March 25, 2006

This morning I took the dog out and walked by the canal.

At the park it was a parade of babies, all walkers, who first stared at my dog and then chased her in clumbsy little steps. This is a real change from when Lola was a young dog and used toddlers as pylons in her own self-created obstacle course.

She makes a good old dog does Lola.

It's the first real day of spring here, and the grass was a dead brown pelt over thick mud. There were seagulls standing gingerly on the wet ice, which didn't crack so much as grow big dark holes that increased until only water shone by the locks.

I thought of this metaphor for life in which people are in the same position as those seagulls. Satisfaction with life being like fragile ice, and despair the cold brown water always hiding underneath. Unlike birds, we don't stand lightly and we don't have wings with which to get away. We land heavily on our contendedness, expecting it to bear all sorts of stresses and expectations. Than we are surprised when fissuresa appear, or a hole grows steadily in our peripheral vision, seemingly un-related to anything we've done to deserve it, but nevertheless totally deadly to our sense of well-being.

I want to learn to be like a bird on my own life. But it's hard not to stand heavily on the people and the hopes I care about the most.

January 5, 2006

PMS again.

...and then all this stuff with a website that is just one htaccess file short of being a giant pain in my whosis.

.. and then I was silly enough to go and read my 2006 predictions and it was something re-cock-ulous like, "...in 2006 and you will master the higher arts of yearning." and I 'm all like; "Wait just a minute there Mr. Hippy-Astrologer, 2005 was all about mastering the yearn. In 2006 I am all abouts the satisfyin'.."

Then my cousin who is visiting my other cousin here in the south shore and going a little stir from the baby-broken car slow-madness of their life msn-ed me and its turns out she is also a taurus, and she pointed out that taurii are always yearning for stuff. So we agreed to be yearn-pals in '06. I am going to send her pictures of expensive hand-bags and she will send me pictures of fly new computer things.

Prior to the yearn -pal resolution I had called my bestie in whitehorse to bitch about PMS and she explained that she was suffering from certain similiar symtpoms and then we bitched about how the Red Tent is truly the silliest pro-rag propaghanda piece of crap ever written. After the hysterical laughter (you know, laughter about crying and screaming - which is must be the most upseting part for the unfortunate victims of pms rages, that afterwards they are like the FUNNIEST THINGS EVER!) had finished, we actually had quite serious discussion, and now I am going to try and awkwardly transition to the contents of that in the next few paragraphs.

But not before saying that you married people are seriously pulling one over on us unfortunate lonely-pants who have to sit around yelling at the dog because there's no-one around on two legs to abuse. Marriage is simply an agreement made so that when we uteri- havers are going freaking mental due to hormones, the non-mental partner can't "just leave the situation" - as they say in hip-hop.

C'mon don't lie to me, it's not for "better or worse" it's "..for better and when one of us has crazy PMS."

That's why dykes wanna get married, it's so no-one can ever say "My girl left me cause I get really shitty periods." No man, we have got the legal leg-hold trap now.

Okay seriously..

We were talking about suffering, and whether it has meaning, because a friend of a friend is going through a major spiritual transformation, and part of that transformation requires an acknowledgemnt, and even perhaps some outright acceptance, of lifes inherent shittiness. It's buddhism, but since this persons transformation is pretty intense, it's buddhism writ large.

This persons attempt to embrace her suffering tweaks me because I think I am so actively pursueing the opporite goal. I mean not to neccesarily suppress it, but to not make it into some fixture or lens through which I view the contents of my life and the world around me.

One summer at Jewish camp I took part in a discussion that was based on the writings of Martin Buber a Jewish Philosopher, the basic premise of the discussion was "Trying to understand the Holocaust or: why do bad things happen to good people."

Now I could get all academic on that statement (are we Jews really good people and by who's reckoning etc..) but the basic premise is, what is the meaning inherent in suffering? Is there even meaning to be found, or is suffering really just evidence that we live in a universe that is not run by some higher law or justice.

It's interesting because I think religion is often called upon to give meaning to the really terrifying events that shape people. I think it's because in my culture (western capitalist), the basic premise is that if there is something to be gained from a bad event or experience, even from suffering, than it is worth something, suffering isn't some terrible useless experience with nothing to offer, it teaches us how to be "better people" or " how to grow". Since I think a western ideology values value above all things, the idea that something might have no inherent purpose in the scheme of things except to make us writhe around in agonies on the floor for weeks on end is simply terrifying. I know I hate that idea.

For example, my friend and I talked about organ donation, how the opportunity to give organs is an act of compassion, often framed as an act of almost divine generosity, but it serves a purpose for the donars family as well, to reduce the senslessness of suffering. In "Twice Dead:organ transplants and the redefinition of death" Margaret Lock sugggests that for families of accident victims organ donation can give meaning to an otherwise senseless tragedy.

Much in the way that organ donation creates meaning, this newly transormed friend has decided (I think) that every terrible thing that befalls her or anyone else and creates suffering is as much evidence of G-ds existence as are experiences of beauty and joy...

That makes me really uncomfortable, and I am still sitting here writing and trying to figure out why.

December 21, 2005

Jacob writes these beautiful things at the right time always - it's quite amazing.

I'll quote it here so I can go back and read it often.

I had forgotten that I had said that modern life was like triage, that we deal with each thing in our lives on a strictly emergency basis, and things that seem less urgent are mercifully shuttled off to the sides. That we are all much too busy and this fact infects the very texture of our consciousness. I had forgotten because somehow, somewhere along the way, I slipped off the fact of all of that and sometimes it seems like I no longer spin. Who (of any substance) speaks of what is the good way to live? (All we get are tepid self-help books the sub-text of which always has something to do with how the individual can survive all the pain, damage and loneliness that capitalism unknowingly inflicts.) But of course we already know what the good way to live is (easier said than done): a life against the triage of small, daily things and towards giving meaning its due, against pushing things to the side and towards bringing that which is essential towards the centre of one's heart. (But perhaps it is better to keep such thoughts to oneself.)

