foul temptress

I'm left wondering again whether most guys' interest in cheating on their girlfriends with me is my fault or theirs.

plane life

The last pictures that survive the Dallas digital lake incident of 2005, taken with a backup memory card on the plane ride down.








Yes, I did take my own picture standing up in the toilet. Three hour plane rides without movies are boring. However, that is not my hairy arm, just the hairy view from my seat.

welcome home

BANG

BANNNNNNNGGGGG

BangBANG

That's me hopping up and down on tip toe slamming an open palm against my wall.

BANG!

The mosquito I'm chasing is completely cornered, buzzing around the edge of the ceiling near my closet. I think he knows I'm after him with a vengeance because he's hovering just out of my reach. I already tried that thing where I offer my arm as bait hoping to lure him into an easy slap, but the bugger is quick.

There is no sound I hate more than the high frequency humming of little fucking mosquito wings. The only sound that ruins a campfire. A sound that reminds me of home.

I looked forward to this Dallas trip for months. Now I'm back and there are these mosquitoes in my room and I think there might be a larger lesson I'm supposed to learn about living in the moment, or not having expectations, or finding something to appreciate about everything -- or maybe I should get the hell out of here, but all I can do is swat and curse.

BANG

I could care less that he's splattered all over my wall and my hand as long as he shuts up.

the latinos think I'm a latino

I'm just waking up this morning after a long night downtown in the Big D.

My brother's scarfing down some Kellog's Berries cereal, he chews with his mouth open. I've got a toasted pita with blueberry chipotle spread.

"Did you see that last night? It was a huge Red Bull throne with a sacrificial virgin in the middle. The throne of Red Bull - a Red Bull altar - a shrine. And the sacrifical virgin was giving away the Bull's pride and joy, it's own product. That was crazy."

"Yeah."

"You ready for the lake?"

southwest salutations

Greetings from Dallas.

In the sun there's a lot more time to pause and reflect.

I miss each and every one of you, and not just because I'm away on holiday.

C has arrived from northern Ontario.

We're enjoying SPF, flip-flops and sangria by the pool, cause that's just how we roll.

A batch of better-pondered posts will herald my return to the internet when I'm back in Canada.

a sense of adventurers

We're eating baby clams, propane and steaks or taco bell. I'm tired, full and happy.

I thought about all the guys I've slept with while I cut my steak. I tried to catalogue them in my head, from the most recent to the longest ago. I was trying to remember someone, the best one, which one would I want to share this with the most, but the red pepper hummus brought me back to reality -- no one matters. No one ever did. It's the red peppers. They're good livin'

Everything's good livin' in Dallas. I'm eating a bloody beautiful steak. Ain't that some good livin'?

From the start a week ago 'till now, I'll lay it out for you...

A woman in the bathroom at the Halifax International Airport stakes a claim on a well-tiled, well-mirrored corner, and breaks out some extravagant body lotion and some shave-my-legs-now razors. Isn't it funny that we pack for life when we board a plane? Fuck that, I'm going dirty.

A bag of cherries, a bottle of water and a New Yorker sit on my tray-back. Later, I rub together my fingers stained with bloody cherry juice.

Silly announcements, "Burt Armstrong, recently arrived Continental Connection through Newark, please check-in with the customs hall..." Say that five times fast.

I'm always the last in line to board the plane, then I can look every-one else on the flight in the face before we're all crashing down in the mid-west together -- I'll know who I want to propose a last-minute-fuck to right off the bat.

The flight attendant from Detroit to Dallas is familiar, like I've seen her on TV. The fact that she talks to herself amplifies this. I can see her mouth moving. I wonder if I'm missing something, or if she's just nuts ('please exit on this side of the plane ...[I'm a crazy bitch].').

The plane takes off and I feel it in my crotch - we're soaring to heaven.

Close your eyes and you're doing a loop-de-loop.

100 degree fahrenheight weather when I de-plane. Immediately I hear the 'psttt' of a can of Colorado's Flying Dog's 'In-Heat Wheat,' being opened for my pleasure.

Highways, tollways, freeways, the 121. The lake, the lake, the lake, the bars, there's nothing else...

The sun spills onto my forehead and stains my t-shirt. The boat's bow is hot like a patch of lava in an eruption.

My bikini burns in the sun on Tinker's boat the 'Mischief.' We hit the water.

A baha-speed-boat that looks like a cigarette launches out of the water like a buoyant air-filled sausage, and flies into oblivion. I wish in the very same instant that I have a digi cam worthy of capturing the moment.

There's a 1.5 million dollar boat moored on our starboard side that I can't explore because I'm wet from doing back-dives into the eel-filled lake.

