spray and pray.

this whole ordeal makes me feel very violated. from nowhere these beasts began to draw blood while the moon was up and I was innocent in sleep. these beasts crawled the length of me, feeding on my flesh, making me pique. my wrists and ankles are pocked: breakfast. lunch. dinner.

currently, my bedroom has two fans battling the fifty dollar anoxic fumes I used to spray my mattress down from crack to crack. I have moved its contents out & am sitting with a chemical head-rush. (has nothing bio been invented to wage war against these creatures? no.) my pharmacist took one look at me and said I had to act fast; these are my first bites in the night though -lucky number seven in total- which give me mild hope. I can lick this with fifty dollar toxins and 'hot' washing everything I own, I am told. or I'll have to throw out everything. everything. trim the fat indeed.

though the only material things I am terribly distressed about maybe having to up-chuck are my deceased grandmothers vintage sheets and the quilt my mother made for me in 1999. everything else can get slashed and burned, as far as I am concerned; may as well go into another quebec year sticking to the poke n' stuck mantra on my foot, I guess. (lets all hope I wise up, though)

in the meantime, everything is swimming in a sea of toxins and wind. sheets on the line. mattress vacuumed and vacant. closet closed. clutter out. quarantined.

I still feel violated.

in speaking about this to people, I have observed many reactions which I imagine must be similar to revealing experiences of rape, infection, abortion - something that grave, but in a lighter-grey. there is an odd 'taboo' I have detected lingering in the air with the toxic fumes. a dirty association. pr-etty poverty. a socio-economic subjective position as a starving student writer who lives in the village and has 'scabies.' don't want to admit it. don't want to talk about it. want to 'nix' it & il faut que j'moove. generally, people have been kind (maybe beCAUSE it isn't rape, herpes, abortion) because 'it can happen to anyone'. hah. I just hope my labored hours of sweeping, vacuuming, spraying, dusting, meticulous examining and spraying some more has left everything remotely insect DEAD & GONE so I can get back to a normal sleep.

-- --- --- --- but tonight I dance with insomnia.
lingering in quarantine.
bonne nuit.

les nouvelles in mass email form

I am not feeling very creative and I don't have a facebook so:

j'suis bien quebecoise officiallemente. J'ai ma residence à quebec, châlis! je vais ben voter bloc et bloc-er les conservat-tueres de la culture, tabarnak. ouais. je vais payer mon tuition aujourd'hui. mais lô, Lo. --- --- ---

some relevant thing everyone's talking about: the US bailout is the WORST idea. ever. I am hesitant to a quick fix in policy. a sudden influx or out-flux followed by what? further desperation? Americans do NOT have good reason to be confident in the country's economic strength. Democratic capitalism is the worst system ever devised. the corruption and abuse of a few must be ACCOUNTED for and repremanded. 700B bones is a lot to take out of taxpayers money (taxpayers who don't even have basic healthcare, pension, a decent/affordable education, katrina cleanup et al.) to save a BANK. fu-ck america needs its priorities straight. in addition to this, mccain thought he could pull bitch on the debate tonight. talk about a bailout. I added a palin video to 'bush's nursery rhymes' too. check it. bleh.

some new photo:
--- --- ---













an interesting social phenomena: (which could arguably be considered a bailout in itself, I suppose). with thanks to b.harvey for introducing this concept, a dilemma is born: I am being ‘SWF’d.’ look it up. It is a little odd. sort of sick. a little bit trivial. Mildly entertaining. Strangely empowering. The exhibitionist in me digs it. My private self dejects it. The attention to detail is undeserved, but here it is - distorted like a circus reflection. I figure now that I have identified this I can take a couple courses of action: the first would be to essentially approach and explain straight up it is re-ally annoying, though I am flattered. The second is to remain silently burdened by false impressions, and watch the notions define themselves in time. The third is to ignore it completely and carry on, bemused at the sheer entertainment value of it all. I love* women. I love them. but we are complicated animals.

it is far, far too late for this. dont want to bite off more than I can chew.
--- --- ---

and finally:

I have the worst news. it feels like a plague to admit it. imma have to burn my shit and move, according to dick bars. perhaps I'll call an exterminator. I have no clue where it came from, how it was carried to my most intimate setting, but i have it and it sucks. worse than an std? perhaps.

goodnight, don't let the bed bugs bite? oh they do.

--- --- ---

c'est comme ça.