It's funny while I am writing about Jacob I am listening to a song from a mix his sister Ruth made for me.

And they say there's no such thing as community anymore.

December 19, 2005

I am writing Christmas/Chanukah cards and thinking about holidays..
How they are a mixture of very strong love and very strong loneliness.

Here is song by Kim Barlow called up to early flying. It is how I am feeling about now. I know it sounds sad but I am actually maybe nostalgic or something. I am looking forward to seeing my family, and thinking about the deep drifts in the park.

Why do we miss people who made us upset when they were alive. It baffles me.

November 23, 2005

Israel's Sharon pulls out of Likud to pursue peacemaking with Palestinians

"I believe this is an eruption of an Israeli political volcano, and I hope that when the dust settles, we will have a partner in Israel to go toward . . . a final arrangement," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Sharon said he turned his back on former Likud allies who opposed his Gaza withdrawal because life within the party had become "insufferable."

Now the question is; will he get shot too.

Other posts about this subject

November 16, 2005

Damn it Lauren, just when I had settled down to work on my MA app you go off and send me a convocation address by Mark Kingwell - who I don't even like as a philosopher (he he has an agent - what kind of philosopher has an agent, a practical one I guess..) and what's worse - it's a brilliant piece of writing...

pfhh - the pets are sleeping, the houseplants are being attacked by mold, my experiment in making time is not working. I will have to start using the time I have more efficiently I guess. Step one would be not reading 6 page convocations by pop-star philosophers or writing in this giant wind-sock of creative energy.

Here are the best bits of the Kingwell if you are desperate to procrastibate you may well want to read the whole thing yourself. Caveat; he uses the continental 'we' a hell of a lot and sometimes he over-writes. It's still really nice though so bear with him.

Against Smoothness

Is the tactile sleekness of the Nike Air Max or the Macintosh G5 like this? Surely these smartly crafted objects, these lovely consumer confections, are far removed from the lurking, pop-culture dangers of easy fatuity and comforting superficiality? But no, not really. Smooth objects, so seductive in their physical smoothness, so inviting in their suddenly iconic appearance in the novelty-hungry mediascape, are as misleading as any polished locution added to the enveloping language of cliché, any slick addition to the stock of the already-thought. They act to obscure the conditions of their own production, the way they are assembled in sweatshops that are anything but clean or polished. Here, in the small antique factories of what we choose to call the developing world, machines of an outmoded industrial age produce, paradoxically, the cathected objects of our post-industrial desire.

**********************************************

Anything that so thoroughly effaces the signs of its own origins would be worth regarding with a skeptical eye. But the seductions of smoothness go beyond the placeless, spaceless, ethereal arrival of the shoe or the laptop. They embrace the larger value of efficiency, or usefulness, which in our day is most often thematized as even flow: of goods, data, capital or individuals. Things function better, they are more useful and efficient, when they submit smoothly to this flow, when they shed their hard idiosyncratic edges and enter the appropriate streams and channels of transportation without too much trouble or effort. The inner logic of smoothness is not just about reproducibility, with multiple indistinguishable tokens parading before us, different only in their candy colours. It is also about translatability, the idea that anything and everything may be smoothly converted into a metalanguage of useful disposal and thus effortlessly transferred from one place, one data port, to another.

******************************************

Now we see exposed, maybe for the first time, in these clogged streets and broken networks and odd claims and stranded objects, the dirty machinery of our production. The struts and girders of inequality, the cantilevers of effort, are no longer covered by molded-steel cladding or plastic coating. The guts of craft and luck and error, of exploitation and hype and deceit, are now spilling out. And they have their own peculiar kind of beauty. It is not the easy beauty of smoothness but the much more demanding beauty of truth.

**************************************************

Don't just take the rough with the smooth; take the rough over the smooth. Be perverse. It's only by scraping your knuckles and your knees that you will know the truth of your own inefficient, resistant commitment. It is not wrong to derive pleasure from the flush surfaces and inviting curves of the world around us. It is not wrong to regard a limpid sentence or glossy household appliance as something worth having, something worth your caressing glance. But it is wrong to forget, even for a moment, the hidden costs of that achievement. And it is doubly wrong to think that smoothness says all that needs saying when it comes to who we are and what we want — when it comes to who we might be.

October 25, 2005

Had a bad day the other day, dreamt about going to the unveiling and lots of bad things happening, called my dad. He sent the following list in an email this morning.

The title of the email was "some good advice I got from a farmer". That my father gets advice from farmers is no shock to anyone, and it reminds me that on top of our normal immunizations he used to take my brother and I too the local petting zoo to play in the horsebarns. Hoping I suppose, that our proximity to the animals and their excrement would also strengthen our immune systems. The Dutch are firm believers in the restorative/defensive powers of crap. This is also due to the fact that their country is slowly disapearing under a giant pile of the stuff.

All the best advice I ever got was from a farmer -C/O Daddy Flink

* Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.

* Keep skunks, bankers and lawyers at a distance.

* Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

* A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.

* Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled.

* Meanness don't jes' happen overnight.

* Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.

* Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.

* It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.

* You cannot unsay a cruel word.

* Every path has a few puddles.

* When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

* The best sermons are lived, not preached.

* Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen anyway.

* Don't judge folks by their relatives.

* Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

* Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.

* Don't interfere with somethin' that ain't botherin' you none.

* Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

* If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.

* Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.

* The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin'.

* Always drink upstream from the herd.

* Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.

* Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in.

* If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.

* Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.

Black humor about cemetaries - is there any other kind

We finally have date for the headstone - phewf! what a relief, (put a giant set of scare quotes around that please) and it occurs to brother and I while discussing the unveiling logistics, that since we were both in the back of a limo for the trip ou the frst time, and since the cemetary is all the way the F_- out in King city, that we have no idea how to get there.

