true stories

The bowl of soup was in the foyer for 16 hours unmoved by the other tenants and untouched by the intended recipient. Cold in it's bowl sitting on the linoleum between the mail boxes and the front door which was always unlocked. And still unlocked when I came home after work that day, picking up the bowl while briefly looking at the empty corner before taking the 3 flights of stairs to my apartment.
The next time I tried packaged food; a safer offering bought and seal unbroken from the corner depaneur, crackers and a candy bar, a six pack and cigarettes for myself. I opened the pack took out 3 cigarettes and put them into the bag.
Coming inside from a February chill, those winds built up over a land that is a thousand miles in every direction frozen, to a different kind of coldness that comes from the inside somewhere like the spine.
A pile of a man.
A huge animal, dark and wide eyed mistrustful.
I stopped while walking by to slowly lower the grocery bag to him just a few feet away from his camp, and complete a quick scan from the feet up.
His camp tied to him in the layers upon layers which doubled his size. Boots with plastic garbage bags half way down them like spats. Something that resembled a woman's discarded fur torn in half and tied on each leg with pieces of rope.
Dark jackets stuffed him in to impossible disrobing with the final outside coat fashioned into something of a cape. What seemed like tiny hands sticking out from the sleeves gloved in dirt.
His hood down, a face black as a chimney sweep with dirt framed by lengths of matted grey hair even blacker.
And then a pair screaming blue eyes looking into mine like I was horror itself.
Indescribable madness that only now at this moment I had realized the extent of.
My smile frozen somewhere in me before even reaching my face, I managed to make out 3 words very quietly, "It's for you".
Motionless the whole delivery. Silence.
I kept on. And then while climbing the stairs a sensation I hadn't felt since my childhood while running up from the basement in my family's home, a feeling of having my ankles just barely escaping the clutches of some unknown hands.
But the dark camper was still motionless, despite my flighty scares.
Three days the bag sat, there in the foyer, but this time it moved, as each tenant's curiosity made sure it was nothing good until someone took the candy then the cigarettes and I threw away the crackers in the bag still.
He would vanish in the day. Seen at night with us or hiding between the dumpsters in the neighborhood's alleyways. Quiet as though his life depended on it only to occasionally scream nonsense in the night at no one.
The next week I found the door was locked and I started to use the key on my chain that I never needed before.
Occasionally I would see him dodging in the back alleys, a bear come into the city to haunt and create neighborhood legends.
Wearing more and more scraps tied onto his person like a nomad lost from the rest of his kind collecting what was dropped on the trail.

Photos

Ok. I have taken out all the pictures in this Blog that I have not taken myself. From now on I am only going to use my own images. I think it's better this way because I don't actually use my photos for anything else, so if I need a picture I will take it myself, and maybe this way it will inspire me to take more interesting shots or post more old ones.

Ok. That's it. Just thought I should let someone know.

it's been 56 days!

-Oh, hi there.
-Oh hey howsit going? long time no see.
-Yeah I know, how are you? Where you been?
-Uh you know, around... same old. You?
-Good, good, really good, yeah just hangin' out
-Yeah its so nice out huh? feels like summer.
-I know totally right?
-Anyway nice to see you,
-Yeah nice to see you too, your looking good.
-Yeah, thanks Blog, see you around Blog.


10 things I love about Summer in Vancouver. Ready?

1. Swimming in the Ocean.
Once I smoked some weed at the beach and went swimming and swam out really way too far and my foot brushed against something in the water. It was awesome. And people always smell fantastic after a dip in the sea.

2. Hot days, Warm nights.
Feels good to un-layer after the long winter and to sit outside late in the evening. Moon tanning, lying on cool grass or sitting inside with all the windows and doors open. Walking down the street to see other people's homes with the windows and doors open and hearing the voices inside feels good for some reason.

3. Hastings Park.
$2 bets, sneak-in beer, horses, smokies, outdoor gambling.

4. Baseball games.
A soon to be new ritual.

5. Short Shorts.
Girls in short shorts, enough said. I've become a fan of boys in short shorts as well and appreciate the delicate balancing act between acceptable summer wear and public indecency. Girls might have to wear some pretty uncomfortable shit like bras sometimes, but at least we don't have to worry about our balls falling out at the beach.

6.Getting out of the City
This may or may not actually happen for me.

7. Fruity-Icy-Boozy-drinks.

8.Bike Rides
Going nowhere, in the night, every night.

9.BBQ
Had a good first BBQ yesterday. Steak and roasted peppers with goat cheese and spicy beans, a good christening.

