romantical sabbatical 2k11

Except that kind of sounds like I'm taking a romantic vacation, instead of a vacation from the idea of romance. Hmmmm. you know what I mean, though.



Why yes, I do only have pictures from my walks with the dog.

That Bukowski poem shared in reader/buzz/etc sure got a lot of great comments from my friend group. Some a little too crude for posting, I would say.

from Niki:
"ugh. some men are boring."
and then later in the comment thread:
"NO MAKEOUTS FOR ANYONE DELICATE, DELICIOUS, OR WONDROUS!"

and from Cheesepie:
"a woman's value depends only on how consumable she is. known fact! delicate, delicious, or garbage."
and
"it's a boring, grating rhetoric we've had to hear a billion times. want to be a REAL woman? want to keep your mystery intact and be ever more desirable? then limit your interactions with other human beings! never fully be a person! hold out for the ONE!"

I'm going to fully agree with Cheespie on this. Except I still think the poem has a couple of valid bits to it, except that I think it's true for both genders.
It really has nothing to do with whether they are women,  more to do with the reasons for seeking out partners, how they're going about relating. 



The part that felt true to me was the part about choosing the next one out of revenge.

I'm very, very hesitant to write about Babe Break here because of how it makes me look or what's too much information or how much I actually want to be sharing.

But,
One of the main reasons for Babe Break is an over-saturation of the field. I'm not complaining about meeting and knowing many dudes I can have crushes on, and I'm also not saying I have several men on the go at all times, but it gets to feeling like I just universally have crushes on pretty much everyone. Anyone I decide to, at least. I don't know what's true and I don't feel like I could tell if someone I actually liked came along.

And if I met a potential love interest who acted the way I act a lot of the time in terms of dating/relating/etc, then I wouldn't want to date them. I would find them untrustworthy and full of drama.

I'm sure that there have been friends of mine who have warned off dudes telling them I am made of drama. And I don't know how to say that's not true when I'm just not sure it isn't.
But I don't want it to be.



Dayna wondered out loud yesterday to me whether I'd be content having the sort of lifestyle that she has. Which is to say, a husband that she is head-over-heels about, not too much going-out, and lots of quiet nights in.

I would like to say FUCK YEAH, but who knows if that's actually fully true?
I've never managed to get myself into a situation even close to that, except possibly with a dude I dated a couple of years ago.
We stayed in and watched My So-Called Life, got a lot of take-out, sewed costumes for his band...  but then I was sort of mean. I never want to be like that again. The getting mean. I always get mean. I should be taken out back and shot, actually.
But the difference there is that I was just trying so hard to convince myself to love him. I wanted so badly to be in love it seemed that if I pretended hard enough it'd be true. Almost felt like it was.
Unfair of me. 
But I wasn't in love with him.
So I don't know how I'd feel about a quiet life hanging out all day with a bestfriend/truelove, but in theory that sounds pretty sweet.

The last semblance of a relationship I was in lasted way longer than most of my involvements and I wonder how much of that was because I was always fighting for his love and fighting to love him without being able to properly communicate or understand him, and maybe because we didn't spend every moment together.

I'd like to find someone I'd actually like to spend a lot of time with.




Haaa, the other day I asked my wonderful, funny, successful screenwriter friend where I should go to find my future husband (on account of I'd like to meet someone similar to him and therefore he should know) and he refused to help me out in any capacity.
I wish I could remember exactly how he put it, but it was something along the lines of
"No. I don't want you to meet him. You're too funny being single and slightly tortured."

I guess that's sort of a compliment.
I did point out to him that I had now built up a lifetime of funny stories about babes to tell. He was unconvinced.





Aaaaanyway, about choosing out of revenge, I don't think that's what I do, exactly, but if you have more than one babe on the go/in mind it makes each heartache that much easier to deal with. You can use one to distract from the other and another to distract from the one, etc. #1 crush is not the awesome dude you thought? well luckily this dude thinks you're the prettiest, etc, etc.

If you get enough cooks in the kitchen you don't even have to notice that nothing is getting cooked.

I am not pleased about operating like this, and that's whyfor Babe Break. To hopefully rearrange my priorities and patterns.



Also, with enough going on you stop noticing that there's no quality in any of the interactions.
I have not been out on a fun date basically... ever. I forget that romance is a thing that people actually experience. I forget how to be sweet to people and how to stop being defensive and rude.



