wildcat

(based, loosely, upon true events)

And there our young man stepped out onto the pavement for his fuck buddy's apartment building, still coming down off the candy flip of the night before, mid-morning heat all over him, in a beer-lacquered wife-beater and a pair of carefully ripped jeans. Each individual cut took him no less than an hour to fray properly. Our young man - whose name was probably Josh, or Justin, or Dustin, or Derek, and Scotty - shuffled and galloped along the sidewalk, around sweating barebacked morning-walkers, croissants and cream cheese in their hands.

Until he came to see a shop window, marked OBSTRUCTION in sexy slanted blue font, bedecked with his very own reflection, sporting an evening's stubble and his slack-jawed face. He took in what hid behind his own image: the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, the most perfect image he could imagine. A placid, headless mannequin, styrfoam-white, hung with a robin's egg blue polo shirt with the collar turned up. A jaunty black tie loose around the neck, low-slung tight jeans, revealing just the hint of molded pelvis.

Our young man smiled, he SMILED, and he rushed to the window to stroke the yielding glass, the heaving display case before him. Our young man could do nothing but smile because he had FALLEN IN LOVE, wonders! In love with the headless mannequin.

Obstruction was closed; this was very early, of course, when the heat had just begin to rise and one could still look into the street without mirages wavering. The employees were elsewhere, sleeping off their own guilty hangovers; they dreamt they'd called in sick to lie instead in the bathtub with the shower firing down onto their heads. Our young man was isolated from his only love, his reflection caught between him in the glass. He could do nothing but finger-tip across it.

And the sun took pity; while the drugs boiled at the bottom of his feet and just under his shoulders and along the fine rings of his pores, the sun bleached our young man's skin, his brown corduroy shoes, his fine faded jeans, his skin and angled coiffure. The sun pitied our young man and sought to unite him with the mannequin, in some way, in some fashion that he might await opening time and truly CONSUMMATE. The sun bleached our young man until he stood at the window, one hand in his back pocket and the other to reach out for the mannequin, and became a plaster man, seemingly petrified, his eyes closed over with thick alabaster, seamless and angelic - purified and smoothed over as street art with his beloved headless lover filling his heavenly vision, sunlight caught in the glass--

(c) 2005, Ben Rawluk, all rights reserved

I took off from work on Saturday when Michael picked me up at six; we zoomed off to Schwartz Bay, almost right onto a ferry, and sped over to Vancouver. We were in Burnaby at Jeremy's place by ten after nine, and then over the skytrain route to the West End for a party at John's place. Michael brought a big bottle of Bombay, no cops hassled us on route, and we showed up with the party in swing, the fireworks going off, and virtually no real sight-line for those fireworks. But who cares? Brown and Matthew showed up and fairly quickly we held court on the balcony again: Michael, Brown, Matthew, Christian and I, taking in through the glass doors the ridiculous Pridevision TV reality of the party, making well-placed sarcastic comments that seemed to get picked up by other people on the balcony only when the desired effect was just so. Delight.

Back to Jeremy's place for the night, a twenty-minute cab ride followed by twenty minutes spent waiting for the cabbie to correctly make a transaction on credit card. Sleep, swaggering sleep and the hangover in the morning.

Gay Pride Parade. Twenty minutes of dykes on bikes zooming back and forth over and over again. Really! It was hot and I had nothing in my stomach and Michael was more interested in giggling over puppies being walked around us - including some woman who'd spent four hundred dollars American on a purse dog. Ten minute gaps between marchers. A gaggle of people dressed up as superheroes was a highlight, including a guy dressed up as Captain Marvel Junior. After a while Michael was getting ill from the lack of food and the heat, so we went and found water and eventually took off with Jeremy in search of sushi.

Went shopping, bought a cheap copy of the Tank Girl movie and a Doom Patrol comic from 1968 which is so weird that I'll blog about it later. We met up with a bunch of people at an Earl's, of all places, I had a bad mojito, and then we all went swimming at John's apartment building. I wasn't terribly good at it.

That night! Hookah! Matthew! Andrews, plural! Michaela! Bottles of wine, strawberry tobacco, convoluted melodrama involving fisticuffs between Matthew and Brown, the hookah becoming upset and fainting in front of us with hot coals dropped and BURNING. We put out any potential sparks, but the situation looked dire and we retired for the evening, with plans for brunch on Monday morning.

Got up too early after barely sleeping, Michael and I wandered down Davie Street and witnessed a boy falling in love with a mannequin, brunch with Matthew and his roommates, Brown and his boyfriend Stephen. It was good, very continental with a giant bucket of berries and snazzy conversation with Lena in her pajamas. Matthew lives with some very beautiful people, it had a certain Calvin Klein je-n'estes-quois.

