wildcat

There are days when I swear Michael, Christian and I are keeping the Marble Slabbery in business. We eat so much ice cream.

Things: found a wicked black Swiss Army Satchel at Joy's work yesterday, to be purchased tomorrow. Michael's going to pick it up for me while I'm at work. My current bag's falling apart at the seams, and pretty much all the alternatives have broken straps or rotted away. This one is high quality and very professional looking, suitable for business or casual. And it's fly.

Yesterday was Joy's 24th birthday, so we all picked her up from work and got drunk at Big Bad John's. Christian's first time in the Seedy Bar at the End of the Universe: I think the spiderwebs made of ladies' undergarments hanging from the ceiling was a shock. They played the same Johnny Cash song twice and I drank pissy Triple-X beer and Matt pronounced about "swass" (sweaty ass). Plastic cockroaches crawled all over me and Joy brought a "Happy Birthday" balloon into the seething mass. We all watched a girl sitting up at the counter puke on herself and disappear, some drunk guy did something, and Caroline showed up with the New Man. Joy is now 24 years old: "Divisible by two," she told Michael and I, "Possibly divisible by you two." Raunch voice. Christian claims I can do a passable Tom Waits impression, to add to the existing tour-de-force of my William S. Burroughs.

Convoy.

Much of the beauty - and terror - of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds derives from the simple fact that there is never any background music. There is no score; nothing, merely the sounds contained within the story itself. And those sounds are heightened, certainly, so that even feet on pavement and a car door being opened seems important, integral, the going's on. The one instance of music in the film was the scene where Melanie Daniels sits in the schoolyard waiting for the kids to finish up for recess, with the children's voices carrying from inside the schoolhouse, in a bizarre and chant-like song. As this occurs, behind Melanie hundreds of crows are massing on the jungle gym. They sit and listen as well, malevolent and seething. Much of the sound in The Birds is the sound of birds flapping, cawing, and warbling - the sound both opens and closes the film - and it always sits ready, on the verge, capable of building into a terrible fever of attack at any moment.

The film follows a similar tradition to Psycho, in that both films actually feel like they've been split in two, with a dramatic shift in the story occuring in the middle of the action. In Psycho, it's the murder of our view point character, Lila Crane - the action switches and it's no longer a "bad girl on the run" story, our attention focuses to Norman Bates. In The Birds, we start off with a creepy distortion of one of those old Rock Hudson/Doris Day romantic comedies, where they hate each other but want each other and hilarity ensues. Antics which would make sense in such movies are played deadpan with the emphasis on the creepy reality rather than the playful hilarity. The sexual tension is drawn out and bizarre, to the point where even one of the characters has to point out that she doesn't think the tension between the character of Mitch and his mother is an Oedipus thing. And then, at random, the building secondary tension of the birds rises up and attacks: at a child's birthday party, where crisp 1960s rich-person dignity is destroyed by swarming seagulls. Michael pointed out that up until this point, the birds only seem to go crazy or act up when Melanie's been lying or acting out (she is, after all, a bored socialite). Up until the party, when all the pretense and "good manners" is heightened, and everybody must get along (and the birthday is supposed to act surprised even though she'd already discovered plans for the party), the birds obliterate pretense through terror.

It's all about punishment, but of course nobody in the film is capable of seeing that. Melanie wants Mitch to pay for his callously rude behaviour, while Mitch wants to see Melanie pay for being a bored socialite prankster who commits minor acts of vandalism. Right before a particularly brutal bird attack, everyone's sitting in the local diner arguing about the birds, what they're doing, and the severity of it. The "voice of reason" character rattles on about how birds would never flock together, that they're there to bring "beauty into the world," all the while people in the background are arguing about the fried chicken being ready to serve - mankind is to be punished for its callousness, it's complete lack of self-awareness, and it's pretensions of knowing how nature works. I think to a certain extent, Hitchcock made a mistake in that only "common" birds like crows and seagulls attack - I think to truly emphasize the vicious disregard the birds had our assumptions about their natures, more birds should have been involved - like the lovebirds, who spend the film in a gilded cage. The chickens should have gone feral, rather than merely refusing to eat.

The morning was a shambles: woke up earlier than I really wanted to be, Michael and I sparred in bed over the issue of getting up, followed by a rambling shower with Michael falling asleep on his feet twice and then out to the bus stop - we missed two buses by a minute each. People gathered at the bus stop and some guy started to complain about the "late bus" - which wasn't actually late, he was just misreading the schedule. I think it wouldn't have been quite so irritating if he hadn't been holding a cellphone in one hand (he called the transit authority five times to complain about the fact that he thought the bus was late) and a bible in the other (I know it's Sunday, but geez! "I like to go out for coffee with my buddy The Bible on Sundays. You know. Scope out the chicks and such.") And wearing sunglasses on a grimy, cloudy day.

Eventually we got downtown and met up with Staci and Kimberly at the Royal British Columbian Museum. If you get a chance to go before October, do so! We took in the Tibet exhibit, which was brilliant. There was some really amazing pieces, but I think my favourites were probably the giant turquoise earrings and the collection of stamps & currency. The ice age exhibit was a bit of a bust because of the wall-to-wall tourist women with heavy perfume on, but after that we went to Sam's Deli and I had a bagel with cream cheese, lox, onions, and capers. Very good.