The other bit that I liked about that particular Bukowski piece was about going about interactions selfishly. and,
"you're finally left with whatever
you have been willing to give
which often is:
nothing"

How can I possibly expect to fall in love with someone wonderful when I am not being wonderful, myself?
I know that this is obvious, and I'm sure I've said it before, but, I would like to be the type of person I'd want to be with. And I'm not being awesome right now.

I'm going to take the next little bit to regroup and figure out how to be more awesome. And maybe even get some shit done. Ya know?

YAAAAAY YAY YAYYYY

white bike gang

you make it easy to keep up beside you on my
junk-store bicycle
match your pace to mine
and check back to make sure I'm there just
behind you

white bikes under streetlights


Yard party at the Mrs's last night.
I was in exactly the right kind of mood for that party. Ahh so nice when it matches up like that.
I love yard parties because the price is right and the company is right and the atmosphere is like a patio only nicer and it's like a house party only better.

Into the mix of lots of people I already know plus a bunch of people who are probably great because they were invited over.
Not like a bar where you gotta assume (if you hate everyone, like I do) that most people are asshats.

Mrs bought gluten-free veggie burgers with me in mind.
I know, right?
Delicious.



My social life/arts life was changed 4 years ago when I met this crew.
I had an audition for a Ryerson short film which I ended up blowing off twice and then being late for. Then I was super awkward at the audition then I climbed over the desks on my way out instead of going around (I don't know why!) and almost fell over/broke things then said to the boys,
"I almost broke your school"

For some reason (pure sex appeal, I assume) I still got the part in this short.
The filming of that lead to meeting more people from that year at Ryerson, people including Mrs, Norman Yeung, the friends that made A Small Thing, and many others.

In the film I wore pajamas and no make-up. It was a quieter kind of a role and I was in the middle of a bunch of people I didn't know so I was a bit shy and not overly-friendly. Norman Yeung told me later that he thought I was a big geek (still true) and was surprised when I came out partying with them afterwards. He knew nothing of my party-all-the-time ways yet.

Mrs super-befriended me by making me come out with them, plus buying me drinks because I was beyond broke in that time period. Plus Mrs is very funny so her awkward humour was something I could get behind.



That summer is sort of legendary in our minds, I think. Some things were just beyond fun and the gang was new and fresh and fun and a lot of us were single or single-ish, under-employed, and ready to stay out until dawn.
Plus many of us had white bikes and a strong desire to go to New Ho King for cold tea at 3 a.m.


we admire our own persistence
chugging through sidestreets
on breaking-down bicycles
late night and we would never, ever be
sleeping
too much to see + to do
too much to see-through
we can't know how this night will end
and so we can't go home yet
we have to push though


And although I do think we romanticize it, I think it was romantic.
We had a time.

It was nice to sit around last night and pat ourselves on the back about how much we like each other and each other's projects and arts.
There is basically nothing more rewarding than loved and praised by the people you have the most respect and admiration for.

"But then Norman called at like 1am and he was like "Meredith, I'm coming to pick you up on my bike and ride you doubles the party is just getting started where do you live?" it was great. How can I say no to that?"
-from my Diaryland May 24th 2006

I keep finding out that more and more people who I think are great are reading this blog and appreciating it.
I'm so appreciative of anyone appreciating it.

(poems are from my zine, Et Puis #2, ha, remember when I used to make those? photos are from that summer.)

quiet time

So I definitely know that I need time alone. I know this.
Just sometimes everything gets a bit overwhelming and I run out of time and I'm in such a good mood that I forget that in order to stay in a good mood I need time by myself. I need to chill the eff out and lie around on the floor a bit and read a book and stuff.

I'm kind of at the end of my line tonight and even knowing that I was on the verge of just randomly weeping, I almost went out tonight. I didn't though. I came home at 11 and didn't go out afterwards. I watched a tiny bit of internet TV and read some the 100s of unreads in my google reader. I ate some frozen berries and remembered to drink some water for once.


Two jobs today was too many for me. My legs feel bruised in the bones from the concrete floors and I'm stressed out by how ridiculous huge corporations are and how poorly employees get treated a lot of the time. Same old, same old.


One of my very favourite co-workers, from both the ACC and the dome, is a funny lady in her 50s whose daughters work with us and is very kind and gets the cakes for people on their birthdays, but she also swears like a sailor and thinks my jokes are pretty funny.
She told me about how she used to sell pot and go to concerts and stuff. She laughs at my babe stories.