10.Laying around in the sun listening to music.
I need to get one of those crank-powered radios. No ipod setup for me. I am listening to nothing but oldies and the CBC and classic rock, and if a song comes on I don't like, who cares, change the station or don't.

So get on with it! Let it get hot out and somebody write me my too-crazy-to-work right now leave cheque already.

WHO KNOWS?

I've been not wanting to leave the house since Thursday morning.
I pretty much haven't except for a quick, wet under dressed bike ride today and a couple afternoon classes. Wait, I skipped one...to stay home and do nothing.
It worries me when I feel this way. Not because there is anything wrong with staying in but because I worry I will feel this way forever and maybe never want to enjoy anything the outside world has to offer again. That I won't shake it.
I will.
But for now all I want is to dry off, dim the lights, surround myself with my books and music. Pretend no one else exists and that I don't want phone calls.

Also, thank you God for these things:

Himalayan Bear
Hank Williams
T.S Elliot
Kleenex
pizza delivery
Jon Stewart

...you too baby Jesus, The City Wind is a really good song right now. I will be a party again in no time.

you bet

I got called 'Solid Gold' this morning...I'm into it.

TESTS

I have been busy with different tests lately.
Mostly for school, some personal and some medical. I usually hate the validation and standardization that tests seem to quantify, but sometimes the try-hard in me likes the feel goodness of a high letter grade or a clean bill of health.
A little while back I walked in to a clinic and pretty much demanded them to check me for every STD that has ever been known to man. It was intense. Lots of blood samples and latexed hands getting pretty busy. They seemed concerned and asked for symptoms I may have been experiencing. Like I should have a reason to be there.
"Nothing, I feel fine".
And then I felt like I had to explain the circumstances of someone else's sexual meanderings, which I did, awkward.
I was actually kind of suprised they seemed to need a reason, more people should go get randomly tested. Anyways, I got 100% on that one. Gold Star!
I started school ( again) last fall. I'm taking first year sciences as prerequisites for a RN program at a local College. It started good.
I had been thinking about doing this for the previous 5 years, but was too worried about commitment. I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay in Van, or would still want to do that sort of work in the future, I wasn't sure if I could stay in school for a whole 3 1/2 years and kind of worried I would just drop out again. Which is funny because when you don't commit to one thing your in a way commiting to the other and it just lead me to commit to a sort of nothingness, a kind of constant who-gives-a-shit-lets-have-another-drink-ness that has been going on for the past 10 years that i've been more successful in the last 2 at defying . I was starting to realize some things as well; like that when I was in school before I actually didn't do very well. I always thought I was really smart and literally too cool for school and all my teachers were dumb asses and all the students were boring drones. Only those students could out grade me any day and I really wasn't that smart. I actually failed a lot. I never cared. I rather skip, smoke a J and read my Rimbaud or Salinger book.
Now I'm back and kind of realizing that being a smart ass is in no way going to help on a test on DNA technology or cell mitosis.
That being said I was doing really good for a while, I got A's in both classes last semester.
Not so much now, I just don't really care as much. There is a lot of real life going on.
Should I have not gone back in January since December was a disastrous time for me? I figured putting things on hold only really gives you more time to dwell on something that already happened and is over and done with. Dumb.
Not exactly A's now.
I have to find a way to keep up really good grades without it being some sort of sick validation for me.
I basically feel like a semi-reformed skid when I come to class as the oldest and most ambivalent pupil. A Jerri Blank if you will.
How do I get more out of the whole experience of being in school with out just focusing on these tests that seem to sum up the whole thing?
Is it wrong to expect an education that your paying for to be more then tests, to be some sort of relevant experience?

vanquished

Took a walk through Bummer-ville today.

I haven't written a list in a while

These are some of the worst band names to ever make it through the industry to my ears:
- in order -
1. Cherry Poppin' Daddies
2. Butthole Surfers
3. Chumbawamba
4. Korn
5. Creed
6. Hey! Ocean!
7. Babyshambles
8. Half Japanese
9. We are scientists
10. Wham!
11. Ok Vancouver Ok
12. Bananarama....undecided

Ok I know there are a lot that are getting by me right now, don't even get me started on the whole slew of Metal names meant to shock...but really don't, I don't have all day for them or the 80's. Or for all the really cutesy indie names of late, totally sexless.
I think spring is here, I can feel it in my knees, I all of a sudden want to bang every man, woman and child I see....no, not that last one.
I also bought myself flowers the other day something I don't do enough or really can afford to do enough. I have a new camera now to use ( thanks Ryan) and am exited about getting out of the house and trying to figure out all the buttons and switches and taking some cool photos. My camera has been busted for a while as you may have already read.
Usually I see things day to day that I think would make good pictures.
Like the other day when I was at the beach and there was a cloud over on the other side of the water that looked just like a mushroom cloud. I don't think there is a chance of a fallout in West Van but it was ominous none the less.