The Rodin exhibit at the gallery was gorgeous, just gorgeous, and Christian got to flex his visual arts background with detailed analysis of each piece. I think the collapsing caryatid was my favourite piece, a woman being crushed by a large stone which was meant as a subversion of the old Greco-Roman columns carved into stiff-backed woman supporting whole buildings on the tip of their heads.

Afterward, zooming out to the Ferries to return home. Shazam!

It's been an up and down kind of a day today. Work was solidly lunatic on account of the long weekend, we had plenty of returns and lots of books to check in. I got caught up worrying about the money situation in light of my weekend Vancouver excursion (need to remember to budget better), and the Fear responded accordingly; it transformed from something approximately like walking underneath a telephone pole with twenty pigeons and seagulls perched on it (and shit stains on the ground all around you) to a bloated, bulbous thing with hundreds of little mouths squealing "Failure" over and over in voices that sound not unlike a ventilation fan in desperate need of oiling. The Fear is a loud, drunken aunt with too much make-up on, who likes to comment on how badly you're doing in math class.

After that I got home and Christian was back from Vancouver, so he listened to me prattle for a few minutes and we ate ice cream and I came up with two piles of books to sell downtown tomorrow. The Fear began to curl back down inside itself, which means that I can get on with things. Otherwise, I've just been reading, except that my associate, Michael -- to be played by Scarlett Johanson in the movie, apparently, although I've always seen him as more Uma Thurman to my Ralph Fiennes -- stopped by while running errands, to kiss me.

Otherwise: the agenda for the evening is writing! I have a scene for Teiresias Jones started and need to fully develop that while researching body sushi.

I'm apparently Galadriel. Try interpreting that. Might explain why I get all humpy when I see Blanchett doing her "I would be a Dark Queen" riff.

The plan to watch Juliette Binoche in Blue (or, I'm sorry, Bleu) was interrupted yesterday evening in favour of sex and mindless TV. After a healthy dose of croissants and cream cheese, which is my new favourite thing. Although the croissants from Safeway were a touch greasier than the ones we had in Vancouver. I'll look at some alternative croissant vendors for future reference.

Things are going fine. A mere three shifts as a page before the big transformation scene on Tuesday - I'll probably mutter "Shazam," under my breath, to officially become a clerk - and the only major stumbling block has been someone else's negative streak dragging me down. But there's no point in listening to that kind of crap from other people.

And now, scenes of Ben in a writing frenzy, sipping lemon-laced water with the window open and sounds of construction drifting in from across the street. Probably dump some music onto the machine in a second to block some of that out. "Tankville," for a fictional setting? Some days, coming up with names for imaginary cities is the easiest things in the world. This is not one of those days.

ON THE OTHER HAND, who the fuck cares? What better career and life path is there in the world, than one that includes COMING UP WITH IMAGINARY CITIES? The real question is - Gilded Lily Diner, or Gilded Lily Bar & Grill?

Just read Steven Shaviro's thoughts on Bush and Intelligent Design. I'm not sure where I stand on the whole idea of teaching "multiple schools of thought," which is admirable in theory, but let's face it - evolution and Christian creationism? What about other schools of thought entirely? What about the Mayans, man? The Five Ages? And, oherwise, I'm generally concerned about Science being represented by uptight irritants who couldn't get laid at parties and therefore must play their own power games.

Also: "Intelligent Design?" It doesn't sound like a doctrine about the world and where it comes from, it sounds like a software company based out of Seattle. It's away of cutting out the "ism" at the end of creationism and making it sound more hip and savvy.

All in all, I just know all of this scares me as much as it reminds me how important these dialogues are - even the ones that scare me. Right up until someone gets burnt at the stake, mind you.

Perfection, in the form of lunch: Three croissants, a tin of cream cheese, one slightly underripe avocado with salt & pepper, and a little reddish apple.

Copped this off of Dorian's site, although I fail to see exactly how it is "gay" so much as in relation to "Are You Coupled?" Anyway: The Gay Meme Quiz.

1. Are you single or in a monogamous relationship?

Committed, monogamous relationship with my accomplice, Michael. He's keen.

2. How long have you been with your partner/significant other/boy/girlfriend?

Two years on September the 13th. We're sitting at about...um...one year, ten months, and twenty-four days. I had to use a calendar to work that one out.

