Listening to: Beck
Eating: wine gums
Change the name of the blog to Wine Gums for Breakfast? Possibly. The orange and yellow ones are my favourite. At the bulk aisle, I pick through the nasty blacks and greens and artificial blues for them.
Today will be busy. Finish packing. Clean bathroom. Clean kitchen. Call new landlord and arrange to pick up keys. Call co-worker and arrange for her to pick up the hundred or so empties in my closet. Call current landlord and ask if he really expects us to shampoo the carpets, as outlined in the tenancy agreement, when there is only about 15 square feet of carpet in the whole house and we've only lived here 5 months. Inquire, gently, as to the status of the damage deposit. Call various people who have agreed to help us move -- Pete, Randy, Matt's mum -- and confirm that they're still in. Mop the floors. Clean the windows. Take out recycling. Dance, dance, dance.
1. What's the last item you mailed?
Jewelled stories and subtle cover letters, to prism and Malahat.
2. Who has made you smile recently?
Some drunken old men outside my workplace the other day were lighting firecrackers and screaming obscenities at passersby, and then they saw me -- I was wearing a hobo-like green scarf that grazed the ground, a pepper-coloured trenchcoat, black shit-kicking boots, and my hair was down -- and one of them said, "Beautiful," and they stopped yelling. This made me smile.
3. What's the weather like outside?
Cloudy and dismal but beneath it all it's so excited that Matt and I are moving tomorrow.
4. Do you consider youself a good judge of character?
No. I am actually the queen of terribly unfair first impressions. With the exception of Matt and Ben, I think every single one of my friends at the moment was someone I strongly disliked on first meeting.
5. What's your favorite photograph?
This one, by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt:
Yesterday I put on a beehive wig and looked into a mirror and saw my mother. It was chilling. She'd had the same haircut when she was in high school in the early 60s, and the shade was a sort of coppery brown, same as hers. Very odd. We have identical eyes, noses, mouths, and chins. I have always wanted a beehive hairdo. Maybe I'll be Priscilla Presley for Halloween. Or Jackie Onassis! (I wanna wear a pair of dark sunglasses)
Read an excerpt from Sharon Osbourne's autobiography: she talks about how her husband physically abused her and regularly cheated on her but she stuck with him and gushed about how love "changes" as you age and that change can be refreshing; then she spoke of how Ozzie bit the head off a live bat during concert once only he didn't realize it was a real bat, he thought it was rubber, and I'm just thinking, fine, stay with your husband if he's a philandering wife-beater, that makes a kind of quaint sense, but really, how could you bring yourself to look at him after the bat? How? She recounted the story as if it were funny. Golly-shucks! He thought it was rubber!
The only time I seriously want to hurt -- really, really, hurt -- other people is when I hear about animals being harmed. I am at a loss to understand why animals are the target of so much rage and mis-aimed frustration. I think that humans come to Earth and experience pain in order to become more evolved spirits, but I haven't got a clue what an animal is supposed to learn by arriving here only to have its head bit off by a billionaire lunatic, or have its hands -- hands -- cut off for tourist lunatics, or be fed hormones and filler so it can be eaten -- eaten -- by Average Joe lunatic. It really makes me sick. Normally I keep quiet about my refusal to eat meat and affect a kind of "What you do and what you eat is your own business" flower-child blissfulness -- pretend I don't care when people eat meat at the same table as me and pat myself on the back for being non-judgemental -- but this is insane. People are insane. There ought to be fines to pay, jail time served.
Front #1: After we move I will no longer have those twice-daily 45-minute walks, so decided I will have to find a new form of exercise and I thought maybe get a gym membership but I don't like gyms they're intimidating plus they cost money and the closest one is too far away, and then I thought that I could walk to the gym and back and pretend I had a membership but this seems scarily counter-intuitive somehow.
Front #2: I was going to be a 1980s businesswoman for Halloween but all the power suits I tried on had these massive shoulder pads and now I don't know what I'll be.