Anyway, she just found out that she has cancer all over her body. Like all over. Real bad.
Right after she was diagnosed she asked to work with me most days at ACC. I don't really know why, to be honest. Maybe because I'm good at pretending everything is fine. Last time I saw her it was the day before her appointment where they were going to decide her treatment course and tell her her chances and all that. As she was leaving, I said "I'll talk to you soon, let me know how it goes" and she burst into tears.

I saw her daughter at the dome but I haven't seen her, she's not working now that she's in treatment, I guess. I've avoided her daughter because I don't want to have to ask how it's going because it can't be good.
Our bosses and co-workers got her a private box at the Jays' game this weekend and I knew that she was up there but I didn't go up to say hi.
I couldn't.


My mum is a single parent (obviously) and back in 1983 maternity leave wasn't was it is now and Mum put me (tiny baby) in daycare. She didn't mean for me to go to Bev's house as Bev wasn't that similar of a type of person plus she smoked but Mum was waiting on a space at another place so I went to Bev's. But then I was happy there, so I stayed. I went to Bev's and my brother went to Bev's. I went to Bev's until I didn't need childcare anymore. And even after I went back to visit. Basically we were family.
She died of lung cancer when I was in 12th grade. But I started distancing myself from her a long time before she actually died. I loved her so, so much.
She had three large sons but no daughters and I was the closest she had.
I was a mess at the funeral and I spoke to her pastor and she told me Bev had talked about me to her. Broke my heart.

Anyway, so this situation has shades of Bev to it and I'm not in the mood for this sort of sadness then extra sadness. It's just hard, ya know..


I wonder if my one of my favourite poets, Bob Hicok, will be very angry if I write out one of his poems on here. I recommend reading it out loud quietly to yourself to feel the almost-rhymes and how it runs smooth-like and nice, and maybe it'll be a bit soothing.


Talk more of the dream of your hips
on a clothesline, of plugging your hair
into light sockets.
Talk more of your mother's last cigarette
curling the white smoke of popes
outside the hospital, of holding it to her lips,
how she passed you
the final drag, the filter wet, disgusting,
essential.
Talk more of stopping short
of Nags Head, dead pelicans on the bridge,
your car door open, the dome light broken,
trees and trees beyond your vision, the chanting
of frogs, the world reduced
to blindness and throb, of knowing the sound
would eat you if you stayed.
Talk more of Duane on the second floor
burned by sterno, no heat in the apartment,
who played backgammon with you on the roof,
who shot arrows at the river, who named kaleidoscopes
after presidents, who pierced your ears
and licked the blood.
Talk more of going away from things
and coming to things,
of touching the yo-yo in your pocket
during the sales meeting, of killing slugs
with beer, of folding sheets, of moving sprinklers,
of tip-toeing away from beds with sex
dripping down your legs, of knowing the sky is closer,
of living under water, of dragging anvils,
of decapitating yourself with wine, of eloping
with highways, of that scar
under your chin, the one from a buttercup,
the one you touch when the sound
you need to make is everything that can't be said.

-Bob Hicok


Hmm. I meant to be asleep an hour ago. One more day of working and then I am freespirit freetimes all the time. I'm going to need to go for a picnic. Just reminding.

dog dreams

lately I want a dog
a big dog

I want a big dog
in the bed taking up too much space
a big dog kicking out in his sleep

to replace

these men. wish-washing their way about around here
a misguided waltz, botching the lead
tripping on their feet - moving in all the wrong directions
sabotaged by how I've greased the floor,
by how I refuse to let them guide me

they are promising or not promising
with their soft fingers
and the shady life-lines
threading down their palms
with the stubble patches on their jaws
and the way they kiss

like they're serious
like this is serious

candidates with all the wrong credentials
and I'm still hiring them on, letting them go
turning them over

so lately
I want a dog


that big dog
snoring in the night, taking up too much space
that big dog kicking out in his sleep



(from the last issue of my tiny magazine because I don't write anything new anymore. Also, I think my mum took these photos)

here we come a waffling

Oh my land it is beautiful out, like actually hot and sunny and I know that I need to get the hell out of this bed/couch and pull on a sundress and meet up with lovely ladies and maybe get a gluten free vegan muffin from urban herbivore and you know sunglasses are great for scoping babes incognito.

Yesss, out too late last night, who is having a big surprise about that one? I did kind of have a time though, in a way like not always the funnest but, you know. Sometimes the bits of sadness (not just in me, but the bits around) are kind of wonderful and maybe that's just me being me, but

I feel like the last entry was different than I was actually feeling, there's the troubles with writing prose as entries, it's not always truthful, just honest in terms of what I'd like to see typed out.