3. How did the two of you meet?

Now, the official "we tell this to other people" story of how we met - the one that's been toted out so often I could recite it verbatim with my eyes clothes while Gregorian monks chant in the background, because it's so cute is this: Michael was working at the consignment book store in the Student Union Building, on the first day of my third year of Uni. He was on as emergency hire during the busy bit at the beginning of the semester, and was running the consignment table outside the store, with my lovely friend, ex-roommate, and girl-about-town Joy, who was of course talking about her brilliant homo friend Ben, because Michael was the chairperson of the campus Pride organization. She regrets this, of course, because apparently it came out in roughly the equivalent of shouting "I know someone who's, like, gay, and stuff!" With her arms waving around. Anyway, by sheer a sheer coincidence which is not in fact impossible but merely highly improbable, I walked by. In fact, I didn't stop at all, but walked to the other end of the Student Union and then out the door and around the building, because I'd just gotten off my Poetry Techniques class and was bored, and Joy looked busy. So I walked around the building and then walked by them again, sat down, and chatted away to Michael for about three hours. He asked me what I like to do with my time, I got mad at him for asking me such a mind-blanking question, then he asked me what provincial capital I would be, and I answered Quebec City. He responded with a double entrendre about the French tongue. He invited me to the Big Gay Coffeehouse that week, but I didn't end up going until the following week, when he showed up drunk with Brandon and Michelle was there and the upshot was that I got invited to the birthday party of his friend Paton's, the next night. So I showed up there and had a swimming time, having not actually figured out it was a date until someone said something along those lines, about three hours into it. But Michael agreed to be my Bond Girl, which is like the magic words. La-la.

This is all a complete lie.

What actually happened was that I saved Michael from a rather messy end at the hands of an alien firing squad with laser beams trained on his nibbly bits, followed by a three and a half hour chase scene in a delicious stolen spaceship, with my aid-de-camp, ex-roommate, and exotic alien princess Joy beside us, ray-guns in hand. I accidentally triggered the self-destruct sequence with my elbow - you know how clumsy I can be - and Michael managed to work out how to use the emergency Unrealistic Teleportation Machine to jump the three of us onto a sparsely populated world that was home to roving, nomadic trees. In no time at all, Joy had discerned the local language, and we decided we should, like, go on a date where certain death was not involved. So far, we've been completely incapable of avoiding certain death on our dates, which is why they're so fun. You wouldn't think you could die at brunch, but that's just life. Life -- don't talk to me about life.

4. What do you like to do together?

We bicker on an Olympic level, with bouts of laying in bed together, showering, going out to eat as a means of avoiding the kitchen. We watch movies religiously, and sacreligiously, drink wine and gin in excess, and generally muck about. We spend a lot of time brutally judging people and going on wild adventures to look for exotic locked boxes that can only be opened by mysterious brass keys. We brunch, endlessly. We argue over geeky things. We text message each other.

5. If you are single, what would life be like with your ideal spouse/partner?

Brrrp. Sorry, coupled.

I think, on the whole, I would read Batman comics more often - more than once in a great long while - if Dan Curtis Johnson and Seth Fisher were given a full book of their own. As it stands, they're doing a storyline on Legends of the Dark Knight with former-Promethea artist J.H. Williams III. It's focused on Mister Freeze, and he's probably one of my least favourite villains - the big ones for me will always be Poison Ivy and Scarecrow - but Fisher's intricate artwork is so fascinating to look at, and Johnson's got a flair for writing a Batman who isn't a complete psychopath and actually seems to have an element of fun about him. Fun is important. I picked up Part 2 of "Snow" today and I might go looking for Part 1. Well worth it.

Otherwise, I had brunch with Daniel and Michelle today, went to the Black Fish Cafe and had a wonderful time. Then we met up with Michael to go blackberry-picking for too long in the hot sun, went back to Michael's house, had three bottles of wine, and then came home after dinner.

Last night? The electronic music festival, followed by Hush. I haven't been clubbing in quite a while, it stopped being my thing some time ago, but I really enjoy having the chance to go out and bust some moves for a while on the dance floor, surrounded by throbbing lights and alien bodies. Had a wonderful time except for some food poisoning from Koto Sushi which led to a hellish five minutes in the bathroom of Hush with the stall door propped closed with my foot because there was no slide-lock (apparently "we" like to do "our" cocaine snorting out in the open). I drank bottled water, Michael got hit on by a married gay guy (married to a man - gasp!) right up until Michael uttered the words "Go away," and met some of Christian's friends from Vancouver. Saw Jason briefly, he was catapulted out of bed and down to the club by the words Hi Ravers -- it's me. Jesus Christ.

Just finished two days of training for the new clerical job, where I sat in a room with a bunch of people and stared at a computer screen. But I've walked away with six shifts in the next seven days, so that's working out well so far. Tomorrow and Friday are my job shadowing days where the clerk supervisors for two branches follow me around and help me get started with things. It's exciting to be "in demand." That said, I'm fairly exhausted so tonight I decided to have a quiet night in, my brain being full and needing to process information. Eight people hired, and I was the only man. For the most part everyone looks like they'll do well, and I've made a couple friends. Kept running into existing clerks who wanted to know how the training was going. It's strange to already be in the system but changing my status.

