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.