I've been very blocked up in terms of prose/poetry lately -- remember how I was supposed to make another zine about 2 years ago? yes, I miss it.
I still have copies of old ones, if you need/have never admired them. Let me know.

I need to remember that Niki knows about dance parties and that I love dancing. I keep on forgetting. Who ever thought that would happen to me? I should know better. I am disappointed in myself. I should know to keep it moving keep it moving.

Folding origami with notes or phone numbers is the cutest thing and people who don't appreciate that are ridiculous like I don't even understand.
One time I dated a supervisor at work (because I'M DANGEROUS AND LIVE ON THE EDGE LIKE THAT) and I got another work friend to deliver him a note-boat and let me assure you it was pretty adorable and he was definitely wooed. (haha first I wrote "wood")

You can steal that move, if you'd like -- I'm here to assist you in all things babe-related. Especially if you need a wingman (I am terrible at that, actually, holy wow I have so little patience for people sometimes) or if you need help selecting babes... I do have that finely-tuned scope-eye.

oh, yes, here, ee has a blog now ("transportation nerd babehunter and so much more"), you should read it too don't stop reading mine in favour of hers though. Please.

I was feeling a bit like photos were taking away from me actually writing actual things on here so I'm taking a breather for a tiny bit but I do have a backlog of photes for you like you would not believe -- especially some pretty awesome lolcats.

Tilda and the baby Bear have taken to sleeping in the crook of my neck behind my head, it is the most comforting thing. You can be jealous if you'd like to be.

OKAY GETTING DRESSED BRUSHING TEETH SOAKING UP SUN BEFORE THE THUNDERSTORMS COME IN



When titling last night's entry I was planning to put "everything I say is the truth" or "everything I say is the tall tale" I guess I forgot to decide which it was...

now that Rudyard is gone

I am feeling 100% off my nut today.

I think that if I had overheard myself talking to Dollface at brunch this morning I probably would've wanted to punch myself in the neck. For sure.
BEYOND OBNOXIOUS.
Luckily I think DF and McGruff mostly found me funny.
MOSTLY.

Oh yeah, also I drank two cups of coffee on a hangover and ate my face off so as you can well imagine, I kind of want to barf/run around at top speed. kind of fun, actually, partly.


So sad last night to get home to an empty house, thanks a lot for leaving me in the middle of my January Depression, Rudyard.
I'm reminded of when Touro just didn't come home. It was a few years ago but I still think of him often, he was a pretty party-time cat, very dreamy and awesome. When he was outside he would follow me wherever I went, like a dog.
SIGH.




Now That Touro's Gone

The cat has left and the attic apartment is lonely again. There's no one waiting at the door and no one to get up for. And I can look up at my high window as I'm coming home for as long as I want but he doesn't appear there.
The new boyfriend is over and he's playing Priscilla's guitar and singing. His voice is a recording from the 1930s. Soft, crackly, not-quite-fragile. He sounds further away even then when I wake in the night (with the streetlights pouring in and I wish they were stars...) and he's sleeping and still. He seems so unfamiliar then and the bed is a ghost-town.
Now the cat is gone he can sleep through the night. No scratching at the door or soft mews from the bathroom to wake him.
I know that he is secretly relieve though he does hate to see me, puffy-eyed and sad-faced, pacing the room saying, "I just loved him, you know..."
Now the cat has gone there's no one to come home to. Stay out all night and all day and through the night again. There's no one to call out to or to make idle conversation with. I catch myself and swallow the songs I've made for him. I stop myself from pouring food into his empty dish and I don't leave my cereal bowls to be licked clean.
But I can't stop searching the streets as I come and go... and I can't stop calling softly into the night for him...



(Touro Reflects)

From the next issue of Et Puis News Magazine, which I will finish, at some point

I know pigeons are pests and over-populated and they are out to get me when I bicycle up the wrong way on a one-way street and once I saw one get hit by a car - it made a sound like a pudding cup exploding or like a water balloon hitting pavement and I thought I would be sick.

(And that's maybe the closest I've been to a death)

But at Bloor and Christie flocks of pigeons wheel and spin in the winter sky, which is every shade of grey, making perfect formations. And they line themselves up along the rooftops of tall buildings and

my tiny charge stops me
she says

"Just look at them for a minute here"

Paused to watch them, we miss our walk-light. Cars rush past us on their way to busy stores and offices. Then we miss the light again but she doesn't mind because then she gets to press the button again and again and the pigeons are always doing something new to look at just for a minute here

That's the best part of my days with her
having only
time to waste

and leaving trails of crumbs for the birds