Agh! Just about ready to smack my head against the screen after the "Blank White Page of Death" started sucking my soul right out of my soft, warm flesh. Only I remembered a couple lines of something or other that I scrawled in my rantbook the other night - Monday - which might be useful for something. Or other. Anyway, I keep a couple spare magic words in a box for just such an occasion, so I'm going to fish a couple of them out and, you know, say them out loud, so that I might make this all work. Remember: "Nothing is what it seems." Certainly not writer's block!

Reading: Sexing the Cherry, by Jeanette Winterson. I might also pull my book of Octavio Paz poetry and that Cindy Sherman photobook and pull some inspiration out of those as well. And, well, there's always my book of One Thousand Extraordinary Objects.

1. Seven a.m. wake-up call, shaving in the shower by touch. Plan out breakfast: bowl of raspberry yogurt with croissants, cream cheese.

2. Out the door to wait for a bus that's later than expected, to ride down to Quadra and take a bus in the opposite direction - going deep into the heart of Esquimalt. Talk to one of the other new clerks, who happens to be on the bus headed for her tai chi class. Let's call her Ozymandias. She's a potter, and clerk on the side.

3. Get off the second bus of the day and get on a third one that actually goes into Esquimalt. Wait at the Johnson Street Bridge for ten minutes while the bridge is up.

4. Kill time because, having found the library branch I've never been to, I'm early. Add to the ongoing mental database of excessive early arrivals due to neurosis.

5. First four real hours as a clerk: nerve-wracking. Confusion over phone system, only two minor problems with the cash register. First irate patron at 10:05am; grumpy old man on the warpath about nothing in particular.

6. First sexy patron - hot father, who also happens to be French and a soldier. Wonder how many other clichéd fetishes he might satisfy. This marks a high point after the spate of pregnant mothers with hundreds of mewling brats, old ladies, confused twelve-year-olds.

7. Ask the one million stupid questions, stumble around, figure out where things are.

8. Get off work, catch the bus, melt under the heat, walk up to Curious on Hillside and buy comics: two Batman comics with Fisher artwork and the first two issues of the new New Warriors* comic, where super-heroes are put on a reality TV show. Hilarity ensues.

9. Go downtown with Christian and sell books at Russell's. Deposit twenty five bucks onto my credit card and then buy ice cream. Double dark chocolate with cookie dough mixed in.

10. Come home, help Christian with his cover letter, get phoned - again - by one of the branches, who need me to work tomorrow. I say yes, but then they call back because I can't work more than seven hours in a day, and I'm already working downtown tomorrow for four.

* Cover of New Warriors #1, published by Marvel Comics. Artwork by Skottie Young.

1. 34 hours of work this week, over and done with.

2. Zatanna #3 is really good. Words by Morrison, Grant. Art by Sook, Ryan. We find out what really happened to Snow White, and of course there's the magician herself, running around in fishnets.

3. Michael is wonderful. We were both having awful days yesterday, so we got together for dinner - Vietnamese at La Petite Saigon - and afterwards felt really silly and happy. Life's always good with him around, even the weird bits. Especially the weird bits.

4. The chillest branch so far has been Nellie McClung. Weird proximity to my Gordon Head basement suite didn't enter much into the equation.

5. Denise gave notice on her room, so she'll be moving out by October 1st. I'm really not fucking looking forward to interviewing potential roommates again, but she'll be finally officially moving in with her boyfriend, so that's good for her. Anyway, not dealing with it for a month and a half.

6. Amarula is the shit. Yeah.

And really, that's the key to the whole problem; trying to write something "whiz-bang," and the precipice of the second paragraph opening up and swallowing the first. Big gulp. I seem to have caught some tragically common bit of performance anxiety, vis-a-vis writing. I know that I have periods like this and get through them and move into zones of Everything Is Gold, but right now I feel like I'm not going to hit duende or anything. And then I write these ridiculous blog entries because at least that's words, and it's moving them around and making them work. Maybe I've got to stop watching bad movies or something.

Incidentally, Foolproof was anything but, I was bored out of my mind within twenty minutes and then stuck it out for another twenty because Michael hadn't really said anything. We even tried to turn it into a drinking game and that didn't work at all. At all! I should not find a caper movie tedious. I love caper movies.

All right. Let's try this again.

I just don't know. It's been a busy couple of days.