My matter-of-fact gay cousin and her sexy salt-and-pepper-clad girlfriend.

I've lost weight. My waist, my hips, my tan... everything is better...I'm superficial.

I put it off until now, because typing it is going to be traumatic... but then in the sun, the shit really hits the fan, splattering out across the faces of all who witness the event that rips out my heart and shoves dirty fingers into my eye sockets, rubbing it in.

I drop my digi cam in the water.

I watch it bubble down into the depths with the catfish.

I'm not fucking kidding.

I had every intention of posting some excellent travel pics or some amazing Dallas expose in the form of a very long horizontal pictorial, but instead, I watched my Sony Cybershot sink to the bottom of the lake.

The bottom of the lake.

Again, I'm not fucking kidding.

Fuck this.

Fuck you.

Fuck every one I ever took a picture of.

I've lost what I'm ashamed to admit is one of my closest friends -- my digital camera. Fuck the lake, it's suddenly taken everything from me. My head is hanging low in my hands.

The lake. Oh well. It's still beautiful. It's a deity. I pray to the mountainous piles of expensive sunglasses, cameras and cell phones congregating on its murky bottom. Seriously, the camera is long gone. Laughing is an option. I'm on my knees.

I'm listening to my brother's girlfriend's cat eating crunchy kibbles.

Holy fuck. What am I going to do? Save me, please.

Or don't.

What do I really care? What does anyone really care? I choose laughter. It's all I can choose. Isn't it all anyone can choose? What else could I do? The camera is long gone, and I'm laughing my ass off. Just visit a Wal-Mart in Dallas and realize that your life means nothing.

dead babies

My Mother drove me back to my old port of call to catch my plane early. 7am early. My flight wasn't until 3pm and we were still pressed for time. Minutes tick by with alarming speed when there's a deadline.

Her and I are more alike than I like to admit. We're always head to head and rarely eye to eye. We'll argue, and when voices start to rise we'll argue about the nature of the argument. We can't consent to a conversation or agree on a debate. We fume.

This time I attacked her family values (blind to the obvious stupidity in it - I wouldn't be here without them).

"What, you think it's wrong for gays to want to get married?"

"Well I don't think they have to rub it in our faces all the time. Why do they have to make a big deal of it? What they do behind closed doors is none of my business. Why do they have to get married? It's causing a breakdown in the family unit."

"I think having that choice and being recognized just like anyone else who's married is a fundamental human right and I think that freedom of speech is a fundamental human right -- I think you're saying gay couples shouldn't have those rights -- is that what you're saying? I think you should be careful."

The inside of the car heated to an oven-worthy temperature as the whole human rights argument escalated and swerved into touchy territory when we started into women's rights, and - ultimately - abortions.

She works in the hospital recovery ward. Imagine a woman who sees God in the eyes of a child forced to watch the daily revolving-door crowd of women who mostly see their un-borns as 'problems.' They call it a solution. I call it a right. She calls it murder. She doesn't mince words.

I wasn't looking at her. I was staring ahead at the road, but I could see the heavy tears start to roll down across her olive cheeks, tightening my throat.

"At six months, it's not just a few cells. If you could only see what I see, if you could see when they come out in pieces."

I was choking. I was disgusted. My heart would burst if I looked at her. Dead babies. I had made my mother cry. I was scum. I was worse than scum - I was stink on scum.

I held out a limp wad of tissue, and let silence stitch my mouth shut.

Later, on Spring Garden road, I reached out and pulled her into me, crushing her smaller body into the fold of my arm. We walked like that for a few blocks, past a metal newspaper dispenser.

"SAILORS TIE KNOT"

I didn't point it out. I'm wrong. I want to preserve her as long as I can.

on detoxing

Lately there's been no inspiration. I keep waiting for it to touch me -- (theoretically) zapping the little hairs on the backs of my hands and jolting me, but nothing.

It's said that when you're malnourished, your teeth are the first to go. First they turn translucent with a sick-yellow tint and tiny white flecks, and then your gums start to bleed.

I guess I haven't been entirely honest.

I haven't eaten solid food in nine days now, succeeding once again with a (so far) ten to (a possible) fifteen day all-liquid detox. Specific liquids. My brain is smarting, but my body feels clean. I dream at night of biting into thick warm bread and rolling the gluten softness around in my jaws.

Maybe that's why there's no inspiration. Clean and common, clean and silent, clean and simple, clean and, well, spotless. Thoughtless. I feel less crazy, more boring, like I'm living a bodily function.

