Monday, June 13, 2005
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Tuesday, June 7, 2005
i rave a lot about douglas coupland's splendid vancouver book, "city of glass." in the blurb on the back, coupland says something to the effect of "i spent a lot of my life looking for a better city, until i realized that ours is the best one going." someday i will likely come to the same conclusion, but my experiment is far from over. until then, i will happily put in the 30 minutes to cross my inaccessible little vancouver, trusting coupland (and experience) that commercial drive would not be commercial drive if it were at the end of an offramp.
i have a lot of small problems with america. i can't criticize it too harshly because i myself sit amidst unabashed capitalism, and no matter how much i profess to hate it, i can't deny that i find myself very happy here. but perhaps america's greatest fault is that it is built upon imagination and not reality. we have imagined for ourselves a life of personal property and unrestrained mobility and unchecked wealth, and to achieve it we have fortified ourselves behind white picket fences and freeways and stock options. unfortunately these fine ideals have failed in the real world, giving way to problems: white picket fences mean we don't have to get along with our neighbours (or even bother trying); freeways connect the whole country until every place and its people become one and suddenly there is no point in leaving home; and stock options turn people into salesmen, happy to work 80-hour weeks in pursuit of some elusive "advancement".
and so i welcome my return to the rain, to my camosun bog and my dear little bus system. they are not the product of anybody's imagination - nobody's dreams of utopia are so unremarkable. but somehow, they work. so i will realign my imagination with my reality, instead of trying in vain to do things the other way around.
Wednesday, June 1, 2005
Second, if I were to write an advice column for a newspaper, my first piece of advice would be to not put cat food on the bathroom counter. As much as I like a good tuna melt, the horrifying odour of 3-day-old tuna fish is not welcome in the place where I go to make myself clean. Tuna is not conducive to good bathing; in fact, the two are mutually exclusive.
Monday, May 23, 2005
Tuesday, May 3, 2005
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Sunday, April 3, 2005
Sunday, April 3, 2005
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
|the whir of the refrigerator and the vegetables inside|
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
doing 19 things a day does not lead to satisfaction! i much prefer having two or three challenges, time to confront them and do it well (and take care of myself in the process). life is much richer this way.
"The wisdom's in the trees, not the glass windows."
i leave florida the same way i found it: shamelessly air conditioned, full of wide highways and shiny new cars and strip malls and jet-setters, the landscape dotted with odd little lakes and chirping crickets. there are no hills in hillsborough county, and if there once were, they were long ago stamped out by the insatiable advance of humanity, with its theme parks and lawsuits and millions upon millions of freight containers. i leave this strange place because the ground feels too far from the dirt. more than anything i leave with the potent realization that home is the best place around.
It's odd how certain people can bring out my absolute best - curious, vibrant, innovative, having lots to talk about - and yet lifelong friends, people I respect and love, can make me boring as hell. I wonder if there is a point at which you know somebody so well that you don't care to make conversation with them at all. I wonder if the presence of another person becomes less and less noticed with time, until you behave as if nobody else is present at all. This could be a long week.
fell and landed face down in the best-smelling grass i've ever found
laughing
i'm so fucking clumsyyyyyyyyy
x
24 more days until i can eat chocolate again.
my thoughts after day 16:
worst
idea
ever.
th thought of popcorn
kurnuls [crackling spillin out & crunching neath me feet]
does n't need a metaphor
self portrait
_
|x|
�
(where x represents me,
and straight lines represent the defenses i
want desperately to let down,
please)
classes are over and i'm embracing the summer a little prematurely... if there are any stressors left (uh, final exams?), i'm denying it. i feel healthy, rewarded, creative and adventurous. and today i will watch 100 people audition for me. there's always something sickeningly gratifying about 100 nervous people doing everything in their power to impress me. call me a narcissist and a power monger. i am.
can't stop listening to:
stars / heart
aloha / you've escaped
if only my next 3500 words were allowed to be about you
set the pen to paper.
|it's painful not to keep moving|
|i don't recognize my own voice in the morning, pronouncing the name of an old lover out of mere habit|
|exorcize caution|
|the perfect gift is hidden deep underwater, among the bottom-feeders|
|a cigarette on the nightstand|
|the paper bag on my doorstep contains something new every day|
overcommitment / reading week / a ceiling tile / harold & kumar / jenga / a photojournal of public art / sun peaks / adele / blisters and shin splints / franklin falls / broccoli vs. asparagus / pineapple express / hitchhiking / a leaky faucet / snowbanks / the tinseltown sundial / soma / a potluck in a chalet / seinfeld / late nights at the studio / tim hortons / secrecy (and/or betrayal) / carpools / lascia ch'io pianga / herbal teas and hot chocolate / moral standards / toothpaste / early mornings / fear