Was supposed to go out with Joy, Steff, and the gang last night, to Hugo's for ridiculously cheap cocktails amongst the local wildlife / tawdry plastic people, but that fell apart, so after we made up a batch of red wine, I went to Christie's Pub with Michael and Christian. We had a pitcher of the Back Hand of God Stout and I had some cheap fish and chips. A good time was had by all, in spite of the ridiculous music blaring and the tragic group of friends at the table next door. I really don't want to hear about how much wax your friend puts into his dreadlocks. Certainly not in that much detail. Talked to Tara on the phone but she couldn't come because of a spate of exams, so we decided to do something once she gets back from Nelson.

Apropros of nothing in particular, I thought I'd provide some links...

In 1971, Larry Niven wrote an essay called Man of Steel, Women of Kleenex, which was essentially a series of thought-experiments on Superman's sex life. He addressed the issues of pregnancy and the nature of orgasm. With virtually all human women not an option for Superman, a lot of ridiculous slash fiction has been written pairing him up with all kinds of invulnerable and super-strong men. You know, when he's not busy being desperately in love with Batman. The essay's quite solidly written and is fairly methodical.

To further prove to Michael that they existed: Batwoman, Ace the Bat-Hound, Superman's pet dog Krypto, and Supergirl's pet cat Streaky. You see? You see? The 1950s were a time of absolutely fucked up comic books.

Rather disappointed; because the Crystal Gardens have closed, I can't take in the Butterfly Room again, for the purposes of research for this story. I can make do without it, I have other sources, but a real life close up investigation would have done worlds of good.

Comics are out; one of them was a bit lackluster in the end. The other one was better, but sorely missing some of the usual storytelling clarity on a few pages.

After that, I shuttled out to Royal Oak to finally pick up a book I had on hold - Watch Your Mouth, by Daniel Handler of Magnetic Fields and Lemony Snicket fame. I like his adult writing quite a bit more than the Snicket stuff. So far, the book's well-written and engaging. I also took the opportunity to say hi to people and scam some clerking shifts off of V. She gave me some in September, which is solid and it looks like I'll be jetting around a bit.

It's terribly hot outside, I need to quench myself shortly. Water with a hint of lime, methinks.

1. Friday night: martinis with Matt, Joy, and Michael at Swan's. Shortly thereafter, a pact is formed to watch Party Monster with drinks that night. A twixer of Bombay Sapphire is brutally massacred against the kitchen floor, the precious fluid saved only by the non-descript liquor store bag and siphoned via holes into a plastic bowl with Christmas patterns around the rim. The bottle itself is obliterated, but we succeed in saving roughly three-quarters of Mama Gin. Recriminations follow, and the movie. Next up in the queue is Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, hopefully with Jay and Steff.

2. Saturday morning: a breakfast burrito goes horribly awry when, despite the listed ingredients in the menu, there's also cut up pieces of sausage inside. Amid gagging, bits are removed by knife and the rest is consumed. So unhappy, I console myself with half-a-dozen chocolate chip cookies from the Dutch Bakery and then I go to work.

3. Saturday afternoon: ice cream and shopping with Michael! Followed by a party at Dan's place. Very beige. Expensive snacks are offered, I gorge myself on oysters and brie. Two glasses of cold white wine.

4. Saturday night: A work barbecue which turns into a complete gong show. Turns out that Michael knows several people I work with via various and sundry connections. Three beers followed by three glasses of vodka with cranberry juice and the juice of freshly picked blackberries. This drink is a hit, make several for various people, nobody discernibly blacks out. Too much, perhaps, is revealed; this morning the whole event unfolded as a tapestry and memories before my disgruntled eyes.

Of course my memoirs will be highly fictionalized, and I plan to include a chapter detailing my controversial involvement with the Kennedy administration and my part in the Meech Lake Accord. I'm not sure how I can work in my years living on the streets of Calcutta as a drag queen, but if it worked for Meringue it can work for me. Then I have to ghost-adapt my autobiography for the screenplay version. Casting thoughts? First person to say "Steve Buscemi" gets it in the eye.

I feel bleak and forgettable. Two paragraphs into the "juvenile delinquent and hitchhiking ape" buddy comedy I lost myself into the conundrum of whether or not the ape should be capable of speaking English. I think I might ditch this opening and start again, start with the image of the ape at the side of the road, go from there. Or I might scrawl out notes for that comic book Jonathan and I discussed today, although that means immersing myself in Twenties research.

There's also the butterfly story.

Feist is playing on Media Player at the moment and the window's open, the laundry should be done, I've eaten some blueberries, and all my words are flawed and heavy, sodden with shit and unset cement. It's like trying to eat stone soup.

With regard to Party Monster: Good. It took a little bit to get into the melodramatic acting and the shifts between "straight" cinematography and shoddy mockumentary camera work. Dylan McDermott's interpretation of Peter Gatien came across a little too much like a Bond villain at times, and I think the element that made the movie for me was the aggressive struggle between Macauley Culkin's Michael Alig and Seth Green's James St. James for domination of the film. Green and Marilyn Manson stole the show, however, and when they appear less frequently or stop being focal points, I think my attentions strayed a little. It's not a pleasant story and ultimately depressed me, but I think it did its job well.