Day six I almost cracked. I filled a blender with ice and lemon juice, and grated the mix together until it was a chunky cold lemon soup, just to feel something solid in my mouth. I shoveled it in with a spoon and bit down hard, grinding it with everything I had. But it tasted like nothing, or the taste was gone as it hit my tongue - dissolving instantly. And my mouth was so full that all I could do was spit it back into the cup, a gesture filled with some vague feeling of despair and revulsion entwined. The spit-laden mess slide off my tongue with a 'pft' sound. I lifted the cup to eye level. The bright red gob bubbling with blood and lemon guts slid slowly down the inside of the glass. I watched it, tonguing some bitter lacerated soreness along my bottom row of teeth and feeling the lead taste pooling in my mouth.

I am orally fixated. I am morbidly fascinated by chewing. I could watch you chew for days.

Slurp, slurp, slurp... will you stop that disgusting slurping, you disgusting slurping animal, feeding yourself. What would it matter to yourself or anyone if you just stop feeding and DIED!

every lover

Hi.

I was thinking about you.

Are you eating well? I miss you very much.

I'm leaving on Wednesday, and I can't tell whether I'm excited, or whether I can't even see the point anymore. When the plane takes off, I'm sure both feelings will melt away. Right now, it's packing and anticipation. I went shopping, but I couldn't find shoes. Have I grown too picky even by my own standards?

What do you want me to bring you back from Dallas? And shall I send some pictures? The Texans laugh at me because I say 'michelob' instead of 'mik-e-lobe,' even though it's spelt the way I say it. All the beer down there tastes like water anyway. It makes everyone pee a lot and get dehydrated really fast. I'm going out to dinner with my rich middle-aged expat sexy lesbian cousin while I'm there. If she's blasting Sting and shifting the BMW like the stick is a man she wants to break out of spite again, I'll be smiling. We'll get high on wine and talk about fucking in whispered tones, because catholic sexual guilt and old-fashioned-ness runs down through our genes from our fathers.

I wish you were coming with me. I wish I had lots of money so I could snatch you up and put you in my pocket when I cross the border. We could find an old soft-top Cadillac, drive down to the Alamo and put our fingers in the bullet holes riddling the sandy walls. I'll buy you a coonskin cap. Then we could go to the coast, or we could just keep driving down to Mexico, and be happy in the sun.

Wouldn't you like that? I worry about you sometimes. You're too hard on yourself. Don't worry about it okay? It's just a temporary thing. Everything will flip over like a new coin, and we'll look back only in mocking memory on all of it, and we'll laugh and laugh.

Well I'll be thinking about you. Promise I won't get fake tits while I'm there (you'd think that'd be really funny wouldn't you?).

Talk soon.

Love,
Me

denial

I have a friend with an inmost artist's soul and a heart that doesn't belong to him.

In his head he's captured thousands of butterflies - beautiful beckoning visions that pass through his colourful memory.

Whenever we're together, I watch his eyes roll back to look at them, seeing them all float past, and I try not to get sucked in. I don't say anything, I just will it not to happen with all my self. I don't want to be just another butterfly. I want to be something less inevitable. I want to be a bleeding heart.



No one wants to imagine they're just the same as every one else.

aux hommes, aux chevaux, et a ceux qui les montent

Little too much flash?

etre cul par dessus tete

I'm introduced to someone today who hasn't been at work since before I started. She's a short bulbous-nosed woman with wafer coloured hair and a tight mouth. We'll call her Dale, and say that name suits her.

"You speak French?" she asks me frankly as she's reaching for the big plate of maple glazed salmon that just crash-landed under the hot lamps.

"Oui certainement. Ha ha ha, bien sur je parle francais. Mais j'etais a Halifax pendant longtemps, alors ma vocabulaire n'est pas aussi fantastique maintenant --"

"I don't. 'bonjour, je, moi, crisse, calisse, osti, tabarnak,' a few words and I can swear, that's it," she interrupts.

This string of profanity sounds like it's come directly from her nostrils. She's crude, and I like it (later -- during a conversation about rough sex with younger men and in response to the question, 'where do you draw the line at who's a cougar and who's not?' -- she'll raise both arms in a pre-pirouette pose and hilariously snortlaugh 'I'm a cougar!').

She's loading up available forearm space with hot entrees when she says 'so, what about you?'

Um. What about me? What's the answer to this question? ... I'm not pitching stories to the paper this week because I feel like escaping this city not researching it? ...I'm 5'8 and my ass bones can pop in and out of joint? ...I'm sick to death of wanting something I can't define? ...I don't like baseball? What?

"I grew up here. I just came back. I finished a degree, uh, another -- I have two degrees. I'm here now."

