suckin rock and roll

2008-06-03T15:46:00.000-04:00

2008-06-03T14:43:00.004-04:00

I have to say...

I know little things make me happy and excited and content. The little extra button they give you with your quality 100% cotton button down shirt, a new song that makes you pull into the driveway but sit and wait until it's finished (Billy Bragg New England is this weeks) cooking a turkey with a little poppy bobber thing that works and pops at the total right time, drinking beer with friends, drinking wine with friends, drinking enough that you can talk fast and quick and witty but not too much that you can't drive home, finding $20 in the dryer, green tea that isn't too sugary, Annie in the rain, the puppies run run running, meeting a new guy, liking new guy, and that weird 2-3 month phase where everything is right and laying together saturday morning talking about the US foreign policy feels so right, so right, and believing for a few days, few weeks, that you could be with this guy for a while, discovering a new author and the books that go along with it, discovering new books by an old author, a new haircut, clean socks, sheets that smell like my grandma washed them, my mom's rhubarb pie, being alone, knowing you're being alone, being happy you know you're alone and you're alone, doing what you want, not having to answer to someone, not worrying, a new pen, watching a double play, writing something that even before you click save you know is good.

ANYWAY

The Roomba. I expressed interest in the Roomba months ago. It has finally arrived, courtesy of a friend who is able to get these kinds of things. you push a button, it motors aroung the house sucking up everything and anything. in particular, it's been suckin up the dog hair, so much of which i can't believe either of them don't look like moby. It motors around, making this weird, way louder sound than you'd think, and it's just so cute and loveable...i've named him Frankie. As an aside, it says right on the box that Frankie and family were created to sniff out and destroy landmines, which given my penchant for meeting and keeping very strange men around far longer than should be necessary...is probably a HUGE diplomatic plus.

ANYWAY

Watching the dogs meet Frankie is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

It's made a rather drab day, week, month, life? pretty freakin bright. And that is why my sarah's personal campaign for hermitude with the exception of the dogs because apparently they are the only things that can stand/love me...is back.

Get your button of support today. :)

www.irobot.com

2008-04-17T09:52:00.003-04:00

ok.

well, sigh, sigh, sigh.

things are busy. and so busy that sarah you freakin idiot have made myself so overtired and underalcoholed that now i have the wicked type of head cold that you take double the dose of day quil and apart from making you feel a bit kite flyey, doesn't even freakin touch you. so. yeah.

we'll start at the beginning which is a very good place to start.

went to the uk, saw tricia and weird b/f. yeah. he's off. like cash is off. just a little off y'know? had fun, over to ireland where i walked the ulysses walk and visited the joyce centre which like most things in ireland apart from government run national museums sits in a little house with two stories and is filled with, essentially nothing beyond a mask of his death face and the door to 7 eccles st. when the university student in her very attractive dublin speech tried to impart on me what 7 eccles st. meant i gave her my best 'you gotta be kidding me face' and she said, 'welp apart from bloomsday we only get one or two foreigners every few months that aren't just here cause it was in the lonely planet book.' ANYWAY half of eccles st. was knocked down for a condo or something including 7 but some joyce crazies kept it in a bar on the north side for like 20 years and when the joyce centre opened brought it to them. here's the thing that struck me, the entire city is literary. i mean there are plaques at each and every dublin pub, howth castle, butcher etc. that joyce mentions in ulysses commemorating it and quoting the passage it is from. at the top of the guinness brewery, there are joyce quotes surrounding the look out over dublin. there's a statue of joyce, parnell (not literary but cool), wilde, yeats etc. and all these writers are commemorated all over, from the dublin castle to their favourite pubs. very cool. and they didn't say THAT in lonely planet. then to limerick on a train bus bus bus bus train but it was worth it and beautiful.

so we stay in a hotel a little out of the city BUT there's a pub and at the pub are regulars and we all get there and tricia and off b/f go up for a nap and i go down for a drink because i understand jet lag and sleeping is not the answer. i come back out to meet tricia and off b/f we go back into the bar and the entire bar turns and says "heeeeeeey she's back" and i just thought gob would like that story because for reasons beyond me and perhaps beyond her drunk people REALLY like me.

um, then back to the UK where we did little in a day, but wandered through the tube and picadilly and such.

and now i'm back and working my ass off and sick and out to a conference in san diego next week which will be nice because a lot of the team and husbands are coming and i'm bringing new car guy who's too nice to me and frankly scaring me a little. like i'm waiting for him to throw my keys into the bushes and call the cops or throw a kettle at me. neither have occured. and that is so easy and refreshing and nice and lovely. and i think it's been a very long time since there's been someone normal who doesn't have any immediate weirdities and isn't trying to gain anything and is just kinda there. and sometime all you wanna do is be sure someone is there, and of that one thing i am sure, and also sure i like it.

oh and i'm buying an invisible fence for the dogs so i can just kinda let them out and awaiting big sister gob's comments on that.

when she bought a bark collar for her dog, tracy tried it on her own neck and has commented that i should do the same. i might on my wrist but don't know if i can do the neck thing.

and that's all the time i have today.

the next one will be better. i promise.

