Smoking: Epic Love & Hatred 6:46 p.m.

It's expensive, useless, smelly, deadly. And we do it anyway. I do it anyway. Not regularly, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that I do it sometimes and shouldn't at all.

Is it because I did it when I was young? It's like a first love: the best parts manage to pierce the thick weight of memory loss. And the bad parts? Well, what bad parts? Oh yeah, the ones yet to come.

How is it that in the midst of all this Progress that companies are still allowed to sell a product that kills people? Not maybe kills people, but definitely kills people. And a lot of them, at that. Money, power, a lot reasons I guess. But none of them good. None of them good enough.

when my friend asked how i was feeling, after having taken a few days off of drinking beer, i solemnly answered 9:50 p.m.

stoned

organized sports and fucking mobility 7:40 p.m.

organized sports are good things to bring mothers to, they like seeing you run and be sweaty, be part of something friendly. i'm on hold with sony ericsson customer service because it's my last ditch hope of getting a k790a. i loved that phone so goddamn much that i cried when i filed the police report: it was stolen. along with my bank card, driver's license, the prada purse my russian boyfriend's mother gave me for no occaision in particular. all of it gone. the prada purse can't be replaced (by me, at this time, anyway) and was really of little use, unless you consider the pedigree.

fuck pedigree, i'm not a fido commercial (i'm a sony ericsson commercial). i drink beer out of bottles, smoke cigarettes that were half-smoked yesterday and sleep in nightgowns. i ain't got pedigree. but god-willing i'll be a pedigree-less-middle-class-white-girl(woman-on-a-good-day)-university-drop-out with a sony ericsson k790a, which i swear, will be in a museum someday. it's that nice. i'm still on hold.

back to organized sports.

dating is an organized sport, i think. it's pretty organized and sportful...wait...not on hold anymore!

sony ericsson customer service says "buy it off our website or from you provider, those are your options." it's like the parent that offers "stand in the corner or clean your room. we're giving you options...lots of them, the choice is yours."

it's $400 on the website and much more from my loathesome provider. i don't want to stand in the corner.

i'm not a sony ericsson commercial, i'm a samsung 420shit commercial.

fucking mobility.

it's back on 8:52 p.m.

head viced between the hard noise of the nine to five, the cigarettes and the dog (which is not mine but eats my underwear anyway) i've made a decision. i've decided that my precious insanities may be more precious and less insane if shared. so the blog's back on. word.

it's five hours to august 5:53 p.m.

and the apartment is hot, really hot. i'm listening to schubert's ave maria because someone made reference to it on the west wing, but i really do prefer palestrina. my heart's racing as per usual and anyone who knows me is sick of hearing about it.

the heat doesn't come from the sun, it seems
to come from the sky, the sidewalk, the open
mouths of men and women on telephones talking
about last night, how their employers fucked them

on that last paycheque which won't cover, it
seems, the goddamn hydro bill and it must be
the airconditioner which hums clumsily in the next
room and was purchased to ease sleep but doesn't

care much. and why should it? our sleep is the no
thing, not the nothing, but the no thing, useless
and funny. do you mumble words in your sleep?
toss and turn and hug cotton the way i do, unknowingly.

wanting to be beautiful but instead drooling. do you
wake to find yourself staring at the other one in your
bed? and if only it were the least bit like the movies,
if only i smelled sweet and looked peaceful. i am

a hurricane in my sleep. twisting, kicking in a violent
dreamland of water, which is my favourite, but dirty
always in this hot city. sleep is a heavy hand on my greasy
head and i can't help but crumble and be ugly. i sleep.

this is my friday night 6:29 p.m.

an hour and a half spent feeling sorry for myself, listening to sarah harmer and devendra banhart on repeat, drinking heineken and smoking belmont cigarettes (which can be challenging with a fan blowing at you on high, for the record). a cold shower because the hot water tank simply isn't big enough, followed by a few minutes in front of the mirror with a pair of dull tweezers. squeeze my fat ass into a pair of jeans, fish through my collection of equally unflattering shirts and select one. inevitably get deodorant all over it and pick another. go meet gay friend who has eleven o'clock date but is willing to entertain until then. find some patio, drink a few pints, check cell phone three or four times for missed calls. smoke more cigarettes. stumble home flushed by 1045. check tv guide for anything promising. find nothing. crack open another tall can of heineken, light a cigarette, mix things up with a little ariane moffat and wait for sleep.

afternoon anxiety 3:13 p.m.

