Saturday, February 14, 2004
past lives
In the full realization that the doggie bits are a little bit of a downer (imagine what it's like to live here with me right now, sheesh) I'm trying to balance them out. No, really I am. And, today, thinking of someone and something else I searched the internet and to my (not really) surprise, finding that a site I belonged to when I first got a computer has now been removed from the www, I thought that I would (in the absence of fresh material that's not seriously depressing and/or sentimental and tedious) move some of those things, from those days, over here. Those of you that have managed to stick it out with me, will remember the This Time Last Year post from November (linked funny cause I still can't get this right), well this all comes from the same site. This one comes from that same road trip.Regina, a woman glimpsed
As I sat drinking coffee, something nudged against my shoe. It was a blue crayon that had rolled across the floor and sitting opposite me was a dark-haired girl of about four, holding her hand out for it. I picked up the crayon and handed it to her, smiling at her mother in the polite way of strangers.I glanced into her face and saw her exhausted eyes quickly look down, avoiding mine. It was then that I suffered a jolt of appetite for her, that gripping in the stomach that is desire and maybe something else. In a sudden, helpless way, I stared. She had the same coloring as the little girl. I couldn't have said what her race was, not exactly, but it wasn't white. Dark hair in a ponytail. Eyes the color of Coca-Cola. Skin that startling velvety brown.
She could be anything, this woman. In cleaner clothes - a housewife. In a mink coat - an heiress. In tight jeans and cheap red pumps - a whore addicted to self-destruction.
But the woman sitting across from me was none of these things. She possessed a different story and I felt that immediate compulsion to study and know the face of a stranger. Was this wrong? Don't we all memorize the faces of strangers? Her cheeks rose sharply and her lips were full. Slightly too much so - suggesting imprudence and passion. She was beauty, weary beauty.
She lifted her daughter over into her lap and lightly kissed the child's head. The woman held her daughter with both arms and gently rocked her. She didn't know I watched, leaning over my book. Her face tipped forward in fatigue and, by habit, I thought, she kissed the small, dark head again.
lyric at post:
..it might sound silly, for me to think childish thoughts like these
but I'm so tired of acting tough and I'm gonna do what I please..
unexpected tears
or, Jen's emotions seesaw in the blink of an eye, how fun
I come out of the bedroom and you are standing in the middle of the room with your back to me, gazing at something I can't see or thinking thoughts that I can't ever know. I creep up behind you in a crouch, poke you in your fat little bum and as you spin around to catch me, I move. We are twisting around and around in the middle of the room, chasing each other, and I am laughing at the joy of you.I scoop you up in mid-spin and carry you on my hip over to sit on my lap in the chair. You lift your paw and lay it pad side on my cheek, craning your face towards me to lick my chin. As I rub your belly your paw flexes on my face, gripping like a child, claws digging in oh-so-gently as I hit your favorite spots.
You move your face a little to the left to lick the tears that fall at the oft-lately realization that soon you will no longer be here to love and to laugh with, no longer surprised to be scooped up in mid-thought and danced about the room. I think that although you have caught my tears before, you probably don't understand that lately, they've all been for you. And although I smile at you and kiss your warm black nose, my heart is breaking anew with every day that is left.
brunching
Above cartoon courtesy of youyesyou which I found on someone's blog yesterday and shamefacedly admit I didn't note whose. Apologies!
Tony and I went for brunch at Wildewood this morning. We had a lot to catch up on...as he puts it...."Your life is like getting to ride the rollercoaster at Disneyland and the best part is, you never have to wait in a line up. I like waiting at the bottom for you." He's thinking of buying a place and asked me how much I'd sell the condo for. I think he was saying that if I wanted to pack up and go, he'd buy my place. That's not something I want to even think about and refused to pursue with him, it's far too tempting but it's not something I want to do. Sell, that is. The going part will be decided in the next month and that will be that. No point in dwelling on it.
He thinks I should work on making 'pants' the new Canadian buzzword. lol. It's a thought. Cause I love it. The brits have a way of talking, with their little slangy bits that just fascinates me no end. PB's the best at it = "a pile of noodly wank", tee hee. But even, "I'm arsed." "That's pants." I could go on, and mostly I do, but I'm on a time schedule here. I'm sure Canadians have their own brand of slang that no one gets but you just can't see those things when you're standing in the middle of them. And no, we do not incessently say, "EH?"