C'est comme ca
Ah, la la la la

Ouais le secret
ca coupe et ca donne
(Oh, oh, faut que j'moove)

Sans fin du venin
qui me fait mal au couer
Quand le serpent
Chaloupe et console
(Oh, oh, faut que j'moove)

L'ami Sadi s'enlise
et la ca fait peur
Si c'est ca
Ah la la la la

Ca le sucurre a mes entournures
(Ah, ah, faut que j'moove)
Ca le grince juste pendant le nuit

Ah, c'est comme ca
ca plonge et ca vire
(Ah, ah, faut que j'moove)

Et ca gene quoi, quand y'a pas de plaisir

C'est comme ca
Ah la la la la
La lala lala lala lalala...

j'veux pas t'abandonner,mon bebe !!

je veux pas nous achever, tu sais !!

C'est pas que je veuille tenir
ni que ja veunille m'enfuir
Il me faut prendre le frais, c'est vrai
Hey, hey, hey

hey, viens pres de moi que je te le disa
aut que j'moove
ce secret qui me tord le coeur

Ah, la la la...

--- --- --- cette chanson est dedicer à KOKONUT qu'ira en Allmande! chantez pour vivre! ---- --- ---

One night immersed in my french friends has pulled me from the depths of solitude and back to partying on monday, school be damned. red wine, ratatouille, a cycle of joints, french conversation, rita mitsouko, late nights. This company has washed away the insecurity and in its place reaffirmed the value of 'joie de vivre.' merci la belle, pis tout disdans.

tourne la page, gens. je vais tourne ma page.

believe

I found this today in the gazette. below the big text is little text reading 'good journalism helps you see beneath the surface.' and even below that is the text 'words matter.' I think this is all very peculiar considering that, in general, the content of ‘media news’ is shitty and manipulated.

In addition to this, all of my ideas about belief – about faith, credence, principle, and certainty - have recently been lost on me and I cant blame naivety anymore. rats. Its as if I’ve been duped though I knew better. quite maddeningly I stew with it. the words did matter, though. or maybe it was the delivery which was so crucial; what kept me on the surface, away from the substance (or lack thereof).

Or

Maybe Miller knows it best: ‘What a delight that must be to the sadist when she discovers her own proper masochist! When she bites herself, as it were, to test the sharpness of her teeth.‘

--- --- ---

something like that.

moustaches and bowler hats

--- --- ---

I sped my bike to school with imagery of moustaches and bowler hats enviously on my brain. It was an odd ride, propelling myself forward in utter covetousness of the past. But I just felt like I had missed. And I miss. I look to this place where I found these symbols often on a daily basis to catch glimpses of the people that my heart is crying for. The people who have shaped me greatly. On the shuttle bus it dawned on me that I do not have friends in my daily life, which was a harsh binary to prop up against moustaches and bowler hats, and this realization made my eyes water against my will. I buried my face deep in my book and hoped the silent tears that slipped their way down my cheeks went unrecognized & unnoticed. Incidentally, in my anguish, I stumbled upon this passage:

‘Now and then, it’s true. I did think of her, not as of a person in a definite aura of time and space, but separately, detached, as though she had blown up into a great cloudlike form that blotted out the past. I couldn’t allow myself to think about her for very long; if I had I would have jumped off the bridge. It’s strange. I had become so reconciled to this life without her, and yet if I thought about her only for a minute it was enough to pierce the bone and marrow of my contentment and shove me back again into the agonizing gutter of my wretched past….

How many thousand times, in walking through the streets at night, have I wondered if the day would ever come again when she would be at my side: all those yearning looks I bestowed on the buildings and statues, I had looked at them so hungrily, so desperately, that by now my thoughts must have become a part of the very buildings and statues, they must be saturated with my anguish…

My world of human beings had perished; I was utterly alone in the world and for friends I had the streets, and the streets spoke to me in that sad, bitter language compounded of human misery, yearning, regret, failure, wasted effort…

I suddenly recalled that it was here in the squalor and gloom of this sunken street, terrorized perhaps by a premonition of the future, that she clung to me and with a quivering voice begged me to promise that I would never leave her, never, no matter what happened. And, only a few days later I stood on the platform and I watched the train pull out, the train that was bearing her away; she was leaning out of the window and that same, sad, inscrutable smile on her face, that last-minute look which is intended to convey so much, but which is only a mask that is twisted by a vacant smile. Only a few days before, she had clung to me desperately and then something happened, something which is not even clear to me now, and of her own volition she boarded the train and she was looking at me again with that sad, enigmatic smile which baffles me, which is unjust, unnatural, which I distrust with all my soul. And now it is I, standing in the shadow, who reach out for her, who cling to her desperately and there is that same inexplicable smile on my lips, the mask that I have clamped down over my grief...

