young neil

other people were breathing

i was holding my breath

i couldn’t look at you
could
not

i looked at the ceiling and memorized it in place of your face
hands
shoulders

wrote you a letter
that i couldn’t read back to myself
could not

fell into your name
fell into your images
on paper
scraps
napkins
bristle board

there is nothing romantic about having not turned to face you
holding my breath
your name under my tongue

take this longing

i’ve been thinking about winnipeg today. when I was 17 years old, i decided that it would be a good idea for me to ride my bicycle to winnipeg. i somehow managed to convince one of my best friends that she should do it with me. seeing that the longest ride that either of us had ever been on was about 50km, the concept of riding 1,500km should have seemed like a bad idea. it didn’t. we were both excited to be on our bikes for two weeks straight. excited to be out of vancouver. excited about the unknown.

at some point, i will post the journal entries that i wrote along the way. they still fucking crack me up.

anyway, i was thinking today about how living in winnipeg *felt* to me. maybe it was my age, the timing of the trip, the luck we had, the friends we made in random places - - - but everything felt so *possible* there. there were always people around who wanted to talk, play, eat, dance, construct, deconstruct, and go on small adventures. i found myself falling in love with everyone. i fell in love with straight-edge boys, with awkward waitresses, leonard cohen look-alikes, and a very special mennonite boy named neil dyck.

the drive home from winnipeg was sad. i still wonder what would have happened if i had stayed.

so that's what i have been thinking about today... falling in love in/ with winnipeg.

sono l'antichristo

i get a special kick out of people who feel that i owe them something because they introduced me to a pop-culture item.

does this happen to other people? i am not sure.

i cannot begin to count the times that, on their way out of my lives, people have said things like “if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even know who diamanda galas is!”.

i find this curious. and i reckon that it is a reflection of people struggling to feel that they had a purpose in my life. from my point of view, they are grasping at straws - and in the end, they want me to feel grateful for their pop-culture contributions because it is the only thing that they feel they had to offer me..... or something like that.

when i care about someone, i too want to share the music/ films / books/ art that has changed or enhanced my life. it feels good to say “you’ve never seen santa sangre? we *have* to rent it!”. there are times when pop culture helps me to tell a story about my life. if i want you to really know me, there is a good chance that i will tell you about the first time i saw the rocky horror picture show (age 14) and the first time i got up and performed in it (age 17). i don’t tell people about pop items in order to make them feel inferior or even to make them feel like i have ‘opened their eyes’ to something.

i tell people about things like: the first album (tape) that i bought on my own, the movie that me and my first close group of girlfriends watched over and over, the book i borrowed from the library and could never bear to take back, the book that i borrowed from someone in grade 9 and didn’t read until this week (i should have read it sooner), the CD i bought at some indie show in winnipeg and fell in love with. and i also tell people what i am listening to, watching, reading, drooling over right now.... so they know, on some level, where i am at.

and i admit that there is a certain amount of possessiveness about it for me too. one day, she will be listening to that album when she makes out with *someone else*. and one day, he will give the book (that i bought him as a surprise) to someone else as a present. and on some level, that hurts.

and so what i say to people who want to aggrandize themselves on their way out of my lives by throwing their pop-culture remnants in my face: don’t bother. it just serves to erase and belittle the ways that you shared yourself with me through the safety of objects.

and to my friends, who lovingly ask me for mixed CDs, and books about gender bending - who affectionately lend me science-fiction novels, graphic novels, and movies that you watched when you were 18..... keep it comin’ !!!

knee deep in the flow

their voices reached me from underwater.

in conference rooms and rendezvous
across tables
and times
and points of departure

bubbled fragments burst into my ears.

i could almost hear you.

we just need to wash a few more things away
a few more
misunderstandings
habits
fears

and the words will become sentences
paragraphs
glottal stops
slides
stories (both real and imagined)
intonation
reflection
from origins unfamiliar

i am treading and sorting and creating an escape route from the undertow.

it’s overwhelming,
when i can hear you.

how long is the night

because i am trying to knit/ sew/ construct most of the presents i am giving this year, hexmas seems like it is just around the corner.

for those of you who have not yet been alerted about my mission- i will share it with you now: it is called ‘bedding down with choke hold’.

i need a new bed. badly. my hope is that a new/ decent bed will help to alleviate my severe insomnia.

and here is my request, dear friends: in lieu of buying me anything for hexmas, please make a donation to my ‘bedding down with choke hold’ fund. no donation is too big. no donation is too small.

i have shopped around for the last few months - and i am estimating that my new bed (the first i have bought since i was in grade 8) is going to cost a hella lot - about $1000 to be exact.