Thus far: I've dropped off phone bill, sent off rent cheques, managed a bit of money, bought some groceries, collapsed into the midday slump of not doing much at all, wrote a couple sentences, read through the two stories I'm writing, debated the merits of sending one Road Movie short story hurtling into another one, dissuaded myself on the grounds of disparate realities. Thought about dumping it in anyway and trying to reconcile the differences.

And there's the other story, which lies open as well. Tossed some Belle & Sebastian on, ate too much seafood followed by too many brownies, thought about the the stories, thought about showering, wrote a couple more sentences, felt it neccesary to blog about the experience. I have days where my brain doesn't cool off but ramps higher and higher up into the Story Mode, and everything's white-hot and the characters bounce. This hasn't happened with the new Road Movie, despite the gorilla. I might take a crack at "Lepidoptera Smith" for a while and see where that takes me.

I worry that the butterflies story is too philosophical, but it hasn't gotten very far and I can always rework things with the second draft.

In the beginning, which is to say, "When all time was approximately one nanosecond long and eternity as well," the microcosmic entry point called God, which contained all time, space, energy, and matter but not in those forms, went for a long walk - a long walk inside itself, because God was everything and everything was God. In those days, it meant there was a lot of God and the concept of "walking" meant much the same as "being." To say that this went on for some time would be foolish, because time was infinite and non-existent.

God conceived of things, and hirself. Microcosmic and macrocosmic at once.

Within God's womb, God built a world. This was also God, only less so or less obviously so. The womb-world was brilliant, radiant and cloistered by shining waters and ambrosial forests. As an experiment, God created plants and animals within this world, which were of course highly advanced bacteria. God initiated their development and allowed environmental factors to regulate growth while God focused on other aspects of hirself - creating quadrapedal primate variants without much hair. Initially there were three: Man, Woman and Man-Woman. Problems immediately arose as each one was two-brained and back-to-back; directionless, the three meandered and bickered between each other and their own selves. God grew bored of this and split each one until there were six, now free to move about within the womb. They remained together as much as possible.

While this went on, in another part of the body God created a world and built animals not unlike the ones ze built within the womb-world. Ze furthered their genetic imperatives and evolutionary circuitry to allow forward progression based on a multitude of factors, because to a certain extent God was an Intelligent Process and therefore included experimentation and adaptation. Ze allowed the animals and plants within the womb-world to remain static to placate the children therein until it was time, until God was time.

God experimented with consciousness. The children were not conscious but merely sleepwalked through the womb-world, and ze felt it was important to perfect aspects of consciousness and community by experimenting with hir creations from the cellular level onward. All things outside the world were rendered conscious - but this begat no results, as everything was already conscious, everything being essentially God. God decided it best to break the intrinsic connection, leaving only a seed of God inside each particle, and went from there. This led to certain laughable creations, distortions, and evolutionary whosits. God was also laughter, so there was much profit in this. Some things went to sleep. Other things evolved and produced changed forms - dinosaurs roamed God's inner surfaces, unnamed.

Meanwhile, the children slept until such a day as God decided it best that they be born from the womb. The outside body had cooled and coagulated, the animals were suitably structured to adapt to new predators, and all things were allowed to be God but unaware of their God, aware only in sleeping.

God gave birth in what would come to be known as the "traditional way," rather that simply creating as ze saw fit; an experiment, to gestate creatures in sleep and then permit them to enter the waking world, the greater body of God, the universe.

This went wrong. The children were born with the Knowledge, a capacity to grow and develop. Evolution worked on brains and bodies. They were birthed with the capacity to reproduce in much the same fashion as God, only needing to conjoin as two at a time to remind each other of container they lived in and existed as. Each one was God, but created to forget that. Except that they fought each other and felt guilt over their longings and forgot too much about God the Body. Birth was awful! They'd been ejected from the womb and traumatized by creatures who did not live for them alone and plants that did not sing, and they couldn't remember how to speak yet, just approximate speech. They began the long process to remember, and in remembering to grow their own way.

(c) 2005 Ben Rawluk, all rights reserved.

(c) 2005 Ben Rawluk, all rights reserved

With thanks to RJ

A list of happy things.

1. Sneaker Pimps playing on the computer. Two very good nouns.

2. Getting up early in the morning and reading old Excalibur comics by Alan Davis in bed. I can't remember if my weirdling Anglophilia derives from this comic book which I loved way back when, or if I read this comic book because it had Captain Britain in it and he was British.

