Right now in Victoria the gusts are gusting at 83 km/h! I barely made it home! I was buffeted in intersections! I had to pull the drawstring on my hoody and zip up my jacket! Oh, cruel January!
Yesterday Matt said that his teenage dinner conversations involved his mother saying, "What did you do at school today?" with him replying, "Nothing." I countered this with my own teenage memory:
MUM: What did you do at school today?
ME: Well, so-and-so cheated on so-and-so on General Hospital.
MUM: Really? Well, did you tape it?
The first couple of years I was homeschooled my mother taught Jeordyn and I, rigorous 8-3 schedules of exercise, academic study, religious study, and chores. By the time I was 13, however, she decided to return to work, and Jeordyn and I were left to our own devices for the day.
We would have a leisurely breakfast, then make a token stab at our schoolwork, only the subjects we liked best: Jeordyn would do Math, and I would do English literature and Journal-writing. Then we'd tune into the local radio station and call in for the contests (the only thing I remember winning was the soundtrack to Boys on the Side). Then we'd watch the noon news, and make lunch, usually minestrone soup with rice cake slathered with butter and cheese. Another stab at schoolwork (sciences and History, respectively), and it was time for the soaps. We also played tonnes of Commander Keene and Risk. I would spend most of the afternoons writing -- I was working on my Chelsea's Revenge novels and several plays -- then more TV, magazines, figure skating practice three times a week, followed by dinner and those illuminating conversations ....
Written: three pages of a new story, one poem, a page and a half of self-referential wank. None of it's good except the story. Must venture to the scary storage room in the basement and rustle up my keyboard and mouse so I can get my computer hooked up and start writing on that -- green ink in a notebook can only take you so far (but what a beautiful so far it is ...).
Ben called me at work yesterday, on an official work-related manner, and I responded to his queries on my headset while five or six co-workers, milling around, eavesdropped. Due to the nature of the call they must have assumed it was just another client. Then: [my side of the conversation only]
ME: Um ... Well, good, I guess. How are you? [trying to kind of rush Ben along because it was a business line, not really meant for personal calls]
ME: Yes .... Mmm hmmm .... Pretty good day so far.
ME: Really? That sucks ....
ME: Dropped an entire mirror, you say?
ME: It shattered, you say?
ME: Listen, I'm kind of busy right now ...
Anyway ... Maybe you had to be there.
Sambuca's been parading around on the tabletop although this is the one thing (the only thing in her whole entire life) she is forbidden. Then she puts on her I'm-an-abused-cat face when I push her off. I really don't understand why she doesn't just fuck off and stay off the damn table, considering Matt and I are hardly ever at home during the day and she could frolick on the table to her heart's content.
I've collected some bottles from the kitchen to exchange for money at the grocery store: four 2-litre bottles of Coke, two glass bottles of juice (apple; pink grapefruit), and two 1-litre cartons of juice (raspberry; tropical 5-Alive). Should net me about $1.20. Add this to the five-dollar bill I (magically!) found in my pocket, plus 15 dollars or so in my bank account, and I can buy cigarettes, bread, fake ham, and a tomato, plus some soup materials, and I should be good till Friday (payday).
I should mention here that I'm not actually all as poor as that -- I have an uncashed paycheque in my purse, over $600, but rent/student loan payment day falls two days before next payday (all that shite's due on Wednesday), so I decided to see if I could make it. Frustrating because Landlord doesn't usally cash rent cheque for a couple of days (which would be Friday, payday), but one can't bank on that (ha -- bank) and so I've decided to be safe and miserly. Also stupid: I'd limited myself to one mickey a week and it was working out fine till I got drunk at the Roxy on Friday and bought another mickey on my way home (totally unnecessary) at beer and wine store prices no less.
I have to say, it's kind of nice to be fretting over stuff like this and have no homework. Variety is good.
Matt and I saw a banned Czech movie last night: Daisies, a "feminist farce." It was awesome! Two lost women with three-inch slashes of eyeliner getting drunk in public and smashing their way down the tops of banquet tables, grinding their stilletos into gourmet entrees and swinging from crystal chandeliers. They were forever lolling on a king-sized bed, surrounded by firm green apples, taking one bite and then throwing them onto the sheets.