I like ominous.
turned out alright for a cell phone picture.
Gross. My page is totally tainted by all those band names at the top now.

All my blogs are complainy.

In one way or another all my blogs sound whiny.
I really don't think I'm that hard up, I think it's just how I talk. Like, " you know what I don't like about this ...."
I am actually really a happy person and not too pessimistic. Its a kind of inflection or like an accent almost. Can't help it. No idea where I picked it up.

whew!

I feel so sick about Vancouver today its unreal.
It is probably because of a documentary I watched last night on Daleen Bosse Muskego, a Native university student and mother in Saskatchewan who went missing and her family left to search for her themselves. A story common in Vancouver. Or maybe because it is my first full day back at work after 2 weeks off. Even though it is mellow where I'm at today its still somewhat frustrating being in the neighborhood. I actually really love the DTES, partially for its sense of community. Its been long enough that I've worked or had lived down here that usually there is always a few hellos and smiling faces when I walk down the street. And now on top of all its other crippling problems, its is been slowly engulfed by the rest of the city. The rest of the city that has been avoiding it at all costs is now buying it up like its the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'm really going to miss Save-On Meats and that greasy little diner in the back. I always wanted to live in some sort of historic building down here but its not even possible. Housing goes from bed bug ridden crack den to $1400 character loft over night. It defies all regular progression of gentrification.
And the last thing I wanted to blog about was the 2010 Olympics, but I'm going to...right now.

It seems as the Olympic games, like any event, are usually themed. The theme in this case seems to be leaning on Aboriginal culture.
There is even going to be an " Aboriginal Pavilion" downtown, where people can watch Aboriginal performance art and eat like the Natives did.
I realize this is good in some ways; it promotes a certain culture.
But if Canada really fucking wanted to do this they may have not voted against the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
143 countries voted in favor, 4 didn't, Canada being one of those 4.
The declaration is not even legally binding in any form, It only acknowledges the need for a direction in the matter to support the right to such things as identity, culture, language, education and health care and to maintain own institutions and traditions.
Maybe the government is worried about loosing some natural resources.
I never want to write anything to definite about these things because I really don't know as much as I'd like to. It just seems ironic that it would tote around a culture of a people that is still so oppressed. It is even creating friction between different bands, mostly between those constituted under the outdated Indian Act and those not.
Anyways I'm ranting, But while cute little "guardian spirit" Olympic mascot "Sumi" is watching over the games and the tourists eating smoked salmon at $25+ It would be nice if someone with the money and power would look into the right of a people to practice a justice system they've had in place for centuries. Or the 2nd generational effects of separating families or why Amnesty International figures show that as a white girl I am literally 5 times safer from violence and death from violence then an Aboriginal girl.
UN treaty bodies have been calling on Canada to provide adequate data on differences in enjoyment of rights by different demographics. That lack of data in regard to Indigenous peoples in Canada Has been described as acute in its gaps.
So what this says to me is that the government hasn't even started really looking at the problem. they are so far away from investing in any sort of plan, they haven't even done the research yet!
There is just so much recent tragedy involved.
Would New York host the Olympics only to exploit the twin towers, maybe have a little airplane as a mascot? No.
Then why does VANOC not recognize the fact this country has committed a genocide on a culture only to spiff it up and put it on show for the world while there is still a generation of victims out there that will receive nothing out of that ticket price.
Like I said I don't know enough about these things.

