crackling sunflower petal pepper paper

Hell. So much for coherence. There's a whalesong these days that both sexes join in and sing along with. They bleat laments. The rules are gone. What do you do? Guys aren't pushy enough. I was raised to believe we were too pushy. Women should never make the first move. I was raised to believe that women were strong and intelligent enough to make the first move. We're lost. But that's the price of freedom, emancipation, the land of do as you please and self determination.
And there's always love. Love finds a way. The course of true love never did run smooth, said Shakespeare, but it sure helps getting people past certain obstacles. I guess.
In the movie Pimping Ain't the Easy a character says that there are two kinds of people in this world. People who walk the walk and people who talk the talk. People who walk the walk don't talk much because they're too busy walking. When people who talk the talk need to walk the walk, they talk a walker into walking for them.
I wonder. I see the people that are left. It's not last call but it's definitely after midnight. I'll tell you where all the good men have gone if you show me where all the good women are.
I don't get the feeling I screwed up. I wonder.

I saw Silent Hill. I wrote these things down. No spoilers.

Five feet hit the floor. Four hands grip the bedposts.
She wants her children back.
She was a dancer.
London is young and quick. Tokyo is slow and old.
Ghost frequency.
Midwitch. Eldritch. Minwich?
Half the message backwards interspersed and screaming every second word.
The difference between texas sized and texas shaped.
Road map pull out to scrape on the road.
But you’re YOU! Malkovich malkovich.
Caveat. Here. Take this. They’ll be attracted to the light but you won’t be able to see without it.
Hot nurse riverdance.

Today is Sunday and it's a lovely day.

Forget the sandwich - try the cheese!

I will trade you hours of my life in eight hour chunks for money that I can use for goods and services.
I will trade you this afternoon looking into your eyes for a sailboat.
I will trade this bag of emeralds for another week of feeling exactly like this.
I don't mind the music of today because I know that in about fifteen years, people who are 34 will listen to these songs and it will remind them of their adolescence and the emotional connection it will bring to them will be intense.
You were the prettiest girl in school. I called you on your sixteeth birthday, two months after my own. No one had remembered it was your birthday, including your parents. I had taken a deep breath and jumped off the cliff and dialed your number to ask you out. I didn't know it was your birthday either but I pretended that was the reason I had called. You were ecstatic and touched that someone had remembered. I asked if you wanted to go to a concert that very night. You said yes.
Your parents drove us up to the concert. We didn't have driver's licenses. It was at the Ridge Movie Theater. They had removed the movie screen and filled the stage with candles. It was the Cowboy Junkies just as they were getting big with their album The Trinity Sessions and Margot Timmins' voice rose and fell smoothly and caressing.
We went for a cigarette at intermission. Remember smoking as a teenager? Being so cool.
We caught the bus back. You were a little silly and giggly. I dropped you off at your doorstep. We didn't kiss but you smiled like I had never seen you smile in school. Joyous.
We've bumped into each other over the years now and again, separate circles of other people's lovers and acquaintances stringing us into meeting.
In fact, we just had brunch today and it was great. Almost twenty years later. Not really even catching up on the six years it's been since we saw each other last. Just hanging out and wandering with our feet as aimlessly as our conversation. No impatience. Just drinking in each other's sweet, sweet, subtext and power.
You're still the prettiest girl in school. I will always be taking you to that concert.
I will always be taking you to that concert.
I look forward to moving at the end of the month. I will have a new view and a place that feels like *my* apartment. Not some bullshit default high ceilinged transient impersonal yaletown loft where hookers and dealers haunt the entrance. The new place will be a place to come home to, not just a place to sleep between shifts. And even though it's three times the size, it's a hundred dollars cheaper.

You're all loved. You have to believe that.

