because i'm in the mood... 5:44 p.m.

i do not purport to stand unaccompanied, my finger on the pulse of an otherwise un- or ill-defined generation. i do not pretend that my language is my own. i have no knowledge but experience and that tenuously borrowed from twenty-one years, only seventeen of which were spent sober. i have a proposition. i propose that the great fears of centuries past (death, war, poverty, disease) have failed to properly impress themselves upon those i would call my countrymen, were it not for breasts, progress and urban sprawl. i settle for peers. drowning in comfort, marching to the impossible beat of technology, we resign ourselves to fears much more pedestrian: mediocrity, addiction, divorce, retirement. and how to blame us? having been born into the unmitigated generosity of a previous generation...and video games, unapologetic spawns of the devil, relieving children everywhere (albeit predominantly north-american) of any latent life-defining phobia they might still possess. the unlucky few who've avoided twenty-first century bliss have, in the past, been dealt with with by many consumables, most recently celebrex. and my thesis, you ask? i have none. this is but another self-concerned rant by another spoiled brat in a generation of would-be poets without proper pain or focus.

wednesday night jazz 9:34 p.m.

The sounds of jazz are loud here,
Like the clanging of pots and pans
While father is playing the piano
And mother is a younger, darker haired
Version of herself, singing smoothly
About I can’t give you anything but love.
The living room walls are red and the
Trumpets sound now with a familiar tune
Sleeping children could recognize.

Smoking is the requisite for all of these
Things, contemplating the changing
Of seasons, how the ivy near the window
Has been complaining lately, of snow.
How my skin seems more creased when
I look in the mirror, my teeth bearing their
Age like a crest. The changing of seasons
Is such a wretched time, beautiful and full
Of agony all at once. Smooth voices soothe.

stallers 5:36 p.m.

i would like to begin by stating that my general opinion on women is that they are by far the more intelligent, interesting and well-adjusted half (51%) of the species. i would like to continue by saying that, that being said, sometimes i just have ask myself "what the fuck?"

i work in an office at yonge and wellington and drink a lot of coffee. this finds me making frequent trips to the WC. and every single time i bust open the swinging washroom door i hope to find the place empty. i think it's fair to say, that save for the occaisional fetishist, no one likes company in the b-room. but because there are 40 women in my office and three stalls, there is invetiably another human being going about their business while i attempt to go (at mine).

i call them stallers. these women who sit in stalls, silent, waiting for me to make my exit so that they can go (about their business) alone. the thing i find exceptionally curious, is how long they'll wait in silence and how many of them there are! i figure that the point of the exercise (stalling) is to avoid having to share with any other member of the office the fact that you're taking a shit. and the details of that shit which, i presume, if you're bothering to stall, aren't particularly savoury.

word to the stallers: shoes are your identifying feature. based on your shoes, i can deduce your height, age and fashion inclinations. and because there are only 40 of you, you'repretty easy to peg once back in the corporate space, where i can connect your shoes to your face. what's worse, being identified as a staller, or admitting that you have to take shits?

advice to the stallers: courtesy flush! while you're still sitting (and i know this is getting detailed, but i feel it's important) about to embark on the dark mission, flush the toilet and go with it. we won't hear you (this works best in business bathrooms with industrial flushing mechanisms), it'll smell significantly less and even if we sort of hear and it sort of smells, you're allowed to take shits! it's okay. we all do it. we all need to do it. and for those of you who aren't having regular post-meal bowel movements, you've got bigger things to worry about than judging those who do.

stallers disband! shit freely my women friends!

monday night riot 6:18 p.m.

The hungry hands of my heart
Have tightened their grip and
Are rattling my ribs like prison
Bars, their voices echoing through
Veins and dark cavities like an alarm
That reminds on this clear day
you are only human.

Oh these human parts! This army
Of human parts which I govern like a tyrant
Rely on me, trusting that I will sleep,
To dream, to wake, to feed, to love again.

Oh these human parts! These eyes
Which have seen years fly by in a flurry
Of colour and space, these hands
Which have felt the sticky backs of lovers
And the smooth, sharp edges of razor
Blades. This heart which has thumped
Softly in the depths of an urban evening,
And pounded with anger in the torrid heat
Of adolescence. Oh these human parts!

alanis morissette on love 8:27 p.m.

it's tortured, ugly, pretty and involves much whining. i don't like the way that my itunes seeks out every audio file on my computer and compiles them into some giant playlist that, when shuffled, finds me drinking wine to the sound of my own voice recording voicemail messages in mp3 format for various support lines in the office. i don't like the way that beer caps inevitably end up in my purse and pant pockets. i don't like way my beer is hot before i finish it in every month except november, december, january and february. i don't like the way i can't tan and do burn, in the months where my beer is hot before i finish it. i don't like the sound that the keyboard makes on my new hp. i don't like that my life is regulated by business hours.

i especially hate the fact that if i knew anything about the kind of love this canadian girl is whining about, i wouldn't give a shit about any of things i don't like. i figure that's the way it works, anyway. don't correct me if i'm wrong, it's the light at the end of the tunnel i don't like.

the new digs are hot 7:01 p.m.

that's all.

new house 1:46 a.m.

moving's a bitch. that's all.

a day on hold with rogers: capitlism and efficiency 7:15 p.m.

i spent the day on hold with rogers. and by day, i mean two and half hours. and by rogers, i mean the assholes to whom i pay $200 a month in useless charges which are consistently itemized in a language other than english and subtotaled using formulas my mind has not the means to comprehend. i don't like phone companies.

i work for a phone company. and it's entirely possible that the policies i assist in implementing are as frustrating to my customers as rogers' policies are to me. which brings me to my next point: does capitalism really breed efficiency?

viki: all capitalism does is breed efficiency. but the question we need to ask ourselves is: do we want our world to prioritize efficiency over the quality of human experience? an obsession with the bottom line leads to a society which serves the interests of imaginary flows of capital above those of the people.

sashimi (the dog): arf. wag tail. lick toes of master. the question we need to ask ourselves is: where is the food?

kate: the problem with macro efficiency is that is breeds micro inefficiencies. where are we seeking efficiency? in financial models of broad scope. it is decidely efficient for ted rogers to hire morons to staff his call centre, because it keeps his labour costs low. and it's likely that somewhere in the heart of the great red beast there is a spreadsheet which measures levels of customer resentment, the likelyhood of lost revenue because of policies that are designed to a person the run around until they don't want to run around anymore and just charge the damn thing to their visa and have a beer instead. i'm having a beer. the cost of efficient customer/customer service interactions (i.e. giving reps the training and power to deal with situations as they see fit) is definitely greater than the cost of crediting the customers who are willing to wait to speak to supervisors, and more dangerous as well. i waited nearly two and a half hours on hold today, which, from my individual perspective, is as far from efficiency as you could possibly get. this efficiency that our economic system is allegedly breeding minimizes not human hardships, not human irriations, not human frustrations, but is rather designed to maximize the amount of money that makes it to the top. there is also a distinct lack of competition in the canadian telecommunications sector, but that's a matter for another rant.

the pizza is here.

post-modern bohemian cake 7:43 p.m.

the roommate (god bless her soon to be vietnam-loving-english-teaching soul) has made a cake. she added a touch of rat poo and extra-thick chocolate icing for taste. actually, the rats added the poo and she just took care of the icing, but it's a group effort, so credit is shared equally amongst all family members.

peter says i'm published dammit 6:46 p.m.