Event? Don't even get me started on Event. I've sent out about 25 stories, and received about 23 rejections, but ... Event never wrote back. Shoddy, I think. Disorganized. If did decide to publish your work, would probably forget to send Cheque (and I officially kiss goodbye any long-shot hope of being published in fucking Event). But yeah, bad paperwork.
My rejections go in a file folder pretentiously labelled "Writing (business)".
Do you really want to read the story? Really? It's only five pages long. Anyway ... Thanks! I don't generally share works via email or INTRANET (I'm drunk it's sad) but if you want to get together for a coffee/writing night sometime and bring something of your own as well, I'm in.
Lost? I'm addicted to it in the same way I was addicted to General Hospital when I was 10. It has a soap opera-ish, cliffhanger element -- very successfully done -- that ascertains future viewership. They got me: hook, line, and sinker. I think Charlie is the hottest. I love frayed hoodies! And althogh Six Feet Under and Futureama are far more intelligent, Lost is my top pick for eye candy and suspense.
Drinkin: the gin
Listening to: Supertramp
Moving! Boxes all over the place, a distressed cat, cocktails, snide inside jokes. The place is looking rather bare. Good.
Mild panic when I read Ben's entry about student loan payments/forms needing to be in by TOMORROW, but calmed myself when I remembered that numbers are abstract and therefore don't apply to my life. Eat a mango? Yes. Mangoes are mystical wisdom; any high chap on the corner can tell you as much. Listen to the high chaps when they tell you about internal security guards; they speak the truth. Internal security guards are everywhere, and the sooner we start lighting firecrackers and eating Turkish Delight, the better!
"Age" got rejected.
Today is Matt's and my five-year anniversary!
The first season of "Lost" on dvd is all finished now. All. Finished.
I am wearing two bandaids.
I have packed one ... one ... box, and we're moving in four ... four ... days.
"Age" got rejected! Who the hell do these people think they are! I'm obsessing over whether it's the quality of writing or the choice of theme. Quality of writing, who knows -- I've never been able to look objectively at my own work -- but theme ... Well, let's just say the lit-mags are packed with stories of 20-something mothers and disintegrating husband-wife relations set in tropical locales just now, and I'm not sure if a story about fags and independent women and Barga jazz really *fits in* if you know what I mean. Of course, that makes me sound like a sore loser. Swine! One day everyone will pay. I'm being taken out to dinner tonight.
(courtesy of friday fiver)
1. Link to your local news source:
CBC BC (local)
The Globe and Mail (national)
2. Link to your favorite dessert:
Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
3. Link to a band that you despise:
The Postal Service
4. Link us to a good book:
Good Bones and Simple Murders by Margaret Atwood
5. Link to your favorite Muppet frog:
(I prefer Bert)
Humiliation! Total, utter, seamless humilation, made even worse because there is nothing to lash out at, no little loophole or smug possibility of saying, "Yes, but of course, there is this one thing ..." No. Utterly without defence. I am a clod.
As you will recall, I smoke my cigarettes a couple of steps down the street, due in part to lying to the landlord about smoking and feeling a need to hide it from him, even though he and everyone else who lives here has caught me in the act at least once. Some fictions are important to maintain. Now as a rule if I am in the country, or near a butt receptacle, I will dispose of butts in an environmental manner, but on city streets I do what everyone else does and just throw them on the ground. No, no, that's not an excuse, I shouldn't do that ... And today I walk outside and light up and see this can, weighted down with rocks, with a popsicle stick pointing out, attached to a neatly printed note that reads Neighbour: Please use this for your butts. Thx.
Of course even worse than the fact that I have been secretly pissing someone off for months and she reacts with grace and even a gentle sort of ironic humour is not nearly as bad as the fact that everyone in the house I have been trying to shield my habit from will have seen this sign by now. The jig's up.