I feel like walking to the Moka House today. Pity about the weather. Song everyone should listen to: Escarpment Blues by Sarah Harmer. Never really liked Sarah Harmer until this song appeared on the National Playlist, and now I'm hooked. Also getting into the Stars. Kicking myself for being too drunk to see them at Thursdays a couple years ago, before they were famous. I just went home, not realizing. They were going on in something like five minutes and I just left.
I have a new hoody. A sky-blue Roxy one, with orange stripes. It was 50 cents.
Helped Ben move into the Margaret Atwood Boarding House yesterday. Sipped some raspberry juice and had to lift a futon. I violated a strict life code by doing so.
My job is so strange. Wondrous colours and details, immensely enjoyable, but filled sometimes with a below-the-surface angst. Just a mild one. On a scle of 1 to 10 I rate this job 8 or 8 and a half ("maybe a nine in a few beers time"), but that 2 or 1.5 bit, when it occurs, can be discouraging. Basically I need to be self-employed. Basically I need to be a professor. Or write some cheezy non-fiction bestseller that I can collect monthly royalty cheques from, forever.
Remember: money, and by definition personal finance, is abstract.
Pizza Parlour Update - 10pm
- Water -- good, stunning, exquisite -- like emeralds gushing down a waterfall.
- Steph and Jay -- both gorgeous, both winsomely January, both going somewhere other than us.
- Cold -- the cold. The realization of mortality.
- R. -- not home. Lights on though. Perhaps ...? Soft noises beyond the locked door.
- Our vegetarian pizza, with olives, will be another 10 minutes.
- It was Michael who masqueraded as cream. Not Ben. Michael.
- Cook St. dark yellow and trafficky, man-crazy looping round the edges, asking Matt to buy him chips.
- Kind of a lousy day off.
- Parched parched mouth. Want to get home and quench it with another rye-and-coke.
- Did I mention our pizza will have olives?
- America, everyone is serious but me.
- Too true, too true. I want a gypsy grandmother who will call me a raggemuffin. My pa calls me a raggemuffin. Perhaps this is enough.
- vegi burgers
- cream
- bean salad
- organic salad mix
- carrots
- eggs
- leftover soup
- potatoes
- broccoli
- mayo
- tofu
- cucumber
- rice vinegar
- apple cider vinegar
- soy sauce
- green onions
- an orange
- egg nog (!!!) (woefully expired)
Think you've got html and photoshop smarts? Think you know the girl behind the shots well enough to discern her innermost design desires? Well! Here is the deal:
Design me a banner for the top of this blog incorporating the phrase Shots for Breakfast and some kind of neato graphic, something typewriter and/or bottle of rye and/or gin involved sounds nice. Get it to me a week Sunday, I'll judge and declare a winner, winner gets to see the new banner at the top of my page forever, plus a victory interview published herein, and a drink at your choice of Victoria establishment. (Darren if you win I will mail you a drink.) RSVP.
I feel a powerful urge to update with a list of the contents of my fridge. I'll resist for now. Caught up in drinking coffee, and breakfast soon, probably fried potatoes and slices of Yves fake ham. National Playlist at 11:30, setting off for Ben's at 12:30, a beautiful walk down Fernwood St, and I will listen to Le Tigre and Metric on my discman. I've had my discman for five years. On Monday night I saw an iPod up close for the first time. It was Steph's. I've never really wanted an iPod before -- because I have a discman -- I've had a discman for five years; there's nothing wrong with it -- but now I want one. Blast.
Lost: Look at the hot people and their problems! So addictive.
The Palestinians have elected Hamas. The Canadians have elected the Conservatives. What the fuck is going on? We're supposed to be entering a millenium of ying. Perhaps these are growing pains, but I wouldn't mind skipping sexism, homophobia, corporate big business, and suicide bombing. I really wouldn't. And the pendulum arcs back!
Saw When Father Was Away on Business the other night, directed by Emir Kusturica, the same bloke behind Underground, everyone's favourite Serbo-Croation romance/comedy/musical/drama/epic/war flick. Miki Manojlovic from Underground is in it ("Marco! You lie so beautifully") and the acting is so astonishing and sincere that it makes me feel ashamed to have cultural exports along the lines of Carey and Reeves.