So little brother says;

"Why don't we just meet everyone at the gates and then give them airhorns - we can make it like a game?"

"Oh yeah - totally, we can hide clues around the headstone 'hint: She's not near the sher shemaim lebavitch plots'.."

"We could even have some cleverly placed garden gnomes holding hints!"

"Yeah and a bunch of black balloons leading up to the plot!"

"Streamers!"

"The gnomes are going to have to be up to cemetary standard or else we will get a fine.."

"You're gross."

"You started it."

.... I am trying to get that little farmer to give some good advice for this issue but I can hear him saying;

"I jes' buried all my wives 'round the apple tree out back. Buried my mother in-law by the potting shed tho' couldn't get her far enuff gone."

October 10, 2005

I took two of those herbal sleep supplements an hour ago so I don't know how much sense this will make.

I went to bed tonight after smoking three cigarettes and crying for my ex-lover. again. I went to bed and I picked up this book Jen lent me months and months ago that I hadn't read because frankly I thought I would find it cloying and stupid.

I picked it up because it was short and because I felt so sad and crappassy I couldn't even manage to read a "real book". I try not believe in strange twists of fate but if ever there was time I needed a spiritual ass-kicking it was tonight.

I am up to page 52 and begging that the herbal sleep meds don't have their intended effect I will probably finish the book tonight, and start from the begining again tomorrow night.

Because I can only suffer so much of my rigorous self-distress.

Dig it.

..and the funniest part, is that the key to this whole thing is humour - to laugh at oneself and to forgive. And I can do both those things. I feel for the first time in ages that something is going to open up again.

I will probably cry again, and for the usual reasons, because I cry all the time, but I think it will feel better, and it will be pain and not suffering which will make all the difference, and I will try to listen to myself when it happens and not keep telling myself the same stories over and over again.

Trungpa Rinpoche once said, "Renunciation is realizing that nostalgia for samsara* is full of shit." Renunciation is realizing that our nostalgia for wanting to stay in a protected, limited, petty world is insane. Once you begin to get the feeling of how big the world is and how vast our potential for experiencing life is, then you really begin to understand renunciation."

One of my habits is to make light of things which come from my heart. I really wish to write some thing acerbic about how ned must be reading this and thinking I have gone off my nut...not the first urban jew to read a piece of buddhist literature and think they have found the answer to their problems.

So I am going to say it this way, and somehow between the lines there is a truth, about how uncomfortable I am trying to write this, and how happy I am to be reading something that sounds like real wisdom, and how thankful that I chose to read this book tonight of the seven I could have chosen from the bedside table.

Oh and Jen, thank you. I don't think Sandra had any idea what she was doing when she got you to be my mentor, you are certainly that. I think I might not be the excellent horse, nor the good horse, or even the lazy horse. I am the bad horse, and you are the best.

*the vicious cycle of existence - the round of birth death and rebirth- which arises out of ignorance and is characterized by suffering; in ordinary reality, the vicious cycle of frustration and suffering generated as the result of ones karma (actions)

There is no if/or
There is only letting go of it.

September 20, 2005

I was chasing mice tonight.

That's my new phrase to describe tasks as mundane as fixing errors in french in web texts that had apparently already passed a final edit.

I am not complaining, no way. I love making good use of the find and replace option.

More important NEWS

I am trying to be better at promoting myself. See that use of bold and caps.. yeah uh huh.

So to that end, this Friday September 23rd from 2.15 - 3.15 I will be participating in around table discussion on Blogs as Art at the conference Artivistic:

Heres the address:

22-23-24 sept | Quartier general du colloque _ homebase of conference
loft Eva B
:: 2013 St.Laurent, 2e etage / 2nd floor, Montreal
514.849.8246
http://www.eva-b.com/location.htm

Here is the program for the rest of the day. It looks pretty interesting...

***** Found the best song at Laurens today***

I borrowed her Great Lakes Swimmers CD. Actually Ned already played me this song once but I was listening to it on shitty laptop speakers and didn't get the full effect. The song is called Moving Pictures Silent Films. I will link to it following this blurb.

Don't listen to it if you are feeling too happy about things. It will be so much better if you are feeling a little like you feel those days you are wandering around by yourself in a vacant lot listening to headphones ...

Moving Pictures Silent Films

nb; I just removed a whole lotta text about parents dying etc.. because it sounded fake and it was.

There are some feelings that I just can't bring myself to blog and the ones I feel when I am listening to this song are of that type.

Oh here's the website : very pretty

Great Lake swimmers

Here are the lyrics to the song, don't trust me trust the great lakes swimmers.

Oh wake me please when this is over
Oh when the ice is melted away
And the hunger returns
I will feel the same but older
And I'll be twice the man that I thought I was

Where have you been?
And what have you done?

I've been under the ground
Reading prayers from this old book I found
Under the ground
Saving it up
And spending it all
On moving pictures
Silent films
Moving pictures
Silent films

Oh is this the dream I've been saving?
Oh where the heart beats slower and slower
To almost nothing
Almost nothing
Almost nothing

I took care for longer
At least something beautiful
Out there in the spotlight
But turned around softly
Turned around squinting

It's all they heard was headlights
And then the truth
The truth was unbearable
Oh and iminent
Bearing down on these two shadowed animals

Called painting a dotted line
Called painting a dotted line

Where have you been?
And what have you done?

I've been under the ground
Reading prayers from this old book I found
Under the ground
Saving it up
And spending it all
On moving pictures
Silent films
Moving pictures
Silent films

August 24, 2005

yep

okay, okay...

I am thinking of the veda hille song;

Where am I from

Every cloud has a silver lining
It isn't true
where I am from
every cloud has another one behind
and then there's you
with whom I curl so well
where am I from?
the past it fades I find..