MATT: It serves you right. It's a filthy, disgusting habit.
ME: Look at you! You're twice as filthy as me! You're a SLOB!
MATT: Yeah but people don't put signs up for ME.
*imagine if you will Joy loudly EXPLODING and wondering why she ever got back together with someone who could say that to her.*
*then watch her pour a stiff gin and tonic.*
ME: Look! Look what they did to me! It's 1:50.
MATT: Starting late today, are we?
*leave the rest to your imagination*
Listening to: Reverend Horton Heat
Drinking: coffee
I was in a negative mood walking home yesterday, one of those caustic, light-brown, headachey moods during which I string out a mental list of grievances and pluck them down one by one, examine them, and let them fester in my head like some sort of goulash in a third-rate summer camp. There's this one person in my life right now whom I don't like, despite efforts -- and let it be known that it's rare I even make the effort. Why bother when mickeys are ten bucks a pop? Anyhow. All broiled and messy, all entirely in my own head. Attempted self-therapy: if can't like, could at least be neutral? let frustrations flow over head like a waterfall? daydream about being kim deal, playing bass and smoking at the same time? being a songwriter? Didn't work. And then I think about how insignificant I am in the grand scheme of things, ie, I hold no political power, and, if I did hold political power, and that power corrupted me -- a thousand years ago in a previous life, say -- would I have randomly picked people to dislike and then tortured them? Do my genes contain some kind of sick tyrant strain? Have I hurt people in the past just because I could? I am a very gentle person in this life -- the cruelest I ever get is sarcastic jokes at other people's expense, and I'm working on that. So. I don't know, I was just reflecting on how easy it is to be snobbish about my inherent "goodness," only to perceive that if my circumstances were different I might not be "good" at all, and that terrifies me. Makes me want to go up to this person and do something very nice. I've tried that though, and it didn't work. Gah.
Yesterday, to a liquor store clerk: "Yeah, I know. When I'm 50 I'll be one of those women everyone says doesn't look a day over 35."
Him: "When I'm 50, everyone will be saying I look like I've been dead for five years."
At work the other day the higher-ups decided to create an "employee wall" with pictures of all of us in our various departments. Bring on the pictures: or rather, photocopies of our faces, all scrunched noses and terrified eyelids; cancer, cancer, cancer. Meanwhile, the vast majority of us smoke. Soothing cigarettes amid the condoms and assorted rubble of the back lot. Friendly waves at the meth addicts and catastrophe-prone small businessmen. Rumours of war, and pianos. A good hard concrete longing, the sense of effectiveness. Caffiene will always be there for you, sugar, don't let the fuzz tell ya any different.
Listening to: Rage Against the Machine
Drinkin': an Apple Jack (or, "Apple Alberta Premium")
Had made sketchy plans to meet Ben at Serious Coffee for kicks and writing, then had to cancel, but I couldn't get ahold of him. Decided to swing by and see if he was there. He wasn't -- only customer was an elderly man, alone, staring into space. But ... He looked kind of like Ben. Kind of a lot! I walked by once or twice, staring, considering. Decided I had missed Ben by fifty years, that there he was, gnarled and introspective and alone. Went to the laundromat, read a magazine: couldn't go home, strangers were walking through the house, touching the walls, sniffing the bedroom. Prospective tenants. Then later, a cigarette down the street, a vw van pulls up and people shriek and holler and jump out and go into my house; I decide the best course of action is to ignore this and finish my smoke. Five minutes later the people come back out and start hooting Joy, Joy -- it is Morgan and friend L; we smoke another cigarette in the van and trade stories. Morgan's having a party on Thursday: you're all invited. Remembered the time Ben and I sat on the pyramid at UVic and watched the students walking by in droves: we drank rye from pop bottles and decided that every wave of students that passed represented a different decade: the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s wisped by as we got drunk and skipped class.
