things to do in toronto for fifty cents 6:38 p.m.

-buy 3 tim horton's tim bits
-go 0.3 kilometres in a taxi
-make a panhandler do entertaining things
-pay a one day late fee for an old movie at the local store
-buy two poppies on or before remembrance day
-pay gst and pst on an item which is priced at $3.34
-buy four sticks of incense
-buy one very discounted mango in kensington market
-buy one can of juice from concentrate at no frills
-buy a terrible postcard of toronto with the cn tower blurred and obscured
-make the united way a little more successful
-buy a can of discounted tuna and give it to the food bank
-pay for the electricity it costs to blow-dry your hair two or three times
-barter with someone on queen street for a dozen bobby pins
-dry one load of laundry for 14 minutes at the laundromat
-buy three cups of lemonade from the blonde girls down the street
-make two phone calls from bell payphones
-buy a used comic book
-buy a pack of kleenex from a twenty-four hour convenience store
-buy a can of no name pop from the dufferin street mall
-buy a jumbo freezie from any self-respecting convenience store
-get as many free bookmarks as you'd like from the public library
-buy a pack of lettuce seeds from the garden centre of your local grocer
-buy three high quality screws from the local hardware store
-pay for fifteen minutes of internet at a net cafe on yonge
-speaking of yonge street -- buy a dirty girly mag
-watch twelve minutes of porno
-smoke as many cigarettes as there are smokers

my feet are extremely dirty 12:12 p.m.

from spending the evening on the rooftop, going on prentensiously about colours and semi-colons. blue and terracotta. black and white. yale and harvard. the brick chimney sits at the same angle as the beer bottles because the tar surface is uneven. my hands hurt when i wake up to the sound of the cbc. pay cheque, coffee, yogurt, anxiety, lorazepam. a one hour biography about ellen degeneres on the star network. my superintendent has taken our ladder, our means of access. we're trapped on the third floor now, unable to get proper breeze, proper sun, a proper view. my hands are beginning to tremble, my palms red and rough from my adventures. i'm going to do something now - eat maybe, or lie down. i feel restless, unsatisfied. waiting is the worst.

from feza with thanks for your guidance and friendship 8:32 a.m.

one of my turkish psychiatrists sent me a photograph! we are in the basement of Rodney's Oyster Bar on king west with a couple of crabs going about their business in the background. i was very happy to hear from him, what a lovely surprise. i have an open invitation to visit istanbul. now if only i was rich enough to get there and cool enough to go.

i feel as though i should blog 10:16 p.m.

i've had an eventful night. words, commas, thoughts, a picture. but i've got none of those. or not enough of them. there was a first love, a second, a third. all of them different, all of them perfect. all of them wrong. i am left listening to the same songs i always did, alone in a room with four walls, two windows, two candles and tears. i'm not a bad girl, i promise. my mother had the best of intentions. i had the best of intentions. the keyboard simply doesn't have enough keys for me to reach an understanding with anything. no matter how much i tap at them, they aren't enough, don't provide enough. somebody stop the cat from crying. I CAN'T DO BETTER. can't write better, be thinner, more committed, more loving. i am as i am. i am as i am.

emre: tour guide to the turkish psychiatrists 2:46 p.m.

he has an unusual smell about him: a confusing mix of spicy cologne and foreign tobacco. he is slightly shorter than me with an insistent posture. he has closely cropped dark hair doing its best to disguise baldness, an unlucky victim at thirty-one. his goatee (i hate that word) is carefully groomed and he is never without his side bag. he often speaks in cliches, stumbling over his clumsy english offering "for instance..." as an unsuccessful distraction. his stomach hangs gently over his leather belt. sharon and i both agree that he is too quick to chime in, to pontificate -- he smacks his lips as he explains that he is a free lance tour guide and that the details (smack), for instance...are of no great concern to him but for the future references, more flexibleness would be good. sharon, with her legs sternly crossed, makes the leather banquette creak as she leans over and whispers to me that his travel agency didn't pay for flexibiLITY and if it had, flexibility would have been on offer. her pony tail is slicked back with hairspray. her tight smile divulges that she is terribly high strung due in no small part, i suspect, to emre and his unsollicited advice. she points out tensely that he doesn't have signing authority on the account and that his company credit card was rejected yesterday. i am not to sign for his portion of the bill.

church street on may 24th 2:39 p.m.

the air is nearly wet, a canopy of pregnant clouds forbids the electric enthusiasm with which these first few days of real heat are customarily met. the patios on church are fit to burst, attended not only by young girls with cigarettes but also by older couples dining on continental fare with pleasant garnishes on plastic tables which seem rock and sway with the rhythm of conversation even as the sky grows darker and the birds scatter...

