hello heat

"I'm not that good at sticktoitiveness," he smiled, lightly grasping a Stella bottle in his backyard in north Toronto, his clammy palm mixing with dripping condensation in 34 degree heat.

"sticktoitiveness..." I pondered in my warm haze, "sticktoitiveness is an awesome word."

"I invented it," he replied.

"Wait... do you mean you're not good at stick-to-me-iveness?" I asked, pulling down my lower lip, indignant.

"No - I'm wicked at sticktoyouiveness," he laughed as the index and middle fingers of his left hand traced the length of my arm hovering down to my thigh, to my calf and across the tops of my painted toenails.

Beads of moisture traipsed along the nape of my neck, poured miniature torrents across the enclaves of my collar bones, and I felt... I felt like I could evaporate right then and there; morph into red-hot steam and have him inhale me.

Summer's here huh? Summer in Toronto, with smog warnings and humid nights. Summer is beautiful and sweaty.

Know what's sort of interesting (and maybe speaks volumes to the power media wields with irresponsible hype) in all this Da Vinci Code movie frenzy?

'Da Vinci' the name now contemporarily applies to a pulp novel, not a more-than-novel renaissance painter.

This is true for people who haven't even READ the damn thing.

And you keep wondering how ignorant North America in general can get. I'll give you a hint: think big.

follow me to a limb

I think to say that the trees are at their most beautiful in spring, that this is my favourite time of year for tree-spotting, would be a kind of time-conscious fib. I mean, it's true, but only because 'time of year' happens to be now-specific. Right, like, because I've said before, "the trees are most beautiful in autumn," and in a pacifist observant way that's true, but since it's spring, they happen to be at their most beautiful right now.

Maybe from a different perspective, a tree has a totally different life depending on what time of year it is, so the tree I touched on my way to work this morning (the maple with the lamb's leather dried-blood brown leaves so buttery against my palms) isn't the same tree that I would see naked, whispering brittle and caked with thin twinkling frost in February.

Actually, I just re-read that and maybe it wasn't a different perspective at all; same spot, two different trees; each growing moment a tree's most beautiful moment.

Seriously, the trees really are special this time of year. I strongly encourage the age-old spring requisite 'hugging' of them.

success despite a death?

News sources saying some mcmission in khandahortons was a "success" in light of a young Canadian woman's death is fucking propaganda. I doubt any Canadian would agree that her dying was necessary loss - "success" (cue both index and middle fingers making halting quote/unquote-like motion in the air) would be striving keeping our trifle of an army the fuck out of conflict.

Peace keepers, yes. Freedom fighters, what?

niagara falls

I caught this bird.

He caught what looked like drowned vermin.

It was a good day.

fear mongering

Just a quick PSA: when you're losing your voice and your cold is making you feel like ass, apparently it's not appropriate anymore to jokingly answer the question "what's wrong?" with "I've got the bird flu."

Today is the first day of the rest of your diet.

George Bush's lament

Media's fascination with Zacarias Moussaoui's crime and penance is geared at being a crowd-appeaser, but I'm still not sure who wants to hear it.

The dude gets to chat with the public today about his role in the 9/11 attacks and his conviction. Much to Bush's chagrin, Moussaoui gets life in prison instead of the old Capitol P. I figure GW could come up with a pretty good compromise and send him to maximum security in Texas (where he can look forward to burly Texan inmates ripping him a new asshole - by the way: why did he say 'America, you lost, I won'? this guy has no concept of ass rape, apparently), or maybe one of those still-partially-submerged-in-muck-water penitentiaries in New Orleans.

Does anyone actually give a shit about trying to pawn off some semblance of justice to a whole nation through the punishment of one man?

Duh.

My horoscope is dead-on lately. Now I keep wondering if it's dead-on because I really, really want it to be and I'm reading-in, or dead-on because (WOWIE) there really are mystical forces at work out there.

So I have believed - briefly over the past few days and at moments in the past - in my horoscope. So sue me.

My problem isn't with the idea that the star-readers might be on to something. My problem is with the fact that if they're onto something, what other fate-related forces are on to something too?

Omens for instance.

This morning I walked up the stairs at Islington station and nearly slipped in a bit of broken egg. It wasn't just any egg though; it was the tiniest, most perfect little speckled bit of bird egg broken right in half, the grey yoke mashed onto brown tile.

I hovered mid-step staring at it.

I took a deep breath and willed time to stop, pushed the air out of my lungs and blew time backwards, watched the egg slowly pull together, the seams stitch and mend, the tiny blue and grey orb bounce once, and float upwards - above my head, above the edge of the roof and off somewhere I couldn't see - as the commuters flowed backwards down the stairs like a jerky waterfall.

What's a broken egg if no one notices?

Or what if you do notice - what if you noticing is some foreshadowing that something about you is broken, or about to break, like a black cat is a sign that darkness is going to touch you.

Shit, I can't lie - my horoscopes are looking pretty accurate. So I can't shake this feeling: what am I about to break?

parkdale roundup

Wikipedia: Parkdale
Parkdale on flickr
City of Toronto: Parkdale
Queer West Village

And more on the exotic dancer, dominatrix and corporate litigator: they were some of the most [un]reasonable facsimilies of real women I've ever seen (making for some tremendously enjoyable company).

Leopard print is the name of the day in decor.

No really, it is.

If you haven't been sitting on leopard print sofas, wearing leopard print tube tops, sipping leopard print colour-reminiscent beers then where in the heck have you been?

Oh wait. Me too. Sorry I've been AWOL.

I'll post more, I promise.

I've been hanging out at the hot leopard-printed Toronto-hotspots around my apartment here, running from leopards and panthers and all manner of big cat. They're wild, chill, crazy, fierce - people like I've never met (or maybe just never noticed up 'till now), but not really feeling much for writing about any of it.

Like, stop me if you've heard this one:

An exotic dancer, a corporate litigator, a dominatrix and a journalist in high heels all walk into a leopard-printed washroom stall....

Seriously, these are the people in your neighbourhood.

And I've been spending some time, a lot of time, trying to make the big decisions. But so far, the only conclusions I've managed to reach are that a: there is no way to know you're making the right decisions until long after you've made them, and b: the only wrong decision is indecision.

So with that in mind, anyone out there in the big city want to domesticate an industrious young kitten with a penchant for writing, acting and all manner of creativity? Help me out. I think I want to stay in Toronto. Leopard-scratch that: I know I want to stay in Toronto. Not forever - I'd miss the ocean - but at least for the present.

I've been hard on you, Toronto. You deserved it. But you keep surprising me, keeping me on my toes. Good job. More of that.

It's just this crap corporate job that's got to go. Can't say I won't be bartending again soon - the idea is tempting. Summer is looming. Where else can I work and swing time off? Besides, I can't post about the shitty commute and my shitty job anymore or I'm sure this blog really will get tired and I'll forget I actually have anything worthwhile to say.

A clever europeenne hellcat friend of mine recently advised me, "you can't force an inner narrative," so I tried not to for a while (she also said, "try to concentrate on your thoughts and not on what you think about your thoughts," which more or less made me dizzy).

With all that, I'm crawling out of the mild confusion/dejection-cave I crawled and disappeared into about a month ago. Haven't seen me in a while? Here's Jimmy Dean and I sharing a moment via webcam at the Cadillac Lounge on Queen St. West in Toronto. Now you see me. You can't see the leopard print, but I promise the table cloth is covered in it.