my mustard stained legs and body a wrapped sweaty
pretzel typing away in frantic heat and hearbeat
commercials and cigarettes swirling mad colour
storms unpredicted and mean in their acute
emptiness torture porcelain responsbilities, woes
cracked and left to steep in soft ash powder

shit and shit and shit and failure tempts
knocking at the animal door loud pounding
echoes tremble my hands and quake my life
aspiring to nothing but tomorrow and the next
happy breath

i really hope it's pms 1:12 p.m.

because i'm crying a lot these days, not sure why. not even a combination of bobby darin and pasta salad is fixing me. apples with peanut butter either. i guess there's always wine and cigarettes but that doesn't really fix, it just blinds. maybe blind is better.

when i'm fucked up 1:02 p.m.

i can't feel
words, can't
remember
them. they
look all wrong,
all of them.
beethoven.
jitterbug
perfume.
beets.
beer.
save
me.

misquoting marx 8:04 p.m.

there is something very calming
about a gaggle of middle-aged men
feeding their addictions together
misquoting marx over value-brand cigarettes
and pints of draught. i'm beginning
to know them, to recognize their rants
although they know not mine, this room
full of fathers white and tired with hearts
warmed by habit. some of us just have
a harder time of it. but we understand
eachother, i think, we solitary social bunch.
it is, whether you'll take my word for it
or not, a very honest enterprise: alcoholism.

how do you think beethoven would feel... 1:51 a.m.

about having his moonlight sonata as some man's cellphone ring? he's a cabby, brown and unable to produce sentences that i can understand. breaks a twenty with quarters, takes queen street when he should be on shuter, slows down at a yellow light. where have all the good drivers gone? the ones that cheat a little, cut off the teenager in the honda, leave the lincoln in the dust. where have all the good cabbies gone? the ones who blow smoke at the red cigarette circle sign on the dash listening to ethiopian classical and laughing because you're drunk. back in the good old days, when dinosaurs ruled the earth (i think it was december) some cabby gave me a cd, cared that i got home okay, waited until i'd unlocked the door...back in the good old days, some cabby let me use his cellphone (i don't think beethoven was involved) to call my have-we-broken-up-yet boyfriend eighteen times while we waited outside his door. cabby turned off the meter and drove me around while i cried, drunk and smoking. took me to casa loma. made me feel like some white trash queen in an orange car with green sides, he was great. tonight the cabby (they're citizens of some secret nation-state) didn't talk, let his cellphone ring the minor notes, gave no smiles, got no tip. where have all the good cabbies gone? and by the way...how would you spell that taxi driver's name?

i've been accused of not updating and here's my reply 12:56 a.m.

the people at the table next door are talking
about a hot cross bun mess of things
sticky sweet red jubejube union bites
electic green tidbits of provinical politics
digress to aboriginals for good measure
let sit and soak in domestic anything

someone said plato! someone said plato!
the men remind me of my father...
every man reminds me of my father
isn't that the case with you, friend?

if they were more attractive, those bakers
at the nearby table, they'd be having a different
conversation and there'd be sex on the horizon
dirty, drunken sex with some young thing
her black thong dangling from the corner
of a guilty chair like a casualty of war
or some teenager from a tough highscool
the smell of cheap perfume and ovulation
spread across the room like cream cheese
on a tim horton's bagel. hungry, boys?

the obese man likes to challenge his stick-man
company, the oily-faced girl stands too close to be
so adverserial in response and tucked away behind
the bar the more symmetrical of the three is attempting
an escape into a different conversation with the
broad-shouldered man next door who likes sports
and is a bit old but smells of old spice and cigars and
she seems to like that

the waitress is writing tuesday on the menu board
it's after midnight and she'd rather be home with her
cat who i'm sure is a black knight in his own right
but monday should be safe until last call if you ask
me, which you didn't and i apologize for offering

good night

------

all a girl needs is a drink, a good pen,
and maybe a cigarette

i have all three and my thesis comes apart
as quickly as it came together
i didn't expect it to last...

i am decided on more adjectives:
thick brown glass domestic bottles broken sharp wet
glistening slippery dangerous wonderfully blurred

and stale

the qualities of a good local bar 4:10 p.m.

you’re talking like you’ve got cab fare home
says jack, although he’d prefer we call him drummond
working steadily on his fourth pint his tar-stained
fingers quietly tapping on the bar drum drum drum
his daughter was steven tyler’s main squeeze
and his son went to harvard, he says. honours.
he’s got that james dean cool about him, some
kind of swagger he picked up flying twin-engine airplanes
in nearly three major wars and several wives later
he’s got the grit down to a science. let me buy you
a beer, sweetface, he says with cataract confidence
and a satisfied smile. there’s nothing sweet about it,
i reply, but i’ll drink your beer, jack, and smoke your
stories so long as you stop that tappity tap tap
and keep your hands where i can see them, jack.