| Akira Kurosawa Your film will be 45% romantic, 48% comedy, 29% complex plot, and a $ 48 million budget. |
Action-packed, light romance maybe with situation humor but with a moral to your story, this Japanese master filmmaker would make your film an instant cult classic -- were he still alive. This is the guy who made the movie on which George Lucas' Star Wars is based (The Hidden Fortress). Also his movie Seven Samurai inspired the American classic The Magnificient Seven. I think you now have a hint how your bio film is gonna turn out. Rather than hire George Lucas, let's dig up Kurosawa to create the classic spectacle that is your life. A simple drama with light touches of comedy, but a big budget. |
 |
My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
|
| Link: The Director Who Films Your Life Test written by bingomosquito on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test |
(for Jess)
Notice how he virtually dwarfs the legal-sized notebook he's parked himself on.
The antagonism between this cat and my own darling Sambuca was a sight to behold. Jimmy outweighs Sam by at least 15 pounds. Jimmy is a male, and gorgeous. Yet Sambuca thought it entirely natural to despise, and to somewaht effectively antagonize, Jimmy. (I say 'somewhat,' because Jimmy, being the big BLUES cat that he is, mostly ignored Sam and gave the impression he found her juvenile. Even when they got high together, the mutual distaste was evident.)
(Sam pretending to be "hip")
Hurrah! Matt and I have secured a wonderfully fabulous place to live on the 1st. It's in the Fernwood area, has REAL HARDWOOD FLOORS, there is a fireplace, plus Sambuca is allowed to live with us. The kitchen is huge and with a normal-sized fridge, there is a yard, and I can't can't can't hardly wait to move in. I have purchased a Mexican painting of doorways in honour of the occasion. Also four forks.
A is for age
24
B is for booze of choice
Gin, mixed with tonic water or raspberry juice or sangria.
C is for career
Writer and Shouter.
D is for your dad's name
Richard (or Rick)
E is for essential items to bring to a party
Beer, an interesting necklace, cigarettes, a good story.
F is for favourite song at the moment
"Patriarch on a Vespa" by Metric
G is for favourite game
Boggle.
H is for hometown
Vernon I suppose, though Victoria is my adopted hometown. My 'stomping ground,' as it were.
I is for instruments you play
Sort of, the recorder.
J is for jam or jelly you like
I don't like jam or jelly in general. Sometimes raspberry, if it's homemeade and there isn't bucketsful of sugar in it.
K is for kids?
There are three kids I like, and their names are Sarah, Jill, and Laura. The others don't interest me much.
L is for living arrangements
A damp and dreadful basement suite, which I keep packed with spider and rubber plants, gladiolas and daisies, to keep the hysterical tragedy of it all at bay. Matt, Sambuca, and I are moving out on Nov. 1.
M is for mum's name
Karen.
N is for name of your crush
A church bus driver named Sam. I was five; he was 30 or so. Nice straw-coloured hair, and he gave me a small coiled notebook with a pencil.
O is for overnight hospital stays
None.
P is for phobias
Pregnancy, toes or fingers falling off in my sleep, racoons.
Q is for quotes
"And that would be your partner in the wood chipper." (Fargo)
R is for relationship that lasted the longest
Matt, five years on the 26th.
S is for sexual preference
Rugged musician-writer types with a hippie-like sensitivity and the ability to be a huge asshole and participate in something outdoorsy, such as biking.
T is for time you wake up
7.
U is for underwear
Always cotton, usually turquoise or navy blue, or striped.
V is for vegetables you love
Zuccini, yams, asparagus, green beans, potatoes, spinach, garlic, red onions.
W is for weekend plans
Usually gin, housecleaning, walks, and snobby films.
X is for x-rays you've had
Teeth, and my collarbone. A bone-scanny thing on my hips and legs.
Y is for yummy food you make
Soup and sushi. And tonight I'm making mango salsa and salmon!
Z is for zodiac sign
Virgo.