There was an interview with Kusturica on the special features: he is a woolly, disheveled, pink-shirted, mightily depressed neo-Slavik type, and he theorized that his success as a filmmaker lay in his refusal to create films that pandered to a Western audience, or a Western ideal of film. At first I was insulted, because I am Western and I adore his movies, respect and enjoy them more than most of the movies from my own side of the world. Then I realized that by Western he meant mainstream Western, the kind of Western I'm not a part of, and I understood, but felt he should have clarified, should have provided definitions and exceptions. But it's not really in human nature to deconstruct like that: we're fond of lumping things into big blocks, like the way I consider AMERICA synonymous with EVIL, NEO-CONSERVATISM, ARROGANCE, etc, choosing to ignore in my definition those Americans whom I know personally and bring to mind words like INTELLIGENCE, ARTISTRY, GENTLENESS.
Steph and I got drunk and signed the Beer Not Kids petition the other night. We're numbers 5986 and 5987.
| Your 1920's Name is: |
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| You Failed the US Citizenship Test |
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world's fattest racehorse (X2)
shots for breakfast (X4)
election breakfast recipe
Pound It Out alwyn cosgrove
breakfast poems
Oh now, Debra, don't be bitter, surely with your ever growing collection of flesh mutilating silver appendages and your brand new neo-nazi boot camp makeover the boys will come a-runnin
cum shots (X3)
calorie counts "california rolls"
homeskool
joy's kitchen
what wil happen if one skips his breakfast?
What amuses me is that the people who typed in these phrases actually clicked on a link to come to my page. The cum shots guys? They know they won't find what they're looking for here. The one who wanted to know how many calories are in a California roll? No. No no no.
5pm: Get off work.
(walk briskly)
5:10: Arrive at wrong voting station.
(walk briskly)
5:40: Arrive at correct voting station.
(walk briskly)
6:10: Arrive home.
Yes, I did! It broke a month ago, and at that time I did some tinkering and noticed that a crucial chain had rusted away from its base. I didn't want to buy a new chain so I'm ashamed to say that for the last month Matt and I have been flushing it by actually sticking our hands into the tank and pulling the lever directly. Today I did some more snooping around and was surprised to notice a metal paper clip holding another part together. Oui? So out came a green twist tie and I fixed the damn thing, just like that. Fixed, fixed, fixed. Crowed like a mad hatter and flushed it three times in a row just to be sure.
Okay then test:
Should I change it back to purple?
Should I dye my hair red again?
Should I write pulp sex or pulp sex-kitchen?
Should I buy Sambuca a bandana?
Should I get a nipple piercing?
Should I get a tattoo of a dolphin swallowing the sun and shooting out star-cum?
Should I learn to crochet dish towels?
Should I focus on a consumption of the classics or stick to contemporary brilliance? Really, which direction should my education take? Genius to me is Allen Ginsberg but to Allen Ginsberg genius is Walt Whitman?
And now it's all about Matt: him banging on the bedroom window at 2:30 in the am, keys forgotten, me woken in terror thinking burglar, rapist, wish my boyfriend was here to deal with this: the irony. And: liked the blog colours better as purple. And: giving me a Hermanator, which he somehow procured although it is Jan. Late Jan. And a telephone msg from JD complimenting his drumming skills -- yes, yes. Agreed. And plaid suits him. And he's lost a baggie of something important, just spent fifteen minutes helping him search, no luck. And me of course: just read Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird and ragerage that I wasn't a member of grade10 and therefore missed the Discussions. Homeskool has had such grave implications on both my intellectual and social development, in both positive and negative ways. But: Lord of the Flies, grade 11; first time I experienced literature-based depressive anxiety since age eight's Harriet the Spy: don't know what I'd do without them thar emotions, pitiless old feel-sorry-for-me literacy. Yeah.
Chattered with Lord Barry in a courtyard today, benches removed to deter smoking delinquents office workers day-off dreamers, after writing green-ink pages in a library window. Ragged childhood coping strategies and thoughts on addiction: I am my own psychotherapist. B Hendrix proclamation, gist is the lack of permission to call himself a writer if hadn't written that day. Me, I agree, with variables: does it count if you write only about yourself? Or with an old pen that fades by the end of a line? Or shopping lists?