i'm toying with the idea of applying for the cbc literary awards. like a responsible contest participant i went online and read the contest terms & conditions. they're accepting only unpublished work. in my case, it's a 1000-2000 words of poetry for a potential first prize of $6000, a second prize of $4000. yeeeeaaaaah. there are a couple of road blocks: (1) you basically have to be michael ondaatje to walk away it. he's a former winner. and although the contest requires that you submit unpublished work, it doesn't require that you be unpublished. which basically means that every canadian author with six hours on their hands and a few pages of unpublished poetry is vying for the cash. (2) your work has to be unpublished. i know this is beginning to sound repetitive, but this is a key point for me: the cbc considers blogs a form of publication! all of the good stuff i've posted over the past year and change is therefore ineligible for competition. it's not as though i don't have little diamonds in the rough kicking around my desktop, but having to be concerned that they've been published on some random website and are therefore ineligible is a pain in my ass. i love google, but not in this case. having random house pay you eight grand to put out a chapbook is one thing, but creating and posting a blog entry is considered equivalent? (3) the winning entries are published in air canada's En Route in-flight magazine. you've read it, don't lie, we all have. the En Route magazine, in case you haven't guessed, is an issue for a number of reasons: first and foremost, no air canada exec in their right and sober mind is going to publish a kate leadbeater poem, primarily because kate leadbeater poems inevitably contain sex (and all the components thereof: pussy, cock, tits, ass, etc.), swearing, drinking, smoking, drugs, small children being assautled in...okay i'm exaggerating. but STILL. the cbc literary awards were clearly designed to fuck me. and you peter mansbridge, alleged guardian angel of mine, have seriously disappointed.

august, winter & alpacas 10:24 a.m.

i wore a sweatshirt last night, it was cold, slept with the windows closed, too. woke up this morning to discover it was still cold, which simply isn't right. august is too early for hints of winter, and maybe it's because i'm getting older, but i simply don't understand how the summer has evaporated the way it has.

commercials on tv about alpaca farming - it is my calling. forget the corporate gig, i'm gonna make me an alpaca farm. send all sweater/sock/toque orders to myalpaca@bestjobever.com.

baby blogs 8:01 p.m.

what is the deal with baby blogs...i don't get it. have a child, can't let go of the inter-web, must post pictures...must announce to the world that the 2 year old has finally had an independant bowel movement. holy christ, someone bust out the pyrotechnics. it's so far from party worthy that i'm tempted to reference the bowel movement again. diaper.

your child is your own and the blogosphere is not that village.

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.

haiku for BR 8:30 p.m.

paint and wet snowflakes
pink smiles, unrequited stuff
summer sweatiness

plastic fingernails
keep others skin cells so close
that you can smell them

inboxes fill quick
outboxes fill quicker still
then you stop, say no

new undergarments
make you dream of sex and rings
still you sleep single

cigarettes and beer
are reminiscent of him
what do you do now?

monday august sixth otseven 10:32 a.m.

the man at the brulerie st-denis explained to me this morning that an americano is an americano in french and in english. americanos are bilingual.

had my first canadian hostel experience last night and the coffee was required. some poor soul who'd taken a bus all the way from vancouver (life is too short) stumbled into the women's "dormitory" at 815 this morning and woke me from my restless sleep. there had been thunder and lightning and i dreamt about all the terrible things that happen to women in hostels, until the poor soul stumbled through the door and brought light and noise with her. i didn't dream or sleep after that.

montreal is depressing on mondays when it rains. the streets are mostly empty and those left on them aren't smiling.

the berri-uqam metro smelled like pizza when i dragged my ass through it at 11, looking for a locker to stash my bags.

i bought a brass padlock in a dollar store from a man who spoke neither english nor french, but whose skin was the colour of coffee.

the security guards at the bibliotheque et archives nationales were very gentle with me and directed me to lockers.

there are no flights out of this city today

et

tu me manques.

sarah lee cherry cheesecake 11:42 p.m.

is clearly god's gift to hormonal women, fabulous with all of its colourful little frozen bits of ruby fruit and graham crumbs and cheese that doesn't really taste like cheese but is really fucking awesome anyway. i fee like it understands me.

i will not eat an entire sally lee cherry cheesecake tonight. i will not eat an entire sally lee cherry cheesecake tonight. i will not eat an entire sally lee cherry cheesecake tonight.

i have eaten an entire sally lee cherry cheesecake tonight.

shit.

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.

i have a video camera 8:19 p.m.

I have a video camera. When I am filming a person with my video camera I can zoom in on whichever parts of them I like best and nobody need be the wiser. It is the camera’s single most important feature.

My girl, had a number of single most important features. It was loud in the room: voices, laughter, the rhythmic thumping of some stupid kind of music I couldn’t name and didn’t care because she was wearing a skirt and had goose bumps on her skin from the open window. People were smoking, you see, it was of those parties. Vodka on the kitchen counter, cocaine on the coffee table, footprints on the floor and she was wearing a skirt and I had a video camera.

An oversized birthday card found its way to the kitchen table and lay open, pages spread like legs as people touched it, marked it. There were four thick black sharpie pens, three men, two women and the birthday card was having a fine time of it.

So was my girl, though she had better things to do than sign cards – she was busy with the business being beautiful, humming along to some stupid kind of music I couldn’t peg and didn’t care because she was wearing a skirt.

Cameras have a number of defects, the greatest of which is that they don’t capture smell and I stood over her under some drunk and dubious premise, filming the side of her neck, the bits of shadows sprinkled about the secret parts of her body, she had a smell.

Throw the camera across the room, smash the window, seek the floor, Michelle I want your smell inside me.

She might as well have been naked. She might as well have been standing at the foot of my bed, naked, arms swinging shyly by her sides with that skin like the sweeter tasting milk. She might as well have been, devastating as she was.

Minutes and the birthday card was spent, used, page-legs closed and the birthday crowd progressed to the drinking of the birthday booze and as the sound of ice-cubes hitting cut glass tumblers distracted the liquid hearts of the habit-warmed few, I stole a few more moments from my girl.

I spent them in the dream curve between her ribcage and her hip mouth full of lust words. The kind that soap wouldn’t wash out: my hand, nails bitten to the quick, will slide beneath your breast and live in that fold. Will scrape across your skin as the room echoes and moans, will find your other folds soft, wet and warm and will inhabit them. Inhabit them until you are full and I am blind, until you are hurt and I am deaf.

Make of me some Helen Keller oblivion beautiful, with those legs. Throw the camera across the room. Smash the window. Seek the floor.

She squirmed in her leather seat to the sound of some stupid music I couldn’t name but was beginning to like, because it made her tits move like she was fucking me and my camera were watching her tits move like she was fucking me and my camera watched until the vodka was spent, used, empty, until the record stopped spinning, taxis were called and boys began to make b-lines for last call.

I watched her ass as it approached the door, stocking feet on hardwood floor, redefining fiction with every step.

My girl, you can’t ever see this tape.

finger nailed 8:15 p.m.

My mother tells me over cheap wine that I need to be more conscious of my corporate work environment. Look around the office, she says. I’ll bet you won’t find a single VP…I cut her off, or bite her off, if you will. I think you’d be surprised by what goes in and comes out of those people’s mouths and furthermore, it is without doubt that if I followed the general moral example of the management team, I would be condemned to burn in hellfire for all of eternity. Is that really what you want for your first born, I ask? That’s not the point, she says. Of course not, I think.

