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[Jul. 10th, 2008|12:05 am] |
My mother used to work for a now-defunct company that manufactured some of (I think?) the world's finest pool and snooker tables. In that time we amassed a pretty impressive collection of cues and other random pool shark accessories - even more impressive looking in the home of a family that can't make a single straight shot.
So I'm terrible at the game - no shameful secrets here - which doesn't explain why I spent maybe forty per cent of my summer nights in the eleventh grade sneaking into this nearby snooker club to spend some embarrassing games with older friends. In between scratching (both in play and on the table), jumping (same deal here...) and round after round of this addictive, syrupy Portuguese guavadrink, I never got any better.
Actually, I've found that it's hard to measure any level of improvement in anything I do. It's not that I don't believe it's possible, I just have a hard time believing it when I hear it from others.
So what have I got to tell myself?
Funny thing about copy editing: you've done your best job when others don't notice what a good job you've done. |
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| Play |
[May. 5th, 2008|10:27 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  enthralled | ] |
So I flew in. A favour from a friend - given with that kind of casual selflessness, a real gem.
So we drove the rest of the way. Across highways, behind trucks with bible bumper stickers, trailors of horses and shit-stained piglets, through pit stops with glaring state troopers. And began to wonder (read: feel really strange) about where the hell we were. Especially after the "ABORTION IS FOREVER" billboards, with pictures of smiling grandmothers holding hands with smiling children.
So we got there, and knew it because of the smell of salt and row after row of houses built on stilts. I walked under them, through them and straight to the beach, and stayed on the sand (or at least in my mind) till it was time to drive back - through it all again.
Some things that only happen in baby boomer target market movies I got to do:
1. Wrap myself up in a blanket with a sippy cup of wine to talk with h about.....paint and words?!?!?!
H: This is my favorite place in the world. I know now that wherever I live, I want to live by a body of water.
c: Isn't Toronto technically by a body of water?
H: I can be myself here.
c: Which is?
H: FUCK!
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c: It's not that I think I've chosen the wrong study. Journalism is still writing right?
H: So why literature? Why teach?
c: Because I want to be a writer.
H: Which is?
c: FUCK!
2. Collect seashells I knew I'd never bring home. And then did.
3. Stand at the salty lips of a wide, wide ocean and think about how when I was five someone taught me to swim in a different one. And wonder where her ashes are right now. And then swim again, only to get the feeling that I was being hit in the back, legs and stomach with invisible basketballs.
4. Wake up one morning to find dead, basketball-sized jellyfish all over the beach.
5. Read Vonnegut and Morrison on the sand at sunset with a pair of glasses and a water bottle. Old couples with dogs walk by and wave, nod, think I'm too young for this sort of thing and hope I'm not with the group of cronies in the house next door making all that drum, bass, and pot clashing racket with music and cooking.
Which I was. I've been on vacations before. But not like this! |
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| naked if i want to |
[Mar. 7th, 2008|12:27 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  full | ] |
| [ | music |
| | cat power - wonderwall | ] |
WHAT I LEARN: A CAUTIONARY STATEMENT ON WORDS
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"I want there to be facts. Facts about you. This isn't a fiction assignment, this isn't a blog. It needs a beginning, middle and end. It needs you."
So you get this, the kind of assignment you've wanted after months of writing about fires, gold and neophobia. After calling more people than you can count, some wonderful, some terrible, some thinking you are worse. It's what you've been craving to do since September.
But when I look at what I've been doing here for those months, I realize that I'm almost incapable of being that honest. How am I going to hand in something that only makes sense if read by me?
Sure I can tell the truth. But I've got to work on telling it all.
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These words are based upon assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are subject to definite uncertainties and contingencies. |
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| Frankenstein. |
[Jan. 7th, 2008|11:52 am] |
Until this weekend I don't think I've ever been told a story that has truly scared me. To the point where I dream about it. Where I can't eat certain foods. Where I wonder why the storyteller isn't as disturbed as I, and then wonder if there's something wrong with me.
I can't recount it here. But I've begun to understand why it terrifies me to a state of constant nervousness; it's a story about what happens when things are left to rot and what comes from that decay. Imagine being confronted by something you've kept hidden for years, only to realize you've created something truly horrible, truly disgusting and incomprehensible.
I almost threw up when he told me.
I don't ever want to keep secrets.
And I NEVER, EVER want to hear about Kenny in The Real Frank Zappa again. |
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| lets tie a string around this one |
[Nov. 26th, 2007|04:17 pm] |
And because I'll never get it done unless I'm putting off something else, here are my resolutions for the rest of my life. Starting in 2007, not 2008. These will be the last things I'm thinking of this December 31st.
1. Make more. Spend less.
2. Unless said spending refers to time.
3. Wear shoes that actually fit, so the increased amount of walking I plan to do doesn't cripple my toes.
4. Get my already crippled feet fixed.
5. Stop blaming my father for all my problems.
6. Make up my mind more. Make up things less.
7. GET MY ENGLISH HOMEWORK DONE NOW. |
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| The Origin of Apples |
[Nov. 10th, 2007|11:18 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  awake | ] |
| [ | music |
| | volver | ] |
Everything you eat has a history. Has travelled thousands of years to get to your hands, into your stomach. Apples come from Alma-Ata, a city in the Dzungarina Alps - which happen to cross over from Turkey into Khazakstan. They are over ten thousand years old.
There is a picture of me in an album somewhere buried in a mountain of apples, because I was that small. I don't think I've ever had a successful time picking apples since.
I don't really know where I'm going with this. |
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