Tropic of Cancer – H. Miller
--- --- ----

I am the first to admit that I tend to romanticize Winnipeg, but I very rarely cry about it.
----- --- ---

A day has passed and I have come to realize that this is a dangerous game of the same old mistakes and patterns. I can cry and laugh and cry and laugh about it again for two years, what has changed? Little, save attitude.

An incident has come to my attention recently which propelled me through the variety of sentiments one person can inspire in another. Betrayal. Confusion. *hot* anger. Understanding? Expectation. Madness. Elation. Defeat. My mouth hang agape, rendered speechless. My heartbeat quickened and squeezed. My mind, besides rolling through memories & moments & meanings of all things previous, forgot for a moment the present. To breathe. Adult logic soon restored itself.

Physically, I am removed. Emotionally, I am involved. Really, I am surprised.

A part of me knows very well that I have no power, hold no credibility, can name no territory, nor make claim of ownership on any person, place, thing or idea. I am not a colonialist. I will never be. No one can ultimately police a person from acting as they wish. No one can claim that they know anything better than anybody else because those are the grounds of morality war. Even if you can read what is happening, face value, six inches from the front of your nose. Even if it is fucking obvious. Even if it is the truth. The impact is too large. What is with this fear of rocking the boat? We should all just say what needs to be said.

This rant has two veins: one is obviously in journalism because that is all I seem to have to occupy my life. The other is, and always is, my personal experience in interpreting the actions of and my reactions to the other. If I could scream at the top of my lungs from the seventh floor of the Hall building before jumping to my ultimate demise, I would curse the day I was told to always remain objective, because I have been objectified. repeatedly.

pour vous

because nobody reads this anyways, I am going to use it in whatever fashion I wish with no audience in mind at all. Mostly, I have a feeling that these posts will begin to turn their leaves into an open forum in which my thoughts have no boundaries, no critiques, no fear of mass approval or rejection. an editorial without an editor. complete journalistic freedom.

mostly I have 500 words to write about a bunch of theoretical journalism I have just swallowed. First of all - and I have said it before - I am finding issue with the idea of keeping a detachment to the story at hand. Hypothetically, if I were covering a story about a cat with three legs I imagine I would have no problem keeping myself at a relative distance to the work I was doing, however right now I am in the throes of working on a piece about abortion - a subject I am invested in accurately addressing. Now, as a good reporter I know that I need to be fair and unbiased, which means talking to all the pro-life christian conservatives who are scare me. Fine. But in my final cut, I will be DAMNED if I slant in that direction at all and thus, verifying my subjective position in my identification as 'proudly pro-choice'. so there. Detachment seems impossible to negotiate because I am invested in promoting what I believe to be the right course of institutionalized sexual health. Let people choose what they choose, but let all the options be available to them.

Another thing, if something is corrupt (ex. a politician, business, bureaucratic 'service', ad campaign, public agenda etc.) how are we as reporters expected to detach ourselves from this knowledge in order to produce a story that is fair to both sides? One of the sides is already unfair! What is our responsibility as a humanist or a socialist in this case? Shouldn't these identifiers trump our role as journalists?

My editor recently told me this:
Strive to write your opinion but mask it in the collective conscience, "this what you think and if you don't, this is why you should!" Put not so bluntly, you will argue a point and strive to start a conversation, because as a student, thats all you can do.