I am an adult and as such I heed the advice of fellow adults. Especially when they’re related to me and Christmas is coming up. Therefore, I am trying to quit biting my fingernails. Having recalled the existence of some toxic sludge my parents used to paint on my thumb in an attempt to have me stop sucking it, I haul ass to the Pharmasave and find a clerk. I’m trying to quit biting my fingernails, I tell her. She looks at me as though I’ve got the clap, fiddles with her hair which has been died some soft shade of radioactive and tells me she’s got just the thing. Parents come in all the time, she says, trailing off with her hands comfortably by her sides, that haughty bitch.

I whip out my VISA card, which I hope the lovely Melinda will notice is a step up from the student kind and bow in complete deference to the great corporate mogul that is me. She does not. I pay, grab my toxic sludge and leave.

Seated in the comfort of my Victorian low-rise apartment, away from the judgmental eyes of the properly finger-nailed world, I apply the sludge gently, at first. Then, mesmerized by the activity, begin to apply more aggressively. Minutes later, my fingernails, hands and select areas of my thighs and calves have been doused. I sit, turn on the tube and wait for my invitation to the world of non-compulsive, have-their-shit-together, people. Several commercial breaks later, distracted by the pretty lights and intelligent dialogue of primetime, I try and sneak in a quick chew. To my dismay, I begin to gag, dry-heave, attempting in an apoplectic frenzy to get the evil taste of childhood out of my mouth. Noooo!!!! I scream. Glaring at the bottle, I wish hard that looks could bring inanimate objects to life and kill them, not in a nice way. The grey, orange and white label innocently proclaims “Nail Biter.” I decide that it would more suitably be labelled “We’re secretly trying to poison you because anyone who bites their fingernails is CLEARLY a terrorist.” But admitting to myself the importance of the covert in the great fight against minorities and their inherent evil, I digress.

I was promised a safe, effective method of healing from a dirty habit. Instead I’m chugging a beer in the shower, trying desperately to rid myself of the evil stuff. Fuckers, I think again.

Newly washed, moisturized and thoroughly upset, I scan the package for customer service numbers and begin to imagine the string of expletives I will unleash on the unfortunate Sally Hansen rep who will answer my call. Sadly, there is no customer service number to speak of. And even if there were, it’s half past nine on a Friday night and they’d surely be closed. I begin to imagine the string of expletives I would’ve offloaded had there been voicemail. Fuckers, I think.

In an effort to maintain some semblance of sanity, I call my best friend and invite him over for a joint. By this I mean, in an effort to maintain some semblance of sanity, I call my best friend and coyly hint that he come immediately over with weed and sandwiches. He is of a good breed, being related to the Guttenberg character who invented the printing press and as such, appears promptly, bearing gifts.

After a few good drags and a quick bite I am decidedly less insane, though still pissed about the obvious conspiracy between Sally Hansen, my parents and the rest of the properly finger-nailed world. Don’t think I don’t know. Best-friend Jonathan, sensing my anger still brewing, leans over, passes the joint and exhales, lesbians all have fingernails like yours, he says gently. They’re considered practical, cool even. I, in turn, exhale and with a deep sigh of relief think to myself: what a civilized bunch, these lesbians you speak of. After a brief moment’s thought, I forgive Jonathan his fingernails, make peace with my own and with Melinda and settle into the sofa with a fair-sized roach for what will now undoubtedly be, an okay night in the world of the compulsive.

an experiment in colour and god 8:10 p.m.

He was accustomed to walking
grey city streets, dirty silver
lampposts conspiring, black
Mise van der Rohe shadows
impending. He was accustomed
to pasty white bodies pounding
pavement, their peach-coloured lips
humming off-key tax returns tunes
under pregnant clouds. He was
accustomed to Toronto.

Convertible top down, prairie
wind, gofer children scurrying
golden wheat paths to underground
schools of sunset, he was

unaccustomed

to the country’s midsection,
its slender waist sweating orange
ceilings, he was unaccustomed
to the country’s expansive belly.

Scream the cranberry words
of ruby-red cross-country conclusions,
he wanted to scream the lavender lyrics
of freedom from the black-fabric seats
of his champagne rental.

Conservative dog-brown shoe pedal
to the metal, fast forward to purple ends
of possibility falling from the sweet
grass heaven. He was unaccustomed
to the road’s speed and linearity.

Dirty blond stubbled release from
frames, doors, the ninety-degree
angle pressure to pay bills on platinum
geometrics of plastic. Dirty blond
stubbled permission for faster.

He was unaccustomed to the flushing
hushing undulating currents of loud
navy dark wind, stars picking
birthplaces in ebony sky, to this.

Scream the blind midnight words
of irresponsible time sand syllables,
he wanted to scream the white blank
page erasures of urban burgundy
madness and did.

And God listened.

storm at the family cottage in thunder bay 8:07 p.m.

Tree branches slap angrily against aging siding
Like the master’s whip against the bare skin of the
Boy who stole bread from the kitchen and was caught.

Rain hesitates in the parts of the sky nearest to Heaven,
Parts which I have seen only from airplanes, sipping tomato
Juice, reading newsprint and fearing death obediently.

Wrinkled palms smack laminate counters with familiar rhythm
And a fat yellow Labrador retriever barks at the screen of the
Door which confines it to its allowed space like a stupid beast.

Dirty towels and cedar panels, the latest publication on wealth,
music, how to keep the weight off, and this season’s best in pet gear
and top-of-the-line ice cream makers confine me to mine quietly.

Life is the thing which keeps the women in the kitchen reddened
Like fight-filled children, squealing hatred from all available orifices.
What fiction, rattle the blackened skies, that blood is thicker than water.

Thunder ten pins through the heavens like a chorus to the hotly felt verses
Of angry speech that the mistresses of the house pitch to the walls intently
As though words could meet and conquer wallpaper to reveal some antique

Truth preserved in flour-water.

Truth like fabric woven through years of antagonism and strife, bloody
Miscarriages of justice and faith and sisterhood and the dog
Now barks past the screen to the world and it is undeniably a prayer

Or proposition for a cease fire, a laying down of arms and words as the rain
Changes it fickle mind and leaves are silent with the smell of crushed
Revolution and the sky is painted a fresh shade asphalt with all its promises of

Destruction/Freedom

Still in tact.

on what it is to be an urban woman 8:02 p.m.

I’ve lost my cell phone and the walls
are ringing like they want to talk like they’ve
got something to say. The man knocking his rock-filled shoe
against the lamppost says I have a text message,
something about sanity…

Disregard emphatically.

I am in a forest, cell phoneless, making friends
with mute rabbits, stepping on toasted leaves
and looking up to find canopy, to find ceiling,

to find sky.

Mumbling verses into the naked wind on how not
to be alone, on how to occupied, married to my mind
and its winding paths and crevices, its little
habits, like the way it tries not to let me slip
because it knows I won’t endure the fall…

…of the leaves to the ground as the seasons
change as eyes widen and shut, pubic hair grows
and spreads like ivy and then turns grey, as the
rabbits start talking in tongues and the leaves start
charging for the symphony in guilt.

Clearcut.

Shave everything like hair: grease it up, rub it down.

Let’s fuck cuz I don’t want to be alone and your dick is better than nothing.
Give me a rash from that stubbled face, smell my panties with a sly smile.
Lick me clean, lick me dirty to the sound of street music:
140 languages weaving families, pounding sidewalks, rustling change in pockets,

civic hatchbacks on their way to the forest.