Orange juice and ice water with lime becoming an obsession: can't get enough of the stuff. Downstairs my laundry tumbles, each red hoody and flash of underwear adding another whisper of grey to the lint trap -- I can hear it through the heat vent. Last Saturday, woke from sleep at 3:30 am to hear and feel my first earthquake, but thought it was the hooligans in the downstairs suite tripping over their guitars and drums -- I can hear them through the heat vent too, and the other night a dog, a hound dog, unless it was one of them howling, moaning, which is possible. Got needlessly upset about an artist on the radio this morning, kept going on and on about my painting, she said it in such a plaintive way it made me want to grab her hand and drag her own fingernails down a chalkboard: my painting, oh, my painting -- get a job! -- let me never whine my writing, this is how I feel about my writing, please please please, may I still have the grace to laugh at myself, to cry jagged tears over Politicks and undone dishes.
(taken from Miranda)
Four jobs you have had in your life:
1. Bookstore clerk/goddess (x3.5)
2. Camera operator for a Cable tv station
3. Summer camp program coordinator
4. Freelance writer (for a 'non-profit' magazine that turned out to be fradulent!)
Four movies you would watch over and over again:
1. Happiness
2. The Royal Tanenbaums
3. Empire Records
4. The Cutting Edge
Four places you have lived:
1. Lumby (till age 4)
2. Vernon (age 4 - age 17)
3. Enderby/Mabel Lake wilderness (for 2 summers)
4. Victoria (age 17 - present)
Four T.V. shows you love to watch:
1. Lost
2. Futurama
3. Sex and the City
4. Six Feet Under
Four places you have been on vacation:
1. L.A. (age 12 -- made friends with the neice of the sister of a wealthy MGM Studios executive who took us to Knott's Berry Farm)
2. Calgary AB (to visit my father's Number 1 Son)
3. Salt Spring Island (various booze cruise / soul searching / romantic interlude / writer's retreat trips)
4. Comox (most holidays)
Four web-sites I visit daily:
1. The National Playlist
2. Negativespace
3. The Globe and Mail
4. Weboggle
Four of my favorite foods:
1. The sushi and tempura combo from The Japanese Village
2. African Yam and Peanut Soup, courtesy the Rebar Cookbook, which is basically the world's best and most beautiful cookbook
3. Salmon cream cheese on stoned wheat thins
4. The various breakfasts Matt makes me
Four places I'd rather be right now:
1. Genevieve's man's place on Salt Spring Island
2. The Roxy Cinegog
3. On an ice rink
4. At the Dallas Road Beach
Four bloggers I am tagging:
1. Matt
2. Ben
3. Steph
4. Wil Wheaton
- carrots
- leeks
- onions
- garlic
- ginger
- apples
- a potato
- green beans
- celery
- bay leaves
- various spices
Few things as satisfying as a long list of vegetables!
As opposed to the list of ingredients in the powdered soup stock I was previously using:
- corn syrup solids
- salt
- hydrolyzed soy/corn protein
- MSG!!!
- dehydrated leeks
- dehydrated tomatoes
- dehydrated onions
- dehydrated carrots
- dehydrated parsley
- dehydrated garlic
- canola oil
- wheat maltodextrin
- natural flavour
- tricalcium phosphate
- colour
- spices
- disodium guanylate
- disodium inosinate
- corn starch
- silicon dioxide and sulphites
1. What is the oldest object in the room with you?
Probably the wooden-plank-and-cement-block bookshelf, which my parents acquired in the early years of their marriage. I love it.
2. What is the newest?
The space-age bunny ears of the tv.
3. What is your favorite object in the room with you?
Sambuca. She glared just now because I looked at her tenderly. She is uncomfortable with overt emotion.
4. What is the most valuable object?
My book collection. It's the result of about 12 years of careful foraging and heartbreaking literary cleansing.
5. What is the ugliest object?
The (small) pile of empty beer bottles waiting to be set on the kerb.
