Dreampepper

I think today contained my Most Awkward Moment of the Year. Not that we're all that far in, but I don't recall having one since April of last year, so I'm just going to run with it. It was very simple from an outside perspective. I stood on a doorstep brandishing a cake studded with sparklers and gold candles, lighting them one by one, preparing myself to sing when the door opened. Then, well, the wrong person answered the door, (the wind of which blew out all the candles but for one). Simple - "Happy Birthday to- Not you." - but not, given all the things a stranger couldn't know. Eyes anywhere else, my hopeless sentience briefly dropped away long enough to get me up the stairs, then came rushing back. Throat clogged, standing at heart attack and vine, I grasped for mundane things - removing shoes, trying to remember sterile conversation topics - and failed. Eventually I gave up, blew out the remaining candle, put the cake in the kitchen, and wandered the familiar flat like a missing cat, ending up sniffling alone in the den where I used to curl on the couch and pretend I felt safe.

All that and I still feel glad I went. I came home feeling warm with conversation, a canvas bag full of interesting books and a promise of new house-plants. This time, reminded, I will keep in touch.

Of course, that wasn't the original plan at all. I was meant to work on the North Shore this evening. The idea was to go over, write copy, play web-dev, then simply spend the night, so I could get up and get at it again, but little events kept colliding until they created a sort of time-suck anti-matter, and then I was reminded I'm going to Afrika Bambaataa. Whoops. Guess I'll just have to get up early.

Time to run off and dance.

Poetic Justice found in the trailer section of the imdb page for Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.

Robson street, Vancouver's brand-name straight-line shopping district. Peace as body lotion instead of solution, sold for fifty bucks a bottle behind white walls and vast plate windows, images torn from magazines that cost more than a meal. Thick with logo stamped angels, tight strappy sandals and tight strappy jeans, wide retail smiles and cocaine-bright children surgically attached to thin cell phones and even smaller hand-bag dogs, this is not my neighbourhood. Barefoot, I can feel the concrete but don't feel connected. "Can't buy me love, everybody tells me so." Looking for nothing in particular, I stop for breakfast.

My dyed hair is a flag, marking my place in line. I look for my reflection in the black marble facade in front of me and find nothing but the eyes of red haired chef making crepes. On reflex I wink at him, but my thoughts are elsewhere, threading from the apparent cure for cancer just found in Alberta to the neuro-chemical reactions that trigger love; dopamine, serotonin, vasopressin. Triggered by the sad knowledge that I've likely burned out all the neurotransmitters that are part of the brain's built-in reward system, I order my memorized taste of a perfect oxytocin kiss - strawberries, lemon juice, and sugar.

It works. Instant flash of a cold stone floor, the second hand taste of wine, cigarettes, a forged key to my weakness, waking with tousled black hair and my favourite voices. Music sent back and forth to finally meet in an airport, meet in a stairway, on the street, the lights strung up above the bed from before Persepolis abandoned me back. Why do they always have dark hair? I never noticed until just now. Curls. Temples going to silver, little places for me to kiss.

By the time I reach the bus-stop, I'm already talking to strangers and figuring out who to contact to prepare my house as efficiently as possible. My roommate, Sasha and I are on the same page. Out as soon as we can without leaving the other in the lurch. He's going to be moving in with Mel, I'm still uncertain where I'll end up. I need a staging ground for our last shot at the theatre before I finally give up, fold house, and leave town. Mihi cura futuri.

Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon has fallen into public domain and is now available on Internet Archive and Google video.

-prelude-

New Years EVE Skytrain Dance Party at VCC Clark. Meet at 7:45 on December 31st, bring everything - music, costumes, party favours, instruments, etc. "At 8pm we hop an Accordion Train to the Future." Total Trip time 1hr. 8pm to 9pm.

Act 1.

The Dancing Fields. A movement, they kiss. Every smile is a line inscribed. He makes her laugh. This is not a new thing, but another attempt. Her distance allows for the illusion of successful intimacy. This is the first time he's met her at the door with his hands.

Act 2.

Heart of the World news. The current owner has put the Bollywood films up for sale on Craigslist. The letter of my contract says As Is, meaning, everything in the building is coming with the building that was there when I saw it. I'm sure that it was implied somewhere that this was to mean only fixtures, but I'm willing to kick for a discount off the price. I think we can roll with this. The realtor, though he seems nice, as it is his job to do, is still going to receive a silly amount of money, no matter, so I don't feel I'm cheating anyone by complaining.