Where I will stand and spin to lush green hum of solitude,
Where my family will extend in ants and moss, where I will
Forget your cock and what it means to be reachable, where I will
Embrace sun up and sun down as the bookends of my days
and fall harder than I ever have for nature,
mumbling verses under my naked breath on how not
To be attached. Until a clockwork moon strikes wolves to life and
I fall to my knees and howl with all my red might: a speech, on what

It is to be an urban woman.

wedding poem for my uncle 9:12 p.m.

the architecture of them

In November the prairie winds howl with memories
of winter and the voices of a thousand wheat creatures
make speeches about loneliness on Wild Rose Ridge.

In November he admires the design of her smile, traces
the slope of her spine with a gentle hand and finds her eyes
fighting bright in the darkest parts of night on Wild Rose Ridge.

In November he recalls the marquetry of her spirit by the glacier
lake, the youthful embrace, amidst dancing leaves, of his
now wife and he is rich with the promise of life on Wild Rose Ridge.

In November great structures of timber and glass cradle the child
soul of spring and the smothered whispers of two score ten bear
witness to the perfect architecture of them on Wild Rose Ridge.

it seemed as though i would give up 12:48 a.m.

and somehow, through some measure of fate, i'm here. sitting at an open window, typing.

the store was a mess of things: cloth,
shelves and earrings, brightly
coloured relics of a decade made more
than broken and the man behind what would
have been a counter asked if we were
sisters. we weren't and admitted so.
the virgin soap, he said, makes you sweet
and young again. mah girls, he said. you'll
have to come back.

best hamster picture ever 4:59 p.m.

not quite right. 9:22 a.m.

the divide between my dream life and my waking life is beginning to collapse in on itself. things have happened but other people haven't lived them. my speech is slurred and my eyes are tired. i know that i'm not right. not quite right. crooked, you might say. or crazy.

perfect 10:45 p.m.

is the silence. and nothing is as complicated as it could be. it isn't hot or cold, late or early...it is, simply. i am sitting on a fire escape, the bars are making lines on my white legs. my blog entries are getting progressively worse. i have nothing to say and everything to confess.

so sayeth the west wing 10:36 p.m.

president bartlet and mrs. lanningham reveal, during an interaction in the fourth season, that if you're the president of the united states you can choose any number of paintings from the national art gallery and have them hung in your office. how cool is that? i'm salivating. what kind of president would choose a pollock, i wonder. i'm not sure that they even have warhols in the national art gallery, but if they did, would any president elect borrow one to hang? my guess is no.

there is the kind of art, as far as i'm concerned, that makes movements: creates them. art that does something unusual and is worshipped by those who toil, wreckless privately, smothered by themselves. can you believe internationl klein blue?

art: what an empty handful.

unearthed 11:00 p.m.

i was moving and sorting through old journals, as i do when they're unearthed. i came across a particular entry and it struck me. hard.

Sept 6, 2003

I am at camp and I need to vent because he doesn't love me. My back is beginning to sweat. The wasps are flying aroudn the orange juice that I stole from the dining room. I feel like a wasp. I linger around him , hoping to smell his smell. Laundry detergent. But I know if I get too close he'll swat at me with a few looks and words and then I'll have to sting him and then I'll die. I don't want to be in love with him. I miss him desperately. I know he is a beautiful person.

The CD I'm listening to makes me think of walking to work in Ottawa. It reminds me of Josh and of parliament and of the heart and crown and of Graeme. I don't know if it was a summer that I would like to be reminded of.

Somebody hid diamonds under the waves and they're glistening now. I want to go swimming but it's not hot enough yet. My skin isn't melting yet.

I guess writing is sort of like playing the piano. I'm out of practice. Who has time for this kind of thing anyway? Maybe I'm senile. Maybe that's not the right word. Maybe I'm fat and unattractive. Maybe I imagined that I was thin and beautiful and desirable and all of sudden, thanks to that asshole, I hate myself.

that was the last entry in the diary (the only one I recall using for any lenght of time) i bought the day after we first slept together, the so-called asshole and me. he's not an asshole at all, actually. his only sin was honesty. sin enough, i guess, at our age. for symmetry, here an excerpt from the first:

18 December 2002

Today I bought a journal. I have so much to write, I do not know what to say. I saw a book in Coles of Kurt Cobain's diaries and maybe one day someone will publish this because I will be famous and they will care. Claire says that she wouldn't write most of what she does in her journal if she knew someone would read it. I am not sure I care. I slept with ... last night. No, I've slept with him before. I had sex with him last night...

karen kain dances like a war fairy 9:06 p.m.

if you have ever taken an art class you will remember what it is to be asked to draw a person without lifting your pen from the paper. remember that and imagine a dancer, a woman with breasts and spirit, moving her limbs, muscles strained.

i have a book of her. a coffee table book stolen from a dusty pile in my mother's house. the photos are black and white, all of them. karen's hair is tucked neatly into a bun. her legs are longer than measurement. and the pictures are simple, plain. a woman dancing. why then, is it so erotic, so moving, so interesting to see her on a glossy page?

yarrrr 4:53 p.m.

before -- pirate themed streetcar party. need i say more? yes. i've showered, blow-dried, moisturized and feel that i'm ready to conquer the red beast. after - it was crazy. we showed up expecting to be the only ones sporting earings, mustaches: pirate costumes. but we were wrong, they were everywhere. we worried, for a brief moment, that there wouldn't be any music on the streetcar. we were promptly corrected: a few men in black pants and t-shirts spun happy hardcore followed by breaks. nick was especially happy about the breaks, as he generally is.

i'm listening to a cd that i used to play when i was in highschool. remembering is so good...

the ugliest part of town 10:41 a.m.

finch and dufferin: i dare you to find worse. i come up here every now and again for work -- my company has access to a boardroom on alness street. the landscape's unreal this far north. hideous high-rise apartment buidlings, noisy four lane streets framed by stripmalls containing businesses that all look as though they're having a closing out sale. shitty restaurants, bridal shops, a strip bar or two. second floor nail salons and dental offices, bus benches that remind you to call this real estate agent or that personal injury lawyer. it's thoroughly depressing. and accessible only by bus.

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.

in explanation 6:48 p.m.

the blog's going dark for a while. if you read, check back in august. it's too hot and i'm uninspired.

i'm definitely infringing on copyright 9:07 p.m.

posting this poem, evie christie's. it's too good, i want the world to read it:

That We Could Let the Season Fall

Not so long ago your parents loaded
you into the yellow Dodge -- a meteor
shower made you forget
just how much you hated your sister. The rusted flatbed,

the smell of gasoline and blackness
were a universe. These days you are never
far from pills that keep you three feet
from anywhere, half a mile between thought and speech,

and your mother calls too often for even
you to believe it's okay -- believe
there is a universe, stars ablaze and falling,
burning, settling into darkness. That we could let the seasons fall

around us without recalling the times
we smiled artlessly at the buckled skies
would be mad. Let the scar
beneath your chin remember a hostile winter, a BMX

and flying, books studded with bus tickets,
ash smudged verses, your fervent youth.
Let a voice remind, across cities tonight,
how you hitched Highway 7, out of your village, .357 replica

tucked in your waistband, to meet the world half
way. Now there are cigarettes and weak syndicated
TV, now there is instant coffee, blinds drawn
and a phone that sings from that world you cannot bear to answer.

the national tonight: a translation 8:56 p.m.