3. Breakfast: two croissants, cream cheese, and candied salmon nuggets.

4. Lunch with Samara! Haven't seen her in quite some time. We danced around the issue of where to go for a while but ended up at Pagliacci's, eating vegetarian dishes. Mine was all good, but unfortunately I don't think she enjoyed hers as much. In retrospect, I think we should have gone to Lotus Pond or something.

5. Seeing Joy working at the store, having her actually show me some bags, including a laptop-carrying backpack that Michael wants to look at. She looked fabulous in a brand new top. Comely wench.

6. Cheap short story collections from Munro's; Heartsongs and Other Stories, by Annie Proulx, and the Gotham Writer's Workshop "Best Short Story" Selections, which includes Borges, Raymond Carver, and Dorothy Parker.

7. V* calling me from BH with a couple shifts for tomorrow and the day after. This will be the first time I've worked there, since I stopped being a page and became a clerk. I look forward to seeing everybody.

8. Chattering to Michelle on the phone for forty-five minutes last night.

9. The short story I'm working on! "Lepidoptera Smith" or whatever it'll end up being called. I've reached one thousand words and I like where it's going. There's no traditional narrative thrust, but the languid storytelling reminds me of Borges, which is something I'm playing with. Some of the language is too flat and dull, defaulting to endless "noun of noun" constructions that repeat too often (a lot of noun of butterflies, or moths, or caterpillars), but I think a lot of that can be addressed in the rewrites. Some of the butterfly political structures are beginning to gel in my head and I like the "small epic" feel I'm hoping comes through. I'm debating the use of dialogue and whether or not it should be all indirect - the butterflies', certainly, but not the humans'.

10. Idea for a photograph: preferably black & white. Michael in a black T-shirt with a set of black angel wings (not unlike the ones Steff imagines for her dream Halloween costume) strapped to his back, sitting down and looking up. The shot is from slightly below, and Michael is up against a brick wall. Preferably one with a lot of texture to the brickwork that would show up in the black and white. I like the idea because I like winged people and fetishize crow-boys, and Michael fits the profile...possibly also a profile shot and a silhouette of some kind, with the wings.

End of the week. It hasn't been one of the better ones for work, so I'm hoping next week is better.

Got another rejection note. I feel like critiquing their rejection email, because they managed to misspell the name of their own magazine - "Prsim" - in the subject header. This was from editors. I don't feel vindicated, though.

Michael's off in Colorado with Brandon, so I'm staying at his place with his mum. It's been okay so far, she keeps trying to nurture me.

There's a lot of cheese in the fridge. I may have to eat some for breakfast shortly.

Things which are cool: haircuts at Greek Barber shops where they get it right. Naturally, I look like a sex god. Secondly, comic book shops wherein one can find random comic books from the Eighties with hilarious plotlines and really good art. Vegan Buddhist Chinese food from Lotus Pond for lunch. Turnip cakes are cool. One cup of double dark chocolate ice cream mixed with cookie dough, eaten after escaping a pair of obnoxious American faggots in their mid to late Fifties who kept mispronouncing "Swiss" as "Swish" as if that was, you know, funny. Seven hour shifts offered with enough notice that you have time to waste in the morning before heading off on the bus. Brandon being 21 as of today. He's finally allowed to drink in his damnable home country! Plans to watch CSI tonight by myself.

Things which are less cool: deep fried prawns and fries, from a Fish-n-Chips place, sound like a good idea and taste like a good idea, but are a horrible idea. Boring hours on desk at the library, when it's really dead. Getting up tomorrow to head out to View Royal for work. Damnable Western Exchange!

Before work this morning, while I waited for the #50 bus, I went looking for breakfast. Virtually nothing was open, not even Floyd's Diner, so I ended up at the Fort Street Cafe, which is near Russel's Books, downstairs. It was - lackluster. Utterly. I had the basic, simple breakfast: hashbrowns, two eggs, and toast. Should be simple. The sourdough toast was like rubber, the hashbrowns were okay but in a very small portion, and the eggs were all right. The atmosphere? Completely wrong. The staff? Dull and uninspired. Bad Mexican music playing. Is it any wonder no one was in there besides me?

After two months of perpetual heat and scalding sunlight, the weather broke and it started raining today. Long sleeves! I can wear long sleeves again.

Otherwise: went for breakfast with Tara at Moxie's this morning, saw Natasha and Rick walk by but I don't think they saw me (Natasha has apparently gone from gothic black hair to brilliant blonde). I had the shrimp and asparagus scramble and Tara had the smoked salmon eggs benedict. Aftterward, she showed me her new apartment and we walked down to the Patch to look for a new nose stud for her. Daniel called, so we met up with him at Panacea for bubble tea, which we drank in the Junkie Park until it started to pour and we all had to run off.