2008-04-13T12:39:00.000-04:00

2008-04-05T08:52:00.003-04:00

off to ireland...

back to the homeland and all that stuff.

And Patricia booked the 'cruise' to limerick...i have a funny feeling it might look like this:

2008-04-05T08:52:00.001-04:00

this kinda freaks me out frankly...

2008-03-26T23:38:00.001-04:00

And before I left I thought
about waking you
sleep filled and downed
your breath one and laid between
nestled between
my own

I thought
maybe I should stay here
tonight (forever)?
maybe it’s good here

but if you think
you’re the only one
with black dogs
demons and
those before
you’re not alone.

they follow me too

I promise.

and there’s nothing about this
whatever this is
you and I or us
two beings floating
guts streaming and scared
shitless

and the insane perpetual manner
in which I am falling
into
you and I or us

that will be easy

(but maybe
so much easier
than before?)

this is just
you or I or us
and I am just

trying to fall
as hard
(hurt)
less
as possible

and yet
when you look
at me
eyes deep blue pools

I can’t help but think
this is all
you and I or us
there ever was
to be.

2008-03-17T20:08:00.004-04:00

i'm alive

2008-03-05T10:35:00.000-05:00

2008-02-25T11:10:00.001-05:00

2008-02-22T11:00:00.005-05:00

how does it start.
it starts like this.

you go to visit someone, could be anyone, could be a random party that someone who knows someone who knows you or a stupid freakin hallowe'en party in which grown adults dress up like random whorish somebodies because tonight is the night where it's acceptable or it could be your friend who jumps from one guy to the next but never has anyone on valentine's day and so every valentine's day throws a valentine's day sucks party and invites you because she correctly believes you agree, valentines day does suck, and you go every year because although you often do have a guy you couldn't care less about this day out of all the days and holidays and made up nothingness all in all it is a complete and random start of a complete and random trip down the getting to know someone well enough to stop by randomly and this time it happens fairly randomly but not without some pre-meditation on the part of the surprise friend who's walked into you and stayed, enough so if it were a crime she would be guilt guilt guilty. so you go and meet everyone after saying you'd never do this again, after writing it off, after being happy at home with the dogs running under your feet and having your couple heinekens and going to bed holding a pillow in one arm and a puggle in the other, you throw the comfort, the write offs, and put on your gap jeans and low-ish cut shirt and go out and feast your eyes on the quiet relatively good looking guy in the corner and start doing your thing where you get that look on your face as you're going in for the kill kill for the killer kiss kiss and you two hit it off because you always hit it off and he's quiet and normal and has a house and it's clean and and and he cooks and his kid knows your sister and they talk and you start taking the short drive to his house for a beer once in a while, and he always hugs hello and hugs goodbye and says your name with a glitter of the mouth and he invites you over and you invite him over, and everything's good again and you kinda have someone again and you're learning and watching and talking and figuring him out and scared as shit that once you figure him out he'll annoy you and why this pattern? and in back of your mind you know this isn't a forever thing might even be a lonely thing might even be a tired of everyone else thing and then you open up and then you let people walk into you and then your friends stop by on their way home or to work or out and you sit, beer in one hand, smoke filled kitchen, puggle runs and stories and stories and laughing and teasing and suddenly you've opened yourself up to a town you hate(d) more than anything and you have a community of people who stop by, a community of surroundedness, a community(!) and from this community from all the stop bys and all the parties, lame as they are, all the mundane and utterly unintellectual conversations you stop by one night for a beer and have the single best kiss you've ever been given in your entire life and when you look at him in shock and ease and mutter 'you've got a mouth on you' and he smiles and leans in for the killer kiss kiss you think the move, the loneliness, the town you fuckin hate(d), is all

worth it.

2008-02-19T09:52:00.001-05:00

2008-02-19T09:50:00.001-05:00

“Just remember, the same as a spectacular Vogue magazine, remember that no matter how close you follow the jumps: Continued on page whatever. No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention. Well, get used to that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day. This is all practice. None of this matters. We're just warming up.” chuck palahniuk...

2008-02-13T08:17:00.000-05:00

It's too cold to write anything dammit.

2008-02-13T08:16:00.000-05:00

WHOAH

2008-02-05T11:19:00.000-05:00

2008-02-04T16:22:00.000-05:00

2008-01-30T09:22:00.000-05:00

My Backyard...erg...