blogging in the IT room (to the tune of rocking in the free world) 12:58 p.m.

in a cubicle next to a small chinese programmer named clement. i think he thinks i'm working. i'd bet he thinks i think he's working. actually, i think he is working. everyone else has gone to lunch, pizza up the street. i stayed behind so i could sit in the back room, tapping away at an old and ugly keyboard about nothing in particular and several things in general.

hungry in my tummy 11:00 p.m.

i am too tired to read tom robbins, plus i haven't many cigarettes left. i am waiting against a wall in a basement bar for the turks to be done their dinner of coq au vin and vanilla creme brulee and my tummy is wanting for food. it is empty and unsatisfied, swishing with beer. i am wearing a striped shirt today. i think my tummy would like a greasy hamburger with cheese and tomatoes and pickles and mayonnaise. i think that my tummy would like that very much. i think my other parts would like the attention of a person's warm mouth, soft flannet sheets, an unexpected phone call, a big storm with hail, power outages, candles, board games, pot and folk music. and vanilla creme brulee for desert.

Strictly Rambling: The Umpteenth Installment 10:45 a.m.

Breakfast was bizarre today. Left over Lebanese, a one 1L bottle of coca-cola, two cigarettes and counting. I spoke to my friend Uday, a newly hired trademark something or other. He moved to Ottawa, says it’s cold there too. Also mentioned that the job couldn’t be better. He had a reading day today, which meant he was still sleeping when I called at 930. I accused him of wasting my tax dollars. He responded that he’s funded by fees, not me. So much the better then, I guess. I love that saying, although I’m never certain of using it properly.

I’m sitting on the fire escape of my downtown apartment, wishing it were New York noise that I’m hearing. It’s raining funny furry leaves and I’m not sure where they’re coming from. Laptops are such fragile creatures, I hope this one isn’t bothered by the precipitation.

My roommate’s been MIA for a few days now. I suspect she’s still recovering from Freedom, of the party persuasion. Or enjoying her last few days in love. He’s leaving soon, first to Detroit and then Australia.

Someone on the television is talking about making us pay to see doctors. Twent-five dollars per visit, because we’re apparently incapable of appreciating the cost of health care without shelling out a few bucks. There is an aphod on my screen. A lunch date is impending. I suppose I should wash myself, clear the Styrofoam containers from the coffee table. I like the song on the new Ivory commercial, it reminds me of something…

heather crowe is dead: second hand smoke killed her 8:27 a.m.

shit. that wasn't supposed to happen. i hope my spirits waitresses are safe. the by-law's coming in to effect soon...just a couple of days. they should be okay. got years to clean up. but it'll never be the same! oh well, for the best, i guess.

i feel like a fourteen karat failure, sparkling after my fifth beer... 12:21 a.m.

pretending to do important things, essential really. using my business voice: hello such and such, this is kate calling on behalf of so and so and how are you today? reminding myself and everyone else all too frequently that i have a leather briefcase (black), a salary (benefits pending), a proper trenchcoat (beige) and a credit card (VISA). i don't mention that it's maxed or that i've never dry-cleaned or that the salary's laughable or that i haven't a work ethic to speak of. i don't tell that showing up's half the battle and the other half's the business voice. those are my secrets. not so secret anymore, i guess.

to be fair, i've nearly got business cards and worked seven days this week. as though that means anything. some boy says i'm beautiful. the cat still seems to like me. so do my parents, apparently. but they'd all think me sparkle anyway, that's what they're there for.

rock star 5:37 p.m.

she twinkled while she sat at my kitchen table, reached, spasmed for a piece of bread with butter still cold and lumpy. tore at it with her stained teeth, letting little bits soak against the inside of her cheek before swallowing hard. her arms were bruised, scarred. her hair was greasy, she had dark circles under her eyes, stains on her shirt, small red sores around her mouth. there are echos of that healthy beauty, i can hear them when she talks about music. says the needle exchange isn't far, she'll stop by more. vancouver was nice, but too easy. she is a rockstar. inevitably, irreparably, a rock star.

i burned my face 7:43 p.m.

yesterday, sleeping. the tar was soft and hot on my back. the three foot brick lip prevented the wind from interfering. i managed two pages of anaïs nin before giving up and giving in. i had a dream that my apartment was bigger, had several rooms and a chipmunk which followed me around as i worked. it slept on the crown molding in the living room. i also dreamt that i had filed my income tax and was selected as a winner by our newly elected prime minister. the chipmunk attended the ceremony, rick mercer facilitated. they gave me a funny hat with ribbons, a box of after eight chocolate mints and a talking stick. i woke up with a sunburn.