superheroes

I was talking with a friend the other day about little kids. Personally, I'm never around them much, but she works as a nanny.
We were relating some thoughts about a modern "no lies" style of parenting that seems to be more common these days. The 6 year old she takes care of has been told there are no super heroes, no Santa even, nothing that isn't reality. I assume it's well intentioned, maybe trying to spare the explanations and disappointment to come later on with the shock of truth.
I just don't remember ever being emotionally damaged because of this, the truth is I don't even really remember when I found out there was no jolly man squeezing into our house or a huge rabbit hiding chocolate behind our couch...weird stuff, I don't even remember if I ever did fall for it in the first place.
I did truly believe in a couple of the things, however.
One is that I had super powers, I had just never been able to hone them enough to be able to use them, other then my magic powers to call on it to rain, which I really thought I was doing with my soul, I grew up in Vancouver so it is funny to think back on it now, but it makes more sense then having a sunny superpower.
I even did a rain dance on a few occasions. The others powers I knew would eventually come around by pure will and meditation.
Another thing I believed in was superheroes. Not all of them. Not super man or any sort of handsome cloaked, up and away hero.
I believed in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
I was a child, easily influenced and had seen the first TMNT movie with my 2 older twin brothers.
I wasn't obsessed or even a super fan, I just thought they were really out there somewhere.
Maybe it was the fact that they were more prone to fight gang leaders (Shredder!) and hoodlums in the city then another costumed villain with a plan to blow up the world. They were more relatable.
I was in Brownies at that time, which is pre Girl Guides. The community center that I would attend meetings at was close by. My family was living in UBC housing so it was like a mini city.
But there were times my sister wouldn't go and I would go alone. In the winter months it was dark by 4:30 and I would be alone in the dark outside for however many minutes (under 5).
In those few minutes I was always scared. Scared of serial killars or UFOs or teenagers etc.
I walked over every man hole and sewer grate I could, making sure to step down hard so the sound would resonate down below, and I would feel comfort in knowing that if anything were to happen to me that a Turtle would come out of the sewer and save me.
Another thing I believed in was mermaids, and I thought that they knew about me and my life on land.
I also thought the moon was some sort of living entity that was in some perpetual state of waiting and watching and it also watched over me and my family like a big eye. It is a hard thought to relate now how exactly I felt about it and I think the most sense I can make trying to describe it is to relate it to something in between HAL from 2001 Space Odyssey and a sleeping giant.
Does that make sense?
I doesn't have to though does it? I think we use what we have to make more sense of things in our lives whether they are real or made up.
I think kids do this really well. And in the long run it doesn't really matter if you tell your kid that one thing does not exist, because they will find some other weird thing to believe in, you can't quell that shit.
And I think even as adults we don't ever have to only have one reality.

No not Nevermind!

why is there a content warning on my Blog? I'm not that harsh, and barely skanky.
I'm going to get to the bottom of this my dear 4 followers

Oh

Nevermind.
Just that.

Smile while your Heart is Breaking

Dear, Public Diary
I feel I've started my life over before.
A few times actually. I don't mind it. Maybe because its happened enough I know how to do it.
New cities, new families, new friends, new jobs, new dreams, new loves.
I am nostalgic, extremely sentimental, but I think somewhat emotionally masochistic, that is probably why I don't mind it.Exasperation can be hilarious.
Give me whatever.
I can take it. I like to know I can take it. If times ever get bad, just make a fist and let'em know your happiness if worth fighting for.
I like the feeling of being an impostor, being in different places and situations and knowing deep down I have no idea what I am doing there, of meeting new people and knowing they may never really know me, and trying to get the most out of it. Even in my most comfortable, I never know how I got there. A sneaky impostor, I think very few people out there really know me.
This time I will stay, in town anyways, for now.
Maybe I'll revert back to a 20 year old and start hopping trains again, but I doubt it. It's time for a new page.
Speaking of new pages; I promise this blog will be less introspective and sad in Posts to come.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=uPxGleTTvdE

Rumble

I can't get Rumble out of my head tonight and I'm trying to sleep

But here are 3 facts about Link Wray

1. Link lost a lung from pneumonia, that's why he stopped singing
2. Link invented distortion, and punched holes in his amp's speakers
3. Link was part Native American

I think this song "rumble" might also be the only song ever to be banned on radio that didn't even have any words! Scandalous
He was going to play Vancouver like 5 or 6 years ago, but it was cancelled and he died.
R.I.P buddy.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=LUHz0i8_ziA

this video is hilarious. Magic
P.S - the video is from 1978, the song 1958

Sunday Dinners

There was a thought that came to me yesterday while I was re-heating leftover Chinese take out for dinner. I started to think about weddings for some reason. Maybe it was drinking cans of Pabst and being alone for a pathetic dinner for one on a Sunday or the neck injury from a mosh pit incident on the previous Friday, but yeah, weddings
Big deal right?
I've never been the type to care about getting married. But recently, the past 2 years I have been to more weddings then ever before, and it's been slightly humbling.
Still, not of great importance to me, I think I get it now.
People wanting to celebrate their love with everyone, and admitting to themselves and their partner that this is where they ultimately want to be, and who they want to be with.
When that gesture is paired with two people in their prime and still naive and excited about what is to come in life, I think it just makes it better.
I lost my appetite, took my dinner off the element, opened another beer and had a little wish that maybe in my 40's I'll look a good bride.
Or even better my life will someday be so exciting that I would never dream of settling. But for now, I think being satisfied is underrated.
I took this picture last Summer at Darcy and Chantelle's wedding, I realize it may not be the best wedding picture since it is without bride and groom, but I was trying to take on of how beautiful that night was.