I'm referring to deleted files, here. That still pop up.
...though, there is debate, as usual. Matt thinks he took the picture. Let the People decide. ("Slice the child in half!")
- Joy needs a better understanding of the nature of evil
- "Joy needs me," Kelly replied cryptically.
- joy needs to be there when we're crying, too
- Joy needs some disonic in her life asap LOL
- Joy needs a loving home.
- Joy ® needs to be dissolved in the cattle’s drinking water at the rate of 9.54 g/litre
- Joy needs to sing. Perhaps Joy needs to dance.
- joy needs to be freed, because the sun pulls buds into being.
- Joy needs a farrier that is gentle and willing to work with her.
- Joy needs no wine.
- Joy needs to know: paper or plastic?
- Joy needs to throw up or get air because of the treatment she's getting for her sickness (and even to smoke some pot)
- Joy needs a confident and very gentle rider.
- Joy needs a record company that respects her talent and understands how to operate internationally
- Joy needs to simply combine a regular strength training program with sound nutritional habits
- JOY needs to change the coffee to decaf
- Joy needs to be overhauled and revised.
- Joy needs her medications.
(ripped directly from M)
Borrowed from others, wasn't going to do it at all but I googled and the first one entertained me.
Google "(Joy) needs" including your name of course and the quotes. Giggle at results. Pass over if you wish, it's really not that funny, but not bad if you have nothing else imminent to do.
- joy needs to delete files
- Joy needs her family
- Joy needs to spend some serious time in Baghdad
- Joy needs a new outlet for his creativity
- Joy needs to be near the heartbeat of our happiness in a delivery room
- Joy needs funding to purchase a cargo van for food
- Joy needs to rethink these two items
- Joy needs your support in order to continue
- Joy needs a little help
- joy needs all the support she can get
- Joy needs knitters
- "he is not an agent of the CIA"
- poncho suede
- rumble ring condom
- "m.a.c. farrant"
- jake gylenthal
- "Scarlet Johansen" bio
- boone's sangria
- "bats aren't bugs" "calvin"
Drinking: a white russian
Listening to: the tosca tango orchestra
Just opened the cap of a bottle of cheap vodka and sniffed: the scent of it, the poisonous sensual ecstasy, hurtled me back in time five years to Green St, me snorting the stuff off a spoon, Mike Little mixing it brazenly with caffiene pills and cough syrup, Matt firing rifles and closing the lids of coffins, eyes red.
No place to live yet, but in general high spirits. Went for an hour-and-a-half long walk today. Read a trashy magazine. Am immersed in Joanne Harris's Chocolat, a feverish diamond of a novel, better even than Five Quarters of an Orange: rich, vivid descriptions of spiced wine and chocolate covered almonds and chococcinos and lust and betrayal and wrath. Harris is half French and half British, seems to write with the best traits of each nationality -- sophisticated sex without the gloating; wit without the snobbery. Entrancing.
Listening to: random Barga jazz
Drinking: the gin
Just back from a whirlwind Thanksgiving visit to Comox. I went to "the docks" with Matt's mother to buy fresh halibut. A man who looked like Kurt Cobain -- beautiful stringy blonde hair, acidic blue eyes -- was on a boat, and while his brown-haired hippie-wife held a calculator, opened a hatch, stuck in a long hooked pole, and pulled out a fifteen-pound fish stuffed with ice. Matt's mother nodded her approval, the wife said "Ninety-two dollars," and the man produced a large knife and started to make slits and slashes with amazing speed. An old gnarled man with a waist-length beard approached and asked if he could purchase two heads and two tails. The wife packaged it all in a green garbage bag, which I got to carry. "Did you go to church this morning?" Kurt Cobain asked. "Happy Thanksgiving." Later in the car Matt's mum, slightly preturbed: "Do we look like people who go to church?" She was concerned that the fish gutting had upset me.