H is up and about so we are running an errand to pick up the books eschie left for me, as I've exhausted H's bookcase. Oh, I should call first, I guess. Then she suggested tea at Steeps. Which is a damn lovely idea. And so I'm of to do just that.
lyric at post:
..So, shed your skin and let's get started..
Valentines past
Once a year, I think about Ben.Because today is that day... let me tell you why...
In 1994, I worked for the Fisheries and Wildlife Branch. During that time I had a variety of roles, from Freshwater Licencing to electrofishing the Coquihalla River. Before I left them for good, I worked on a Black bear study up in the remoter regions of Vancouver Island.
We flew up in a little plane, built in the 60's, in which I got to sit in the co-pilots seat. I think the plane only had 8 seats in total and it was a wonderful thing. It had a purple interior and the windows were lined with those fabric pieces that had the 'dingle balls', like in a Cheech and Chong movie. The logging company there gave us a cabin to use as a home base as our study involved following roughly 25 bears with radio collars around all day and cataloguing what they were eating and doing. It was a six day a week, dawn till dusk sort of job in which we alternatively drove around to locate the bears and then hiked through clearcuts and second growth forest to get close to them. (The picture in the gallery entitled 'Albert the bear' I had to take by staking out the tree he walked by every day and steppping out to snap him - dangerous I know, but at the time, I had no zoom lens).
My 'boss', during the journey up, acted a little strangely around me. We stopped at a local bar for a beer and then he drove us to a remote lake to drink a bottle of wine. I remember that lake, it was beautiful and we could hear (I can still hear) the beavers slapping their tails on the water to give the alarm that intruders were near. I remember thinking, "he has the tickets, I'm trapped here, so I better just play along with him." Frankly, I was young and a past experience only served to immobilize me in situations like that.
The first week, I was paired with him every day and he treated me as if I was brought along to be his little girlfriend. He would stop the truck by a river and strip off all his clothes to swim naked while I sat in the truck, frozen and terrified. By the time Saturday night came I was exhausted from lack of sleep (we all slept in tents outside), physically worn down and in a state of despair.
The camp, which was 70% men, had a volunteer fire department who that night were putting on a dance for us. I remember being in the bathroom in the cabin curling my hair and he came up behind me, put his arms around me and kissed my neck. I know now that men like him fully exploit the power they have over young people who don't know how to stand up for themselves and I know now how differently I would have dealt with it if I were the me that I am now, then.
At the dance, he proceeded to get pretty drunk and would follow me around, holding me, insistent that I stay with him. After about an hour of this, a small horde of firemen descended upon me and one, Ben, came to me and said that they had seen what was happening and that they would surround me from then on in.
We all left the dance to go to the firehall to play pool soon after and within about 30 minutes my boss was outside screaming to get in through the door that they had locked.
I stayed there and finished my rotation, never to return to the F&W Branch. I moved into Ben's trailer and was never paired up with my boss again. Once the other people there realized that I was an unwilling part of what had been happening (no, there was no sex involved) they too, kept an eye out and eventually one of them told me that he had a history of doing what he had done to me.
Ben and I did end up having a relationship and although I think that on my part it was to do with being so grateful to him for being my unlooked-for knight in shining armor, for him, it was love.
I remember one night off we drove to the nearest city, which was two hours away, and watched that Arnold movie about him being a spy and Jamie Lee Curtis not knowing...I can't remember the name. On the drive back I was drowsing a bit and I felt the car slowing down on the highway. He whispered my name and I opened my eyes to a cougar standing three feet away from the car, framed in the headlights, staring in at us, before giving us a disdainful flick of his head and moseying across to the other side. It is a beautiful and vivid memory that I hold very dear.
When I went home to the city, we kept in touch and he visited me once in a while. During those visits it became painfully obvious that I was a city girl and he was, well, uncomfortable in my world. He was pretty stubborn though and I think he thought he could change my mind, eventually I would revert back to the girl who had grown up in the forests and the fields.
Once, he took it into his head to buy a horse and one day in the mail, I received pictures. He had named her 'Jenny'.
Every year, on Valentine's Day, from 1995 to 2000, he called me at 12:01 and asked me to marry him.
The next year, he flew in from the remote town that he lives in Northern BC to take me out for dinner and tell me he was getting married. That was the last contact we ever had.