Something I am quickly realizing is that, as a student journalist, I have zero credibility. Nuts. Luckily for me, most journalists - even the most respected - don't actually mean shit to the production of media anyways because it is all one great advertisement. A -commercial - enterprise that views news as a perishable commodity. Period. Everyone who argues that the news is important for a democracy is forgetting that the only reason papers are around is because of advertising necessity. Economy reigns, which sucks. -- --- -- case & point: A Wall Street analyst (tough to be you!) put the matter bluntly - ' some reporters don't understand that they work for a company that sells advertising. They're in the advertising business, not in the journalism business. They don't get it. Without the bottom line, they don't have jobs. The people that own the company are the shareholders, not the reporters.'
--- --- --

The dependence on advertising to run the media is so fucked. I mean, it is a fundamental divide - number one) the desire to communicate the truth, to confront and explore local, national and global issues, to provide a dialogue for conflict resolution and number two) the desire to push products FAST. The desire for audience attention and exposure. the necessity of relentless consumption. ----- These two subjects lack fundamental common motives. Advertisements, according to me, distract everyone from what is important, maintain narratives that are impossible to obtain and are a central vein of the economic problems north america is facing at this very moment. It has a stranglehold on the media. It monopolizes it. The system isn't fair, so why are journalists expected to be? How can I keep detached from this? It is impossible, unless you write unconsciously...

--- --- --- ---



--- --- --- ---

My hands feel empty. All I can do is do what McLaughlin tells me, because he is the only one who excites me about what I am doing now. I need to give over communication to everyone else. I need to attend to the other, intensely, concentrate actively and completely. Interest and investigation are all I have at my disposal. What a daunting way to dive into three years.

what a lede.

currently, I am listening to my neighbors having kinky lesbian sex. It is an orchestration of many sounds. In a staggered, unexpected pace I can hear a climax in the making - screamed orders, screamed ecstasy, wimpering noises, hysterical laughter, happy slapping, a moaning matelas, a groan or grunt - at different intervals, always changing, climbing in intensity.

this, as you can well imagine, is making it quite difficult to concentrate fully on the federal campaign trails in front of me. but I suppose the candidates are a total turn-off anyways.

--- --- ---

I cut these images from the paper today because I feel they accurately embody fundamental realities of this city. love & desperation.
---





---

bush nursery rhymes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7610959.stm

'these years have seen justice delivered to evil men and battles fought in distant lands... but this year... on each... '

what an idiot.


---

I write with ink-stains on my fingertips and the pangs of fear in my heart. Despite the fact that my first critique is crossed off the teeming list of things I need to research/write, I do not feel accomplished in the least. The workload was expected, yes, but not the magnitude of available information bombadeering in this direction at all times from all sides of debate. I attempt to wade through it. The technological world is astounding. The speed at which good reporters do their work (for the CP et al) is nothing short of intense. What a regiment I am subject to. I have been flying off the rocker.

The things which loom are these: critique number one review & edit. Group A newspaper weekly analysis. News quiz. History of journalism readings. 500 word letter to prof about six chapters in the textbook and 52 pages of the interview book. Archiving the front page of 'la presse' every day for a week. A possible article in the link about abortion (I might decline). A possible article in the next couple weeks about a burlesque troupe (I certainly will NOT decline) A monthly monologue for Rob Vilar (because it keeps me normal) and FFF lyric jams. whew, fuck.

as anticipated, I am back in the throes of academia and mulehood. My school days are subject heavy. my days off are banging on. It is a weird existence. I don't believe I will ever be fully 'off' again in a long time. The risk is too great. I feel guilty when I work because I know I should be dedicated to what I write. I feel full when I write, but how does a writer feed or fund themselves in the literal sense? Words are not enough nutrition and don't pay my tuition. (that was for georgedubya!)

something important. for real. is that advertisements are the ones who dictate the news in this modern world. they essentially fund it. we have no chance in hell, if car ads have anything to do with it. it is a sick media world we live in. absolutely. sick.

speaking of media sickness... Lately feminism (in its myriad of forms) has been a prominent subject in these elections. Everyone is crying sexism, at one point or another. Hillary. Palin. Elizabeth May. Women in Politics!! Change is coming, says McCain! What is more progressive, right? fuck no. Does anyone remember Kim Campbell? CBC search that lady up. I'm with her all the way. fuck conservative right wingers claiming change by promoting a 'bush-in-a-skirt'. fu-uck. also. what does it mean when a female politician is 'man-handsome' (sorry hillary) ? what does it mean to be the champion of fertility & have five children in middle class (white) America? Do the expressions 'hockey mom' or 'beauty queen' carry significant weight in the arena/pageant of political discourse? & why does the media often ignore all the things coming out of womens mouths and focus instead on the colour of their lipstick? its a sick fixation in the female political arena because the myth lives! bottom line. If Palin gets McCain in, North America and the world is basically fucked. If Palin gets McCain in and he dies, we're done for. & I feel just so sorry for Elizabeth May right now. Really. There isn't a single flattering photo of her anywhere in the canadian news, take a look. Its all chins and angles. Could this be why she isn't popular with the boys in the house? Hm?
In lieu of all this beauty racket, I have decided to become as man-handsome as possible so people take me seriously. hah. it is the only way...