z is for zed (or) the heresy of our western cousins 5:12 p.m.

for those of you who ride the ttc with any kind of regularity, it's unlikely you've missed the newly agressive attempts to increase tourism in british-columbia. "get to know bc from a to z" the clean and well-designed posters read. which of those letters does not belong? my pulse quickens at the prospect of explanation.

i'm more uptight about these kinds of things than most people, i'll readily admit. but i like to think that it's part of my appeal. don't respond. point is, i am the daughter of protestant parents. i learned several lessons in my first few years of life: square pegs do not fit in round holes, boys are gross, abc does not rhyme with z on this side of the border.

i was shocked to see that our cousins to the west would've chosen a catch phrase that capitalized on a classic americanism. wtf? it occured to me that perhaps they were being ironic, or something. that didn't last long. i feel betrayed. we all know what ad campaigns do to children, apart from encouraging purchase. they lay the boundaries of language. inform speech and behaviour. i sincerely hope, for the sake of our ailing nationalism, that teachers know better. or what's left of them, anyway.

The Road West 8:20 p.m.

My parents drove a Honda Civic station wagon. Silver, rusted, standard recited the plate numbers to drunk-smelling motel clerks 9-0-9 J-K-J they whispered in the vast spaces between Sudbury and Thunder Bay when we didn’t make it in one day, as planned. When the distance spread out before us like life or high school, like Stephen Hawking’s version of things: big, empty, full of rocks and creatures we didn’t understand or care to know. Manitoba always made more sense: stopovers, sugar bribes, better beds, cable television and a swimming pool once when I was nine. The legislature and the wooden cut outs of funny or fat people the flowers the gardens the sun the promise of democracy and the road West. Saskatchewan was puberty: the middle space between departure and destination, flat but nearly foot hilled, up-close uneven and full of growth. We were restless in Saskatchewan. Anxious for beaches, secrets, soft rocks and pocket money. Anxious for sex in the later years. But before we could begin to fantasize about the naked white bodies of summer boys, there were the Prairies. Those fields, golden bales and barbed wired fences made my mother insane. She’d begin to mumble about noise, how she couldn’t stand it and couldn’t someone turn off the goddamn radio. She howled and barked and by the end of it all we were sullen and sweaty nearly ready to jump out of the moving car, the air conditioning having betrayed us before we even managed to make Lloydminster. The heat, my mother never knew was a blessing. My sister and I collapsed in the back seat, in a trench of suitcases like corpses couldn’t bear to move a muscle couldn’t bear to shriek, couldn’t bear to tell her she was a miserable bitch. Weren’t we all that summer. But not my father, of course. My father had principles and a Pentax. Had us standing tall at Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo Jump sun drawing tears from our eyes smiling hysterically waiting for the click. The click that would end it all and send us back to our sauna Civic, our books, our half-melted chocolate bars, our temporary tattoos and our bunk-bed fantasies. When it was his turn to drive, he would listen to jazz and mourn the state of the country. Especially at twilight: the weather, the workers, Ralph Klein’s wife smoking outside a church at Batoche, the workers again. Golf. He is a Communist. Once, when a swarm of softball players took over Regina we drove all night in darkness. My mother slept and my sister watched for deer and dead gofers. It wasn’t her turn: it was mine. My father filled his hand with secret seeds of revolution fed them to me slowly, with the other hand on the wheel. His voice pained by Oxford and the good days cried out against injustice and those lies, those heartless bastards. His words stuck to the pit of my stomach like the gum I wasn’t supposed to swallow and did, more than once. And always before we were properly prepared came Alberta. Alberta meant dry, over-salted roasts, tiny shriveled green peas in water, arthritic grandparents and whispered fights. Fights about meat, oil, money. Hushing noises at the dinner table. Grace with tablecloths and matching napkins. Guilt. Traffic. Leaving Edmonton was confessing that we couldn’t travel forever. That we couldn’t live forever. That we would grow old and tired and poor. That the alternator would give out. Every year, lost in the loneliness of the flatter parts we began to resign ourselves to August and the end of all things. And every year, without fail, we were rescued. Saved from a few more hours. Mountains rose to the occasion. Trees stood tall with encouragement (solidarity my father must’ve thought) and the roads, having tired somewhere after Canmore abandoned convention and began to wind. We were worried that we would never arrive, but inevitably we did. Tripped and scraped our knees running to the lake, gasped and bled with ecstasy, cried out, let go and drowned in the perfection of it all. Loved each other, forgot time and pain and Ontario, walked barefoot in the wind and felt as though it had all been worth it. Felt as though there had always been a destination: paradise at the end of the road West.