"You have two degrees, and you're waitressing --" It was half question/half statement, all burn.

I mumbled something about 'well it happens,' or 'yeah I guess' or 'whatever, cunt.'

She left with the food and I spun on my heels to face the kitchen. Shit. Was I about to cry? I bit my lip and watched the line cook scooping cold house soup - a chunky gelatinous tomato slop - out of a giant white bucket with an oversized ladle. A big gross white bucket. The kind you use to feed pigs or throw up in.

This is what I am. I am cold soup in a bucket.

mutiple viewpoints

Sometimes it's good to look up.
I'm leaning against the wainscotting with my chin tilted up towards the window to the skyline over head. The sun's doing that thing where it's casting a hazy sidelight, and all the contrast is off. These mundane buildings would look this beautiful in a dream.
I press my nose to the glass to watch two cops leisurely patrol the opposite side of the street.
My breath creates this little oval fog patch under my nose that smells like cold espresso and blanched almonds.
The fuzz are side-on. Nice profiles. I tilt my forehead against the glass. Nice asses too. Little tight asses, with big black flashlights bouncing off them. No guns. Guns would be nice.
I'm thinking about screwing one of them in the backseat of his cruiser, handcuffed to the grill that keeps criminals out of the front seat.
It's just a quick flash in my head, like the still image from a porno interrupting during a PG movie.
When my eyes refocus, I'm looking down at my feet. Here I am, wearing sneakers. I never wear sneakers. My feet look enormous.
It's obviously not good to look down.

forrester saw this coming in howard's end

The rabbits are everywhere. All over the lawn. Jackrabbits.
One of them is coming out of the woods while two are going up the garden stairs.

It's like they're making fun of me.

I never know whether to grab the camera or the gun.





Camera.
And while I'm at it...

kingdom against kingdom

Today was a humid temperate mix of weather causing condensation to alight on everything. The van windows, exposed skin, even the mosquitoes flew lazily - like they were weighed down.

I never noticed how fascinating a bead of sweat trailing across someone's forehead can be.

I bought 'A Brief History of British Kings and Queens' at Chapters for five dollars and 41 cents. I had to fish through my unnecessarily large orange purse in a brave attempt to find the exact change, prompting the smiling check-out girl to giggle, 'it doesn't matter, I'm here until 9 o'clock!'

9 o'clock on a Sunday? It was around 2pm. Not that I entirely buy the whole Sabbath rule, but it seemed excessive. But then, the prospect of spending the twilight hours of whatever day in a bookstore...

She was more excited than me when I counted the correct amount of coins, flipping them concertedly in the palm of my hand.

'You GOT it!'

'Yeah.'

I realized I should firm up that resolve to get excited for the little things. This girl probably really enjoys working long hours till 9 on a Sunday. She doesn't get to read the books, so I can't imagine why. Point is, I'm trying to imagine.

I got home and flopped to the floor next to my bed and cracked open the middle pages to get a whif of the smell. The new glued-book smell. The never-been-touched smell. A mysterious unknown familiar smell. That smell never goes away, it just evolves.

I hit the chapter on Bodica just as a yellow centipede trolling the carpet changed course and headed towards the door. Sadly given Bodica's fearless rapine story, the yellow bugger was slightly more entertaining.

She burnt London to the ground, but the insect won in the end.

the true story

I think the truth, the real truth, is just an accidental series of happy or unhappy revelations.

I discovered that these garden lanterns are solar-powered, not magic.

The lie was far more interesting.

roll your window down

Just after the sun started to burn the dirt road at the top of Caledonia, my tires were crunching along the gravel climb to meet it.

I passed a run-down cottage. The windows in the front looked as though they'd been rattled slightly out of their frames, probably from years of dry summer thunderstorms and the lonely stretches in between. An old plywood sign read 'for rent' in cracked red paint. Maybe no one ever made an offer.

The valley opened its arms as I left the mountain behind me and cruised in a downward spiral.

The car pressed toward breakneck pace as gravity pulled, hurtling faster and faster. Tiny hills and ditches in the road left my stomach in my throat. Thrill became dizzying fear.

My toes itched for the brake and my jaw tightened, but my hands slowly let go, stretching far apart, my fingers caressing the boundless rush of air.

In the corner of my eye, a red-breasted bird shot through the air meters from my speeding bumper. Its wings tipped as it made a last ditch attempt to escape. As the car sucked the little thing from its flight path, my eyes shifted in time to see the twisting explosion of feathers in my rear view.

The pungent syrupy smell of trees and the bird's death was thick in my nose.

The car roared louder until we were a vociferous blur, racing towards the deep bend ahead, tearing the gravel into sparkling dust.

