You Know You Work Too Much When... 1:32 p.m.

You propose to your partner a surprise date night tradition whereby each of you, every month, plans a surprise date for the other. You add that each surprise date should be evaluated using a set of criteria mutually agreed upon in advance and that all evaluations should be compiled so that the health of the relationship can be charted over time. Um, yeah. Vacation, anyone?

From April Holiday (France)

You're Smart, You Know That? 5:33 p.m.

It's happened to me, more than once, to have someone turn to me, look rather honest and say, "you're really smart, you know that?" Not in some many words. More awkwardly, or quickly or something. But more or less that. It happened to me today.

Does it happen to everybody? Not because I'm interseted in knowing whether I'm smarter than other people (I am, but I'm also stupider than a GRRREAT many others), but because I'm interested in the kind of people who make these confessions, accusations of intelligence. Is it about complicity? "We're smart, but not everbody is. We've got something in common."

I think it's about complicity. I think it's the secret handshake of my intelligence bracket (it's a spectrum, I know, but the purpose of conversation...): not smart enough to exist exclusively in subtlety (booze doesn't help), but smart enough to know when they've got company. Bonjour.

My Secret Confession 8:58 p.m.

I can't cook rice.

Envy 6:21 p.m.

Eats me like a thick steak
Masticating at a masterful pace
Grinding, licking, tearing
At every raw and salty bit
Of flesh on the plate.

Life Is Too Short To Have A Job You Don't Like 9:44 a.m.

Simple as that. I had a lunch meeting with a person who recounted a simple, but very insightful anecdote about happiness at work. For the purpose of the post, I'll refer to him as Marc.

Marc was once having beers with an old friend who worked for a big telecom company. They started talking about the lottery and Marc recalled that he had once met a woman who would keep her job if she won the lottery. He asked his old friend, "Would you keep yours if you won 10 million tomorrow?" The friend replied that he sure as heck wouldn't. Then he asked Marc the same question. After a brief pause, Marc replied that he probably would keep his job. Why not? He liked it: the people were nice, lots of autonomy, not too much stress. We should all be so lucky.

I've had a couple of jobs that I would quit in a heartbeat given the chance. But I've also had one or two that I would totally keep if I won the lottery. As Marc recounted to me, smiling, "No big deal. Win the lottery? Call the boss, take a couple of weeks. Blow off steam on a cruise or something and get back to it."

What kind of job do you have: lottery-win-quit or lottery-win-keep?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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