--- --- ---

look at this. ugh.

Journalism Week one –

Learned a lot about good reporting, effective listening, and objective detachment. A teacher signed me up for a CBC youth political panel and I am shitting my pants. There is a Canadian election, Puffins pooping and Palin is vying for the women’s vote. Pakistan is being blown to smithereens; Bush wants Bin Laden before his term is up. Gangs rule Toronto and Elizabeth May has been blackballed. My conclusion, in this monstrosity of lightening speed information, is that the world is fucked. Absolutely. This assertion, admittedly, is not an optimistic one. Unfortunately, we all have to wait and see who are the next figures to guide our politics and national practices. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Please vote, everyone. Please.

I have been experiencing issues about disengagement lately and I worry that it is going to be a challenge in the coming weeks, months, years, as I continue to inform myself. It is difficult (impossible?) to separate personal values from the subject matter at hand. Personally, I’d like very much to care about what I write, not detach myself from it. I suspect my leftist biases will reveal themselves with time in what I write – and as they should, no?! People are ignorant and apathetic to counter-hegemony. Especially where youth are concerned. I need to cool myself, it is far too confident to want to change the world at this point in the game. Regardless, I am having a difficult time removing myself from what I want to write about. It is a compromise.

The light at the end of my tunnel is that Paul McLaughlin has said the art of an interview is a discipline like theatre that allows for spontaneity and creativity. This gives me great hope. I am off to join CJLO.

But I need to return to the west island now and thus will conclude this scholastic, heavy-hearted discourse. A million ideas are running around my tete at the moment and the numbers continue to climb...

journ...

journ- ALISM? journ -Y? Je sais pas. These are the best of the bunch:

I watched a really old lady sitting on the plane today. I stared at the lines on her hands, the wrinkles on her face, the glass eyed expression as she peered above the clouds. I almost was tempted to ask her about her life. To just reach over the little Japanese girl in between us & jostle her in the arm, asking her if she has truly lived...

I have been here a week. It seems like forever. Not forever, actually. But I have felt every moment of these last seven days wear heavy on my bones. I have done everything, and nothing. I feel as if I am not of my own skin. I have boundless freedoms, yet I am confined by my own sense of loss & dislocation. I have not been challenged like this in quite some time. It has driven me to become a caffeine addicted, narcoleptic, irregular, stoner sex-fiend with a Martha Stewart complex.

-------------------------------------------------------------I am not going to sleep tonight.
I wonder if it is too early to put on a pot of coffee for myself. I could sit & write all night if I had to. The eerie, fake light casting upon my skin in the darkness of this little room with no windows, in the middle of Montréal. ---------------------------

Pisces: 
Different people measure success on different scales, and you should make sure that you don't get discouraged if your accomplishment of the day seems minuscule compared to what others have done in the same period. Constantly comparing yourself to others will make it difficult for you to ever feel like you are getting anywhere. Someone else will always have done more. Be content with whatever you do today - even if it is as simple as getting out of bed on time.

----------------------

The danger of this room is that it can be daylight outside and I am none the wiser. Instead I lie in the darkness, unaware that I have missed the dawn. I want to be a creature of day, and not of the night. I feel like I am actually living life when I take in all the hours at their fullest. I may disconnect & work in the kitchen. I have decided that coffee was inevitable

---------------------

“Sleeping is giving in. no matter what the time is.
Sleeping is giving in. so lift those heavy eyelids.
People say that you die faster than without water
But we all know that’s just a lie
To scare your sons & scare your daughters ”

I saw an arcade fire member in my depanneur today, which was fucking cool.

---------------

Dick,
So, apparently Myspace isn't working at the moment.
This alone has abstained me from writing you a fevered, five in the morning comment about the utter, bewildering disappointment I find in harry potter & his ultimate anticlimactic curtain call.

She should have just finished it. Just killed it: a nice, clean ending. Good trumping evil, Harry announcing that he has 'had enough trouble for a lifetime'. Period. End of story. That was awesome.

But no. Oh, no. Rowling didn't have the sense to lay down her fucking pen.