Rubber chickens are metaphors

I get caught sometimes in the beauty of the world. It just gleefully
hammers on the window of my basement suite until I let it in or go out to
join it. Wide blue eyes.
My mind just arcs to the negative.
I’m the original “Yeah but”
How are you Duncan? Good so far.
How are you Duncan? Not too bad.
That was a great movie because I only found a small number of flaws with
it. My own art was crippled after my critical eye exceeded my talent.
Probably my relationships as well. Even this diatribe about what’s wrong
with ME is a part of it.
I caught up with an old friend today. I’ve officially been back in town
for a year. This friend, Lisa, was the last person I wanted to run into.
What I mean is, there were a number of people that I wanted to run into that
after having been gone for five years, I no longer have phone numbers,
addresses, email addresses or even acquaintances in common anymore to track
them down. I had to depend on Vancouver to deliver them up.
Lisa was the last one. It only took a year but it happened. My re
insertion into life here is now complete. I can stay or go but I’m
officially back.
The day was transcendent and one that I think only the west coast of North
America could deliver. Sunny coastal lazy wandering. Concepts only needing
nudges from half sentences to get across to the other brain. Years of stuff
to catch up on but not really touching on any of it. Just hanging out with
a beautiful fantastic west coast model actress singer songwriter on a Sunday
that goes on forever and ever in my mind. The hour and a bit I spent with
her today is a coin I’ll turn over and over in my brain and look at in the
future when I’m in solitary confinement. Along with other times with other
people.
It’s important to do what you feel you should do. It’s important to
follow your heart. It’s important to be courageously stupid. Mostly, I
think, for the reason that when you’re infirm and falling apart as we all
will be if we survive to an oldish age, remembering when you were young will
be a whole other kind of entertainment. It’ll be like eating or drinking.
Sitting on the porch and thinking in the hot sun about the place where you
went that time. Swirling the brandy around in your glass and looking out of
the apartment window at the rain and thinking of another rainy afternoon
long past.
That’s why you need to keep going.

I say innocence. As black as pitch, my lord.

I went to see Dungen tonight at Richard's on Richard's. The Precious Fathers opened for them. Precious Fathers are from here in Vancouver. Dungen are from Sweden. It was odd because it could easily have been the other way around. The Vancouver band looked more Swedish to me that Dungen. Ah well. As soon as Dungen introduced themselves it was clear I was mistaken. The frontman says in heavily accented English "I hope you are good. This is Fiske, Bjorling, Stellen and I am Ejstes. Thank you." A little bit on the Swedish side.
Maybe I'm getting old but I have a lot of trouble dealing with people who talk through the songs. We had a bunch of them tonight. I saw the lovely and talented Sara Masi there with her man Matt. Some people hate seeing lovely couples. I love it. Means there's hope for the rest of us.
I played a pool tournament with my brother this afternoon. Best of five. I lost the first two, the second by scratching on the 8. I won the next two and we got down to the 8 on the third game. Brodie won. He takes the Superman ring home this week and we'll play again next weekend. This is the continuation of a tradition that my father started and my brother and I are continuing since his death a couple of months ago. My brother told me fun bouncer stories and we caught up on the week's activities.
It's been a good weekend.
Tomorrow I start calling various organizations and agencies to let them know that I will have a new address at the end of the month which is a whole six days away. I also start collecting boxes and start packing. It's going to be a fun week and a climactic finish.
I came home tonight to find someone sleeping beside the doorway and a bunch of streetkids sitting and talking on the steps of the little video store in my complex. I'm not complaining, really. Nobody gave me any trouble. All I'm saying is that I paying too much for that kind of 'atmosphere'. I reiterate, I have no trouble with it. I'm just saying that I'm living in a loft on Seymour and I'm looking forward to not living in a loft on Seymour, that's all.
I'm looking forward to a little Georgia and Bute. Further away from work but I think it'll start a new chapter of goodness in my life.
Whoever you are who is reading this, thank you. I wish you the best of luck. I have so much love for you in my heart as I write this. It's yours. Take it to make your day a little easier and warmer.