things more substantial 9:24 p.m.

i have been called vacuous, inane, strange,
simple, stupid. i'm certain that much worse
things have been said behind closed doors,
but of the words launched and targeted
in my presence, them are those that stuck.
anger has since given way to sleep, to calendars,
to seasons but i remain pre-occupied by
the distinct and famously real possiblity
that i am a hack. too many adjectectives,
too many cliches, too many predictables. but for
the fear of re-affirming the slave morality
of which i am allegedly victim, i would say:
fuck them all. and what now? read more,
run more. i am tired and far from original.
i have nowhere to run. it is not as though
my current existence hasn't afforded me
the occaisional pleasure: sunlight, poetry, beer,
sweat, clean clothes. translated: seasonal
affective disorder, ego, substance, endorphines,
and an ever-common pedestrian sense
of self-satisfaction. but all of this language
is getting old, as am i. and with another
birthday advancing on the horizon like
a midieval army, i am left wondering if
i should sober up, straighten out and stop writing.
move on to things significantly rather than
slightly more substantial. i can already hear
the ultra-supportive statements shuffling
their way into my inbox. i knew that's how
you would respond. but despite all the good
intentions which pave just about everything
these days i am alone, drunk and have yet
to settle the bill.

penning sounds more like a drug 9:14 p.m.

which is why, next time i'm stuck in an awkward social situation, forced to explain the scribbles, the bits of paper, the constant blogging, i'll say, "i've been penning a lot recently, wasting my nights...it's terribly addictive. i wouldn't try it if i were you. i mean, it's good and all but could cost you your job and your relationship if you're like, honest, and develop the habit." no excuses, i'm unreachable, penning tonight.

you are an interesting dancer 9:52 a.m.

but so precious, with your wild limbs swinging
in a happy frenzy, a thin layer of sweat glossing
your skin. the room pulsated like a living thing,
our stomachs full of barbecued beef and chicken
protested the next bottle of fifty all night. but that
didn't stop us from stumbling on to the sidewalk
at quarter to one, laughing and slurring, sharing
a cigarette, even though you don't smoke. today
was a bit rough, i have to admit. but i'd trade a
little nausea and dehydration for a night like that
any day.

parts of toronto you should've seen and didn't 8:58 a.m.

the beer store at queen and river on sunday afternoon seven minutes before close hosting a handful of hardened alcholics ordering bottles of max ice with exact change for the second, or third, or fourth time today. allen gardens at night, every night, bundled bodies collapsed on benches under the weight of the world and its temptations, its necessary oblivions, its unnecessary cruelties. boys with sweet faces and enemy memories hiding in the alleys around church and wellesley, like stray cats at war, waiting. the hungry screams from whispered beings at the methadone clinic south of king, east of parliament. the low-income landscape of woolner, the sunset painted by pollution and the smell of crack. men fondling eachother in queen's park, under the cover of darkness, like warewolves howling at their so-called lives. all the parts of toronto you should've seen and didn't. because they remind you too much of everything. because you'd rather not and no one's going to make you.

brilliant and beautiful 9:13 p.m.

her skin is an ivory delicate, like her mother's. she wears rings
with blue jewels on hands that remind of my own, prefers smaller
portions and quiet rooms. sleeps only on expensive sheets, loves
her dog. and what a shock that she would ever have been young,
would have ever made mistakes, drank too much, fallen out of
love. but i've seen the pictures, and i know it's true. and on those
nights that i arrived too late, twisted and pubescent, she offered
me the warmer half of her bed, a glass of water, a glass of wine.
she read to me stories, of art and promise, cleaned and steamed
vegetables and served them on a proper plate with an anecdote.

she is often tired. spends her days fighting demons i've yet to meet.
but despite the battles that leave her wounded and thirsty, she never
fails to answer the phone, to undertsand. she would run through a
burning forest to comb my hair, rub my back, tell me that we're okay.
and i would like her to know that i haven't forgotten the times
she was collapsed and oblivious, raging. the times she was gone,
lost amidst the battling rats of a terrible childhood dream. and god,
how i'd like to kill them all. slit their throats and watch them bleed
litres for every tear she wept in the next room. but i haven't
the constitution and she has taught me that it isn't a solution,
after all. she is good like that.

and as she reads this grand thank you card of a mother's day poem,
i would like very much for her to know that i have never loved
anyone with as much honesty as i love her. her teeth, her smile.
the things she's told me a hundred times before and tells me
again. she called me a goddess once. gave me money she didn't
have. listened to my hateful highschool rants and proceeded to buy
me a prom dress. knew my lies. knew me. i love her a thousand
times and forever.

she is brilliant, beautiful, my mother.