Into each life must fall some rain,
now that is true
where I am from
you love the rain or move away
which i didn't do
I love the rain where I am from

.....every chord has a silver-lining.

which is really a lot worse than I feel.

I rebuilt all my partitions this morning to try and give deskie a little TLC and somehow that erased my i-tunes playlist information and the database file that had stored the music. The music is still there I just had to go find the folder and re-import the works, but all my playlists are gone, including one called OUI which was exactly that.

Of course this feeling of thwarted memory is really not just about play-lists of course not. Playlists and the songs that occupy them are an exceelent metaphor for the days and the months the one listens to a certain set of songs, and the reasons why, and the people you gave certain songs to, and the reasons why.

August 18, 2005

I should add garden as a category I think.. later.

My categories are staring to resemble my closet, which resembles my head, which resembles these catgories.

I am going to eat breakie, and visit the Montreal botanical gardens and maybe just maybe go to value village and get grossed out touching other peoples footware. (it's a passion).

But I wanted to mention that I am officially having a blogcrush on Girlbomb

Like the one I had on Rabbit a while ago, now it's all girlbomb all the time.

Eat it up. I am going to look at flowers.

July 1, 2005

Here

I agree with this wholeheartedly. It's something I have thought about this year a whole bunch.

Also read a great phrase in a book meant for someone else that I am sneakily reading before I give it to them.

Her forlorn gamble paid off.

That's a 10 on 10 of writing. I have often wondered what three words could describe my life up to this point, and I think " a forlorn gamble" pretty much does the trick.

Also, why do vegetable crispers exist? Do they exist so I can go out and pay good money for vegetables, put them in the crisper, and then promptly forget about them until they are nasty suparating little piles of organic waste?

Would not "vegetable-prison" or legume-oubliette be a better name for the crisper..

We live in a monsoon-stricken town full of angry stupified people with sweaty backs.

June 8, 2005

Preface

Trying to write about some giant revelation is hella-intimidating. More so than trying to write a blog post. I feel like I should have heralds with golden trumpets saying read this whole long thing you'll be happy you did it's really imporatant that you not just read the excerpt - 'cause i know its a doozy but I am getting to something I promise....

Consider yourself warned. I am going to do my best, this a first attempt at a full blown blog essay.

Start here

Jane lent me this fascinating book called Women Girls and Psychotherapy: Reframing Resistance. The resistance being discussed in the title is adolescent girls typical resistance to developing a therapeutic relationship. Although resistance in adolescence goes well beyond well-intentioned therapists and embraces all aspects of a girls world, including her teachers, parents and other authority figures.

I know this. I was an adolescent girl who resisted therapy.

When I was a teen-ager for a variety of good reasons, my parents sent me to visit a couple of psychiatrists and one psychologist. None of whom ever managed to get through the giant wall of resistance I had built to hide myself from whatever help they had to offer.

I distinctly remember saying to one doctor; "You don't give a shit if I feel better about myself because then OHIP will stop paying you - it's in your best interest that I keep... " doing whatever it was I was doing at the time that gave my family cause for concern.

I also just finished reading Acquainted With the Night : A Parent's Quest to Understand Depression and Bipolar Disorder in His Children which offered a harrowing account of the authors 14-year-old daughters experiences with depression.

"Reframing Resistance" has a really interesting point to make about teenage girls and the way they dissimulate, lie, and cheat their way out of receiving help for their problems which are legion and include such gems as eating disorders drug abuse, dangerously risky sexual behaviour, cutting, and shop-lifting to name but a few of the well-known ones.

The book suggests that teen-age girls are not resisting the possibility of being healthy strong individuals through their desperate acts, or their refusal to be helped. They are resisting what to them feel like set of false premises about what it means to be a female, and also what it means to build healthy honest relationships.

May 19, 2005

Sometimes a word written by itself stops making sense. Like calloused up there. It looks nonsensical without a context.

I am reading a book called "I am a Red Dress", I thought it was a memoir about mothers and daughters so my reasons for choosing it were obvious, but it turns out that it's about a queer performance artist coming to terms with her families legacy of violence and incest.

So suddenly it's a lot more serious then I thought, and intense, and reading it has been great but also incredibly difficult and sometimes I have to stop just to take a breather.

The author is from Toronto, her name is Anne Camilleri, and if you have a chance either go see her (I imagine it would be great) or read this book, which is also fantastic.

It's interesting, as always, to hear about a Toronto I didn't grow up in (working-class Italian). Her world was the whole area around Dufferin and Keele. Mine was north of of Eglinton from Bathurst east to Bayview.

A tangent :::

It would be really fun to build a literary map of Toronto. Walking through the cities many distinct neighbourhoods and saying; Here is the place that Shyam Sevadurai is talking about in "Funny Boy": This is the school that Susan Swan called Bath Ladies College in "The Wives of Bath": Here is Margaret Atwoods ravine, that sort of thing. A similiar map of childrens fiction would work too, I remember the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) featured prominently in many of the books I read while growing up.

Anyways, file under ideas for future projects, or writing exercises.

Here is a quote from; "I am a Red Dress". I don't have any idea how to introduce it.

I am hungry for a world where we love on another and ourselves, where we do not vest ouselves in beliefs that push some down and float others to the top. I 'm hungry for others who have lived this scourge and dare to want much more then simply getting by. We are not meant to be squeezed down, to be fearful - none of us, and one is too many.

I cling to hope because it's the only thing that makes sense. Hope is not an idea removed from our lives; hope has calloused hands, is hard at work.

May 15, 2005

So because the Flink is dedicated to Janis this summer, I put up some nifty kindof psycedelic wallpaper thanks to Squidfingers. I am listening to my friend Ciscos music. The song is called Mow Down Mr Wrong Hoedown. I want to know, Cisco do you love the magnetic fields? This is the third time I have listened to this song.. it's pretty great dude. If anyone wants to listen it's here.