1. What is the most adventurous food you've ever tried?
The first time I tried raw fish sushi I considered myself adventurous. I thought I might die, possibly. But it was important to me to impress Ryan and Aya, who had treated me to this dinner. I think Aya was sick of me saying, "Sushi is my favourite food!" when all I ever ate was homemade California rolls.
2. What is the most adventurous food you'd be willing to try?
Well, let's just say: I'd never participate in placenta eating. Never. I'm not terribly adventurous about food, far too picky.
3. Would you have a problem eating dog meat and why or why not?
I don't know. I'd have to give it a lot of thought beforehand.
4. For the most part, do you consider your diet to be balanced?
Yes, except I'm in the habit of skipping breakfast if I'm working, which is terribly unhealthy, especially as I work a job that can be physical labour-intensive at times. But when I do eat, it's good for me: fruit or free-range eggs for breakfast, a sandwhich or vegi roll for lunch, soups or tofu things for dinner.
5. Which is more appealing- being a vegetarian for the rest of your life or being a strict carnivore for the rest of your life?
As with question 3, this one would require a lot of thought (who wrote these questions?!).
For the past four evenings I've replaced my usual gin and juice with tall, cool glasses of ice water and a squeeze of lime. Tastes almost as good as gin, is 12 dollars cheaper than a mickey, and has hundreds of less calories. So, I feel healthier and wealthier all around.
This just in: Canada Post has a policy of not circulating mail of a sexual nature, and have refused to deliver pamphlets for the Sex Party! Sex Party is now suing ... I wonder if they will stop delivering discrete brown-paper wrapped packages from shops with no return address?? ...
I bought bunny ears for the tv on Sunday, so for the first time in over three years an actual channel is coming through. It's tremendously exciting. The newsanchorwomen scare me; they all look like serial killers, dead eyes and thick make-up to mask their pain. And the commercials ... I feel so out of touch. After one too many featuring mothers younger than I am having humorous yet touching moments with their children, Matt invented the following commerical that would better target people like he and I:
MAN [arriving home from his deli job and picking up his guitar, which he thrashes on]: I'm the greatest guitar player in the whole world! What's the point! What's the point of it all!
WOMAN [glaring up from her glass of gin]: Shut up! I'm trying to work on a fucking story!
ANNOUNCER: Need to escape ... your home life? Have you tried ... Sleeman's Cream Ale?
Odd -- I've just re-written the first page of my new story for the fourth time. I never do this. Perhaps it's a good sign.
Went to Matt's deli to write with Ben, then off to the old Green St. neighbourhood to look at Ben's new place. It's fantastic -- kind of like a garrett -- with two big beautiful windows overlooking a funky plateau of lime green and midnight blue rooftops.
I'm making soup in a few minutes and here is the recipe -- based very roughly on a ditty from How It All Vegan -- because I feel like sharing and also this is one of the most delicious soups in the world, perfect for dinner with toast, then enough left over for one or two lunches.
IT AIN'T PRETTY SOUP
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tb sunflower oil
- 1 yam, chopped
- 1 potato, chopped
- 4 cups broccoli, chopped
- 1 red pepper, chopped
- 4 cups vegetable stock
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1 tsp basil
- pinch cumin
- pinch black pepper
1) In a large soup pot, saute onions and garlic in oil over medium heat until onions are transluscent.
2) Add potato and yam, stirring occasionally, until yam starts sticking to bottom of pot.
3) Add broccoli, red pepper, stock, soy sauce, and spices. Bring to a boil.
4) Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes, or until vegetables are tender.
5) Using a hand blender, blend soup directly in the pot until desired consistency is reached. Simmer an extra five minutes to blend the flavours. Serve with crusty bread.
Listening to: the CBC
Drinkin': coffee
Plans for day off: coffee, eggs on toast, writing with Ben (a selfish part of me doesn't care about his finances and hopes he doesn't get called into work), laundry, walking, hopefully hooking up with Caroline, Steph, and Morgan before heading off to the World's Fattest Racehorse show. A bit of radio silence from Steph: no blog activity, no phone calls, and I left a message on her father's answering machine because I've once again lost her cel number. What will happen!