The funny thing is, years later, I am that girl who yearns to live in a cabin, far from the concrete and the people, with books for company and animals to tend. To wake up to the birds singing at dawn and to slip out to the lake in the middle of the night for a swim.
And, although I never would have said yes to him, I miss those Valentine's Day phone calls in a way that makes me as happy as it does sad.
lyric at post:
..i wonder if everything i do, i do instead of something i want to do more..
Friday, February 13, 2004
whew, what a nightmare *that* was
I just dreamt I was watching something called "The Great American Celebrity Spelling Bee". Hosted by someone who looked like Elaine's really stupid boss from the clothing catalogue on Seinfeld. Alice Cooper was there and Norm from Cheers (Norm!). And some bimbo who spelled hirsute, as hair-suit, probably because the definition was "a really hairy person".And then I realized I hadn't dozed off on the couch, but was actually watching TV. In the real world.
God help us all.
lyric at post:
..grab your things, I've come to take you home..
it must be my face
I walk out of the store, murmur "I'm sorry" to the homeless person outside soliticiting money and wander over to untie the dog from her parking meter where she waits patiently. He follows me and vaguely I can hear a womans voice screaming obscenities off to the left somewhere.Unlooping the leash, I hear a voice screech mushily, "A dooooooogg!" and realize that we're not going to get on our way in time. As herself must mentally work up to jumping the moat off the sidewalk to avoid wet feet, I briefly contemplate picking her up and making a dash for it.
Too late.
A very drunk man and woman rush frighteningly in towards us, nattering unintelligibly in the dog's general direction. The woman, who disconcertingly, has a mouth full of blood, insists on knowing her name as the man bends down and proceeds to tell said dog numerous jokes about canines walking into bars.
"Lacey", I say.
"Licey?"
"Lacey."
"Who would name a dog LICEY?" she screams at full volume as a glob of blood escapes from behind her lip and slides down her chin...
I can't be bothered to correct her and instead concentrate on sidling away, fascinated by the path the blood is taking down her front. Licey, of course, is playing the 'starved for affection' role and refuses to lift her ass from the pavement to help me.
Upright again, the man sticks his hand out, "John", he says.
It's not in me to be rude. I shake his hand and tell him my name, whereupon a blood covered hand appears from the other side and nudges me. "Gypsy!" shouts/sprays the woman.
"You should stop by and visit us," smiles John "we live just over there."
He points and I look over, following his finger.
40 feet away is the stairwell up from the parkade of my building.
A couple of days ago we finally had someone clean out the couch cushions and fix the light. I wonder if they appreciate the house cleaning and what they would do if they realized it was me.
lyric at post:
..search for pleasure, search for pain, in this world, now I am undying..
Thursday, February 12, 2004
sassy, instead
on the street where i livelyric at post:
..choices always were a problem for you..
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
away message
I may update the other sections and make some changes (ie :commenting) but no posts for a few days. Wave byebye to enetation and leave me a voice or two from the void - let's drown out the ones in my head, show some love, say something nasty (on second thought, don't do that), sing me a song, make a funny, go find Pob and make HIM be funny, bark like a dog, whatever.My favorite away message stands....
I am out collecting sprinkles for my breakfasty self.
lyric at post:
..dream warm and hard and true
in pieces, in colors, in a cloud of awkward blue..
I tried to beep at myself. That thing never works does it? How annoying. Abject apologies. Added Haloscan - bless them. IMHO (in my humble opinion). Do that. Farkin' eneta...*cough* *cough* Old comments look like PB's below...
PB Curtis @ 4:09AM | 2004-02-11| "Hello. Porny Boy's out being witty and popular right now. Leave a message, and I'll call you back if I can be bothered."
BEEP
click
BEEP
click
BEEP
This is your MOTHER.
BEEP
click
BEEP
click
BEEP BEEP BEEP
note to self
...I don't care if you've quit smoking (again), for the love of god, woman, don't give in to the craving for smoked oysters an hour before midnight.That nightmare sucked.
Monday, February 09, 2004
just an observation, really
I finished all that work at 4:28. Half of the respondents were IT people, the other half, geologists. And it begs to be said/observed/commented on, that the IT guys were monosyllabic and the geologists just chatted on and on. And on. It made my day very long. And to top it off, "MAAAT, I'm done!" "Did you do all of Mark's too?" "Fuck, there's more?"So, back at it again tomorrow. It would be easier if they just let me do the interviewing but some issue about my voice being too low, makes people sleepy and flirty. Maybe I'll get a squeakier girly voice when I quit smoking.