Lyrics of course;

They say the grass is greener till you have to mow it down, so raze the two-inch forest - stake your tennis to the ground. Cover it in concrete, cover it in snow. You took a showhorse and you made him plow. You took a showhorse and you made him plow. You took a damn good man and you made him crazy. Cover it snow, then cover it in "I don't know."

I was riding my deteriorating bicycle and stopped at a light when I noticed a mom standing with her daughter. The daughter was probably about ten years old, she had some chubbiness which meant a growth -spurt (remember those -what an awful way to descibe it) was not far off. She had on pink pedal pushers and a white tee-shirt with a palm tree and a knot on the side. She was wearing long red feather earrings and her running shoe clad feet were about two sizes to big for her body like a puppies.

She was doing a dance for her mother, waving her arms in a beyonce -esque way and a short hop skip step, shaking her hips a little and stepping forwards, earrings swinging. Her mom watched her, and I realized that part of love is just paying attention.

This blog is also dedicated to that girl, and to dancing for your mother, or for anyone for that matter, and not being afraid.

May 11, 2005

what stay up late?
me
working on a website
who has an existential crisis about the internet?
only if you don't need the money
uh-oh more attachment
I stared a squirrel straight in the eye today
maybe she was my mother
if my mother came back as a squirrel
it would confuse the whole family
I forgot to eat again
and if I fall asleep hungry I will dream
perhaps poorly
and
I will wake up starving

May 7, 2005

"Hey snow white,
it's gonna be alright/it's gonna be alright....
How can you win some?
When the company goes public,
you've got to learn to love what you own.

- destroyer

I think I may have already blockquoted this song once on theflink. But i guess its always worth saying it again. Steven and I had this disagreement a while back about what Dan Behar is singing in this song. I always thought it was "You've got to learn to love what you are." And steve would always say; no dude it's you've got to learn to love what you own..

So I just checked my cd case liner (weird it was, to be looking at my cds again.. It's been so long, I felt like they were staring at me with jewel cases full of accusation.. they looked so old, so beaten down by the march of progress, so jealous. Gary Numan and Chris Knox leaning together neglected. Thinking; she never even looks at us anymore... Anyways, I digress) okay the liner-notes corroborate Steves assertion - but I don't care I like this idea better "You've got to learn to love what you are".

Even if what you are reaches up and bites you on the ass some days, she says smiling to herself.

I played badminton today. I forgot how graceless a sport it is, but also oddly loving. It's hard to be competitive when the competitions object is called "a birdy". Although I suppose if we had called it by it's proper name; a shuttlecock, we might have found it in ourselves to be a little more aggressive.

I sat on the balcony and watched my patch of sky. Which is circumscribed by the roofs and wires of st henri, turn a richer shade of blue than I thought possible, jet-streams making gradual white stripes across maretails of orange cloud.

I thought for an hour or more that I had never cared passionately about anything only about people, and thus was always dissapointed. In fact had never even cared about myself in a passionate way, only ironically or like I didn't ask to be born here, or like this. Tolerating myself like a room-mate.

You know in the play Peter-Pan, when the fairy Tinker-Bell is dying. Peter Pan asks the audiance to believe in fairies because if no-one believes in her Tinker Bell will die.

I think I have Tinker Bells problem with my self-esteem. Except I can't keep getting audience participation. It just doesn't work. So now I have this little phrase which is basically "clap if you believe in fairies" which both marks me as an unrepentant homo and a lover of fantasy novels I guess. But it's also a pretty good stand-in for any other hokey line I could use to remind myself that the only audiance I need to please is the audiance of one, sitting on my balcony with me watching the heavens make beauty for us all.

OH YEAH! and.. while at a sort of not great play last night I heard some Janis Joplin during intermission. I haven't really thought about Janis Joplin since I was 14. I had her greatest hits cassette which I picked up at the markham flea market with Sarah Kligman in grade 9 or something.

Of course cassettes are like so old, so I have no idea where that is anymore. But when I remember what music I listened to in my youth I never think of Janis Joplin, which is perfect because that means I can listen to it now, and appreciate for the first time the fact that she has an amazing voice, was a total rock star in an environment that privilaged male rockstars over girls, or at least expected the girls to be folk singers- which she emphatically wasn't, and that she is the archtype of making a big heavy noise with your bleeding soul.

Officially this summer - Theflink is dedicated to Janis Joplin.

May 4, 2005

I am at blue monday I have laundry next door washing itself. I am multi-tasking, wicked.

Okay I am multi-procrastinating right now, because I should be working on a logo.

I am feeling wicked funny too, but not funny ha, funny oh. Don't know why. could be so many different things. Still worrying that strength weakness thing, like a bad itch, and also a new one about how to not feel lonely when I know lonely is a product of something inside me, and not actually a manifestation of not being loved or not being lovable, it feels stupid to even be writing that.

I should be writing only good news here so people will see my life as I wish them to see it. Talk about how I am working on a flyer for Project 10 an excellent group that provides safe and supportive resources for youth who are exploring their sexuality and gender options.

All I can think about at the moment though, is how hard it is to make reasonable boundaries. That lately I have felt like a burden and like I do nothing but speak to people and not listen and that the speaking is this compulsive act because if i am not talking people will cease to see me or care or something. That by flapping my lips somehow my problems will grow wings and fly away from me. Which isn't true at all, and certainly the problem of lonliness which is bone-deep isn't going to be solved by months of verbal hemmoraghing at the expense of my dear friends patience and my own self regard, and you my readers too, I imagine.

Okay it's 20 minutes later and I am feeling better thank goodness, the sun came out my laundry was atotal rip-off I sang some Lauryn Hill real loud in the park on my way to the bank to pay the highway robber laundramat..

In other words, enough with the hemoraghing already you can't even spell the damn word.