Seriously, what is up with the 19 years later epilogue?? It is nothing but STUPID copulation, nuclear family values & name dropping.... big fucking deal he named his kid albus severus; stupidest fucking thing ever. So fucking cliche. You’re dead to me, j.k. Thanks for warning me about this shit Rich, I had a vague idea this melodramatic trite was coming....
So. It is five am & I am so livid I cannot sleep. I left a fucking party to get this shit done. Ugh. What a waste.
I'm glad I have my life back. fu-ck,

--- SUBTEXT TO THE NOSE WHO KNOWS: I would love your permission to post the reply to this email, it is hilarious.

-----------------------makewayforthegeniustoappear. August 18, 2007.

Tu es une belle dame. I cannot think of any other flattering French to impress you with at the moment, nor of any poignant lyrics to delicately render you to the understanding of my mood or disposition.

Right now my room mate & her live in partner have left for the library, using the jargon of babytalk common amongst newly established couples who’ve come to sudden understanding that, though they have made newly established vows, the honeymoon is over. A cold wind blows through our house & I lie sprawled upon my air mattress, adorned with vintage sheets, and cling to my Mac like it was a life preserver in stormy waters. Morrison is howling to me from the grave while the church bells toll outside my bedroom… Though there is something in the air that is coldly nipping the curtail of summer & my roommate has a free loading ‘husband’ that is sort of difficult to live with, I am thoroughly enjoying every moment I am spending here. It is an abject & completely different existence than any I have ever known. Those workweeks you mention feel a thousand lifetimes away, but are remembered with a big sigh & a melancholy fondness - Monday felt especially strange. Know that the light at the end of the tunnel is mere moments away, my dear, so don’t lose heart or burn out or cop out too* badly on friends you will eventually end up missing desperately… once the point of departure comes, when the reality of the moment ultimately sinks in, whatever is to follow becomes entirely up to you, which is a totally liberating and totally daunting in equal measure. I think that there should be some sort of government-funded shelter for people whose lives have been previously quelled in haste to come down in. It seems completely abnormal, disoriented and estranged to be the unemployed master of my own accord. My goings and comings are completely at whatever whim I choose to follow, and this newly sovereign state I have found has done wonders for my mental state. I’ll tell you: I am indeed writing. Constantly, Candidly, Consumptively. I try everything. I am branching out in all directions: Reading. Collecting. Scrapping. Thrifting. Blogging. Breathing. Jogging. Making. Dreaming. Thinking. Living. Finally. Everything. Nothing. Time. But the scary fact remains: I most certainly have not* yet found my niche, whatever it may be. I have been dipping my toe into this new life, instead of plunging headfirst…

& I don’t know why I underestimated the French in my lofty plan of migration, but I must have; the culture shock has shaken me up, full throttle. I can’t believe we’re in the same country, sometimes. I was really discouraged for the first while. You can get by in Montreal with nothing but English but the point remains that I don’t want to. It is very patronizing when you attempt to order a tea in French but they answer you in English… & I know, too, that this will come with time. What, I’ve been here eight days?? I’ll figure it out. I’ll find a good class. My fingers are crossed & my heart is promising. I just bought an agenda. Plus my first week was unrealistic & is certainly NOT an accurate reality of how life is going to be here.

I’m sorry to disappoint, but the boring report remains: no scandals, no lovers. My roommates tease me that a bunch of their guy friends want to take me out … but…I don’t know. I want to get to know MYSELF; that was the point of this exodus. One reason anyways. & The other, you ask? Scorned Woman Syndrome: so I’m not about to jump into anybody’s pants. It has to be love; this is what I have resolved after all that pain & bicycle trouble. Plus. I fall in ‘love’ daily. J’check du monde. Everywhere.

Speaking of love: Your words, my dear. Your words! They rendered me plunging into homesickness for moments at a time, in complete understanding of our town’s biggest blessing & blemish. The mini Mecca of three degrees. Well, you wouldn’t think so, but I miss parts of it with every ember of my body sometimes. The open canopy of trees and endless, forever moving skies. Veggie burgers. Bike rides. The escalators at the UofW. The hub of the Exchange. Random hangouts. McMillan Avenue. The roof of my parents’ house. Being a neighbor. I know better than anyone that redundancy, paints the town as boring, but I saw someone shoot up down my street the other night & instantly the bubble was broken; I looked around without stars in my eyes. The city skyline is marred by smog. The endless sidewalks are sprinkled with broken glass & stained with piss. It is beautiful, yes. It is metropolitan, yes. It is in-the-moment, trendy, fast paced, exciting, yes. But it is also desperate, polluted, cold & I am ultimately alone. I don’t know how to explain. I don’t have the words-------------