I spread my fingers like wings into the rolling wind, closed my eyes, and felt the car float away.

casual sex

is an oxymoron.

The proverbial unicorn - an animal I've never met.

I want you to know, I've been faking all along.

It's never without feeling and it hurts every time.

the hunter

The fog's rolling out and the mist is rolling in. In the earliest morning, we'll put your horse on a trailer and head to the show. Reverse twilight will haunt the road for miles until the sunrise burns into our retinas and rouses our senses. And when we get there, I'll laugh as I slip the chain across her nose, guessing how many hotdogs a day we used to eat. But my stomach will hurt thinking about them, thinking about all the lost times. And when I reach for her muzzle, she'll snap it back, because she doesn't know me. I don't know me. I used to know. Now instead of boys and big ben, we talk about finances and the greater good. A part of us we'll never see again lingers in the sawdust. Do you remember this? It was my whole life.

old familiar things

Nathan Wiley played at the Paramount tonight.

We sat in front of the pool table holding our beers. It's so natural to hold a beer. The bottle stays quietly in the palm of your hand, and the effervescent liquid warms slightly as the songs wear on.

When the slide guitar suddenly started to simmer, my right hand immediately moved to my heart and my fingers opened as it lay against my breast, warming my skin through my thin black jacket. Warms my beer, warms my heart.

My whole body shuddered, and my blood lit on fire.

I was mesmerized watching Wiley's chucks tap rhythmically against the tiny stage. The never-ending van ride from Victoria to Charlottetown was traceable in the dark circles under his eyes. They spun a web with their sound despite the constant touring exhaustion. I was swimming in it.

The bass player leaned over with a sideways smile, and said something inaudible in Wiley's right ear.

I shouldn't say inaudible. It was more so silent -- a subtly gestured exchange from my pool-table perspective. All motion. I wondered what they said to one another, whether the words could reach me through the din if I concentrated hard enough.

I sighed and pursed my lips, crossed my legs and let the heel of my right shoe dangle.

I believe I had forgotten how beautiful live music is.

insert headline here

Layout editors stake their jobs on the front page. Poor photos, generic headlines, neglecting the crease and colourless static white noise kill the issue. Nine out of 10 readers pick up a paper because of the headlines.

The layout team sweats harder and faster over the front page than any other combined.

They have to ask themselves, 'what is the most important item? The most relevant story for our readers? The headline that's going to make our readers stop in their tracks and instantly shit their pants?'

So naturally, reading deeper into headlines will tell you something about the people reading the paper.

Go anywhere, and look closely at the front page. Translation is easy with a little practice. Here are some examples:

'FIX ROADS BEFORE LIVES LOST'
[read: If you're visiting, be warned that this area is a massive maze of sprawling highway. No one walks here. Our livelihoods are based on what's under the hood -- we're a driving culture, and you can bet your iroc-z that we don't plan to die for it, and we're going to look good doing it (keep your eye on the road, and maybe you'll be lucky to spot the middle-aged moustached male still driving a trans am).]

'MISSING MAN FOUND SAFE'
[read: The aging baby boomer-population has somehow ended up all in the same place (here) and those elderly bastards are soap-opera fanatics who've been salivating over this story, praying for a melodramatic ending. Well guess what losers? He's SAFE. This isn't news, we're just appeasing you again. There's never any news, suckers.]

'THERE'S BEER ON TAP, BUT NO LAWNCHAIRS ALLOWED'
[read: There's sweet-fuck all to do around here.]

and my personal favourite,

'GET READY FOR A HOT SUMMER'
[read: it's been raining forever, and we know you have nothing else to talk about, so we're going to supplant you with some fallacious info.]

I'm not kidding. This is a story about weather ON THE FRONT PAGE. Seriously, it's bad enough we sensationalize the important news, do we have to sensationalize the weather too? Next week, when it rains, the baby boomers are going to string the one meteorologist peppering that story with authority up by his balls.

'METEOROLOGIST ATTACKED BY CAIN-WIELDING RETIREES'

perched

If you see a raven on the ground eating, look up. Chances are you'll see his backup at attention on a post nearby. They've got eachother's backs. One eats, the other watches.

I can't tell though, whether they're friends or lovers.

Sometimes I watch them and a strange fear starts to fill me. Friends or lovers? What if I turn around and you've flown away?

Maybe the fear is because I'm the one who wants to fly.

do you like butter?

This little guy couldn't give two miniature shits that I'm snapping his photo. In fact, I gave him a dandelion and he fucking posed.

Then I distinctly heard him say, "if you buy me a pack of smokes, I'll wear a hat and do a little jig too."