Michael, who was all sleepy still and feeling antisocial, went to Chapters and bought some technical books, and I went to Munro's with Jake, and bought two books: 1. "The Museum of Hoaxes," and 2. "Fierce Fauna: A Field Guide to the Creatures that Live in You."

Then I came home to show the house with Michelle. Some guy who was utterly bland, with a bland girlfriend, from Nanaimo. She had a big cross on and he was taking electrical engineering, so somehow I didn't see it as a particularly good fit. He didn't really ask any questions about anything or anyone, so we decided to nix the whole idea of him as soon as he left.

And now I hunger, so I must go on the hunt for a roving tuna sandwich to spear and consume the bloody entrails of. What Ho!

1. The phrase hocus pocus is derived from the latinate Hoc est corpus meum, intoned during the transubstantiation part of Catholic mass, and was further compressed into hoax.

2. Abracadabra has several possible sources, including a Gnostic word for God. It is probably derived from the Aramaic Avrah KaDabra or the Hebrew Aberah KeDaber, both of which mean I create as I speak. There is also, in Aramaic, abhadda kedhabhra, which means disappear like this word. Some people suggest that it might be from Pre-Babel times, possibly even from the "first language," because it is essentially unneccesary to translate it into other languages. Abracadabra was often used in the treatment of illnesses.

3. "To be" is irregular in every language, and many believe this is because it was one of the first - if not the first word, which makes sense in terms of consciousness and arriving at full self-awareness. Think about this in terms of the song "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby," by Louis Jordon (more familiar to me with Dinah Washington on vocals) and Superman's imperfect duplicate, Bizarro #1 ("Me am so unhappy!").

4. The phrase - "Alleyway of Sad Tales."

1. A date! A date with Michael today, for lunch (ostensibly breakfast, or perhaps brunch, because neither of us are good at eating in the morning) at this Avalon place on Fort Street. The food itself was well constructed and reasonably priced, but the coffee and/or juice was expensive. The huevos rancheros were excellent. Then we wandered toward the downtown core, stopped to buy things at London Drugs.

2. Took Michael to the Patch to find some kind of cool ring as part of his anniversary present for a mere warbling ten days hence. Nine? Something like that. The 13th. Once we figured out his ring size in relation to the rings present, things worked better. He would very much like one of the spinning ones. Elected to come back later to give him some time to think about what he wants.

3. The aforementioned anniversary will be a party, tentatively entitled "Jacket Fest," as it falls on a Tuesday. I checked out the Rejected entry on Wikipedia, and apparently (apocraphally) the quote is "Tuesday's coming! Did you bring your coat?" Predications: Matt has some kind of nervous breakdown while Joy & I play the quote game. People will be on hand to administer the gin as necessary. I will also tickle Michael when he least expects it.

4. Joy wasn't working today, so we ended up buying "back to school" clothes -- Michael got a couple pairs of pants, and I ended up with a some basic white James Dean undershirts because I needed some. We also mocked the entire male clothing line of Le Chateau for being too expensive, too homogenized, and too try hard. "Wow - what a great hoodie / jacket combination. Too bad they've actually been merged into a SINGLE ARTICLE OF CLOTHING!" And then there was that idiot stick figure wearing Lululemon workout pants with a peach Lululemon low-cut top and a Lululemon gym bag who was trying on this pink thing that I really hope was a slip or lingerie and not actually meant to be viewed in public. Because, really? The fuck?

5. We ate ice cream. You like ice cream. You love it. You can't live without it. Your life is meaningless without ice cream. Resistence is hopeless.

6. The Museum of Hoaxes, by Alex Boese, is quite good.

7. Came home and cleaned out my wardrobe of things I don't wear anymore. Put them away in storage until I have the willpower to donate them. Organized my clothing out of something neurotic passion. Reorganized some comic books. Sorted out my change and dumped a bunch of pennies into Christian's penny jar. He suspects that I'm having some kind of behaviour disorder because classes start this week and normally I'd be going back to school.

8. Chinese food! And a couple episodes of Invader Zim. I likes me some Zim.

9. Old Blur tunes on the media player. Ah, celebrity crushes from high school...

10. Nervous breakdown as a result of self-awareness and mindless consumer drone behaviours coming into conflict. Screaming, rocking back and forth.

7 things I plan to do before I die:

1) Take Michael to India.
2) Rent a room from the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris.
3) To the Spanish pilgrimmage with Joy. Possibly also see the Salt Spring monastery.
4) Publish at least five short story collections.
5) Venice.
6) Teach a short fiction workshop in a university.
7) Spend time in a villa.

7 things I can do:

1) Use the new library computer system reasonably well.
2) Write "charming" diatribes on films I hate.
3) Invent wonderful story titles.
4) Set up and program VCRs and cable TV.
5) Take beautiful photographs of urban wastelands.
6) Charm middle-aged women.
7) Mix a true, Green Street cocktail, and stay standing afterward.

7 things I cannot do:

1) Pay off bills when I get them.
2) Resist the comic book addiction.
3) Eat meat.
4) Commit violent acts against people.
5) Live with a cat. Ugh. *sneeze*
6) See without my glasses on.
7) Drink hot beverages. Except mulled wine.

7 things that attract me to others:

1) Big eyes with nice colours.
2) Casual misanthropy and sarcasm.
3) High intelligence.
4) Quirk.
5) Tastes in food, drink, literature and film.
6) Genuine warmth.
7) Strong sense of humour.