It hadn't. What did upset me was John suggesting he, Sayaka, Matt and I go to the river to see the fish jumping, on their incredible spawning journey, then arriving there to see a river full of dead fish. Holes in their sides from flies and seagulls; young children with fishing rods. "That's biology for you," I said. "Fish die; women lose their figure. Fucking unfair." Sayaka was amused; John said, pointing at a large one with fangs, "But look how hard he worked for it!" "I think it's a girl, John."
Later waterfalls, convincing Matt's mum to drink more than her limit, a wonderful dinner and an insane amount of tv. A decision to buy nipple clamps. Munchie mix, cigarettes, shots of brandy. Coffee with kahlua. Bessie Smith and ponds and dogs who were scared of my poncho and dreadful radio.
Why do they call it PMS?
Because Mad Cow Disease was already taken.
It seemed like such a good sign: there are a lot of places in Victoria I would like to live, but my dream place is the Rockland area between Cook and Vancouver. And today at 2:30 I went to view an apartment in just that location. It was cheap but not suspiciously cheap, and cats were allowed. Hopes were high, let me tell you.
I arrived. It was a group viewing: with me was a 30-something mum and her young daughter. The building was rather beautiful, very old and stately, housing about six units. We weren't sure which unit was for rent and started randomly knocking, then:
a man with six teeth and long hair and a grizzled beard stuck his head out a window and said, "You're looking for Apartment 3," and then, recognizing the young mum, said, "Hi, Yvette."
"Hi!" said Yvette. "We're here to see the suite."
His face darkened. He stuck his head further out the window.
"You don't wanna live here," he said, lowly, urgently.
Yvette, startled, muttered something about at least giving it a look.
"Trust me," said the grizzled man. "You don't wanna live here. You don't wanna raise a child here."
A moment of silence. All of us weighing options. Birds in the air, the quiet rumble of traffic on Vancouver St. Minds floating to other, happier topics: like my new Metric cd.
1. Name someone with the same birthday as you.
Richard Gere. (I know.)
2. Where was your first kiss?
In Carla Smoes' bedroom. It was with her brother, Brent Smoes. It was a dare; so sad. But I was in love with him, so perhaps not so sad after all.
3. Have you ever seriously vandalised someone else's property?
On Green St Lisa and I cracked eggs into our neighbour's mailbox because he had complained about Lisa practising her trumpet in the afternoon (she was a music major at UVic for fuck's sake) but the next day it turned out it was not his mailbox. It was someone else's.
4. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex?
Many, many times. Mostly my brothers. Once my dad -- terrible -- a long story.
5. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people?
"Tainted Love," 2001, karaoke at Paul's Motor Inn. When the opening bars of the song played, the dance floor filled; about ten seconds after I started singing, they all left, casting glares in my direction.
6. What's the first thing you notice about the preferred sex?
Personal style. Creative clothing? Big grin? Obnoxious jokes? Pretty eyes? Waving around an obscure book? That sort of thing.
7. What really turns you on?
Bite-kisses. Being touched on my back. Matt sipping red wine from my belly button. Old movies, especially Casablanca and City Lights. Tragedy. The smell of old books. Private leers.
8. What do you order at Starbucks?
Coffee. Just how I order my men: hot and black. (Matt's take is slightly different: "Just how I order my women: hot and bitter.")
9. What is your biggest mistake?
"I don't regret the things I have done, but those I have not yet started." (Empire Records)
10. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?
Yes, as a teenager.
11. Say something totally random about yourself.
She had not yet decided whether to use her power for good, or evil ...
12. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity?
Some drunken aging playboys at Big Bad John's once told me I looked like Sarah MacLachlan. Ben says I look Atwoodian when he thinks I need cheering up. Yesterday someone at Work said I looked like Annie Hall, but it was mostly the hat I was wearing.
13. Do you still watch kiddy movies or tv shows?
No, but if anyone suggested watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang again, I would.