So here is another one. My Sister's Hawaiian/Wiccan wedding.
And yes, that is a priestess holding a sword, one more reason to get hitched...make that a new family tradition

MCD baby!

The Murder City Devils may not be the least cheesy band out there or may not be that exciting for people anymore, but I am stoked they are coming to Van and playing a reunion show.
These guys seriously stoked me when I was a teenager.
It was right at that point, 16 or so, when I was over not really being punk enough to be a punk in Victoria, and wasn't really feeling any of that Belle & Sebastian thing and really just ready to rock out again and be a teenager having fun.
By rock out "again" I mean I probably didn't listen to any rock music from when I was 11 to when I was 16.
In those 5 years I stopped listening to the classic rock station on my portable radio and starting buying cassette tapes and probably went through every kind of modern music available in that handful of 1990's years, everything from trip hop to hardcore & emo to new wave.
I somehow was able to go see MCD at the bar when I was painfully underage, I think it was a school night too.
I should also mention I was a fucking miserable teen; burnt myself with smokes, had a "boyfriend" in juvie for manslaughter, spent more time in a coffee shop then at my home, dropping acid etc...
But at that moment I was real teenager, having fun, rocking out to rock n' roll on a school night and the next few years were actually pretty dope, actually probably the best of my life. I met some good friends and would go shoot hoops, drink slurpees and go to all ages shows.
Not to say this was all because of this band. They just remind me of a good time in life, and that my friends is what the music we love if made of.
peace out.

Budgie

Name one band that is better,
just one band!

# 17

Get a new camera.
I think I'm a fairly good photographer considering I have no formal training and I am usually using $200 digital cameras.
I loved my crappy little Canon digital, but it finally crapped out and the lens cover is not pulling back so the whole camera is useless. I hate technology.
The picture behind the title of this blog is one I took in Portugal.
Also, the one below, also in Portugal, it was taken at the end of the night after a festival and the whole town was covered in lights and paper flowers, so many paper flowers they were just kind of blowing around the cobble stone streets for days.
I have more pictures, but there trapped in the little plastic box that was once a camera

more to dos, 4 months
9. indulge more in my love of crystals
10. fix up some tattoos
11. start playing guitar again
12. make a tepee with Todd
13. work less
14. wear heels...at least once
15. get glasses, i couldn't recognize my mom if she were across the street
16. read V, reread The Rifles

Walks Home

I feel this is when things happen in life.
Last night on my walk home I realized I was trying to be a more shallow person,
WTF!
Thats the thing with heartbreak, even when you think your fine your totally fucked up and damaged in all these little ways. But I'm not going for it, I'm going to continue to let my mushy heart sap all over the place and some day probably get crushed again, and thats just who I am...take it or leave it

Cast will Change

I was over at a friends the other day listening to records and drinking a box of white wine, when I found a Dead Moon album. I have the same one at home but hadn't listened to it for a while.

Sometimes seeing records you own in a good friends collection can reinvent them for you.

Sometimes it just reinforces that you love some music choices you've made.

My friend A-Dog got my into these guys when we were both living in the same SRO on Hastings, about 4 or so years ago.

So good, so thanks A-Dog, and thanks Toody.

Oh and by the way can't wait to hear The Rats re-release... haven't got to it yet...#8?

Add On

#7 To Do:
Gain some weight.
my once delightful ass is pretty much done.
I think it may be the sads or the stresses, but I have lost far too much weight the last few months and don't eat nearly enough considering its one of my favourite satisfying past times.
My other favourite pastimes, at least the most all over satisfying and easy, are, being in no particular order;
Fucking
Sleeping
Smoking
Drinking
Rock Songs

Inspiration

I love Jan Terri, the first 45 seconds or so are uncomfortable and then, a light comes on, and its like, you go girlfriend, life is too short.
I strongly recommend watching some of her music videos.
She has this one that goes " wake up little bother.."
and its her worst, but it gets me everytime.
Actually any song about brothers or fathers do, but I have some family issues.
"Journey to Mars" is my favourite, they must have had a Pro come in for those riffs.
thanks Dan Sinny and thank you "Insomia" for this wicked potrait

6 things to do. just to start

to do list: 3 months
1. live in the woods for a while.
2. get drivers license
3. sleep
4. Don't drink alone
5. don't say sorry so much, sorry
6. start a blog