7 things that I say most often:

1) Running Faggot, Running Free...
2) Dude.
3) Finish the fucking story, man.
4) Random.
5) Hi, can I help you down here?
6) Michael.
7) Aight.

7 celebrity crushes:

1) Owen Wilson
2) Shawn Ashmore
3) Chris Evans
4) Billy Boyd
5) Lauren Ambrose
6) Ethan Embry
7) Naomi Watts

7 people I want to do this

1) Samara
2) Tara
3) Christian
4) Nathan
5) Daniel
6) RJ
7) Matthew (oh, for the quizzes for yesteryear!)

Figuring out who to invite to the anniversary party while watching CSI on DVD. At times, the use of special effects to "demonstrate" forensic evidence inches its way into the "overdone" category, but on the whole I like the show still. Watching several episodes close together and in the right sequence also means I get to pick up on the overarching character development, which is ultimately secondary to the plot (and even serves the plot, pulp-style - the characters' development and backstory is there to determine their expertise and justify them being able to make various scientific and allegorical connections). Camera work is decent, editing demands the count to 5 for almost every shot, the sexual tensions amuse me.

Seventeen people on my list so far, with little arrow indicators for couples (so I know only one phone call is necessary, depending on the living situation), but I'm not done yet. I have to consult with Michael, ask Christian's opinion. I work until four on the day of, but that's out in Langford and I'm dependent on the shitty bus service out there to get me back with enough time to get organized and tidy up the house in time. Probably an eight o'clock start time, I think. Oh, no, wait. Eighteen people on the list. Probably start making phone calls tomorrow night or on Sunday.

Finding the perfect gifts is -- dubious. The significance of the event requires a certain amount of meaning (so, no, I can't just blow some money on a blow-up Stewie Griffin "Damn you to the Deepest Bowels of Hell" punching-clown for him), and there's the added pressure of having to hear about how wonderful the gift he's gotten me is. And him telling everybody I know what it is. But, besides the ring which he knows about, I have a few ideas. I tend to favour smaller, multi-part gifts because I'm better at finding cool little things than big ones.

Highlights of the day: Very bad dreams about being punished at work, and serial killers peeling off my skin with knives. Waking up at eight and menacing Michael while he slept, watching Dawson's Creek to creep myself out about Katie Holmes. Heading to the comic book shop for this week's gem - Manhattan Guardian, a little ditty called "The Sex Secrets of the Newsboy Army," which starts with weird random fun and ends in death and recrimination. Lunch at Cafe Arriba with Samara, where I had a bagel with cream cheese, lox, capers and onions. Followed by a rumball and a "King Henry" cake from a bakery on Cook. Talking over the current crisis with Christian, for all the wheel-spinning and frustration. Heading out on the road to Royal Oak for an evening shift, which was quiet and relatively dull and nothing exploded, compared to last night's frustrating Esquimalt shift where four new people tried to close up and wound up in an Abbott & Costello routine. Sitting at the bus stop for twenty minutes. Sliding on home.

And so, roughly, The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter begins. Found this at work today - something by Carter I hadn't read - so I snatched it up immediately. I'm hoping for some major inspiration.

Also, expect some new fragments of "The Nancy Boys" to be posted in the next couple of days. My sinister, literary hand is beginning to twitch!

Stolen from Joy, a list of five favourites...

1. Soothing sound:
A shower running, preferably from inside - bathroom acoustics.

2. Comfort food:
Difficult, I think. Probably cheap Chinese from around the corner, shrimp fried rice and ginger-fried tofu.

3. Relaxing music:
Erykah Badu, probably the first album - "Baduism." Something about the gentle rhythms and the soulful voice. Nina Simone singing "Strange Fruit," even though the song itself is mournful rather than soothing.

4. Gentle voice:
Arlene, a clerk at one of the branches. She has this really soft, sweet, spun voice; she could be telling you she hated you, to go to hell, to die a violent death, and it would sound like she was talking about butterflies.

5. Calming smell:
Old comic book paper, a bit yellowed, the heavier inks. Close up, the dryness attached to them.

Parts 1 and 2

For GM

The forest blustered and bulged in the moonlight, leaf-shadows cast across Joe's face as he shuffled forward in heels. The pantyhose itched; never had he felt something cling so harshly to his dimpled skin, the gangly legs suddenly slim but constricted. Frank - "Bess" - was up ahead, announced by branches pushed out of the way. All the clues so far led this way, deep into these woods. What wolves prowled at the edges, ready for a juicy thigh? He should have asked Nancy for a riding hood. Somebody cleared his throat behind Joe; Ned, it was Ned. Nickerson, he corrected himself, although Ned suited the blond boy better and coupled so well with Nancy. Ned & Nancy. Let's go over to dinner at Ned & Nancy's. Ned, who had no idea that he wasn't following his girlfriend into the darkness - that he was really following a young man in a push-up bra. Joe couldn't help it; he shook, giddy, the deception dripping into his toes and itching worse than the dress.

Just how far could he go with this? Ned showing up with roses for a date, probably the malt shoppe because that was probably what he and Nancy did when they weren't solving crimes. Oh, if the other boys could see Joe now! He bit at the edge of his mouth until he remember the lipstick, which was probably smudged now, why did girls wear so much lipstick? He felt like a whore. Nancy Drew was such a whore. "Gosh," he said under his breath. He'd never think that of a nice girl like Nancy normally.

