overheard

“oh, so you’re religious?”

“no, im not religious. i just go to this church.”

“so, you belong to a church?”

“no, i dont belong to the church, i just go.”

skype baby

 

arthur was 6 days old when we first met. he is my brother’s first son and my first nephew. we connected via skype, a computer software that enables you to talk to and see someone who lives somewhere far away from you on planet earth. welcome to the future where technology can help you stay close to your family and not miss out on those life changing moments.

i find him cute and expressive, i don’t know what he thinks of me. not sure that he actually took note of my existence. if anything did register, he probably thinks his canadian auntie is a round plastic device we call a webcam.

he was hungry but his mom was sleeping and his dad’s nose while chewable did not provide the desired sustenance.

i found myself imitating the strange noises he emitted and wanting to hear more of them despite the fact that they signaled his distress.

i wished i could hold or touch his warm little body and feel the soft hair on his head. i stared at him and choked back some tears that strangely wanted to emerge from my eyes. i couldnt stop staring at him and noted how unusually happy my brother looked, repeating the same inane actions with a content grin on his face.

i wished him well and told him i’d probably see him in six months or so. i also told him that maybe by then i would have learnt some basics of his language instead of the poor imitations i was experimenting with.

i wonder in what context and with what devices arthur will meet his first nephew or niece? what will planet earth look like then and what will we use to experience it? will we still be able to see, hear, smell and touch each other with our unadorned bodies?

small change

met a young girl on the street today. she asked if i had any change to spare. she was cold and getting a cold. she told me her throat was starting to hurt. i had time to spare so i checked for change. i said i dont think i have much today. i found 3 dollars.

some smart ass dude walked by and yelled out you happy now. now that someone is talking to you. you happy now. i said whats his problem she said he’s just… i said oh who cares about him anyway.

since i had time to spare i asked her what she was doing out there. i mean it was obvious. she was homeless. i was just making conversation. i guess i had a care to spare too.

she had backed away with a look of fear on her face when i asked about shelters in the hood. i said im sorry i dont know what its like. she made the same face when i asked about home.

turns out she’s been kicked out of the nearby commercial centre food court cause she’d been caught crying in the bathroom. now what kind of people kick a young girl out in the cold for crying that’s what i wanna know. i mean i know. commercial centre people that’s who. what i wanna know is what kind of people is that.

cause she might of shaken up the paying customers with her crying that’s why. you cant cry in a commercial centre bathroom, it seems. no, you can’t cry. so she was back on the street offering blowjobs and massages in exchange for cash. another kind of commercial centre the street is. one where you’re allowed to cry cause it won’t stop the paying customers.

she offered me a blowjob for twenty bucks. i told her i didnt need a blow job. she said i know. she offered me a massage and i told her girl you know i don’t have the money for that right now or the time. but you take good care of yourself you take care. thanks she said.

all i had was 3 dollars to spare. i had some time and i had a pat for her shoulder. all i could do was care a tiny little bit for a tiny little while before i was back on my way. living the good life. my ipod in hand. walking in my nice warm coat. i was happy. i didnt have to give anybody a blow job if i didn’t want to. and i could still eat. and i could still be warm.

when i walked away i wished i’d had more than small change.

i wish i’d had more than small change.

i wish i’d had more than small change.

where can we get some small change.

where can we get some.

junk food for thought

i kind of regret the post i created last night. it was an honest post, it was a an true representation of an aspect of myself, but man, oh man, was it ever embarassing, in retrospect.

i mean, to post it publicly. and on a day when apparently my blog got more traffic than usual (11 readers, woo!) i kind of wish i could have been more original than writing about an unrequited crush.

on my way to flying home from visiting my parents out west for xmas, i succumbed to a desire for literary junkfood and picked up a trashy autobiographical account entitled “my horizontal life” by chelsea something or other (really, its not worth publicizing her name) which humourously told  of one new jersey girl’s string of one-night-stands.

since i had something like 6 hours on the plane i read it from cover to cover but when i finished i felt dirty and … not in the good way. it was the equivalent of watching 6 hours of american sitcoms in a row. it was the equivalent of scarfing down cheetos and pizza pops.

mental junk food.

little or no nutritional value, considered unhealthy when eaten regularly or consumed at all, convenient and easy to obtain in a ready-to-eat form.