I'm also thinking about what it would mean to us if we bought them off Craigslist ourselves. Currently the films are stacked all over the theatre in big spilling reels and awkward tin boxes that we'll have to organize, box up, sort, etcetera. If we buy them off Craigslist, not only will we be paying less for them than if they're included in the theatre price, that will all be taken care of for us, and we'll have to spend significantly less time cleaning the space up for performances. It might be worth a shot.

-intermission-

W.C. Fields began his career as a juggler, so good that he performed for royalty and heads of state. A portion of his routine was committed to celluloid in 1934's The Old Fashioned Way. There's a clip of it up on YouTube.

Act 3.

An Italian cafe, Cafe Calabria. Double-consonant beverages and nude white statues of mythical heroes with santa hats perched on their faux-marble heads. A Mediterranean cover of Bryan Adams' Have You Ever Loved a Woman, "Lei mai ha amato una donna?", piped past hanging cakes that frame the renaissance revival ceilings. Two nights in a row I sat there, nursing a delicious hot chocolate to within a drop of its life, and waiting for friends who never walked through the door. Tonight, the second night, I winked at the man behind the counter who called me "bella" and decided to try to be a regular.

Sunday - we were still a city burning, but now on the horizon, as if the time between us were embodied in distance, impulsive steps out into a desert. Persepolis, though his name might be the name of my next god-child, I was never certain if I would wake next to him again. Enchanting, built of admirable social immunities, a strange ruin painted with glyphs that I desperately want to run my fingers over. Even in the bed, under familiar strings of lights that sang starlight like blood-cells, wrapped around a body that felt like evolution's most satisfying proof, I didn't know if he would keep me safe in the morning. He did today. I know I want him to again.

33 writers. 5 designers. 6-word science fiction. The old meme is back, what's yours?

Saturday - a different house, one letter different. I literally vaulted over him to get out of bed when I realized we'd slept through the alarm. Over and out, into the rest of my clothes and up the stairs, without even saying goodbye, leaving only a kiss brushed quickly on his cheek, too quietly to wake him fully. My last glimpse of him, through the closing bedroom door, was one of a selkie trying to hide under blankets. It was only at the bus-stop that I realized I was going to be fine, I wasn't even close to being late. Tea could have happened, breakfast even. I wondered, belatedly, if I should have woken Mark-with-a-K for his audition and mildly cursed the erratic illusion of clarity that comes from waking in unfamiliar surroundings. Early mornings after late nights, working seven days in a week, it wears - I left my mother's umbrella behind in my abstracted rush.

more on heart of the world when I am awake

This river is my holy ghost, this red trail that leads in drips and smears from me to you across the sheets. We are enclosed.

I spent today finding a gift for Dylan, who turns three tomorrow. The son of a ghost, I wanted to find something sweet. The perfect soft toy to be carried lovingly around for the next seven years. I believe I succeeded, I found a bear who passed my every conceivable cuddle test and a child size hand-puppet of a fox, though I must also admit that I have done the dreadful deed of purchasing something for myself as well, which is something I consider tantamount to sin these days and vaguely unforgivable. A hand puppet of a soft white fluffy rabbit in a hat.

It's fun. I was both delighting and terrifying small children, I practically refused to take it off my hand walking around streets and stores, waving a little paw to almost everyone walking by, those who did not glare at me. I think I'm going to bring him to work, try to find out his name. He's pretty.

In spite of that, I am not well enough to be up this late. I feel too raw to try to talk to the world. I need consolation and I'm not going to find it here before I go to sleep, nor tomorrow, likely. Tuesday, I have to wait until Tuesday, and that's a maybe. Dying to hold on, it is like my skin has been taken off and packed in someone's bag before they walked away. It is like a monastery falling and being trapped in the rubble. Of course it's fine, fine like grit between my softest teeth. Truth and truth again, more of my year of ruination wrapping, up, finding its feet. We are vile in our perfection, me and this feeling. There is nowhere left to pray.

Bombs dropped, the last city has blazed and I am left blind.

A. FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE (all previous jobs):
1. He sent me a letter
2. I met him dancing, I was sitting on the stairs
3. Brought to his theater, we had a friend in common
4. It was a new place and he was standing by the bar

B. FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER:
1. When I replied, I laughed, he thought I would know him
2. He tapped me on the shoulder, acted like I knew him
3. I took him up on a roof, surprised he would not know it
4. We went home together, though we didn't know each other

C. FOUR CITIES YOU'VE LIVED IN:
1. Smiling, we corresponded every day
2. I was stunned to discover he had a wife
3. Standing outside his window was so difficult and necessary
4. In the cab, his english was better than mine

D. FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH:
1. There were happy pictures, and clever sounds, and fun videos.
2. I kissed him on the cheek and told him to ask permission first.
3. My lips were hungry and two years later, so were his
4. His apartment was neat, plants in the window, books in the glass table

E. FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION:
1. I ran home through the park to meet him on-line
2. We held hands when we walked and strangers told us we looked good together
3. Curled up on the couch, slowly we curled into each other
4. I sat on the counter and he explained his red wine

F. FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY:
1. Description sufficed to make my bed less lonely
2. When I slept over, it was on his side of the bed, not hers
3. Queen size bed now and we still almost fell off
4. There was a wide mirror above the bed framed by two guitars

G. FOUR SONGS THAT MOVE YOU:
1. johnny boy - U are the generation who bought more shoes and u get what you deserve
2. lamb - gorecki
3. emilie simon - graine de etoile, lamb - gabriel
4. marvin gaye - let's get it on

H. FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE FOODS:
1. Then the letters came less frequently and I didn't know why
2. Eventually I couldn't deal with the fact he was married
3. He was so beautiful, but I knew he never loved me
4. The next morning wasn't too late, but there was a phone-call

I. FOUR BOOKS YOU'VE READ & LOVED:
1. Hurt, I assumed that work was taking his time
2. Hurt, I broke down, dissolved, died.
3. Hurt, I tried to tell myself not to believe in illusions
4. Hurt, I explained to myself that it's what I should have expected.

J. FOUR PLACES I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:
1. Then I finally went for a surprise visit.
2. He divorced the wife, I took him back, he went away on a trip.
3. He never calls, so I walk over to his house at night.
4. Today he called me back, canceled our plans.

K. FOUR THINGS YOU FIND YOURSELF SAYING:
1. There was another woman.
2. There were two other women.
3. There might never be anyone.
4. There's another woman in potentia.

L. FOUR FAVOURITE ALBUMS:
1. He never apologized.
2. I'm fragile too.
3. Living with little is better than nothing.
4. At least he's sorry.

Bless the day that I walked away with a smile on my lips and tears that were glad to be. I ran for the bus wanting to call out his name as the cry that would stop all time. My eyes shone, said the man who sat next to me. How do you do that? I'm young, I replied, and went back to my book.

There's a mirror in front of where I sit to type on my computer and if I look up into it, I can see the white of my hair framing my face like the colour of ashes rubbed into the roots of my hair. Some days it's good to remember what I'm like from the outside.

Also, pirates.

Often, almost always, I'm living hand to mouth. I try to get used to being a little bit too hungry but instead I'm always hoping that my tongue will have the strength to claw me out of where I am to somewhere greater than myself. It can be so frustrating. I find, though, that there is a side-effect of running under the line for so long. Gradually, my requirements fall. It's almost that aphorism: the less I have, the more precious what is left becomes. As if bird crumbs have grown into mountains, complements arias, and even if they don't love you down to their bones, what they offer is more than enough simply because they're smiling to see you.

Scratchless CD blanks keep data from touching your desk.

I'm not scared anymore. That's terrible and yet I thank you. You were set up for those shots across the bow. All hope was swallowed in the cold of another morning, darkness and rain making for a miserable one foot in front of the other, and I had to let you know that it was okay. That no matter, I am too tired to need very much, too broken down to dust to invest my care too much. You've been that face that swims across my dreams close to morning for over a year. That I can kiss you now, that I have a chance, love, this makes for no illusions. This only keeps me warm.

Bike helmet covers shaped like brains, frogs, mohawks, etc.

Burrow is here, finally we get to connect. She's come up from Bellingham a few times and every instance, schedules have conflicted. It's a shame, as I most undoubtedly don't have enough professional clowns in my life. If the bicycle circus takes off, she'll be up once a week a least. She says she'll teach me to clown properly. Bwah-hah. (okay, no. She said heh heh heh, then HA HA HA. She's reading this as I type it). I'm starting to think about wearing make-up.

TONIGHT, (Tuesday), at 9:30, there's will be a group of us at Tinseltown go seeing what they've done to Aeon Flux.

edit: some of us are going for food at the wild ginger before the film. (Think 7:30). it's the william gibson restaurant tucked away in the tinseltown food-court that has the magical slow-motion exploding tea.