"Nancy," said Ned, stout of shoulder and staggering to keep up. "Wait up." He smelled like football. He would probably end up as alcoholic senator. "Let's let Bess go on ahead." That wasn't a good idea; Joe knew from experience that splitting up usually meant being captured or put into peril. Frank could handle that, though; couldn't he? Even dressed as Bess, with his legs displayed like that, the way he wore his black wig? Ned's hand came down on Nancy's - on Joe's - shoulder. "Nancy, darling, wait up. I know this is a really important caper, but aren't they all? We never go for late-night strolls."

Would a good girl like Nancy go for a late-night stroll? Even with Ned? Nickerson. With Nickerson. They only went out like this in the darkness to solve mysteries, to open locked boxes and break into phantom lighthouses. They only went out this late with Bess or George beside them, Joe was sure of that - alone in the dark with Ned Nickerson, his brother getting further away.

1. The Date last night: met Michael at the grocery store after work, we got ingredients and went home to cook. Baked Salmon fillets with various vegetables like fennel, peppers, and anise. Undercooked artichokes that were a bust. Garlic mashed potatoes. We watched O Brother, Where art Thou and marvelled at how beautiful the movie is, how all the elements work so well together. From the writing standpoint, the Odyssey elements are worked into the narrative with soft, easy movements but don't prevent the story from making its own path. The scene with the Sirens at the edge of the river - wow. Then we did the dishes.

2. Someone in a towtruck showing up at 1 in the morning and idling loudly in the street for half an hour.

3. Wake-up call: Sleeping in late, hilarious sex, some Indian wedding on television that made Michael announce, "I hope that horse hasn't eaten in the last twelve hours." Bagels, cream cheese, and lox for breakfast, followed by some dark chocolate.

4. The bus downtown - we ran to catch it, a near thing - with Michael enraptured by babies. Babies.

5. Michael went off to meet up with Daniel and I went shopping. I stopped off to see Joy and kibitz, talked about an option for the party which has since been nixed. I wandered around for a bit and decided on the gift, got that all organized. There's one element left to acquire, but I'm probably waiting until the day of, to find it. I might duck into China Town to see if I can find it there.

The procedure involved in getting everybody together on Tuesday leaves me listless. Probably phone out some more invitations tomorrow, although whenever I call Steph, I get the "The cellular customer you have reached is unavailable," with no voice mail option. Cellular technology was supposed to bring people together, not tear them apart (or act as the star vehicle premise for actors like Kim Basinger and Chris Evans).

Either way, I've spent too much time this evening reading into the blank lines of a blank word document set to double-space. I finally managed to coax a sentence out of my brain, but as usual this was followed immediately by a large multi-coloured test-pattern and some tintinnitus ringing. I keep fiddling with the rabbit ears, but my brain is getting shit-all for reception.

To that end, I start writing a story based on my father's Squaw Hall adventure (otherwise known as, "The Last Time He Ever Drank Southern Comfort"). It's probably my favourite story about my father, mostly because the details are odd, so I'm hopelessly cannibalizing it for my own nefarious, fictional ends. I'm going to tart it up and trot it out for the languid readers to brush their tongue-like eyes over, maybe rough it up a bit with some bad language and inappropriately placed asterisks. On the one hand, alcoholic stories get a bit old and tawdry, but there are enough intriguing details that I can fuck around with until it becomes something wonderful. Plus, it's an excuse to write more Small Town Gothic.

Meringue spent a good deal of time in the bathroom this evening, while I was ostensibly writing some story or other, one of those ones that I write but ultimately doom to failure. I think she lost some jewellery down the toilet again, she has these manic fits and starts dumping whatever she can find down the drain. I'm always running out of toothpaste because of this. I'll go in there to check on her ever so often and she'll have her panties down around her ankles, the whole bathroom filled with Chanel-soaked steam, and she keeps saying, "Mummy needs a drink." Over and over. I don't think she's crying, but I think she's taken to smoking in there and I don't even want to get into the ring around the toilet bowl that's been there lately. There are all these little dents in the linoleum from the high heels on her boots, and if I never hear about how downhill Louis Vutton has gone, it'll be too soon. Perils of living with a drag queen, I suppose.

Plus, the chocolate ice cream had gone way off when Christian and I had some a little while ago. There wasn't so much a flavour as a bitter tang of souls ripped too early from their bodies.

Meringue wailed all morning while I was trying to get ready for work. Typical end-of-the-world self-crucifiction, which you wouldn't expect from someone who mounted Kilimanjaro in an eleven hundred dollar Gucci strapless number. I didn't listen for very long before I headed out into the world, with the blackened clouds voluptuous and leering over my head. Everything is ridiculously significant right now.

Read an exquisite short story on the bus ride out to Royal Oak this morning, by Dorothy Parker - "Here We Are," about a couple married but three hours before, on a train to their honeymoon destination. The bulk of the story is them arguing - the "cold feet" syndrome come too late, the implication that they only married because they were beginning to run out of small talk. The story ends with the husband making sexual overtures about their plans for the evening but being too paralyzed by the mores of the society to say anything explicit - the wife completely misses what he's saying. It's awkward and frustrated and seized up and I loved it.