it made me want to pass mental gas.

i cannot believe i actually spent 17 bucks on it. 17 dollars. that was impulse at its basest level.

just because, at the time,  i had already read two newspapers from cover to cover, watched the airport news channel over and over again, and needing something to get me through a long day of flying, it seemed like a choice between the trashy sex novel and jose saramago’s “death with interruptions”. i was getting on a plane. i didn’t feel for death.

what i got out of reading that piece of junk was the confirmation that being funny and truthful about your lowest sexual moments … while funny and truthful and possibly entertaining … is not … what one should aspire to. i mean, it’s okay. it could pay some bills… but…

its no longer revolutionary for a woman to reveal the intimate details of her sexual life; although it once was. but in western culture? forget about it. its been done, done, done to death.

if she is to do so, she should strive at least to search for a deeper meaning than…. “i guess i decided to give up sex with strangers for a while and develop other pursuits” (this was the culmination of chelsea’s personal revelation).

but we do all sink low once in a while. i think i have personally been wallowing in my lower depths for some time now. ive become so comfortable down here.

but… i’m feeling a little dirty. and not in the good way. time for a metaphorical colon cleansing of the spirit.

baby

so i found a new guy to lust over and obsess about. mostly secretly of course, the obsessing part. wonderful, no? yes! but …

i suspect he may be an unattainable one again. i can’t seem to get hot for anything or anyone but the unnattainable. someone who is far far away.  emotionally. geographically. physically. psychologically. cosmologically.

somehow out of reach.

i am a walking cliché of the girl-who-never-got-enough-attention-from-her-emotionally-remote-father-and-needs-to-relive-the-scenario-over-and-over-again-so-that-she-can-cry-cry-cry-at-her-own-party-cause-that’s-what-she-wants-to.

damn!

this guy is fine ….. i mean sexy … funny…. kind … did i mention sexy. do you think i could ever make him mine?

only time time time will tell.

sorry. so sorry, dear readers, all 5 of you (love you!!). i can’t do anything but emote, gush and be girly-stupid right now. yet i still feel a responsibility to let you know how it’s going, regardless of how retarded it seems. somehow, at some time, the truth – in all of its deeply flawed nature – must come out.

the truth is … i am so bad at this love stuff. just putting myself out there to him, the unattainable one, a little, finding the courage to say “hey! you’re hot. call me. please!” well… that took a lot out of me. i mean, it was downright traumatizing.

there is another guy. i met him a few days after the hot one. the one i couldn’t reach. this one i could reach. this one was attainable. this one obviously liked me. i mean he reached right out for me. he was kind and funny too. attractive. but … maybe not quite as … hot as the unattainable one. should i give him a chance? should i give attainable one a chance? do you think i should give him a chance?

am i able to? i am trying to. im trying to be able to. i am trying not to be so difficult. i don’t want to be difficult. i dont want to cry cry cry at my own party anymore; but sometimes i wonder about myself. sometimes i have to ask myself, hey! am i just a superficial c_ _ _ t?

maybe.

why does unattainable = hot inside my little mind and body?

sometimes i wonder if i’m about love or about sex. i think i’m about love. i wanna be about love. i am about love. most definitively. but … sex is so important too. shouldn’t they come together?! they should come together! let them come together! who says you have to choose?

i refuse. i refuse to choose. that’s all. i want it … all.

i want him. i want him all.  maybe i want the other guy two. too. two. maybe i want them both. but i want him more. but all i can do now is wait wait wait and  see if…

“don’t. don’t you want me. you know i can’t believe it when i hear that you won’t see me.

don’t. don’t you want me. you know i don’t believe you when you say that you don’t need me.

it’s much too late to find. when you think you’ve changed your mind. you’d better change it back or we will both be sorry.

don’t you want me baby?! don’t you want me ohhhhhhhhhhhhh….

don’t you want me baby?! don’t you want me ohhhhhhhhhhhhh….”

drama

people change, you know that?

like, me for instance. i am not the same person i was at fifteen.

ok, sure. it seems like an obvious statement of fact. but what i’m trying to get at is that apart from the obvious — my body looking different, the fact that i have amassed knowledge and experience that i didn’t have twenty (yes twenty)  years ago, the fact that i am no longer living with my parents and am now required to be responsible for all of my own actions– my mind has changed. my perception of reality has changed. my needs have changed. so has what turns me on.