2008-01-30T08:19:00.000-05:00

2008-01-30T08:18:00.001-05:00

2008-01-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

when my mother and father FINALLY came to see the house and kinda sat with me all awkward, my dad telling me to move the thermostat, and pulling up floor vents to look at the furness while my mother wandered through books and took an armful with her, and annie sat playing with the dogs, my father peered out the front window and said, 'oh you're really close to the lake, you know the water's gonna come up to your front yard eh?' to which i responded, 'i don't think so, it's been ok so far' the lake was quickly frozen this week, and this morning i woke around 4am to the sound of doors opening and closing. when i wandered downstairs the water was amazingly insane. it is literally up my front yard, and bulbous? (is that a word? i'm thinking jello and oil being whizzed around a tuperware container) it's just freaky and amazing crashing up onto my front lawn, the ice gone, and random weird shit floating by. and it's beyond windy, i took the dogs out and almost fell over walking them.

and this area is sooooooooo weird. apart from american bob next door and gay gay david a few down with the dalmations, there's no one. all the houses are pretty well boarded up, and this morning while struggling to walk the poor puppies, a cop car drives up and starts talking to me about the crazy weather and it's a cop so i have to talk and then i think that must suck, the only reason people talk back to cops is because they think they have to right?

and papa's been in and out of the hospital for weeks and everything's great, and he goes home, then he's back in and dying, then everything's great and he's going home, then he has a 'rough night' and it's just....siggghhhhh. i love watching his hands. i don't know what else to say beyond that, except that it sucks.

after my grandmother died, he was depressed and didn't leave the house for like 3 years. then he met jackie, his little gnome girlfriend and now he pratically lives there, they travel like crazy and are just so happy and in some ways it just doesn't seem fair or right for him to go now. it's weird but it's almost like he NOW has so much to do, so much i want him to do. which is probably a weird thing to think or say about a 74 year old man. i was talking to my uncle about papa and jackie in one of my more bitter moments and i said to him, and his wife, my aunt who's goofy and pessimistic and in defense of my grandfather a little i said that there are few people that find love like that EVER nevermind twice.

maybe that's it.

2008-01-23T10:58:00.001-05:00

2008-01-22T12:51:00.000-05:00

so

i've finished off two of the three curriculums for thursday, of which i am presenting most of. i am assured that writing curriculums pays good money but equally assured that they severly hurt my head in the same way that talking to drunk construction workers at fort erie bars hurt my head.

i've been listening to the nattering of cbc radio because that is my idea of a productive workspace. i was explaining to someone the other day that sometimes when i'm doing something really boring the only place i can possibly do it productively is at my bar. and there is no real reason for that except that everything going on in my brain is so freakin chaotic that in order to become settled up there i need chaos somewhere around me in which my brain can tap into subconsciously. so i put on cbc radio. and they natter and mutter and tell the same news story like 80 times an hour. sounds like canada has this thing on canada's ultimate commuter and i wrote in a said that my commute takes approximately 45 seconds to walk from upstairs to my office. i thought that was quite witty. in retrospect probably smart ass. i will never understand the difference between wit and smart ass. then they started mumbling about overfishing in freakin denmark or something and that gave me a rash so i had to turn it off and now all i hear is the wind wind wind opening and closing my front door.

and i'm feeling lonely in a weird way. it's that weird loneliness i always feel when i travel or when i'm just back from travelling, although 8 hours in another province i THOUGHT wouldn't constitute "travelling" but it did...when the houseguest is gone i feel great running around arms flung in solitude and then crumpled in anticipation of someone coming back so i can talk. to someone. in someways this whole work at home thing and the fact that i'm pretty geographically isolated is bringin back weird china feelings which inevitably ends up with me sleeping with someone i absolutely had no intention of.

in other news. the puggles have FINALLY settled down and are napping pretty well through the storm. which is what puggles are supposed to do. beware wretchedone...two dogs are fun, but they're BAD together, and it takes them a long time to re-adjust to new places, new things, new people, and each other in the new places, new things etc. etc. like molly will want to sleep, cash will nudge nudge ear bite...it goes on ALL DAY until molly gets mad and bites back blah blah...this has gone on since i moved in here, but TODAY TODAY they're back to being good puggles. I will say, without rambling forever, during the move, i inadvertently changed their food, cash shed like a....i don't even have a simile for it? ummmmm...god i don't know...until he had little bald spots in his fur, with dark tear stains, molly looked like she weighed 10 pounds heavier, and they both ran around like kids at the mcdonalds playplace after the carbs and sugar and refreshing ability to eat with their shoes off in PUBLIC...i've changed them BACK and they're calm, not balding little puppies. so, don't buy puppy chow.

beware wretchedone of the unforeseen amount of food ONE MORE DOG costs you.

2008-01-22T09:15:00.001-05:00

it's snowing so hard that i can't see the lake.

all the new people start today and have called all freaky because they're ALL stuck in traffic. i'm fly to montreal at 9am, sit in meetings all day, fly home at 5pm, and drive home from toronto through the snow, hung over this morning.

i hate snow.

2008-01-22T09:13:00.001-05:00