Shoot me. I had to get up far too early, Meringue won't stop saying "Fuck," and I waited downtown for half an hour to come out here for work. My patience seems to have completely deserted me, we're understaffed, and I'm not being very good about compartmentalizing frustration away to deal with later. I know this will get better as I get more used to this. I know this. I know this. I know this. I just have to make it through the rest of the day until five o'clock - I'm staying an extra hour - so that I can go home and get my party clothes on and get very drunk with very good people. I wish I wasn't so clearly and completely a spazz

On the other hand, two years ago today I went out on my very first date with Michael, to Paton's birthday party, and we snogged while wasted and eating chocolate raspberry ganache. I love him very, very much and it is taking all my willpower not to phone him up every twenty minutes to shout "Did I ever tell you you're my hero," at him from across town. All. My. Willpower.

Interview this morning, one of the supervisors simply did not show up for work, there was a cafuffle, half an hour later I left from questioning. It was all right. I'll try not to be so worried next time.

Plans: Tales of the City to watch on DVD, and grocery shopping. I haven't actually gone "grocery shopping" in any real sense for a long long time.

Blog more later, the Secret Police have come for me, they hold swordfish to my head--

The party the other night went extremely well, despite the terrible day at work and the mild feelings of genocide and abject destruction. Between Michael, Christian and I everything ran very smoothly, we got to see a whole whack of really good friends, and I imbibed too much (as usual) to be too hungover (as usual) at work. I gave Samara her first taste of Amarula, and juggled that with my gin and red wine. Exquisite cheeses were trotted out for consumption, we argued over how fucking upper crust we must be to discuss the merits of Stilton and blue cheese. And, as of course it was the second anniversary, Michael and I were asked the requisite questions - "What's your biggest piece of relationship advice?" Or the more popular, "What's been the best moment in your relationship?"

What? Well, of course I couldn't pick one. The closest I'll ever get to having a "best moment" in this relationship is to have a ten minute montage, probably accompanied by Joan Jett's rendition of "Let's Do It," of amazing moments reduced to utter saccharine meaninglessness. I absolutely couldn't pick one, so it's all going to be left up to whichever Oscar-winning director pulls the short straw and has to make a "meaningful" underdog-wins-out-in-the-end biopic about my life.

Michael made a brilliant four-chocolate ganache dada cake and we exchanged presents: I gave him the ring from the Patch, a pack of crumpets, and a new tripod (travel-sized but extending out to full-size) to replace the two stolen by those damned, dirty apes in the Missing Van of Death incident. These paled, of course, before the Holy Grail of Anniversary Presents, which Michael gave to me - an Envoy typewriter with a lock and key, from 1931. Joy proclaimed that it made her wet in a very sexual way.

Okay, so before it gets really cheezy, let me just say that he's probably never going to stop surprising me, and I don't mean in that oh look what the dog did on the living room carpet way. I've always loved a man who likes Gertrude Stein.

Joy gave us coupons to the Marble Slabbery - ice cream, endless and bountiful - and Christian & John presented us with a copy each of a portrait of the two of us. A high-zoom black and white Sharon Stone make-out portrait, apparently, because nothing says True Love like the Hungarian Porn Star Kiss. You actually can't tell our tongues apart.

Party wrapped up around one, with Michael and I making sure Penny and Beth got home safely while Christian did the recycling drunkenly. Christian, amazingly, cleaned the whole house the next day and I didn't really get to do anything. Oh, and apparently I'm Penny's boyfriend's Big Gay Boyfriend, and Michael is hers. Ok.

There was supposed to be dinner and drinks at Michelle's house last night, but she was feeling ill so we cancelled that. Instead, Michael, John, Christian and I met up and ate at JJ's Wonton Noodle House, on Fort Street. The ambience leaves something to be desired, but the food was excellent. I went with the shrimp wonton soup, followed by stir-fried squid in a ginger garlic hot sauce.

As usual, the change keeps coming: pretty soon, I'll be breaking in new roommates, and Christian's leaving to go back to Germany on Saturday, although he'll be leaving Victoria before that on Thursday morning to spend time with John before he heads over to Europe. He has leaved here for a little bit under a year, we've become quite close, and I'm going to miss him quite a lot when he leaves. I've had more than my share of roommates - some of them turned out badly, some of them turned out really well. Some of the people I've lived with can be counted among the most important people in my life, and he can certainly be put up there amongst that pantheon. New roommates are like new co-workers in a lot of ways, that uncomfortable mix of anxiety in the pit of one's stomach, but losing a dear friend is harder, even if it's only for a while; he's going to be working on coming back to Canada almost from the minute he's in Germany.

I'm going to go shave now, I look like a mountain man and we're going over to Michael's shortly to bottle wine. I don't want to be scruffy for the boyfriend.

The odious task of transferring the hydro bill over into my name is accomplished, but as usual Christian won't get his security deposit back right away and I'm going to have to make one of my own; instead, you know, of me just paying him for his and them transferring the amount over to me on the account. Gahd.

Don't appear to be working today, so I cleaned up my room (shuffled piles of papers around, hid them, the like), ran a couple loads of laundry, and now I sit-sit-sit ready to write-write-write. Feist is playing on the Media Player, and I am drawn ever onward into the Squaw Hall story. At the party last week, Steph and I sat discussing how difficult it can be to write about your family (even if you just start off from them and then fictionalize), because there's a layer of intimacy there which must be shuffled off and abandoned, while at the same time abused. The story takes place years before I was born, but the distance has to be there for anything to happen. I want to use the basic events, the drinking story elements to offset something else, something underneath, but that hasn't quite formed yet. I like that I can use detail from family stories I've been told over the years and remix them, mutilate them, fictionalize as necessary. I want to include things like the fish-hook.

