see spot blog

2002-03-24T11:40:00.000-08:00

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2002-03-07T07:35:00.000-08:00

Shifting gears.

What if our lives were just days,
Our days just seconds,
Our seconds just nanoseconds,
Of a greater life?

Would I worry so much about the things I do or don't do each day?
Would I be harder or easier on myself for my failures?
Would I hang onto my moments of joy and accomplishment as tight?
Would winter be as long?
Summer as short?

Would the universe be as big and incomprehensible?
Would my enemies seem as evil?
Would the future be as uncertain?
Would my atoms then become whole worlds?
My world an atom?
My lifelong plans just whims?
My whims expressions of a great plan?
A great desire?
To be with you.

How would I say,
"I love you",
If my life were just a day?

2002-03-06T07:46:00.000-08:00

Just for a moment,

put all your pain aside,

put all you cynicism and optimism in your pocket,

take all your joy and leave it under a tree,

and see.

2002-01-24T06:48:00.000-08:00

Not a River in Egypt.

It's not like it's well-hidden.
It is, in fact, right before your eyes all the time.

What?

Close your eyes.

What?

Open your eyes, and you'll see it.

Where?

Everywhere. In fact you can't miss it, because it is the first and last thing you see when your eyes will see. Not sometimes, not with or without glasses, not with the lights on or off, not if you turn this way or that, not if you read this guide or that pamphlet.

I don't see it.

How can you not see it? It's all there is to see. With your eyes.

What does it look like?

It looks like what you are looking at right now. Close your eyes slowly, take a deep breath, hold it, let it out, take in another one and open your eyes and look around.

!?

It's yours to see.

2002-01-12T09:15:00.000-08:00

Those evil Nouns

I understand we are at war with a noun, namely the evil "terrorism".

Why not the messy and divisive "pluralism", or the sexually-degenerate "masochism", or holier than thou "catechism", or the light-bending "prism", or the darkly absurd "nihilism", or the deadly divider "schism", or the namby-pamby "pantheism" or the backwards-looking "regionalism", or the glutonous "consumerism"?

True enough, all the -isms are rather insidious as nouns go, because just as with anti-capitalist fundamentalists with martyr-complexes - as soon as you think you've blown the last one off the face of the earth, up pops another one, and then another one, sort of like that hit-the-gopher-with-the-mallet-game I played at the fair last summer and never won.

So I propose we go after easier to eradicate nouns, start simply and work our way up. Let's start with benignly insipid "magnesium". Wouldn't be too hard to round up the stuff, corral it so to speak, and then a few smart bombs, and boom, gone, no more magnesium. Probably have no collateral damage, maybe a few chemists and scientists who hang around the stuff - but at least no howling Muslim mothers who have just lost their children, children rarely go near magnesium.

Then, once victory were to be proclaimed and we spent a few years revelling in the economic boom which always follows a good conquering, we could set our sights a little higher. Maybe go after a slightly more general noun, like, say "streetcar", true a lot more collateral damage, but think of the road space that would be cleared up for our SUVs, which would result in much reduced commuting times and therefore an upsurge in worker productivity. (As a bonus, the collateral damage would take out a lot of people who actually like to ride on streetcars and who like all the -isms and don't see how vital it is to our survival that we eventually eradicate all of them, a two-birds-with-one-stone scenario, though that need not be publicized).

After that, oh gee, I don't know, how about: "bicycle", "sea cucumber", or if we finally get the right military satellite technology up and running we could finally destroy all the "rivers" in the world.

All I'm saying is that we should start small, and work our way up, and one day we can destroy all of the -isms once and for all. Who knows with diligence and fervent nationalism and enough money we could one day, one sweet and triumphant day, go after the big one, the mother of all nouns: "NOUN".

Crazy you say? Could never defeat that one. Well, I ask you, if we were not allowed to dream in this way would we have gotten as far as we have up till now?

2002-01-12T04:15:00.000-08:00

Mandelbrot.

If you eat a Montreal smoked meat sandwich before bed this is what happens.

You dream about being at a party trying to roll a joint which keeps falling apart in your clumsy hands and then you decide to leave and ask this old nice Jewish fella and his wife and sister if they want a ride home, they say sure, and off you go, it is really late or really early depending on your point of view, they sky is just thinking about turning from dark blue to a lighter shade anticipating sunrise, on the way the man asks you if you wouldn't stop in at the Open Window Bakery, you say sure, next thing you know you are in this beehive of bakery, women in blue smocks and hairnets are rushing about everywhere with fresh baked breads and cakes and danishes, then it begins....