This is monstrous. Honestly. I know that English students usually access an understood ‘get-out-of-rambling-free’ card by vocation alone, but you must have had it with this letter already. I’m going to finish this mother:

Tu. Me. Manques: I see the essence of you at random. You are on my mind, you are in this town. A friendship like yours is a treasure. I am certain it will grow as we do - uniquely with time, lived vicariously for the moment and then picked up like none have passed at all. I am looking forward to our next meeting, though there is no way to tell when it will be or what we both will have been through when it comes. You remind me of the value in a neighborhood, and of living authentically - with spirit. I have realized upon departure that I do not thank my friends enough for the gifts that they give to me, nor do tell them I love them as copiously as I should: Thank you. I love you.

So? It is lit, my friend, the fire has started….I will feast on you come spring.
Affectueusement, ma belle kindred, Yours forever. Loco.---

to the east

you didn’t know where to go
walking around in this flat, wailing town
I saw you waiting for a train
and then you disappeared
face pressed up to the window

you went so far away
I want to come there too
I want to be with you
Im just waiting until you say the words
come back come back come back home to me

Im living near
there’s a train that’ll be here soon
there’s a light for me & you
the east means so many things
but it could be home it could be home
it could be home to you and me

and if you ever say those words
I’ll come to you where you are
it’s too hard to be apart
the east is not so far away
but it could be home, it could be home
it could be home to you and me.

- Electrelane

une semaine

Three provinces. Three dance parties. Three days.
These last series of hours have been little more than excursion to and from Manitoba. Quebec. Ontario. To travel about Canada this way in that time allows for uncanny immediate social observation and I have made interpretations, if these places were to be assessed as people to sleep with – which is a good enough assessment as any. Conclusion? Manitoba as a long-distance lover, obviously. Quebec, the beautiful, rebellious little slut who smokes, drinks, and curses the church would be an unapologetic tryst. Ontario on the other hand, the epicenter of normalcy in this country, would be like loving a banker; clean fun, but dry and uninspired --- --- ---
Break. Time has passed since dancing in various throes of enthusiasm and days have been full. Please excuse the inanimate provincial sex fantasies above; I am still hungry as ever for Henry Miller. The other notable moments spent in real life have consisted of strong conversation with others, lazing with Epically Richard in Parc la Fontaine or in school, which is new and wonderful. Days are opening and closing at lightening speeds and it is hard to believe a week has gone by since being ‘home’ but I am happy to be back.--- --- ---

I think it is worth mentioning that I have been entertaining many conversations lately about the multi-pronged, impossible subject of love (or something like it). I don’t know if the reason for this is simply because a bunch of my intimate people are falling simultaneously into and out of these feelings of late or if perhaps a collective of us have realized all of a sudden that it really isn’t what we were told it would feel like at all. (The good and bad.) In shorthand, these are the broad and sweeping topics of totally enthralling conversation I have been having recently: Sex. Monogamy, Poly-amorous relationships, Love, Narratives. Girlfriends. Boyfriends. Mr. Right. (Mr. Big) Wives. Husbands. Milfs. Dilfs. Mothers. Fathers. Babies. Soul mates. Divorcées. Bachelors. Spinsters. Life partners. Lesbians. Multi-generations. Conversations. Separation. Togetherness. Exes. Friends. Lovers. Exclusivity. Reality.
All former certainty is gone; we are tearing down the walls.
Probing people to talk about real things, lapping their experiences/actions up like a drunk and meditating on the variations has left me a bit wild. My processes are in overload. I do not know what to think any longer. --- --- ---

I have been told in school that we need to specialize our writing, as journalists. Be able to work in multiple areas of media, but be expert in a few. I have decided that sexuality – as a solid niche market- is a safe bet for me. Followed closely by gender politics. And the environment. I wonder what Linda Kay is going to tell me. That same day we practiced doing a ‘lede’, which is simply the first sentence in a story. Mine was the following: Small town liberal arts student cashes in the Susan Carson. No good, evidently - I was told it wasn’t sexy enough. Ha. Who said newspapers were dead? At least blogs are alive and well. even if they are still irrelevant.