Tragedy! Belated, yes. The Ukes of Hazzard are dead, no longer pun-tastic; they've been reborn as the Hazzards. At least they still play ukeles.

The story's moving forward in weird, uneven gallops and there's the whole issue of point of view and narrative structure. It's present tense but I want it told by a pseudo-retrospective narrator, and I want the honesty to be there. It's hard. There's a level of callousness that I haven't quite broken through yet. Time has to be folded, destroyed, rewoven in this story - and it's working in small doses, but the overall arc of the story hasn't materialized yet.

Writing a vomit scene and trying to make it work without being over the top is difficult, especially because I wonder how many of my usual editors will be able to read it and comment. We'll see.

Another hour and Michelle will be here for the two interviews we've got scheduled tonight. "Yvonne" at six and some bloke at seven. I suppose it's too much to ask that "Yvonne" by Yvonne Craig, who played Batgirl on the Sixties Batman show. Either way, we'll tromp around the place and I'll whore myself out as some sort of magical perfect roommate and do the dance and in between, we'll ruthlessly criticize them for any failures of character that might lead to "wacky" situations and sitcom-style hijinx.

Spent most of the afternoon working on the short story, which moves along swimmingly. The atmosphere and mood of the story threatens; it drags one down into the mud with it, so perhaps I'm a little worse for wear. I'm going to spend an hour writing something else, something light, something involving bank robberies and impromptu typewriter fiascos, and that should put me right for the interviewing. My thoughts are an engine, and I need to direct the train away from Dead Man's Curve.

Michael got Comment #1300. I find the statistics aspect of blogging a bit strange, meaningless, but encouraging as well.

The two interviews didn't happen: the second one cancelled, and the first one just didn't show up. The other girl, D., will move in soon and then there's the issue of finding someone else. Instead, Christian and I went out for sushi at Hime with Michelle, Mike, and Michelle's sister Andrea. It was a pleasant evening: we each had our usuals, I drank a ginger ale, the restaurant was moderately busy, we got to see Gloriee. She's a stunning woman.

Came home after that and I ended up on the phone with Caroline for an hour and a half. Talking about anything and everything, got to off about the story I'm working on right now and listened to her talk about hers. I actually felt nostalgic for the "workshop" experience and had one of those small epiphanies about how to workshop other people's work honestly and fairly.

Conducted my astrological chart on a whim (I'm squarely Scorpio with a Sagittarius rising and a split between Sagittarius, Libra, and Scorpio for everything else; there's one small fleck of Leo) and fluttered about online for a bit.

I was, hypothetically, going to write for a little while longer, but that didn't happen and I'm not that concerned. I wrote for about five hours today, so I feel like I've accomplished a lot. The story's very much a living entity in my head.

Might write something-something about Fay Weldon's Godless in Eden tomorrow, if I get the chance after work. I'm not exactly sure what my priorities are, although I should pay my phone bill and look into buying some pants.

After fighting with my camera for a while - hardware issues - I present for your viewing pleasure (well), some photographs of the Remington Envoy typewriter from 1931, which Michael gave me for the anniversary. First off, here's an

"establishing shot," (with awful framing, sorry about that) as we say in the motion pictures business, followed by the obligatory art-fag shot, because - let's face it - the thing is beautiful.

Portrait of the artist as a particle - where's he going? Who knows! How fast? Light speed, baby doll.

1. Wake up call at nine o'clock. Tawdry acts and a shower.

2. Head downtown and feel inspired, head to Dark Horse Books to clear out their stock of Ginsberg books. Pick up Mabel Maney's The Case of the Good-for-Nothing Girlfriend (starring Nancy Clue, lesbo girl detective). Try to pay using interac: technical problems with the machine dash these hopes three times. Spend five minutes running to the bank to discover that the closest CIBC has closed down. Go to Royal and deal with the service charge. Go back and pay for the books.

3. Check the store for Joy; she's not there. Construct a theory, that she's doing the midmorning store banking again, and invoke the Laws of Repetition: vis-a-vis, walk by the bank and run into her. Hand over the Ginsberg books and accompany her inside.

4. Go to Curious Comics: end up with two Catwoman trade paperbacks, with Cameron Stewart artwork. Beautiful. Also: The Shade #3, with words by James Robinson and images by JH Williams III; and Mister Miracle #1, words by Morrison and images by Pascual Ferry.

5. Lotus Pond for lunch. Six bucks.

6. Head to work and spend eight hours serving the public. Try not to stress about potential budget cuts. Make plans to go to the union meeting on Monday. Spend abject hours of boredom staring at nothing in particular, processing holds.

7. The new drink, to wit: rather than the tried and true gin-tonic, decide to switch to a Delmonico the next time you have a drink. Copy out the recipe off the internet on your break on a hold slip, stuff it into the pocket.

8. The bus home is sketchy, guy wearing far too much cologne, generic models, sketch cases. Too many people shouting.

9. The new roommate is in her room, has left you a note; you communicate with notes so far. Wonder if this will continue after she gets back from Vancouver this weekend. Write her a note back about using Christian's bed if she wants instead of an air mattress. Remember the air mattress years, feel thankful for the Futon That Love Built.