Cause, erm...I slipped this weekend. But, considering that terrifying workout video came today (thanks Chris!) I guess I'll be making another attempt at healthy pinkish lungs.
On the walk home, in between deciding if I should have big honking steak for dinner or a pork-chop, I also got an idea for the piece I think I want to write tonight. Not about cows. We should know there's nothing linear about my thinking. Something gentle, I think, cause I'm a little sleepy myself.
I vaguely recall reading something like.... "If you would drink beer with it, then you can cook it with beer." a couple weeks ago. Now, I don't know how true that is... I distinctly remember having drunk beer with some pretty strange things in my life. Like that chocolate cake at whatshernames wedding. I guess madcow in beer will be on the menu tomorrow.
And this makes me laugh - my media player now lists "I Come From a Land Down Under." gahhhhhhh! *snort*
lyric at post:
..when everyone I know has got a reason, to say, put the past away..
Monday came from out of the blue....
and as H so eloquently put it a few minutes ago....I pretty much bailed on work last week and now I'm hopelessly freaking behind, back around the corner from the rest of the world and desperately searching for someone with a map, compiling IDI's (in-depth interviews) with geologists for upstream oil and gas.
Fack, no wonder I haven't wanted to do it - sounds pretty boring actually. erm...no offense, Accent Boy.
"Listening" has gone back up on the right side now that I've headphoned up lately and started listening to music whilst working, as well as along the bottom a new little thing - the lyric being screeched/sung/crooned/shouted at time of post.
Contemplating toasting enetation and moving to haloscan. Must...follow...the..crowd. That involves some dedicated time though to save out the comments I want to keep. Not sure I have it in me right now. But the thought is percolating.
And, again, I have to say, that the people at work continually suprise me. I had this huge conversation with little SD about realizing lately that nothing big will be the deciding factor on the dog, rather, old age. Meaning, the decision will not be made for me, but by me. And although, I still think I will be putting her down in March, we dug about in the scariness of my psyche about my reluctance around this and guess what popped out? Comfort zone. I didn't use that shitload of money last year and head out to see the world so that I could stay home and spend time with her highness. She's my comfort zone - there's some little part of me that is ensuring I will never go do the things I want to, partly because the feeling is that once I go I'll never come back to Canada. Once she's gone - my commitment is over and there won't be anything holding me back. No more excuses.
And frankly, that scares the shit out of me.
That is all.
No, I lied. It's not. I just went out to drop some film off and was thinking that it would be nice to have no reasons for anything I did. A completely hedonistic view of the world and my place in it. Not that I don't...about some things - things I do because at that very moment I just bloody well want to, with no thought to whether or not I should. But that's mostly inconsequential stuff, that doesn't involve my heart. And although I get the feeling it would make me a terrible person - it would be a relief in a way to say things like - "I put the dog down cause she pissed me off that day." - and then, never give it a second thought. I know people like that. I do.
lyric at post: ..this is how you remind me, of what I really am..
Sunday, February 08, 2004
lost and found
old and updated. constructive things avoidance. one of those surveys.And the winner of my favorite person on the planet today is PB - whom I can't go a day without. For his recommendation for my Valentine's Day this year. That would probably get you laid, if you didn't live in a bog or for that matter, in a blog.
I may say something intelligent .... later. The friend I spoke about before has been given the link so I need to make some effort to be.... something. But I'm going to go lie down first, and maybe it'll pass. I've got something I want to say to myself, but I'm just not sure what it is - I'm too tired to understand the impulse and then put in the work that may require some self editing.
esch - I saw. You're wonderful! I will pick them up this week. Big air kisses.
chrissykins - I looked for you tonight, I wanted to talk and it's been so long but now I'm going to watch a movie. I'll try tomorrow night.
just a little
I said I was a bit homesick this morning.And now that it's later, I realize that's not quite true. Unless you can be homesick for something you've never had.
Because just for a moment there...you smelled and tasted and felt, oh, you felt ...like home.
Even though you're not.
And the piece of my heart that you touched will always be lonely for that which is you.
Safe and happy travels, new friend. Well met.