A pleased yet raffish smile deepened the perfectly etched lines around his face, around his closed eyelids. A sigh, and he looked up into my eyes. His own were very light, a sensuous honey infused with the essence of dead cities, empty of orthodox sins, and extremely open in a sense that has nothing to do with age, but with the eternal youth of ancient things. I thought of gods, the old greek imaginings that drove women to madness. I thought of braille and souls.

I could describe him more, but I don't know if you would recognize him walking down the street. He wears t-shirts and black pants just like everyone else. If he wore his hair unbound, then I might have a chance to let you stop, say hello, and examine him, see him for how beautiful he is under the poorly worn cover of being unexceptional. His hair is an inky explosion caught by a very clever illustrator, someone who fell in love with myths at an early age and let it reflect in every halo they ever drew. It's exceptional. When his hair is wet, it catches in my throat and fills my lungs with the need to say that I am drowning. Maybe if you saw him in rain, drops caught like cliché jewels in his lashes, there might be a flash of recognition, a glimpse of how divine.

I feel so antique, describing a lover in terms of looks, but I am always transposing feelings, depths of emotion or dialogue, and yet so few ever know who I'm revealing, even when it's myself. Earlier in the car, when I tugged on Andrew's hand and said, "Oh! I have news! Persepolis has fallen.", he understood what I meant, but Tyler did not. "We talk in shorthand.", Andrew explained, and it occurred to me that here I write in it. A code of association so baroque that only by reading for any length of time will meaning emerge from the tangle of references. Truthfully, I find myself most comfortable with people who can follow abstract trains of thought without effort, but I'm beginning to question if it's fair. I'm wondering how often my privacy is misread. (Graham got the impression somehow, in spite of my practically rabid monogamy in the face of people like Dominique and Christopher, that I was promiscuous.) At times, it's been psychotically useful, but part of why I continue to update almost daily is that I want to explain to my friends and family my keystone ties and transformations.

Matthew hated when I wrote about him but he would never tell me a decisive why. He would spin gluey reasons that would change, but always, (no matter how mutable), they were negative. I think, now, especially near the end, that he was trying to hide his whereabouts and actions from people who might possibly read this. After he came back, he attempted to expressly forbid me from mentioning that I stayed the night, and was upset when I ignored his injunction. (I still don't know who wasn't supposed to know this time. Last time it was Sarah. I know his wife used to drop by occasionally to catch up on things, her best friend tried to step in and defend him once from one of his first terrible injunctions against my decency before she understood what my complaint was, and there are other people. Friends, family maybe. I don't know, they just show up on my counter and leave rare anonymous comments from IP addresses located in Perth or Sydney.) My next closest relationship, they were always delighted when they could find reference to themselves in my entries. It filled their heart, they said. Made them feel exponentially appreciated, like every letter added to their worth. My friend Wilhelm, he complains that he never appears here, that I only write about people I can hyperlink to, but I know that I put his little misdemeanors of complexity here quite often, so how else can I reply except by becoming, if only briefly, a more concise exhibitor?

We used to talk until the sun came up, a confused tangle of how a head will fit into an arm, how the angle of a bent leg will comfortably into the slant of another leg of a different shape. His bed was small enough for both of us, and it was going to eventually be summer. Visits were too rare, for they were addictively pleasant, and I fell very into liking him. His casual strength of thought, his delightful leaps of imagination. Ostensibly, I was living in another part of town, staying on charity at a friends apartment, but as it gradually becoming more intensely uncomfortable to stay there, this small room full with its tiny bed became my home. I would always feel welcome, but an imposition. When I visited, I would stand silent in the street with my terrified heart, trying to collect courage with the pebbles I would find to throw at his window in lieu of a doorbell. Once Loki the cat found me and sat purring at my ankle, almost causing me to cry. I wanted to feel safe, and it was ten feet away, and I couldn't move. My housemate had pulled a dirty conversation on me earlier, full of tense demands, and I was so nervous of the world that just this little cat being kind to me was enough to unbalance me. When I crept in, quiet as to not wake the baby, I hoped he wouldn't see my hands shaking.