14. Did you have braces?
No. Drat the luck: my parents couldn't afford them. I have an awful overbite and as a consequence smile without showing my teeth. One day I'll have my jaw broken and reset; all that jazz.
15. Are you comfortable with your height?
I actually truly love being 5.1. I think it's cute. My legs dangle when I sit in buses and pants are generally five inches too long, but overall it's fine.
16. What is the most romantic thing someone of the opposite sex has done for you?
When Matt took me to Japanese Village for our 3-year anniversary and wrote me a three-page letter detailing how he'd fallen in love with me for a second time.
17. When do you know it's love?
Well, you know -- "If you don't cry / it isn't love / and you just don't feel it deep enough." (The Magnetic Fields)
18. Do you speak any other languages?
No.
19. Have you ever been to a tanning salon?
No! And I've only ever tanned on the beach twice in my whole adult life. As the authors of "The Garden of Vegan" claim: Punks don't tan.
20. What magazines do you read?
Ahem. Okay, okay, I read In Touch Weekly, but also The New Yorker, Bitch, The Walrus, and various lit-mags.
21. Have you ever ridden in a limo?
Yes, at Ryan and Aya's wedding. I became drunk on champagne and got disoriented.
22. Has anyone you were really close to passed away?
Yes, my old roommate Trever, who was a saxaphone genius and gin martini specialist and a more wonderful person than I can do justice to in a survey; also my great dog Keto, again, words can't say.
23. Do you watch MTV?
Never. No point.
24. What's something that really annoys you?
Late buses. I get unreasonably appalled.
25. What's something you really like?
Libraries, and the people they attract.
26. Do you like Michael Jackson?
I like his music very much, especially Billie Jean. I don't know him personally so can't comment on that side of things.
27. Can you dance?
Sort of. In a ska, look-at-me-I-grew-up-in-Vernon-there-were-all-ages-punk-shows sort of way.
28. What's the latest you have ever stayed up?
Not late. Like maybe five in the morning, like maybe twice.
29. Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room?
No, not that I know of. But when I was two a ghost pushed me down a set of steep Lumby stairs, and I broke my collar bone and had to have a cast. I might have been rushed to the hospital then.
31. Do you actually read these when other people fill them out?
Always.
So I just bought the new Metric cd, Live It Out, and while Metric is not in that same iconic status as the Pixies, listening to the opening track on my headphones as I walked through Fairfield autumn on my way to view an apartment I had the same surge of musical orgiastic bliss I felt on the bus back from Vancouver listening to The Purple Tape for the first time, courtesy of Darren -- I had never heard the Pixies before -- played it three times in a row, jaw open, pulse fast, senses working in ways they hadn't before just so thrilled to hear something that spoke, you know -- I'm far too young to say "Music was better back in my day" but it's true nonetheless, that golden mid-90s period when the songs on the radio were actually the good songs, the artistic cutting-edge stuff, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Garbage, Alice in Chains, perhaps not my favourite music but honest and songs, there were actually songs on the radio back then, teenagers listened to songs -- and they liked them! -- now Metric on my discman, poppy and sometimes sentimental, but moments of grit and sly political slashings, slutty little girl voice singing about the identical dead-rose faces of 20-something housewives, a misguided dream she seems to be saying, and thank God they got a chance to talk to Sonic Youth: did you know that before Metric talked to Sonic Youth, they were going to break up?
At work this morning I was instructed to "put something interesting on," so I selected a brown 1940s era flapper hat, an endearing size too large, which flopped over my eyes and made me look like a gamin. People loved it. Old men told me nostalgic stories; J said I looked like Annie Hall. Floated through the day.
Poems brewing, at least two about Allen Ginsberg. He's my muse. His books, the scent of them, their obscenity and cynical naivety.
