgotten -- there is no window in my workplace, it feels like a cave.
It can't go on.
Possible job leads, found on workopolis today: animal worker at a pet training outfit! Teaching assistant at an ESL school! Organizer at an Immigrant Women's Association! I'm going to apply for them all.
Also: convert the little-used second bedroom, currently a place we throw our dirty laundry and store junk, into a study. Eliminate the clutter; drag in my desk; write daily and get a sense of identity back.
Watched Napolean Dynamite, again, last night. Best quote: "Do the chickens have large talons?"
Matt and I bumped into Chris Young and Friend last night, totally accidental, both sets of us trolling the city for a sushi joint open on BC Day (Unheard of! God. It's not like it was Rex Manning Day.) Wound up joining forces and dining on Vietnamese food at Pho Vy. A large, swirling bowl of soup, bits of tofu, bean sprouts, tomato, mint. An unusual soup; yes. Hadn't seen CY in years. He's off to some sort of military academy come Monday, and waxed brilliant about neglected children and Vietnamese ice tea being lemonade in disguise .... Also introduced us to his friend as "Matt and Joy, who I used to get hammered with at Green St and write poetry ..." It immensely pleased us both.
Interesting fact: after having avoided Subway Sandwiches for close to three years, I had both lunch and dinner there, on Friday. Wow! Wow!