You follow Saul around and he is giving a Yiddish culinary tour par excellence, "Do you know vat this is?"
"No."
"That's mandelbrot, almondbread, it's like a biscotti but ohhh, not dry at all, but it's not soft neithuh, it's somewhere in between, it's heaven, and this?"
"No."
"Look at those loaves! Schweinbrot, pigbread, not because pigs eat them, no, because they are so plump and round, look at how round they are, pick one up, they're huge, schweinbrot, ironic I know. And this?"
"That's plum cake, and those are bagels."
"And if you toast them, ohhhh, the edges go crisp and the sesame fills your nostrils and the butter melts. Of course you could always go over there and do it right with the cream cheese and lox, oh the cream cheese, so rich, so smooth, like a cloud between the salmon and the bagel, and the lox just meltsaway , literally melts away in your mouth. And here, this is cheescake like I had when I was a kid, look at that! It's not so creamy like the cheescakes nowadays, it halfway to bread, that's why it's so high, and what do want on it? Sour cherries? Strawberries? Blueberries? Raspberries? You name it, kid! How about a bag of pretzels, look at the rock salt sticking to them, yes, they're soft, get a jar of mustard to dip them in, trust me, and the mustard will come in handy when we go down aisle six - the Deli, you ain't seen nothin yet!"

And on and on, Saul guided me through this magical bakery. In my dream I ended up spending two hundred dollars in this bakery, even after having left behind half of the things I had originally picked up, as I wandered around, dizzy and warm, breathing in the smell of fresh baked breads. And I'm not even Jewish.

Mazeltov!!

2001-12-22T08:32:00.000-08:00

Letter from Gaia to the humans.

I am asking you to think of me as a single entity, it will help you to understand this message. I am your Mother. I am your Grandmother. I am the thing from which you came. I am much bigger than you. I could wash you away with water, but I will not, because you are of me. And so instead I ask a question of you. Would you connect, would you See, that your expressions of compassion are linked to the well being of the planet. The well being of Me. It is as if a virus were attacking me, causing me fever, causing me drought. Do you not see that it is your actions that determine the course of the future. The funny thing is that the more you harm me the more you harm yourself, because you are part of me. I am asking you to push yourselves to new levels of ingenuity, not of the mind which you are good at and has served you well, but of the heart. Ingenious heart! See your world through the heart’s eye, and watch it begin to change. Imagine a world where possession of money were not a priority, where possession of compassion resulted in bounty no amount of money could buy. Imagine that life were not about living for that intermediary thing, money, but it were about living for love. “It is!” you say. Then show me. Then heal me, by healing yourselves. That’s all Gaia asks of you, “Heal me by healing yourselves.” Be compassion and you will want for nothing. It is only the fearful heart which will never be fulfilled. And know that fulfilment is not to be found ahead of you in time, nor spatially outside of you. It is with you now, and nowhere else than where you are located right now. Look around you. See me. Know that you are part of me. Do I look sick? Do you feel sick? How to ever clean up that mess? With your heart. With your heart first and then your brain may follow, but always first and foremost with your heart. I await you, as a seed awaits sun and rain.

Aug 15, 2001

2001-12-17T19:06:00.000-08:00

Our greatest gift.

The greatest gift given to us humans by the Great Spirit, our greatest attribute, is not the ability to do good - it is rather our ability to choose to do good. We do good and bad things everyday. Sometimes we know what value our actions have, most of the time we do not because to keep track of all the millions of decisions we make everyday seems overwhelming to our consciousness. But when we realise that there is choice possible, when we feel the power to choose between our rights and wrongs - that is when we discover ourselves - that is when all the contradictions of life which express themselves through our living fall away and we are left with the truth: nothing is separate from us, everything can be seen in our expressions - only through facing, blaming, and celebrating our own self can we come to understand what seems outside of us and out of our control. Only when we understand the inside, can we understand the outside. This is faith's leap, the great leap inside, to embrace everything outside.

2001-12-15T11:57:00.000-08:00

Blind Date.

Things started to go awry when I got to the part about my dad. Up till then all seemed normal, very normal. She wore the brown coat and black hat, I pulled up in my silver car at the appointed corner and time, a few flashing sidelong glances as we drove through rush hour traffic and then sushi. Very exciting actually, consuming raw fish with someone whom you hardly know at all, except to know that underneath that cashmere coat and up to the right of the just swallowed sushi beat a heart as unrequited as mine.

I wouldn't have mentioned anything about my dad at all, except she kept asking about him and my mom. Mom was easy to explain - loyal to an office for thirty years, a little bored and surprised to find herself now retired. Simple really. And this resonated in her, her folks being very much the same. Left the old country for the new. The old dead ends for the land of milk and honey. Factories and offices, chasing that particular sort of dream that leaves you warm and clean in a suburb that was farmland just a decade or two before.

Maybe I brought it all on myself.

"So, what did your dad do?"