mansbridge: are you guys fucking up the evacuation effort?
mackay: absolutely not. we're completely on top of it.
mansbridge: so there's a reason that other rich nations have already gotten significant numbers of their nationals safely home and we haven't moved a soul?
mackay: yeah, there's a reason. well, you see, peter, there are logistical issues...we haven't got a fleet in the mediterranean, we're halfway across the world. we're dealing with big numbers. there are fifty thousand canadians in lebanon.
mansbridge: right, and none of them have been moved?
mackay: well, it's not so much that. the french are on the same continent, dammit.
mansbridge: the french rented ferries from the greeks.
mackay: i don't like the greeks.
mansbridge: is canada backing a cease-fire?
mackay: people should be reasonable. we made a statement. it was at the g-8 conference. we're a g-8 nation, didn't you know. we made a statement.
mansbridge: right, so about the cease fire?
mackay: ever notice that we have the same initials? it's great interviewing with you peter. i love that name.

pinecones versus my new red shoes 4:33 p.m.

pinecones are small, brown crunchy things, not summer
creatures either. some were huddled together today on the
sidewalk and i stepped (shuddered) as they crunched
beneath my new red shoes. they were hiding from
the heat, i think, beneath the shade of some urban tree.

kensington market 7:12 p.m.

this neighbourhood screams dirty beauty on saturday afternoons. it is a sweaty oasis which defies sunday, which denies sunday, always. it's part of the appeal. and the drippy, hungry tongues of scruffy dogs are a staple here, pink. as are the women.

you can always tell when a woman is on the heels of sex. she smiles wide, has a satisfied glow about her. she is a bit slower than usual, a little more luxurious. she scrapes the sweaty strands of hair from her neck with confidence.

morning at 592 7:46 a.m.

the street is loud when i sit at my desk. it's seventeen minutes to eight and traffic is at its peak, pigeons coo on the roof near my window and trees everywhere are wilting from the heat. i see my favourite books lined up, in the spaces near to me. a collection of twice-read grisham paperpacks are heaped on the window sill. slivery poetry chapbooks are jammed between hardcover copies of barney's version, sowing the wind, a russian textbook: troika. donations from my mother: rankin, thayer and tanenbaum have been chucked lazily about the place -- i haven't read them.

janejanejane 7:56 p.m.

my sister is a very warm person. forgiving as all hell. she glows and it's not sweat either. i feel myself around her. unjudged and happy. the two of us soak in laziness, leave the apartment only to eat or to rent. we've seen years of television series since she moved in a week ago. i feel as though if we didn't have to earn money or be real people we could luxuriate here together until the end of time. it would be lovely, too. who needs to be thin and successful when you've got take-out and a bosom buddy? a sister and years of ER still to go. hand me the remote. STAT.

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.

of course, that's it 5:51 p.m.

the sky is sticky, my yellow room busier than
ever with the electric fan blowing at things...
there is a salt shaker on the table and it has
nothing to shake at. waiting is unhappy activity.

time would be better in different directions, many
of them. i am sick of navigating flat space, walking
on two feet towards things or away from them.
i am tired of sleeping and waking and eating simply.

doing or not doing, drunk or sober, quitting or staying,
shitting. and that it should be chemical is offensive. right,
i should run, have sex, eat strawberries, feel better? flat
little strawberries with price tags and pesticide jackets.

make of my little life a party, dream travel, look bashful,
wear pretty dresses. it's the heat, of course. my ovaries
complaining to the estrogen parts of my brain. it's the light,
of course, not enough of it. it's my blood sugar, of course.

of course, of course, of course that's it.

k is for me 5:34 p.m.

a proper nest 9:47 a.m.

my sister and i have managed to create a proper nest of our run-down rental. very little floor is visible, bits of food and glasses of water are everywhere. neither of us have worn clothes in days. we are happy here, nested here, but it's going to have to end sometime soon...there's beginning to be a bit of smell.

when you google "picture" this is the first hit 6:11 p.m.

i saw a prostitute 2:24 a.m.

as i was riding in a taxi cab, on my way home. she was wearing very short pink shorts and i didn't see much else, save for a mane of permed blonde hair. i went to a party tonight, on queen west west, as it's called. that's where i took the taxi from. i don't remember what the venue was called but it was special. three floors: the main one had performances and djs and things, the second was mostly empty, except for a black poodle, and the third was a rooftop patio. there were funny wooden tile things on the patio, pretending to make a dance floor, but they were crooked and dangerous. kind of like me. laugh. dave called me with the inviatation. it'd been a while since i'd seen him. last time was at the art gallery of ontario. milne and gehry. he'd had a long night. i'd had a long day. and he sold a painting tonight! i was so proud, so happy for him. what a feeling to have someone offer you money for your talents and time. sleep is creeping up my spine with soft steps. i shall retire, i think. i worry, but needn't. things are as they are. i am as i am. not much more i can do, but sleep.

aquanaute 3:30 p.m.

an album by ariane moffatt. i like it very much. they were interviewing her this morning on tv5, that's how i discovered it. she was plainly attractive and had a very soothing voice. i would imagine that it's very good crying music, this. but let's not indulge that, shall we?

luxuriating 2:46 p.m.

my sister is coming tomorrow and staying with me for six weeks. my mother warns me that she doesn't wash dishes and watches television endlessly. i am of the opinion that the satellite to basic cable transition will find her being a little more active.

that's us in the picture, at my father's house. luxuriating in our sweats, as i imagine we'll do quite often in the next while. in the background: a painting of a bench with a sign that reads "nacionalizado de fresco" (freshly nationalised) - a daddy favourite. the sofa we're sitting on is an eighties brown curduroy ikea number that he just can't let go of. and on the table, my faithful laptop, source of unendning distraction and portal to the blogging world. oh! and let's not forget the laura secord cream egg, waiting nervously to meet its end.

a good one 11:17 p.m.

patrice desbiens was born in timmins, ontario and first published in the mid-seventies. if you want to read the english translation, go for it, but it's not nearly as good.

Je me souviens d'une station wagon qui coupe la nuit
qui ouvre la nuit du nord comme un couteau de chasse
ouvre sa proie
Nous sommes tous là
ma mère ma sœur son mari et ses enfants tous
dans cette voiture c'est
Johnny B. Good Leblanc qui conduit son visage vaguement
éclairé par la lueur du tableau de bord
Je suis le seul des passagers qui ne dort pas tandis
qu'on continue avec un océan de vert meurtri de
chaque côté
Ma sœur dort sur le banc d'en avant
la noirceur qui rentre et sort de sa bouche ouverte
La nuit est longue et sans plis
La nuit est longue et sans plis
La nuit est longue et sans plis
La nuit est longue et sans Soudainement
quelque chose déchire le tissu quelque chose bouge
là et
le pare-brise devient un écran cinémascope les phares
de Twentieth Century Fox et Gulf Western éclairant
l'animal l'animal l'orignal en plein milieu du chemin
qui fige et
fixe son destin qui roule vers lui à 60 milles à l'heure
Ses yeux ses yeux ses yeux ô dieu son regard jusqu'à
la dernière minute et le choc sourd-muet de fer contre
chair
Et ma sœur qui se réveille en criant un grand cri
fou et
final comme si l'âme de l'orignal avait passé dans
elle en
mourant et enfin
le silence
le silence de notre silence dans
le silence entre
Timmins et Toronto.

a fountain of sugary fun 10:49 p.m.