Watched Lonely Guy with Steve Martin last night. The screenplay was written by Neil Simon (whom I consistently confuse with Neil Diamond, Paul Simon, and Neil Young). A funny movie, up until the last twenty minutes when the star-crossed lovers reach orgasm by sneezing at each other. It was just a little too vague. But Steve Martin really is a treasure. Rottentomatoes gave it 60 per cent -- even Roger Ebert, whose opinion I respect on every movie except Empire Records -- why didn't they like it?
Went to the Brickyard last night with Matt, to drink Race Rocks and play Ms. Pacman on the aracade and write. Two pages of a new story, kind of building on the birds-with-claws-curled-around-electrical-wires thing I wrote of earlier, but more to do with umbrellas. Stealing umbrellas. Good God, art reflects weather.
The World's Fattest Racehorse play Steamer's tomorrow night; I'll be there in argyle and sequins. If I'm on the guest list -- you never can tell with prima donnas like Matt. Who's to say they won't suddenly turn on you, snarling and clawing your dreams off your very skin? Tattoos should disappear so easily!
Pre-election hysteria is building. Don't know why I care so much. Broke down in tears during the last one, completely unable to cope, until Matt bought me some bourbon and we started charting the election results by province on a sheet of yellow construction paper. What will save me this time? Only the wind will tell! Disturbing flashbacks of Mike Harcourt's provincial victory when I was ten, my mother screaming and threatening moves to Alberta; my father trying to calm her with sweet lies about forming a Western Separatist Party. Yes, yes, it's the same old story that gets dragged out every time my blood pressure skyrockets during an election campaign ... But it's like a physical thing, this distress.
(Jeff Sallot, from The Globe and Mail): Hi Jim. The immediate impact was Martin managed to steal the morning headlines with his surprise announcement on the proposal to eliminate the tool of the notwithstanding clause in federal jurisdiction. But I'm not sure it is going to be enough to juice the Liberal campaign for very long. Harper did himself no harm. Ditto Layton. Tonight's French-language debate is going to be crucial for Martin because the Liberals are in such a deep hole in the province. He's going to have to swing for the fences again. So we might see another surprise announcement of some sort, I'm guessing. Harper is going to get a good looking over by federalist voters in the province. He has nothing to lose. In a strange way, the pressure is going to be on Duceppe because he is the front runner in the province. The others will be gunning for him.
(Alwyn Cosgrove, from Men's Fitness): You'll be doing what's called a "barbell complex"-a method used by Eastern European weightlifters to increase their work capacity and strip their bodies of excess fat. It combines the benefits of lifting and cardio, and it works like a circuit. You'll do five barbell exercises, performing one after the other with no rest in between, using the same weight for all. That's right-grab one barbell, load it up, and use it for the entire workout. Not only will it be enough to work you like a dog, it will keep you from having to compete for equipment or space. Also remember that the goal here isn't superheavy lifting-it's survival. You must choose a weight that lets you keep up the pace and complete all the repetitions for each exercise (see "Pound It Out" at right). Don't worry if it seems like you're not "bombing" each muscle group-these exercises work a lot of muscle at once, and the speed with which you'll have to transition between them will give you plenty of stimulation to stay strong and get you lean. As a result, your whole workout will last, at most, 10 to 12 minutes.
Wrote just over a page of a new story but finding it hard to concentrate. The story, so far, is about birds with their claws curled around telephone wires, safe from cartoon-world electrocutions. I want to introduce soup and sibling relationships into the mix. Also some sort of crone imagery. And I want to write porn. And a pulp dog story called The Amazing Adventures of Bear and Jaggermeister. Will probably start going to cafes after work, to get these projects on the go / going more. Too many distractions at home. Movies, cds, the telephone, the Internet. Books. Books are again becoming an addiction that might not be healthy: didn't eat till 3pm on Sunday because I was too busy with Fall On Your Knees. Interesting book. I didn't really like it but then I was on page 400 or so and still reading it, so who am I trying to kid? It was a great book. But too plotty. What's wrong with plotty? I liked the green dress and the jazz.
Rum and cutting up magazines. I liked it.
MORGAN: Joy, why do we "work" so well?
JOY: Well, numerology.
Caroline becomes a little difficult. Caroline needs to be prevented from leaving the house. She howls her discontent. There is a cd she has lost. A makeshift bed on the living room floor. Ten messages left on her own answering machine.