The cool thing about the p-10 flyer is that it is going to challenge my design skills and newly aquired (or aquiring) social-marketing approach because if I remember correctly, kids are fairly sensi about issues like their sexuality etc.. So the first idea that the coordinators gave me was to make the flyers small enough to jam in a pocket very quickly. Also, the current flyer has the words In! Out! in white word bubbles on the front. Graphically its very compelling, however I think if I were a shy 16 year-old walking into the nurses office and trying to fade into the background, I wouldn't go near a flyer with such an obviously sexual connotation.

I feel like I am finally flexing some social marketing muscle, which is making me really happy, putting into practise some of the stuff I learned at school but for real. It's pretty invigorating and I am glad for the opportunity to help Tynan and Sarah and the rest of the folks at P-10.

Re : just cause it is like an itch , the issue of loneliness. I often forget that the only person who can stop my lonely feeling is me. Which sucks sometimes but actually contains the seeds of a really gritty redemption. Lately I have felt like I am growing a spine, and it's not a feeling like a steel pillar is being rammed down my shirt instead its slow and sandy like the development of igneus rock under my skin. Pebbles and gravel of singular experiences (the sun, the park, lauryn hill, ned saying" you are good" today out of nowhere) collecting in the small of my back and hardening every day in tiny stages. I guess sometimes ther are avalanches where I am spineless for a while, and i forget it's only temporary and then I shoot my mouth off.

okay I have to go pay the crooks to dry my clothes "all the way dry"

Show me forgiveness
For having lost faith in myself
And let my own interior up
To inferior forces
The shame is endless
But if soon starts forgiveness
The girl might live

thanks bjork

May 2, 2005

In the category of never before done by yours truly, the province of Ontario is to my right, I have a lily in a pot by my feet and a crying 1 year old to my left.

I have been travelling for an hour. The train is whistling, which I hear over my headphones. Daddy is hugging the one year old, who has stopped crying and is sticking his fingers in Dadas mouth.

Now I am in a white birch wood. There are large pools of water at the base of the trees. The nimbus around the distant trees is a reddish green, hard to describe, red oustide with an overlay of pale sap green.

The sun is out again, some skycrapers in the distance are killing the effect. Southern Ontario is certainly not a pristine wildernes.

Here's something I wrote before I realized that because I got bumped to first class I would be able to blog. This is from just outside Toronto:

The train is two feet away from the edge of the lake. Waves are drifting up against the window. The jetties are arabesques of coloured pebbles in silver water, the lifeguard chair just a reminder of verticality and chemical tones. Destroyer is on my headphones, the guitar crunches kindly over smoothness in my spirit. In an instant the trees mask the beach and than part to reveal largish suburban homes one after another in rows of ugly progress and possession. I think about how much happier people would be if they had quantitively more desserted beach to stare at then tract housing.

I feel so weird. Usually I just stare out the windows of trains wishing I could describe the scenery/ my emotions of going and coming and the fricking toronto to montreal corridor in an art project or something... If I had a digital camera I could be doing this for real....

but I can't produce and view/process at the same time it's schizophrenic. it was better writing into my notepad.

Also it is better if there are some places (like trains) where I am not able to stick my head in a 14 inch monitor and ignore the outside world. I already feel like a byte travelling on a tube in a packet full of information - I don't need this much motion.

Well still, I did it.

Now I am going to stare at the landscape and listen to the baby, who is making little blrrrblrr noises and spitting out his dum dum over and over.

Oh we just passed some crufty looking white cows with curling fleecy hair on a high bank close enough to the train that we could have have touched and high enough up that they staring down at the passengers. The sun is slanting over everything now and the colours are crisp and direct. The cows were lit from the left and they had a glow to them. To be honest, I have never thought of cows as being noble before... The clouds are high cumulous. Baby is freak out city, hates the dum dum, hates the soft book, likes the little yellow dragon with blue plastic loops to play with.

Southern Ontario is never really name-dropped as a scenic drive, but it's good to watch evening fall from a train. All natures colours are coreographed by motion, lime green and yellow fields with fresh black mud fade into a burgundy and navy sumac grove, an aluminum outbuilding turns mint-green with the skys reflection which cleans the pallette a little. One shed is contructed using part of an ancient sign, the words "Fall Caring" painted in ornate typography.

It's been raining often, so small lakes have been deposited in all the fields, and all the groves are blooming out of swamps for the time being. I see a piicnic table on an atoll under a stand of birch. The air doesn't get mistier in the evenings in ontario it gets clearer and clearer and then everything turns blue and then it's dark.

Okay I am stopping this, real-time blogging from a moving train. I wish I could be saying bllrblrbrll over and over again, drooling, while sitting on someones lap. Is it wrong to be jealous of the attention babys get, just for having big eyes and no teeth. I really like the brrbrlr noise, basically it's a very melodic raspberry.

April 27, 2005

I woke up this morning thinking; Its time to re-read The Color Purple and Temple of my Familiar again.

I think I have read both books about 4 times each. Because the lessons they teach are really important, and I think periodically I forget them.

The lessons are simple ones actually and repeated often enough; Don't give up on people, don't be afraid of forgiveness, embrace the past but don't re-live it, be patient, learn to strike a balance between loving other people and loving yourself. There are probably others but those are the ones I need to be remembering right now.

I don't want to go into detail about the subject matter of the two books. Basically its the story of families and people who love each other and the fact that histories personal and cultural have an incredible impact on how each of us learn to love each other in our own ways and every time I read the books I end up scratching my head and saying how did I forget that lesson again?

March 30, 2005

I am not really in the mood to write this. This blogging thing I have decided, is a technique I m using to avoid pursuing other, more rewarding avenues of self -expression.

That's right Cisco. I think its time I explored: On Expressing Your Personhood Through The Magic of Pastels

As I write there is paint drying (slowly slowly) to my left.