so this year, you needn’t buy me CDs, socks, t-shirts, gym passes, sex toys, opera tickets, books, or chocolates.

all i want for hexmas is a big, lovely bed. i will even share it with you.... some of you anyway.

this wish list is bound to be sent out via email over the next few weeks.

also: a reminder to those who want me to make them things in the next coupla months... if you have special requests - send them to me now. otherwise, you will be leaving it up to my twisted imagination.

and to all - a good night.

dead seeds

how is it possible for so many people to feel so lonely?

how are we able to witness each other’s lives and never actually connect?

i wonder about these things. i wonder how/ why we have set up societies where people can be totally forgotten - where we can totally forget ourselves.

i watch this boy sometimes. i watch the way that he twists and turns his way around a deep, depraved sense of loneliness. and he doesn’t believe in connection, not really. he doesn’t believe in the soulfulness of uniting with other beings. and so, how can he be so lonely? how can he be lonely if he doesn’t truly believe that there is the possibility of synergy with another person? i don’t know. i am baffled.

i find myself skipping over opportunities to become closer to people. it happens all the time. instead of holding onto/ falling into each other.... we talk, laugh, eat, rant, ignore, glaze over it all. sometimes i feel that if i got any closer to certain people, that i would never be able to ‘go back’. i would not be able to return to a state where it was acceptable to ignore each other for days. ignore each other’s pain. ignore each other’s affections.

the idea of loneliness gets dog-piled by concepts of: community, health, spirituality, architecture, family, communication, mental health, ego, sex/uality, housing, barriers, affection, fear......

and i just don’t know how people survive in the well of loneliness.

i better be quiet now

i thought that getting together with friends to watch the US election coverage (not to mention ‘INdecision with john stewart’) would be a joyous time. that we would be able to laugh at the fact that we were rooting for a chump like kerry.

i don’t think it was a fun time. i went into shock as i watched bush sweep most of the nation. i think i’m gonna be sick.

don’t get me wrong, canadian elections make me feel panicky most of the time too (look at our premier and our prime minister ::shudder::) but *re*electing bush actually boggles my mind.

last night/ this morning ballots were counted. bush bumbled his way back into the white house. gay marriages were banned in an alarming number of states. abortion is the next on the chopping block. nations that defy the USA will be invaded. and 51% of americans agreed to allow that fucking cowboy to ‘lead their nation’.

anger. despair. disbelief. nausea.

from these graves

i joke all the time about how “i don’t get out much”. but the truth is that i really don’t. in the last few years my home has become both my prison and my sanctuary. you know that feeling you get when you make a trip to a far-off and unfamiliar place - and a couple weeks into it you fall into a struggle?... part of you wants to call the airline and schedule a flight home *right now* and the other part of you wants to find the joy, beauty, adventure of the place that you have chosen to go to. that’s kind of how i feel whenever i leave the house these days.

i find myself agreeing to go on small trips, go to other people’s houses, go to stores, go out for food, go to the gym, go to volunteer/ random paid jobs - - - and there is always part of me that just wants to go home. at times, it has been a full-out panic (that people never see). i was at a class a few months ago, and i was overwhelmed with the feeling that i needed to get the hell out of there *right now*. and so i did. i sat there for a few minutes and then picked up my books and walked right to my car. for no apparent reason, i cried the whole way home.

there is a part in the book ‘the phantom tollbooth’ where one of the characters talks about a little boy who always wanted to be where he wasn’t. on the way to school, he wished that he was in his room. when he was playing in his room, he longed to be outside hanging out with his school chums. i think that maybe i have turned into that little boy. the only thing is that i tend more towards staying at home - because of my lack of transportation - because of my health - because i am tired - because i don’t have to explain anything to anyone when i am alone.

and to think that i am an extrovert!

right now even the thought of having to go to work 2/3 times a week scares the shit out of me. i am very excited and enthusiastic to start my new job, but i am also scared of *having* to be *anywhere* at a given time/day every week. for three years, i have not had to be responsible in that way. if i want to sit in front of the computer for 6 hours - i can. if i want to go to the gym at 5:30am because i am still awake - i can. if i am unable to sleep for 3 days and i finally *do* fall asleep - i have the luxury of being able to sleep for 16 hours and not have to set an alarm.

i have grown accustomed to opting out of things. and my friends have grown accustomed to it too. the people around me know that if i am feeling like pooh or if i need to sleep - that i simply won’t leave my house. i forget what it was like to feel obligated to be somewhere.... somewhere other than my bedroom.

so yeah, i don’t get out much. at least i don’t get out as much as i use to. my movements are more calculated/ deliberate. it is a challenge to maintain spontaneous energy in your mind and spirit when your body doesn’t want to follow.... when your body *can’t follow*.