Loki is gone now, replaced by two cats. One black and one white. The baby is gone and my lover's switched rooms. His window is an undeniable bitch to hit with a pebble now. I tried the other night, failing, as it turned out, not because of my aim, but because we wasn't home yet, and I worried with every stone about hitting the neighbors house on the rebound. It didn't help that my hands were shaking again, my adrenaline screaming at me that I was being an idiot. Years pass and yet I stay the same. He claims it's brave of me. To do something I'm scared to do because I know it's the right action, but I'm not so sure. I'm expecting to have to apologise with impeccable courtesy for merely arriving while my heart is craving vindication, some forgiveness for the hour. If I'm scared, then I'm not being brave, am I? Being brave might be writing this down, not knowing what side of the disclosure line he stands on.




reminder: KEEP JHAYNE FROM JHAYLE -a party of proportion- #340 - 440 west hastings, Friday, November 25th, 9:00 - onward

Start Again: Blue haired calling. Blue haired, one-eyed. Wisdom like a bitmapped earth, programming the tree to find all the answers. Breaking fast with genius, reminiscent of the night before the night before, lasting impressions of that would be really great, that would be enviable, let's spread disease through the pommels of guns. DNA discussions, eggs on the plates, grasping for a cure to AIDS. We walk to Broadway with time still left in our pockets. We sit where I sat last Sunday. Half a million dollars at this meeting, I got to go. People walking past, strangers with bags, with different coloured jackets. It's winter time.

Work is a back-seat exploration into self-pity glad I don't know how to drive.

Start: Missed rehearsal, missed Sophie. Very simply missed my walk to the bus-stop. Missed a bit of everything. My eyes were closed. Open now, the phone rang. My directer, in a panic. Fluster and worry, flashing to life, spending the night. The telephone, answering questions, reassurances. Exhaustion trying to claim me back but now I'm awake. I'm got left-over chinese food on the stove, I'm going to be a gourmand's nightmare. Toss it all in one pan, toss it all around with a fork, drip out the grease and call it food. I've got creases on my belly where my clothing pressed too tight in my sleep.

Work is a multi-lingual dull burning drive into why am I not done yet with this?

Start a year ago: His hair is tied in a kerchief, nothing imagined, but I like it. This is cotton street. Blue print patterns, every line a perfect curl. Cleaning, I found him in a photograph, behind me. I was so sad, corsetted and dismal. I can feel the black behind her eyes, I am surprised. I'd forgotten the day. How my love would not come to my show. Instead, this one crept behind me.

The door opens, I am blinded.

Sunday was an insane day for people. At first it seemed as if in among the thousands of people thronging Commercial Drive for Drivefest, Dominique and I were not to meet anyone we knew. It was fascinating to walk among so many and not have our names called out once. We were beginning to feel odd, in fact, as we were almost at Venables before we discovered friends. I was bolstered, however, by the unexpected pleasure of encountering David Garfinkle at the Mad Hatters Tea Party. (Matthew and I had arrived in time for tear down, missing the show entirely, but with time enough to gather up Dominique, Rowan, and Anna.)

David is an old friend, originally an associate of my mothers, who I've known since I was ten or twelve. Later I met him again as one of Bill's best friends, (he being the catalyst for my meeting Bill), and I suspect that he and I get along better than he and my mother. We lost touch when Bill and I had our common law divorce, as I have with a few people, so when we met at the park, (he played the King of Hearts), we immediately sat down with smiles that tried to touch our ears. I've got a number for him now and I'm going to call him after work tomorrow for tea. It will be a treat to catch up. The notes of the dial tone and number pad, they are music. They are rings in water to grasp onto and kick.

I met another member of the Tea Party later, a girl named Burrow, who by coincidence is staying with my friend Kyle. Incestuous City Syndrome hits again. We ended up at Kyle's place, the two of us, and he and I stayed up attempting to watch the Dr. Who that James gave me until three:thirty in the morning. (They were too badly scratched, so we only made it through one episode. We gave up when Kyle was literally losing the gift of speech.)

I met Marc on the street as well, which was a Joy Incarnate TM moment. It's unlikely that anyone who didn't know me last winter could understand how giddy I am that I've collected again this member of the Lost People. I invited him to Korean movie night. In my life, Marc's been missing for about a year. It took a lot of effort not to bury him in kisses. He's brilliant. We would go for long walks and discuss too many movies. He was Placebo Cine, but some time last spring his e-mail address changed and he stopped answering midnight pebbles at his window. I'd assumed he'd moved, leaving me with his camping tent and favourite shirt. However, it seems that he hasn't changed address, only rooms. Apparently it is no longer his window, but Paul's. I am genius.