My collage on the fridge.
Russ, baffled, trying to comprehend Morg's and my first movie, Game Over.
America when will you be angelic.
Matt is angelic. I'm obsessed with angelic. I read it every chance I get.
Let it be known: I am wearing a GREAT WALL OF CHINA SWEATSHIRT!!!
Today, due to an unfortunate incident at work, I rushed to the clinic to get a tetanus shot. The first time I've been under the needle since my last Depo shot, over eleven months ago.
When I came home from work at 6, Sambuca panicked and ran away from me, desperately clawed at the cupboards, trying to hide herself.
Morgan and Caroline are coming over in a bit. So, rumour has it, is the World's Fattest Racehorse.
Listening to: Bob Dylan (why?)
Drinkin: water and lime
I just made a soup, half a recipe and half imagination, that consists of yams, potato, garlic, onion, broccoli, red pepper, soy sauce, and various spices. Matt is cooking up some vegi burgers to go with it. And tomorrow -- payday -- I will buy rum for the purpose of mixing with Coke and lime, and get into trouble. Will have to round some people up.
I was flipping through a copy of Cosmopolitan because it was on the staff table at Work, and came across this dire warning: "The more education a woman has, the less likely she is to get married." It was such an awful circa 1950s shake-a-finger-in-your-face warning! Aside from the obvious implications -- that men don't find intelligent women attractive -- I found it interesting that the article didn't go on to posit that perhaps educated women don't want to get married. Or that they're lesbians. Such a lot of hooey. When I was a teenager I though Cosmo was the ultimate in adult sophistication and I assumed it was what "successful" women read and I wish to God someone had thrust an issue of The New Yorker in my face, or Bitch.
Also: I'm addicted to The National Playlist. Every weekday at 11:30 on CBC1. Huzzah!
I did it! I was assertive over the phone! I wouldn't take No for an answer! I went through not one but two chains of command! I got results! I only have to send off a fax tomorrow morning and I will have successfully escaped short-term financial ruin!
In other news: sent five poems to Prism today: "Worth His Weight in Diamonds," "The Skin," "FREE!," "Beryl's Husband Re-Defines 'Best Friend'," and "'The Most Liberating Movie Ever Filmed,' She Says." When I tipped the recycled envelope into the box, though, I was in a rage. I had just discovered the financial treason hinted at above. I fear it will be like rage in the final moments of cooking: No matter how much love or serenity go into the initial stages of preparation -- the chopping of red peppers and mincing of garlic, gentle simmerings and the sprinkling of oregano and basil -- if rage enters your heart in the final moments, the energy you create will spoil the meal, and make it bitter.
In the year 2006 I resolve to: |
Ha. And the real ones are: write and receive acceptance letters in earnest; do yoga 3 times a week, eat more vegetables, stop drinking so much, get Japan plans on the go, spend more quality time with Sambuca.
Listening to: the CBC
Drinkin: coffee
Half the power has gone out so my coffee is percolating on the rug by the front entryway, and I showered in the dim light of the touch-lamp. The power outage is without rhyme or reason. In any given room, one outlet will work, and the other won't.
Agenda: purchase 3 shirts and one pair of pants from the city's greatest thrift store, then off to the library to send off a batch of poems (Prism?) and research non-fiction markets. Then a decadent panini sandwhich at Matt's deli and possibly round off the evening with There's No Business Like Show Business.
Watched Cocktail last night, a film from the 80s starring Tom Cruise .... Tom Cruise looks remarkably like my brother Clint. Guess how the movie ends! Guess! Well ... *Somebody* realizes his own personal American dream, and *somebody else* gets pregnant and married and quits her job.
The hero Matt has fixed the Internet!
And I'm utterly speechless.
But: Tell me if there isn't a nicer way to spend a Monday evening than listening to real-loud Rage Against the Machine and reciting Allen Ginsberg poems.
A gentleman who recently commented on this blog suggested I "so lack a spiritual dimension." The cadence of that statement is fascinating, and I want to make a poem out of it, a great big gnashing poem about machinery and discordant colour schemes, the mystery of localized linguistic traditions, the woeful separation of religion and culinary lust. But with smaller words.
