peaches in november 7:38 p.m.

The wind was brisk and cold, the way it always
Is after Hallowe’en, when the costumes have been
Tucked away between the shoe box containing

Receipts from 2004 and a relative’s wedding dress,
Air-sealed in a plastic zip-up container in the front hall.
I walked through the parking lot behind his building,

It’s worn down painted white lines introducing themselves
To me as I approached the electric sliding glass doors
Of the high-end grocery on his corner. It’s smallish

Feeling aisles, packed tightly with lovely containers
Of brightly-coloured jam and four dollar croissants
Were so inviting on a November morning north.

What a travesty, I thought, when the grocery manager
Told me that there were no peaches. That peaches
Didn’t come in with the shipments from September to May.

That you couldn’t get peaches in November anywhere
In Toronto. But I had such faith that this was a city that
Could produce anything I might desire, why on earth

Would I otherwise pay so much in rent. Why crowd
Into dirty subway cars and trudge through mucky, sad-filled
Streets unless to be able to part one’s hair behind and

Dare to each a peach. In November, even.

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

stoned

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.