case in point: i am not a thrill-seeking, emotion-shrieking drama queen anymore. nor do i want anymore of that business in my life.

but back when i was fifteen, fourteen thirteen, maybe even as early as twelve, i was at the local amusement park almost every weekend, getting on the biggest, scariest, most extreme rollercoaster rides i could find over and over again, riding the drop-of-doom seven times in a row, sliding down the  skyscreamer waterslide, called so due to its close-as-possible-proximity to verticalness, riding it as many times as my wee little pubescent ass could take it. i literally lived for that kind of thrilling, extreme-emotion-inducing shit. nothing got me more worked up.

so, a couple of months ago, trailing a fair bit of nostagia behind me, i went to an amusement park with a couple of friends, hoping to revisit some of those teenageish thrills. we patiently and good-naturedly waited in line for a near hour, eagerly awaiting the excitement of the big old rollercoaster and when we finally got on …. and it started to move …

i really thought i was gonna die.

my body felt totally out-of-control and out-of-its-element as the little cart we were locked into, hurled along these sketchy-looking thin little rattly rails that rose to great heights and crashed to deep depths untofore imaginable and my strained neck and the poor head attached to it were shoved back and forth and left and right by the omnipotent g-forces controlling us.

did i mention i thought i was going to die? well i sure screamed like i might. i was not gonna go gently into that good night.

well. obviously i didn’t. die i mean. i survived unscathed but it took about an hour of walking it off while emoting and gushing, eating crappy overpriced junk  food and being soothed by my much-less-traumatized friends and a smooth and gentle gentle gentle ferris wheel ride before i would try anything else with any fear factor.

i just don’t have that kind of stuff in me anymore i guess.

well, that’s alright. i can live with being a 30-something little scaredy-cat, you know? let’s face it, i have been in more near-death accidents than probably the average person. a bang-bang-bang-flipping-over-three-times-car accident, a bike accident-which-led-to-brain-surgery and a-failed-12-foot-ladder-crashing-into-glass-table -and-concrete-floor-accident that each respectively proved to me that you really just don’t know when your time is gonna come and that maybe probably most likely i’ve got myself some guardian angels ….

i’ve also experienced my fair share of drama of the purely emotional variety. family, relationships, you know the type. drama drama drama.

well i do still like drama of the theatre and feature film variety.

but they say that if you grow up in an environment of ever-present drama and high emotion, you kind of tend to continually seek it out in your relationships and other life choices. cause of that oh-so-familiar-feeling those situations bring up.

and it does feel all warm and familiar and gushy-feelings-inducing for a little while ….

until finally you find yourself in that familiar place again of trying to love somebody that drives you absolutely crazy with rage, despair, humiliation and fucked-up-cycles of manipulation and after a while you start to see those cycles coming up behind you and the same damn emotions rising and it all starts to feel so exhausting and so finally, finally, finally you cry uncle.

hey uncle.

uncle! i dont think i wanna  be in your drama queen fairy tale no more.

and that’s it. that’s the magical moment when you disconnect and distance yourself from the drama and you start to see it for the ride that it is.

an optional one.

one you can take or leave.

personally i’ll be standing next to the vampire-costumed teens playing marching band music, watching the little kids on the baby swings and munching on this i-can’t-believe-it’s-not-buttered popcorn over here while you guys try the upside-down-and-around-the-world-and-back-again-and-over-and-over-rollercoaster ride over there.

see you when you get off.

dream of crying

i dreamt of crying. crying and crying and crying and crying. crying and not being able to stop. i was in a public space. some room full of people i didn’t know sitting in it: old people, middle aged people, young people, kids; it felt like a large doctor’s waiting room but like a community centre. but somehow it was part of an airport too. finally, one of the staff came up to me and told me that i had been invited to leave. my crying was too much. she said to me: “you are becoming like the one you didn’t want.”

i left.

i came home and found my brother’s friend and my brother – several shades darker from his trip to brazil — fooling around with two girls in one of the rooms. my brother’s  wife wasn’t there. when i angrily called my brother on his actions, he was nonchalant, joking. he made some lame excuses.

i left.