This morning I ran out of suger and had to pour cafe latte into my suger bowl and swish it around some and then I had to use maple syrup to make up the difference. I think I should build a giant easy chair stuffed with suger and call it "sweet and lazy".

Last night. my moms ghost arrived and sat on the bed with my cat, who was purring, and made me sad. I started to think about the fact that we need to order a headstone soon because apparently headstones are not like pizzas and you can't just order them and have them arrive in half an hour all piping hot from the stoneyards. So, if the family wants one before august its time to put pen to granite and start commemorating.

Of course this is not my decision it belongs to the whole family. What follows are just my ideas and not representative of what other people who loved my mother are thinking of. Also a short note on tradition. Since we are jewish and my mother was buried in a Jewish cemetary we have an obligation to put up a headstone and do and unveiling of the grave before the anniversary of her death.

So lying in bed with cat and ghost I was thinking of putting some lyrics from Leonard Cohen on the headstone because mom loved his music and bought me my first Leonard Cohen cassette when I was 14 or so at the Yorkdale Sam The Record Mans.

Then I had one of those intense body memories, of sitting in the car with my mom, on a new spring day, much like the ones we have been having recently here, her hand is on the back of my head sort of stroking the nape of my neck and we are listening to Laura Nyro singing; "Put on your high heeled sneakers, 'cause we're going out to night.."

I wish it weren't terribly innapropriate to use that line because if there was ever anyone who enjoyed the best parts of her life in high heeled sneakers it was probably her.

I was going to follow up with some of my moms other favorite artists and my car memories of their music, 'cause that's how I fell asleep, composing a mental mix-tape called 'music my mother drove too'. but I can't decide if that's just going overboard. Besides she didn't have exhaustive taste, theres's only about 4 artists.

Maybe I will make the mix in webjay and then post it. I don't know how I am going to find anything by Nana Mouskourie (especially since I can't spell it) or the song, "My Louis" by Neil Diamond though, and those are essential.

A quick image of the Neil diamond memory. It was my favorite car song for a while. I used to think I was "very cool" when we listened to it, and my mother and I would sing along;

"Hey my cherie
If I take you home
Will you make me plead?
My sweet amour
If I come to close
Will you close the door?"

My mom had this crazy black hair that would push out the window if it was open..and we would be wiggling around in our bucket seats snapping our fingers etc..

March 23, 2005

I like this, I have grief counselling on Tuesday and then on Wednesday I read rabbit blog and something wise generally gets planted front and centre in my brain causing my left eye to twitch with the profundity of it all.

Sorry, that sounded snide. I am trying not to sound snide but its always my first reaction to having a cry-ey feeling in my throat, and I am in a public space and someone is right behind me so I am not going to let it all hang out right now.

So here is the context;

well no, here's the link;
For the widows in paradise

..and here's the context;
Worthwhile digression #1 ** Nota bene this is an excellent, excellent entry. If it weren't so long ( and my grief counsellor weren't so opposed to tattoos). I would recommend tattoo-ing it somewhere on your body where you can read it without getting a crick in your neck.

and here's some more;

Something more comfortable

For people who can't/won't/haven' the time. Here's a summary,

This guy who has hard luck in love finally gets to be with the woman of his dreams after 15 years of crossed wires. Then she gets cancer, than she dies, AFTER THREE WEEKS...

He's been on a road to getting his head straight anyways before this whole badness happened. So despite his grief and rage, he's trying to cope with the black humour burlesque of his life. However, following christmas his disabled elder brother gets a brain tumour the size of a golf ball, and dies IN THREE WEEKS.

Yeah, so Rabbits been a spiritual advisor for this guy, and here's is what is going down on the blog (and if you have read all my links you can skip this)

rabbit;
Lately, I think I'm translating sadness - which is a constant, in some form, no matter how happy you are - into 1) anger, 2) irritation, 3) nitpicking, 4) road rage expressed through spitty, unoriginal outbursts like "Cocksucker." and "Fucking idiot." as opposed to livelier statements like "Ah, very nice. Way to drive, chumpy!" or "No, you first! I insist! Tonight is your night to shine!" 4) alienated feelings, but the flat, colorless kind that don't lend you any real insight into anything. I'm experiencing sadness only occasionally, through 1) sad dreams, 2) sad songs, 2) the low moments on "Deadwood." But those experiences aren't really sinking in - they're fleeting, consumed like other transient bits of media.

I'm blocking it all out. And that's a pretty normal state of things for most people. You can't always feel everything the right way - there is no right way - or the healthiest or most complete way. When you're sad you forget that happy is an option. When you're happy (relatively), you block sad out of the frame.

Blocking sad out of the frame sucks, though, because then your negative feelings take ugly, annoying forms, like self-hatred and moodiness and depression. Comparing rich, deeply-felt sadness to irritation and vague depression is like comparing a heartbreaking Italian opera to the hollow sound of nails screeching across a blackboard.

So. When you go to Europe and contemplate an odd, lonely new life or a sudden, untimely demise, when you wander around nibbling on really good cheese and tasting good wine and thinking it's all bullshit because your woman is gone and your brother is gone and who the fuck will be the next to go anyway?, what you're actually doing is exploring a warmer palette of colors to paint with for the rest of your life. You're ensuring that good will be beautiful and so will bad, that tiny little things will always matter way, way too much and music will hit you in the gut and the sky will look very very different from day to day.

So I don't know.. part of me wants the opposite of that, and Modest Mouse sums it up when they sing;

"If life isn't beautiful without the pain/then I guess I'd rather not see beauty ever again."

Or maybe it's this; - I don't want to cry to sad songs, I want to be stoic, and I don't want to "lean into it," I want it to leave me alone sometimes.