Tonight, going for dinner with Michelle and others. She's turning 28 tomorrow! Wild.

Michael gets home from Colorado Territory tomorrow; my heart's as warm as a baked potato for the thought of it.

The Top One Hundred Songs from 1998, the year I graduated high school. I owned two of the albums involved (Sarah McLachlan's Building a Mystery and Chumbawumba's Tubthumping). Lot of boy-bands popular that year, although it was right before the big surge - it was just getting going at that point. I was only interested from a dirty adolescent boy context, of course. Spice Girls. Early surge of the hip-pop. Oddly, there was a resurge of Ace of Bass remaking a Bananarama song of all things. The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony," which I remember was a decent song with one of the most tedious videos I've ever seen. I suppose it's weird that I associate music with music videos. That was the year I really started to watch MuchMusic all the time. Before I started to gravitate toward dull, soulless dance music and eventually really good electronic music. Other than Chemical Brothers. The pre-Daft Punk year. Actually, honestly? I can't even say I had any specific taste in music at that point. I'd really only broken out of the Joni Mitchell & Beatles shell the year before. I took in whatever shit happened to be around. It wasn't even an issue of sitting around my bedroom listening to music while wearing only black.

The birthday party at the Macaroni Grill involved Gloriee ordering Michelle a birthday cake which was accompanied by a waitress belting out the birthday song in Italian, Michelle quaking with embarassment and then sitting down with her hair dragging into the candle flames - and lighting on fire. I, ah, brought it to her attention from across the table and Gloriee rushed to put out the blaze. The smell of burnt hair permeated the air as we struggled to eat cake - so full. The service was middling at best, the clam linguine was good, and we amused ourselves with crayons and a paper tablecloth. Gloriee revealed her predilection for shaving her boyfriend's legs and dressing him up in drag. I drank my bellini and took in the scene.

Terry Gilliam! How could you? How could you make that? Brothers Grimm was not unlike being served a very large piece of tripe and forced to swallow every disgusting little morsel with very sharp knives held against my throat. Really. I really loved Brazil; the inventive visuals and direction worked really well. But this film? Gag. I was modestly worried it was going to suffer from "Matrix Revolutions Syndrome," wherein I end up rooting for the non-human antagonists to come forth and slaughter every last badly acted human character. However, this was worse: I didn't even want the "bad guys" to win. The only driving motivation I had for this movie was the hope that Matt Damon's character would be brutally murdered and that Heath Ledger might potentially shave.

The narrative was fragmented when supposedly linear, all these pieces that don't fit together and jar up against each other to prevent any really good scene from working in the overall context; the gingerbread man sequence was really twisted and well done, but utterly failed to connect to anything in the long run; it felt like the standard metafictional "Easter Egg hunt." The use of fairy tale imagery fell short because by this point, I've seen it done so much better (Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber comes to mind), and here it was thrown in haphazardly. It had the classics - the disgruntled "man of reason" antihero coward forced to confront intuitive chthonic forces - the Dark Woods as the big bad vagina that doesn't - shockingly - want to be penetrated unless penetrated in a pleasing way (it's called foreplay, darlings). As usual, the one brother has to accept that the other brother can operate in a world of folklore and superstition, and that he will save the day; even as the virile manly reasonable brother is asserted as the sexually successful one - bookish boys don't get laid, even if it's pretty obvious the girl likes them better (luckily, the romantic plotline gets undercut, even if the strong female lead spends the last section of the movie in an enchanted sleep).

Much of the visuals were really well done, once the story got going - the gingerbread man, the nasty wicked witch-queen, the body horror of a girl with no face - but those didn't add up to much of anything when joined with the shoddy story (the climax didn't so much not make sense as it failed to demonstrate why certain things happened and how certain characters intuited solutions), and quite often felt like they'd been cribbed directly from Hellboy comics without any of the deadpan irony. The use of Story as a Concept was underdeveloped and barely referenced.

Acting and story-geography were unexplained and unexplored. They're in Germany? But it's been recently conquered by France, so while it makes sense for Hans and Greta to be running through the forest, them speaking in badly developed English accents doesn't make sense. Or the reason behind the French general's Italian torturer, who doesn't really do much of anything beyond act outrageously "insane." But at least we got the stunning visual of two men being held over a pot of boiling oil with their heads encased in glass boxes filled with snails. Filled with snails. The exquisite torture of so much escargots! If only I could just get my tongue a little further out...

At least the preview for Aeon Flux looks halfway interesting, although that could just be my Vengeful Female Assassin fetish talking. I vaguely recall the five minutes I saw of the cartoon when I was fifteen, one summer night at about midnight after Doogie Howser. I actually can't remember any of the other previews shown, which expresses right there how forgettable they probably were.