david letterman in putting mentos candies in big bottles of diet coke. i'm entertained, and nearly distracted. now if only i could stop listening to wonderall and get on with it.

the world's biggest ball of twine 7:52 p.m.

he is a good man and a gentle man 6:44 p.m.

and i am crying now, to the sound of an old song, because we won't speak anymore. i'm quite sure he meant it when he said it. what i remember: his toothy smile, his clammy hands, his blue eyes, his manner. the way he said, "ooohhh, girl..." i swear that he knew the name of every foreign dignitary ever born to this earth. he spoke as though he'd been born in the slums of kingston but was whiter than sudbury snow. and he knew it, too. and didn't care.

he watched me while i was slept, he said, more than once. i watched him sleeping many times, too. he was a cute sleeper. made me a picnic once at runnymede station. drank vodka with me in high park. sat next to me at matriculation and made me melt. he hurt me tonight, though, walking away without parting words. fair enough he didn't give them to me. i probably didn't deserve them.

he is a good man and a gentle man. i will not be angry because it is not best. i will be sad, instead.

in some grand procession of ignorance 10:35 a.m.

to tease out the truth in something takes a long time. it is difficult for everyone, but particularly hard for me, i think. imagine that ideas were paintings. if you were me, you would feel as though you were an inch from the thing, your body pressed close and casting a shadow, your proximity preventing you from making sense of the small pocket of colour on which your eyes were fixed. there would a wobbly memory of something similar you had once observed, under the same conditions. you would recall, without intention, the sound and tone of the other voices you'd heard. the voices that sounded most like those of your parents, of your first love or of a favourite teacher would be remembered best: their patterns speech, their choices of words, their taste. amidst the commotion you would do your best to piece together an understanding. you would appeal to the voice you respected most for guidance: you would swallow foreign impressions, unfamiliar sentiments. you would strain with your own eyes to see more or more clearly and you would fail. but amidst the commotion, the conviction of your borrowed words would be enough to find you passing the test, moving on to the next piece in some grand procession of ignorance, burdened with the definite guilt that some young thing might hear your voice trustworthy.

sweaty apartment sunday 9:44 a.m.

relegated to the IT room 10:02 a.m.

there is a cpu humming very loudly next to my head. two green apples next to my laptop are the only organic things in sight. i hate being relegated to the IT room. clement, the small chinese computer man, doesn't speak to me or smile. he likes keeping the window open so we can hear the lovely sound of traffic from finch avenue but he insists on drawing the blinds so that the only light in the room is fluorescent. i'm staring at my green apples and thank god they're such pleasing colour. the walls are grey, in here. so's the carpet. so are the cubicles. grey, all of it. grey, for heaven's sake! the man in the office next door keeps birds, because it's a marketing company, and people in marketing are quirky like that. the birds chirp and chirp and at first it was endearing but i'm just about ready to kill them now. the quirky marketing man also has an axe and several knives sticking out of his door, as though someone had tried to break in. it's a quirk thing. i have fantasies about using those knives. don't turn your back on me, clement.

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

pat methany group - first circle 1:12 a.m.

there is clapping at first, a few scarce notes and then, after long moments, a voice. no words, only sounds and promise. believe, reader, that we can truly make promises. he will smile in confirmation as you shrug in resignation, my father. rich proletarian methods drop into seemingly inadvertent, but altogether natural, chords of terribly deliberate genius.

and he sits, listening to it all, caught up in his heart. blue eyes wide with pink skin around, smiling stubble and remembering us as children. when we pulled at his worn shirt, tugged at his hands, begged to show him the fruits of days.

working hard to work hard, he is. breathing deeply as though in exercise, meters from a gentle , spotless, vegetarian kitchen.

he knows, but he's had years to know. i am a muddled person. grow me up? i don't know, couldn't possibly know...but i want, i try, i am upset.

he is not near and he seems never to be so. the inequality keeps him busy. the lost years.
the workers and his work.

how i would like him to be happy! truly happy...

that, believe it or not, is me 8:56 a.m.

in the backyard of my grandparents' old house, since sold, in edmonton. that's their garden and the sandbox of my youth. it was a great sandbox. i learned to bake there. donated by my grandmother's kitchen: several bowls, a few good mixing spoons, a cake mold and two muffin tins. my grandfather, the venerable thomas loudon leadbeater, always puttered about the garden while i was cooking. do you see the cement circles leading to the back? i used to leap from each to each. as i got older and my legs got longer i could skip every other stone and later i only needed every third to make it back to the house. the bush on the left grew raspberries and behind the white gate was the alley. it gave out on to 148th street. i think.

my words are cheap 12:35 a.m.

his are not

six reasons i won't leave the house 5:26 p.m.

(1) my clear pastic mouse flashes in red, epileptic fury and it is alive, requires attention (2) the futon remembers the shape of my laziness and the smell of my anxiety (3) i cannot bite my nails in public they way i'd like to: i would be embarassed (4) there is no soundtrack to my life outside these walls (5) the doorframes know my height and respect it (6) i am comfortable here

culprit 'coons 5:08 p.m.

i left my kitchen window open last night, when i went out. it gives on to a fire escape and i came home to find little dirty animal prints on the floor, the garbage can open and my unfinished breakfast lying victim on the floor. those furry bastards. i thought i could hear them all day, ruffling in the closets, although i'm almost certain they must've come and gone late last night. they've done this before, those criminal creatures, last time it was to rob our cat (now departed, see i miss this cat) of his few worldly possessions: half a bowl of whiskies and a plate of dry kibble dinner. i will remember to close the kitchen window. i will remember to close the kitchen window.

microsoft paint says, "pride is coming!" 3:22 p.m.

come hither, super 2:53 p.m.

living alone and working from home is getting to me. the toilet's been leaking for months and all of a sudden i decided to call bill, my super, to come and fix it. he showed up and i offered him a beer, a glass of water. "tell me about your day, bill. how're things in the building?" he was anxious to get home and didn't take me up on any of my offers. the toilet got fixed, though. and he talked to me briefly, enough to get me through the day.

it's too hot to walk to the mail box 1:19 p.m.

and so here, with sincere apologies, is my letter:

monsieur benjamin,

ça va? je suis contente de savoir que tes tableaux vont bien. je suis certaine que tu réussiras tes examens. est-ce qu'il fait chaud dans ton coin du monde? 31 degrés ici aujourd'hui. je crois avoir déja (je n'arrive pas a trouver l'accent grave) mentionné que mon apart n'est pas climatisé. je n'ai pas dormi hier soir, même qu'il y avait un peu de pluie. en plus, il commence a être difficile a respirer. l'air est très épaisse a toronto durant l'été. la job va bien, par contre.

c'est drôle, j'avais sincèrement l'intention de t'écrire une vraie lettre en blogue, mais je n'y arrive pas. il me faut une plume et un papier.

a bientôt. bises.

kate.

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.

a list of my favourite candy 8:15 p.m.

i know i've said that i don't like sweet things, but that's not entirely true. i mean, i don't like them now, but i used to. despite my parents' best efforts, i lived almost exclusively on a diet of sugar and citric acid for the better part of my pre-teen years.