i found myself alone in my place, still crying. crying, crying, crying. not being able to stop. the feeling of sadness and loneliness overwhelmed me so much i didnt know how to handle it. i couldnt handle it.  i felt like i was going to die from crying and loneliness.  i thought of calling my friend maggie or my friend trista, both of which I hadn’t spoken to in years. i think i rummaged around for a long distance phone card while i tried to decide who would be better to call, whether i should call; i mean, who wants to hear from a crying friend?

i woke up.

i haven’t slept so deeply in such a long time. i could have slept alot more. but i got up. made myself coffee. i wrote this down. still feel like crying a little. but it’s not dreamtime anymore and non-crying, non-dreaming waking life goes on.

not really

it hasn’t i mean

not really no

not sure ive been doing the right things

not sure at all and yet

these things are what

sprang forth

from the river of myself.

it was wet and stormy

an  unfamiliar sea

perhaps it was deemed necessary

it  was

deemed so by me

but

i think that day has broken

and the river she is calm

and what hasn’t been working

won’t matter for much long

er, no

has it been working for you?

has it?

whatever you’ve been doing lately

has it been working for you?

i mean

are you getting the desired results?

is this what you intended?

think again

has

it

whatever it

may be

has it

been working

for

you?

the market

i love markets. outdoor smorgasborgs of all kinds of stuff sold by vendors whose livelihood depends on it. i love the sights, smells and sounds and i like the interaction with real live people and their products, the bargaining, the human exchange.

having grown up in a cold northern city of malls – those indoor plastic complexes of retail, mass production, made in china, trendy chain stores, automated teller machines, simulated ugly everything and any other facet of big c capitalism that i can’t think of right now –i am happiest  shopping in a local outdoor neighbourhood market like this one.

in fact, i spent so much time cruising west edmonton mall with my pals as a 13 year old, that i now actually start to feel physically ill when i spend more than 15 minutes inside an indoor shopping centre. too much recycled oxygen for one life i imagine. i am not exagerating about this. malls make me sick.

this parisian market near ourq station is anything but plastic. it displays the diversity of the hood and i wanted to document it all. though there is nothing particularly exotic or grandiose about any of it, it shows a beautiful part of daily parisian life. we’ve all seen enough pictures of the eiffel tower, the notre dame and montmartre. here is the market and its people.

and since i was not  really at the market to shop but just to be a tourist and to soak in the sights and sounds, i roamed like the roma through the aisles and captured moments of that place and time.

and of course, being young female and fairly sexily dressed (it was a very hot, humid day, i was wearing a tank top), i enjoyed the attention of all of the young male vendors. as i mentioned before, in a previous post, men in paris are way more expressive than the ones in montreal.

“wow wow wow, madame, madame, madame, un ptit café, prenons un ptit café, madame revenez à 14h, je finis le travail à 14h, pourquoi prendre un ptit café! madame!”

i’m not saying this type of communications is always welcome. in fact, i can remember many an occasion when it becomes tiring, intrusive  even aggressive and completely unwanted but … on this day, I guess i found it flattering and entertaining. passing so briefly through town, i flirted right back at them and willingly took their enthusiastic advances in exchange for headshots.

see how happy and proud these guys were to pose for me. little do they know ive posted them on the web!

and these are the kind of friendly exchanges that can be had at the market. free of charge!

this guy was by far my favourite. i found him kind of hot. but when he asked me to go for coffee with him after he got off work i told him i had a boyfriend (not true). his response was, “what of it?” and i enjoyed his cheekiness but i was not looking for a date with a watermelon man on this here trip.

why not? what’s wrong with the watermelon man, you ask? well maybe because i only had 2 days left to enjoy my friends, i didnt want to waste it with the unknown watermelon man. and maybe because i was thinking about a few days later when i was going to see someone who had once been just a cute friendly stranger in the hood asking me out for a coffee.

the coffee that turned into dinner into a restaurant that turned into a kiss on the streets and a cuddle on the bus, a walk home and a promise of a date the next day and then…

i will not get into the details of that second date except to say that the consequences of saying yes to coffee with a stranger on the street when travelling in a strange city can be loaded with repercussions you never imagined of.

and mr watermelon man there could not even have imagined all the images that flashed through my mind while weighing the possibilities of saying yes.

so i didn’t.