Rain and green scarves. Sleeman's cream ale. A realization and acceptance that money is an abstract concept, not worth fretting over: numbers have never meant very much to me. $20 cold sore medication. Silky legs, freshly shaved. Unanswered emails. A billowingly warm hoody. Matt and I are going to watch Happiness tonight. Earlier, at the video store, to a clerk-punk: "Where can I find Happiness?" Life should have devolved into an art film, but didn't.
Cough and illness have subsided, to be replaced with a giant enflamed cold sore. Ick. Giant enflamed cold sores make me feel like such a whore.
Steph came over last night to drink beer and smoke cigarettes and watch Robert Altman's Short Cuts. In the 4 months we've lived here I think I've had people over about 4 times; I've missed it; can't wait to move into a new place and start properly entertaining again. First happening will be a house-warming potluck!
Tip: Never make soup from a recipe taken from the inside of a tea box. Even if it seems like a really, really good idea. Also, if the only spices called for are "salt" and "pepper," know that they are fly-by-night charlatans. Your celery, lovingly chopped, will go to waste! Better to buy Campbell's!
From your vantage point in front of the computer, you spy, with your little eye...
1. Something that is red:
The porn star lamp with the red shades and squiggly necks.
2. Something that is shiny:
The MJB coffee can filled with pennies.
3: Something that is ugly:
My house.
4. Something that is made of wood:
The desk.
5. Something that is sharp:
The shard of amber beer bottle ... Mysterious ...
Ben took a wonderful photograph of me at Bravo a couple of weeks ago ("I've discovered the secret of eliminating the double-chin thing, Joy! Shoot from below, shoot from below!"). I love it. I want it to be the author photo for my first book.
Been looking for an apartment for Nov. 1st. A tad frustrating, because already I've found about 40 that fit our price range and location preference, but of these only two or three accept pets. It's odd: more buildings allow smoking inside the building than do pets. I think I'll take photos of Sambuca along and show them to potential landlords, go for the personal appeal. Who could refuse her crooked tail, her minx-like eyes, her grave and wise whiskers? Anyhow, I'm not too concerned. Things will be fine if I believe they will be.
Wearing: A woollen rainbow-patterned poncho! Really! (I walked about town in it yesterday, pointing at other people with ponchos, shouting, "Poncho!" It was like when I first got glasses, and noticed how many other people had them as well. This of course was a mere five or six months before I irrationally and expensively stopped wearing the glasses.)
Drinking: Coffee
It's cloudy and damp and I'm sick, but the world is beautiful because we're moving at the end of the month, I love my job, and I have been making lots of soup. I don't even like eating soup that much, but the witch-like mechanics of making it, the pinch of this and pinch of that, the swirling of the boiling cauldron, my black cat prowling around the kitchen as I cackle, cackle .... There's something nostalgic about that.
A couple of drinkfests in the past week, neither of them very notable, except at the World's Fattest Racehorse show I made the tragic mistake of mixing Jim Beam with beer. Angel Michael walked me home, which was magnificent of him, especially given that I'm almost positive I was babblingly annoying, but there were no angels the next day when I walked the 45 minutes to work in a typhoon and with the world's fattest headache, the kind that thuds the base of your skull every time you breathe in or breathe out. I had no umbrella -- owning umbrellas makes me nervous -- and I had childishly spent my emergency bus fare on a steaming and oh-so-worth-it cup of dark roast to go. I charged through the rain. In ten minutes my skirt and jacket were soaked and I was trailing streams of water in my wake. People I passed laughed at me, cunts, cunts with their umbrellas, why not at least shout magical poetry at me and nod like wise old sages? Arrived at work ill, hungover, five minutes late, and dripping rain water. My colleagues roared with laughter and said, "What? Late? You're not late," kindly not looking at the clock, and I was given tea and told to fix my hair (which was plastered to my skull like some sort of drag queen after she has taken the wig off and is thinking, "Another night of cocaine and free drinks? Another? Darling, I'm weary ...").