• nerds (the tiny coloured ones in complicated boxes)
• hershey's cookies and cream bars
• the haribo candies that looked kind of like jube-jubes but had poppy-seedish thingys on them
• red skittles
• sour watermellons and grapefruits
• worms of all kinds
• some french sucking candy
• wunderbars
  

i miss this cat 7:31 p.m.

as though he were my child. professor puffy pants. mister flashlight eyes. major hijinx. mister love store. are you open for business? he's in new west minster now, with his grandma. my former roommate's mother. and by the way, he is eating tulips. he loves flowers. almost as much as i love him.

can't let go of ani difranco 7:17 p.m.

it's terrible, i know. so nineteen ninety-five. but there's something about her music that makes me comfortable, keeps me coming back. i'm listening to fire door. here's a poem that i wrote when i was nineteen. not so long ago, i know. but long enough that you're not allowed to judge me on it. the punctuation's all wrong. thanks in advance for looking the other way.

we were standing in a bathroom doorway
when you asked, smiling cagily if
i’d ever been gay and if
it had been (here, you winced)
in that ani difranco way i heard
footsteps creaking closer and i think
you did, too because you smiled
and closed your eyes the way

you do sometimes and i was deseperate to say
that no pop culture reference could ever

convey my sincerity, sarah
but i faltered, tripped over my own words
and somebody else’s footsteps
fell to the pavement with a thud
and barely managed to mutter
that i didn’t think so
not in that way, i mean

the country game 5:25 p.m.

it doesn't necessarily have to be about countries -- it could be capital cities, or animal names or, well, a lot of things. if you're ultracool you could use indie band names. point is, whatever you choose to use, it's a handy distraction when waiting in line somewhere with friends. each person has to offer a word that begins with the last letter of the previous word. as in:

A: canada
B: argentina
C: armenia
D: does every damn country name end in A?
A: no, dumbass
D: um...hint anyone?
A: think sand. the war against terror.
D: iraq?
C: it has to start with A, moron
D: oh, right. um...
A: afghanistan. let's get on with it. nigeria
B: not fair. is this line getting any shorter?

seriously, it's fun. especially if you prepare ahead of time.

tuna pasta salad = yummy in my tummy 4:21 p.m.

take (a) half a big bag of pasta -- the shell kind, you know, the ones that get stuck inside eachother, spooning (b) a couple of green onions, a.k.a. scallions (c) a few stalks of celery (d) more mayo than i'd care to think about (e) two cans of tuna --> don't get the skipjack, come on kids, splurge! (f) half a yellow pepper, chopped because the red ones were sold out (g) s & p (h) a table spoon of dijon (i) tender loving care and two hours in the fridge...best served with beer, and lots of it!

the world's biggest spreadsheet 4:14 p.m.

for those of you (like me) who spend hour upon hour agonizing over excel, i thought you might enjoy this, even though it's a tad ancient:

http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20021217S0006

the jcb song 11:31 a.m.

http://www.jcbsong.co.uk/jcbvideo.asp

our summer project 2:09 p.m.

i like sitting naked in my apartment when it's hot. my body sticks to the cotton-blend case of my three year old futon. the wooden frame creaks when i adjust myself. my legs are smooth today, men in suspenders were giving away razors on the street. but my feet are dirty, as always. i walked to the laundromat wearing sandals. my mother called when i arrived home, told me she'd found a novel at the library that'd been written by a mother and daughter team. they made a killing, she said. new york times bestseller. she's asked me to draft an outline and email it to her. it'll be our summer project, she said.

tricky blue: a poem to the sound of mozart's requiem - XIII 4:54 p.m.

the place is dark, carpeted with latex,
walls painted red with blood. enter to
staircases and ominous hallways
which widen and narrow like the
hot, fleshy throat of a swallowing beast.

there is an escape from the smell of sticky
love consumption - the swimming pool. it is out
of doors: a severe concrete rectangle filled with tepid,
tricky water which appears blue but isn't. women
are collapsed supinely on wobbly plastic chairs.
folds of them inhabit gloriously temporary furniture.

they splash about in the infancy of their freedom:
breasts are on display, creases and folds of skin
barely towelled press them for exposure.

and there is music. a decided beat eminating
from behind half-closed doors finds silhouettes
dancing to a different rhythm. and what

could i say to her? she smiles with her entire
face, this one. white skin taught around her soft
stomach, she walks like a boy. has a serious jaw bone.
swim trunks and beautiful breasts above them.
i see her dip beneath the water's surface and watch
as she shakes her hair free of tricky blue water.
she is no boy. and as she swims toward another
body i notice that's it's no boy she's kissing, either.

i don't look myself 1:27 p.m.

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.

beethoven, my lover 12:55 p.m.

i have a tear running down my cheek, it's in my mouth now and i can taste it. salty water. moonlight sonata is on repeat. i'm smoking. i wiped my face, cleared the tears and am still breathing. but barely. each note is so deliberate, so perfect. there is nothing more satisfying than brilliant, sparkling music. the method is calming, linear. i can see him now, playing, touching, laying a finger on a ivory key. a black one. beethoven, my lover. my long lost lover.

christ, he's going to harvard 2:26 p.m.

and here i am eating mr. noodles out of styrofoam, drinking instant coffee and pretending to know about trunk groups and clli codes in my patch-painted village apartment which, by the way, has mice. i discovered them (their droppings, to be precise) yesterday. they are not my friends.

medicate me, someone 5:28 p.m.

my mother recommends bathing with gershwin, light
some smelly thing and soak, she says. breathe. my eyes
dart about the room without permission. they like
the crown molding, the piles of dust cowering at the feet
of objects, the stain on the side of my antique refridgerator.
it's intricate. ice cream, i think. i haven't the attention span

for this.

not nearly as funny as moo-shoe pork, but funny nonetheless... 10:21 a.m.

list of my favourite movies 9:49 a.m.

• chariots of fire (1981)
• searching for bobby fischer (1993)
• show me love (1998)
• dirty rotten scoundrels (1988)
• sabrina (1954)
• the secret garden (1993)
• a little princess (1995)
• reach for the sky (1991)
• the cutting edge (1992)

sound familiar? 9:34 a.m.

Definition

Passive-aggressive personality disorder is a chronic condition in which a person seems to passively comply with the desires and needs of others, but actually passively resists them, becoming increasingly hostile and angry.

Psychiatrists no longer recognize this condition as an official diagnosis. However, the symptoms are problematic to many people and may be helped by professional attention, so we include it here.

Causes, incidence, and risk factors

The causes are unknown, but, like most personality disorders, a combination of genetic and environmental factors are probably responsible.

Signs and tests

Personality disorders are diagnosed by psychological evaluation and a careful history of the extent and time course of the symptoms. Some of the common signs of passive-aggressive personality disorder include:

• Procrastination
• Intentional inefficiency
• Avoiding responsibility by claiming forgetfulness
• Complaining
• Blaming others
• Resentment
• Sullenness
• Fear of authority
• Resistance to suggestions from others
• Unexpressed anger or hostility

Treatment

Counseling may be of value in helping the person identify and change the behavior.

Expectations (prognosis)

The outcome can be good with treatment.

Complications

• Stunted career development despite good intelligence
• Alcohol abuse or other drug abuse or dependence

450TeL Communications Inc. 12:59 p.m.

HOT CLOUDS 2:38 p.m.

“But as long as the hot clouds do not reach us, we won't go,” said Supriatun by mobile phone from Indonesia. The hot clouds wouldn't reach you in Sudbury. Everything here is slowly cold. Residents smile the graduation of a season, only to greet the next, to burn leaves, to be cold again. Lives soothed by scheduled cups of Tim Hortons coffee, measured in pay periods, in rounds of bar-born unprotected sex. The landscape's rough: rocky, I'd say.