10. Discover connection to John F. Kennedy. Suspect everyone.

Last night, in all it's huger-than-life excess and spilling over toe curls of "binge drinking," swept away in a pile of steam this morning, when I woke up with the (expected) hangover and there was Michael beside me, grunting rather than responding with actual dialogue (Sunday mornings will never be a Noel Coward play) - love, I think, is having someone to lie in bed with on a Sunday morning and flip back and forth between Kubrick's The Shining and Audrey Hepburn in Paris When It Sizzles. The jump cut between watching Nicholson play Nicholson with some of the most beautiful tracking shots I've ever seen, and Audrey Hepburn's character engaged in an extremely Mod, extremely Meta Sixties discussion of how My Fair Lady is the same story as Frankenstein. With Michael excited for me to see each scene of The Shining has it flows through.

The Anthropology of Jocks: the kidney punch during impromptu wrestling sessions is the equivalent, it would appear, of a blow job between your bitchy queen stereotypes. Electro-shock is a party game. Produce is some sort of sexual aid, but only in male-bonding situations. They have foreign rules to the Rules Drinking Game, and some of them are very nice people. We ended up on the front stoop for quite a while, as Steff and Joy smoked cigarettes with Matt, swaying back and forth. Matt hung a chair on the mailbox.

Followed by beautiful lesbians, Prism (meh), pizza at the Brickyard, and home.

Well, the rewrite with the new structural element started promising and then fell on its face. I need to plot this thing out more, work with the first version, and try to ignore the page and a half I wrote a couple days ago and just deleted. I have a few ideas, we'll see how they go. A big issue in writing for me is that I need an idea of how it ends - a final image, a last sentence, a sinking sensation in my stomach as the action moves inexorably towards an end. The ending can completely change by the time I get there, but I need to go into it with one in mind. This hasn't quite happened yet, since I'm mostly taking an anecdotal story and tried to extrapolate it.

The new structure suggests an end, I know how I want the last sequence to work, but it's getting there with the right amount of drive; I have to take this character, ostensibly my father, and I need to work with him and figure out exactly what he wants - what my father wanted in 1974 or so - and I need to work out some of the things with his brothers. Some of the physical logistics of the first sequence need to be worked out as well; basic details like height of walls, the physical layout of the beer-garden, some information about the stampede. Treating a non-fiction event as a starting point for a fiction is difficult, because part of the process is knowing when to step away from "what happened" (Selma Blair shrieking in the middle of workshop in Storytelling, that her fiction actually happened) and walk through the door of "what could have happened." What has meaning.

At the anniversary party, Steff and I got to talking about the eulogy she gave for her grandmother, and then I showed her what I'd written so far at that point; we talked about the difficulties of writing about family because of what goes unsaid, or what should have gone unsaid, or just the complicated emotions involved. I have it "easier" with this story, because the truth is only a tiny kernel to be transformed, but I think the intimacy and vulnerability involved can be a difficult hurdle to get past. I'm certainly writing things in this story that I would never have written about before, but I think I'm hitting that point where I have distance. Is that a good thing? I'm not sure, it depends on what angle you live in as far as "life being material."

1. The story rewrite quickens, thickens, and slickens. I worry that my language is too poetic. I started it off with an epigraph and worked from there. In some cases, I'm taking individual sentences, transferring them, and reworking the syntax. Other times, fresh flurries of juiced prose clatter onto screen and smooth out as they go. I like this. I like this: the writing. The procedure of writing, when it's gone on, is hot. I keep flashing back to Jack Nicholson in The Shining, screaming at his wife to leave him alone in the great big empty room he's been writing in, because everytime she comes in she interrupts his thought processes and ruins his work. Such an asshole.

2. The new roommate, Danielle, has moved in. Is moving in; she's in her room putting together her bed. She is a student, and as such has pounds of homework to conclude in the next couple of days. I don't miss that. She asked what I was doing and I said, working on a story, and she wanted to know what for. Entirely different perspectives are hilarious, and good to have around.

3. Christian should, by all accounts, be in Germany by now. He should be in Germany and that's insanely weird.

4. Laundry is done, the dishwasher run and emptied, and I have enough foodstuffs in the house to feed myself on the morrow. No shifts planned for this week, but I'm expecting calls. Tomorrow night I have to go to that union meeting to find out about the State of the Union, as it were, and potential threats to life and limb. And by limb, I mean income. It's not a clear-cut situation, we're in fact united with the management in this situation, it's a municipalities issue and a fair amount of politicking is involved.

5. Poetry: I'm reading poetry. We all know how that affects me.

Okay; the second draft is done. It needs a title, I have a few in mind. It needs to be ironed out and read by someone else and I need them to tell me what's shit, and what's champagne. I need someone to tell me if it's not long enough and if the vomit scene at the end is too much. I need: more physical description of My Father as a Young Man; some of my uncles as well. I need to develop the politics a bit. I need someone to tell me if the Ferlinghetti stealing is a plus or a minus.

Sex is fun and miniskirts are cheeky! Time for Draft #3.

Just got home; I went to a union meeting at 6:30 this evening and then afterward a bunch of us (the younger ones, primarily) headed over to the Beagle in Cook Street Village for drinks. The labour situation is a bit dodgy, obviously, hence the special meeting - but the reasons and methods for attack are largely political, so people who will be living in Victoria in time for the municipal elections in November are encouraged to vote, and vote for candidates who favour better library services.