But I was talking to a friend the other day who has a black belt in emotional restraint and I said I thought my problem was a lack of emotional control and she said she thought that people should feel whatever they were feeling - regardless of the outcomes. So maybe there is a certain grass is greener here for all of us, whatever we do we never feel its the right way to be doing it.

Or here's an idea...

Riffing on this "okay to have my feelings whatever they happen to be"; I think I conflate having feelings with enacting them on other people and on myself.

Ie; people can be sad, I can be sad and not *have to* hurt myself for it or because of it.

My mom, could have been sad and chosen not to hurt herself because of it but she couldn't make that choice for some reason that I will never really understand (I don' think). Which kills me, she could have had depression and made a choice to stop hurting herself for feelings of sadness she had very little control over and she couldn't and not surprisingly I couldn't do it for her either.

And now, I am realizing that I think I do the same thing she did to a little lesser degree.

woah.

Niki said 27 is a hard time because the astrological signs all make full circle and you are sitting under your birth sign again - which apparently is very sucky. I don't feel sucky (precisely, I feel like I just got this glowing blue sword and sometimes I accidentally cut myself with it) but I wish sometimes I could stop thinking about this shit - you know a week-end break from a psychic break.

March 22, 2005

Yeah really - now that the treadmill has worn off I am just tired.

I did want to mention that I am reading Larissa Lai's book "when fox is a thousand," and over my bagel this morning I read;

"You will get what you want, but you will be sorry you wanted it."

It was said as a prophecy oddly enough.

An excellent definition of regret to boot.

It made me think of a bunch of things but the hardest one to swallow was that when my mother was killing herself in front of my eyes, I often thought about how much easier it would be for everyone if she just stopped being. What did I know about death? Now that she's gone I could easily take more midnight calls, and her stupid _f*ing high heels even though her hips weren't evenly balanced anymore.

In a larger sense it makes me think of my carefully nurtured north american mores and how I personally don't take much time to think about the outcomes of my desires, be they material or social or personal.

My friend once read a book about how to get rich young, or save lots of money, or be a happy self-employed person, or something... A book that came from an aisle called financial self-help I imagine. But anyways, the first rule in the book was never do anything that will take a significant amount of your time, buy anything, or invest in anything without thinking about it first for a week.

After that week ask yourself again, do I really want to; own that thing, eat in that restaurant, participate in that event, join that small cult-like association, be that persons friend, et infinitum... if the answer is still yes, than do it.

So my new task is to try and give myself a week for decision making. Testing my desires agains the reality of the objective result.

I rode my bike today for the first time in 2005, halle- hella - lujah. I love the springtime.

March 14, 2005

That's a bit of a dirty title isn't it?

I am a little tipsy and mighty full of perogie, but before I pass out I wanted to make a shout out to the fabulous ladies I just ate dinner with.

It is easy to forget the power of conversation, crepes and complicated narrative jokes that go on for way too long.

Thanks to Mk for hosting us tonight.

I sometimes think women don't network half enough. We don't realize the potential inherent in our relationships. And though I certainly don't want to mine friendships that are developing for a feeling of agency and power... wow, we could take the kind of good feeling in that kitchen tonight and attach it to a project and we would kick some ass.

So what's first?
the emo-repo company
or le sexy perogies?

++++++tomorrow+++++++

Speaking of MK

I didn't post this right away because I thought it was too personal, but Mk just sent me an article (see link above)from newsweek magazine about how the blogosphere is shockingly white and male, I askd her if I should associate that perception/article with my short drunken girl-power rantry (like an entry only rantier - ha) and she said yes...

One mea culpa. I can't believe *Newsweek* would be complaining about too much white-male-ness. There's a little calling of the kettle black going on here methinks, as newsweek scrambles to keep its part of the market share of web readers.

I think one is officially an office nerd if blogging after 5:00pm instead of just closing the computer and getting the heck out of dodge.

ps: Ned suggestd that rather than calling our dinners snatch supper we call them pot-snatch? whats the verdict.

March 9, 2005

So I have to take a hiatus from this blogging schtick.

All I can write from now until the croci (plural of croscus maybe?) are pushing their wee heads through damp soil is Marketing the Arts material, and all I can think about is web integration, contracts, and my Organizational Behaviour exam which comes up in 4 weeks.

I'll give you a list of things to do, so you don't *die of boredom* without me (ha ha) here are some suggested activities, see you all in April..

What to do:

Read: The way the Crow Flies, by Anne Marie MacDonald
Don't read: Anything with "interactive marketing" or "e-business" in the title.

Listen to: Music that makes you want to dance and sing while cooking. Suggestions: Al Green, Modest Mouse, Jean Grae, 50 cent, Paul Simon
Don't Listen to: Anymore of those distructive urges, spring is very close now, just hold on.

Eat: Some really good food prepared by someone who knows what they are doing and thank them for their efforts.
Don't Eat: Your words, ever.

Drink some: Really excellent german wine with a yellow label, made from the only white grapes that develop tannins. I forget what the wine is called though; Gehemscheminer hogel (or something) pointy yellow bottle, tastes like ambrosia, goes really well with scallops or shrimp salad.
Don't drink: Boreal Cuivree (strong beer) unless you really don't care for your stomach lining in the slightest.

Do: Listen to your friends tell wacked out stories about their own life and its wild adventure.
Don't: Waste any time worrying about your own.

Bye.

For those of you that need more...

There was some really important lesson last night at the gym while I was doing sitting ups with a weight on my chest (literal). Something about how, it's not going to ever work for people to share their feelings in the hopes of developing catharsis thorugh explanation( think Oprah, think Dr. Phil, think of the last time you knelt by the phone with a hanky up your nose saying " it hurts..." to someone hoping they had the power to make you feel better.) Sometimes it's just a feeling and only one person has it and it cannot be transferred onto someone else as a way of mediating its intensity.

I can't believe it took me 27 years to figure that out. I feel like I am being emotionally house-broken these days.