There is a very tall smokestack in the West part. I used to have a plan to paint it pink with flowers. Yellow ones, I think, the big symmetrical hippie kind. My parents thought it was adorable. The stack's a symbol, I'd say. It looks like a penis, a cigarette...The postcards prefer the nickel. The giant nickel.

Things are lonely here, I'd say. The pick-up truck engines, the mosquitoes, the beat-up kids, their dirty hands and pocket change make lonely noises. So do the bingo halls and the bowling alleys. The strip malls by twilight, that's where you'll find love. Those dirty hands fondling the young parts of cleaner bodies in the Silver City parking lot. Or behind the Subway restaurant. They call them restaurants here.

googler interrupted 8:55 a.m.

i've been having a serious amount of trouble with google's beta apps recently: gtalk is blinking, gmail is blinking, blogger is practically blind...the desktop app, though cool, has been unreliable and a monster drain on my poor comp's day to day. then, as though the frustration of trial software weren't enough, someone close to me introduced the possibility that google isn't the innocent novelty i would have it be. stuff about caches, metabots, world domination. as it turns out they're keeping everything on a server somewhere, so that when i search google, i'm really searching google's stash of info, not the web. i must've been living under a rock because everyone seems to know this but me. sitting on my father's 1973 corduroy ikea sofa (which miraculously still holds its shape) i experiment with the idea that google is god. it knows everything about my life, is everpresent, omnipowerful, mysterious. it will most definitely outlive me. maybe i should start praying to google. maybe i should ask it for a job.

poetry in public 12:06 a.m.

i read tonight. i stood up in front of a microphone and a room full of people and managed three or four hundred syllables. it was at the victory cafe, second floor: art bar. i was trembling and darted off stage, once it was over, to the sound of hearty applause. encouraged in large part by my admission that i'd never done it before, i'm sure. they like first timers, some kind of pretense of community or something. anyway, you're not allowed to read two weeks in a row but i think i'd like to make a repeat appearance. what do you think? are you proud? you know me enough for that.

my sister needed help (that's her) 11:28 p.m.

with some highschool creative writing course...as though six verses in iambic pentameter actually mattered to the canadian canon...she's much wittier than i was at her age, i think. lazier and more inhibited, though. a bottle of wine later, i proposed something. i think i'm a glass away from correct rhythm and real aid:

My days are long and hard and filled with heat
They stick and stink and hurt with no relief
Laughter seems to blind me through the night
So that I might maintain or feign good sight

Their trays and ways find me wanting a break
As though that were enough to stay awake
I’d like to think that work means more than this
Although right now I’d do much more for bliss

Red stains, blue stains, green stains and work tonight
I thought I’d once had soul to make a fight
But truth be told I’m too damn tired for that
And dream I’d quit right now but for that rat

He makes me think I’ve got no good to me
Makes me want to change the things I see
Makes me want to do something much more
Much more like a good thing and even more

The night is dark when I am done as though
Things were so great so bright without a row!
As though this weren’t the only thing there is
As though I had much more to bring than this

But truth be told it’s just words now are left
And words we know aren’t much but lower cleff
Versions of the thing we’d rather say
And what better to do on this bright day

something i was supposed to do earlier 10:03 p.m.

after i'd read a random blog promising that the following meme (As defined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976): "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation." "Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.) was propagating itself through the blogosphere: (1) find the book closest to you (2) flip to page 161 (3) find the fifth sentence and publish it, complete with these instructions. the book closest to me at the time was a thick telecommunications binder which didn't have page numbers just some weird section, sub-section way of seperating sentences. the next closest thing (several hours later) was "mots de passe" by pierre desruisseaux, a collection of poetry i picked up in grade 12 when i still wanted to like words but didn't really. i've read it since. the next book, the important one, the one that passed the 161 test was john key's "sowing the wind," given to me by my grandfather after he'd read it. the inscription reads:

Ex Libris: Ven. T. L. Leadbeater D. D.


To Kate

From Grandma & Grandpa
Spring 2004

I haven't read it. I'll sleep with guilt tonight. Here's 161, sentence 5: "But Philby rightly declared that for Iraq this was not a happy introduction to the democratic process."

if i had to ask... 9:22 p.m.

each of my boys a question, navigating the space between rhetoric and wondering, without worrying about form (punctuation demands response):

ben -- how far away are you...exactly
re -- what happened to you
marc s -- what next
marc r -- was i imagining
joel -- did you know
scott -- how did you invite me
nat -- are you happier
graeme t -- what if
andrew -- what would satisfy you
graeme j -- is it perennial

rambling -- i've run out of titles 9:09 p.m.

i am reading lynn crosbie's poetry on a patio tonight, it is light enough still. she uses oxford commas and sounds like a poet. her words are like breathing as though i'm not reading (rhyme) but tasting her last meal instead. or various meals, particularly the ones after big events. they are exactly like breathing, don't you agree? : : : try writing in a very small notebook sometime, it'll keep you honest. curbs adjective use, apparently. : : : i read the blog of a harvard girl who was torontonian and liked palestrina. found her on facebook. i think we're in the same chapter with a few pages of beer and experience between us. loads of books she would say, i think. important ones. : : : i wonder how much poets lie. the good stuff is inebriating and i don't often bother to ask because i'd rather smoke in that state. (you understand). really though, it must be thick with lies. love is never so desperate, colours so vibrant, scenes so perfect, men so angry. dogs don't curl up in corners, they collapse. everyone collapses. you, poet! writing life in cursive while the rest of us are lazy, uninspired, (oxford comma) and faster at typing. : : : i blame the public school system for my need to list, to alliterate, to tie up loose ends. i've to blame someone. what's with the chip, you ask. get over it, kate. it's gotta be the divorce, the drugs, the circumstance. anything but me. (you understand).

if i were a proper animal... 1:24 p.m.

tired but not sleeping 12:07 a.m.

jonathan doubled me on his bike. i'm used to the handlebars, but he preferred peddling standing up. we rode up church street and were waived at, i felt like a float. COMMA SPLICE. we have plans for martinis on tuesday and he's promised to lend me a russian novel starring the devil. best book ever, apparently. sounds right up my ally. i'm stressed about money. relieved to know, however, that most music is still free. say i am you by the weepies.

beer and commas: in the interest of encouraging the appropriate use of both 2:04 p.m.

the oxford comma: an optional comma used before the word "and" at the end of a list, in case you were wondering...

i like to drink white beer, blonde beer, red beer, and dark beer. all beer, really.

the comma splice: a punctuation error in which a comma with no conjuction is used to join two independent clauses. i'm a big fan.

it's nearly ten to nine, we won't reach the beer store before close.

for those of you who know me 11:10 a.m.

http://kevan.org/johari?name=kateleadbeater
http://kevan.org/nohari?name=kateleadbeater

these last few days 7:19 a.m.

have been worse than most. there is a nice song playing on the cbc, called "take it from me." i am quite tired and wish the song would've lasted longer. they're talking about a terrorist plot now. my cell phone is in the process of exploding: the screen is a mess of colours. i blame the terrorists. you should try blaming the terrorists, too. i want to throw something breakable across the room and watch it shatter. like a sideplate or a vase or something. i hope the week improves. i'm not doing well. really not.

major anxiety 7:49 p.m.

should be a cat's name. not mine. cats, cats, cats, people. cats, cats, cats, crazies. crazy cat people. crazy me. crazy, crazy, crazy.

moo-shoe pork! 11:01 a.m.