Drinks afterward was nice; I had two decent, but utterly overpriced chocolate martinis. A lot of people I like to work with showed up. Before the meeting, actually, I showed up at Central early and had dinner with the two Jennies and Johnathan. Mexican from Delicado's. Kaz was there, preparing for a meeting, so we didn't really get a chance to say more than "hello," but it was nice to run into her.

Have one shift scheduled this week, with hopes of being called in. Central Saanich, one of the ones I haven't been to, on Saturday. There are no librarians at Central Saanich, it's the smallest library, and clerks are basically acting reference librarians as well as clerks. We can, as it has been said, work with absolute authority. I'm looking forward to the experience, although it'll be difficult to get out there and back - nothing insurmountable.

Otherwise, the day was a wash. I didn't get any writing done, I'll try to do some for an hour or so tonight. I redirected some of Christian's mail, went and picked up groceries and bathroom supplies (Q-tips! I have Q-tips! I shall write a poem about Q-tips!), walked through downtown for two and a half hours, stopping for a snack and buying a couple books from Russell's - Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus and Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Michael's stuck studying away by himself at home, and I'm listening to Simon & Garfunkel.

A shambles, on the way home from work: the sun high, the air cool, my ragged bones filled up with something. Viral, infernal, petrifying. I walked down Blanshard rather than taking a bus to Hillside, and then sat at the bus stop for the #4; a long, pale wait. Working at Emily Carr today was a dream, but I seem to have caught some vile thing within the cage of my body. I've been convalescing with peppermint tea and a Harry Potter movie. I'm wearing my pajamas and a hoodie. I work all day tomorrow so I need to be in better health; I'll take some tylenol in a little while and curl up under various blankets to squaddle off into some half-considered, ambidextrous sleep.

Worked on the short story over a deli lunch: fleshed out part of the early paragraphs, so I'll probably add that in tonight before I do the Big Sleep. I was reading Nights at the Circus - the early passages of the second part, wherein Carter describes the Imperial Circus in St. Petersburg with monkeys in suits and the "Queen of Abyssininia." There is one paragraph in particular that is entirely one sentence - it is awkward in a considered way, disjointed to suggest the way elephants shake their chains, hoping that one day they'll fall off and freedom/vengeance will be had. I'll probably lie in bed and read/write some more, until my consciousness flattens and my head solves the day like a quadratic equation.

At work today I went up from the five hours this week to twenty-two hours; three different supervisors called the branch today to speak to me. And I'll be working a four hour shift every Sunday for the forseeable future. At the downtown branch, which I never get to work at. Brilliant.

I wrote something, but it was wrong. Simple: I'm going to make fresh tea, get into bed, pull out Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus like a cock in a bathhouse, open up my rantbook and uncap my pen. I will blow my nose too many times, scratch my ass, text message Michael while he's out with Joy and Steph watching one of Matt's bands play at Fellatio's, and write. I will write something, fragments, for this short story and then I'll write down some ideas for what to write about next.

Am I supposed to be writing a novel? Forgetting all the half-completed things, I mean, really? The other week I had a horribly counter-productive conversation with my mother about writing, where she ranted on about what "hot and fresh" (what?) books were coming out, what people were reading, how it was impossible to get anywhere in the business until you'd written a novel, all of that - really, what the fuck does my mother know about the publishing business? There's a hundred ways, and luck, and talent, and all that. Does it even matter whether or not I want to write a novel?

If I write a novel, a real novel, not one that I delete afterward because why the hell would anyone want to read such crap, it's not going to be some autobiographic masturbatory thing. The main character isn't going to be a "hip" "urban" (or, ah, semi-urban, or whatever) "gay" "white" "male" who's a writer, or an artist, or something. Similarly, it's not going to be about hip Manhattan/London girls in their mid-twenties who spend too much money on fashion and work in magazines while pursuing meaningless sex and/or some kind of post-feminist relationship excuse for living. And the cover will not be Pink. And I'm not Jane Austen. It's probably going to be about football, or something, but in a non-sexual, non-homoerotic non-sports-fetish way. It will not open with a phone call in the middle of the night, someone dead, followed by a protracted art history pseudo-Illuminati conspiracy. There might be ducks. Maybe there will be long, protracted scenes of vegetables being stir-fried and eaten with full visceral from-the-vegetables perspective, the murder-horror of incissors coming down on broccoli as it screams.

I don't even know what I'm saying. The moral of the story is: Shut up and make out.

It might be the cold medication, but--

The big mass of evergreens behind my house, the foliage swallowing most of my window's view. The quality of that particular green, just after it's been raining all day, when there's just a hint of light on it, glistening, and then it rustles. Fires up my molecules.

I hate not being able to breathe. Anyway: at Oak Bay, working until five. Michael's picking me up to go to Hime, because he's also been struck ill (after me, but without seeing me in a week, so it isn't my fault) and we want comfort. You know. Miso soup. Gloriee. Wasabi and ginger.

I've been doing the apple cidar vinegar thing, which is a bit like drinking Hell. It's foul, but it certainly seems to help. And plenty of garlic-rich humous with pita bread.

Sentence-by-sentence editing right now. I'm hoping it'll be done soon so I can fire it off for someone to read and get back to me with criticism and general ego destruction. It's probably horrible. Too much repetition. Unclear sentences. Despicable.