“Well, he was a damn good button-accordion player. He could play anything, had perfect pitch.”

“Did he play professionally?”

“No, it was just a hobby, I guess.”

“So then what did he do?”

"He, uh, well he worked for a while in a factory. I mean, well, until the voices ..., I mean, until he, um, stopped working there."

"And then?"

"Ah yes, then. Well, then, he heard these voices."

"Voices?"

"Yeah, you know, voices. I guess you could say he was a channeller."

"."

"Okay, okay. I know he suffered from 'aural hallucinations' - I looked it up when I was in university. Paranoid schizophrenia is what they call it. But he seemed quite happy, really."

"Happy?"

"Yeah, the voices seemed benevolent. I guess dead people are calmer than we are. Did I mention that it was dead people he talked to?"

"Dead...?"

"Well, if they had been alive they could have just rung him up on the phone."

“The phone.”

“Yeah, the phone.”

“What did these voices say to him?”

“Oh the message was a nice one, it was about love, that we should all love one another. He called it the Universal Law. I mean that’s what he told me anyways. I never heard the voices myself.”

She then told me the fastest route that would get her home, and then followed moments of silence in which I kept telling myself, “Well, this is better that sitting around the apartment in my underwear, listening to the radio”.

The funny thing is, she kissed me half on the lips just before running into the warmth and safety of the small house which her parents had sacrificed everything to gain. And I thought, on the long drive home, that maybe dad wasn’t so crazy after all.

2001-12-06T09:04:00.000-08:00

Mah Bloggeh

Ear dun run a nigh. Ya. Nigh Bloggeh. Mah pour pour Bloggeh. Cum noch househ, swit littel bloggeh.

2001-12-05T10:28:00.000-08:00

"I get along without you, very well.
Of course I do.
Except when soft rains fall,
And drip from leaves that I recall,
The thrill of being sheltered in your arms.
Of course I do.
But I get along without you, very well."
-Hoagie Carmichael

It is so mild for the beginning of December in Canada.
A few hanger-on-ers in my garden are still in full bloom.
They are so confused.
Because all the bees have gone away.

2001-11-23T08:50:00.000-08:00

I rang up Tony Blair,

And I said, Hey Tony, could you make a few heartfelt speeches about the evil skunk that lives under my house.

Could you please lecture the upper house on the grave state of affairs of my basement.

Tell them with no hesitation about the years of neglect of the former tenants.

Tell them of the forces of darkness which lurk unabated and unchecked in the mystery of my crawlspace.

Could you please inform the ministers of the lower house that that skunk whom I thought was merely 'passing through' my yard back in the delirious days of August, has returned with truly malignant intentions, and is squirting his medieval sense of justice at various intervals and various locations underneath my floor.

Could you please reiterate forcefully the supreme folly of my pungent little friend.

Could you magnanimously unite the free world into laying a few landmines equal in explosive force to the detestable detonations from the derriere of the forces of evil that do vex me.

Do not forget, Tony, this is the big one for me, the unfolding of my civilization depends upon the eradication of this more black than white gremlin which Vader himself has sent to torment my purest intentions.

The time is Now, Tony. If I miss this opportunity to keep my free world on the tracks of sweet-smelling progress, I will have to suffer my winter of malodorous discontent. It is getting cold Tony. Battlelines are being sprayed as we speak. We must act now. We must unite today, the smell has never been stronger, the moment has never been more critical.

Sincerely,

Yukio

2001-11-19T20:24:00.000-08:00

That guy!

That guy! That guy, was a real schmuck!

SCHMUCK!!

2001-11-12T09:08:00.000-08:00

What a guy, what a fool am I.

When things go well for me, I shine with God's light. When things go badly (my company fires me, terrorists attack me, my landlord raises the rent, I lock myself out of my house, I hit my head on the cupboard's corner) I suck in all light, a walking talking black-hole.

2001-11-09T09:25:00.000-08:00

Will it be the red pill or the blue pill?

"Oh you gadjo are so silly. When it is cold and rainy you want sun. When it is hot and dry you cry out for rain. Don't you know you can't buy what's not for sale?"
- Jan Yoors, "The Gypsies".

We are such fools when it comes to time. Perhaps this is our greatness. Perhaps not.
Always, time's hands are held out to us offering the red pill or the blue pill.
Our foolishness leads us to hope that whichever pill we take, we will be cured forever. Not so simple.
Sometimes it is clear which pill is in which hand, and sometimes it is a game of chance.
The trick is that no matter which pill we gobble down, the hands never run out of their bi-polar supply.
It is very tricky because the hands are never taken away. No matter which colour we are. No matter which colour we want to be, or are tired of being.
The hands, always there, bekoning change.

Say goodnight, Gracey.

2001-11-07T07:55:00.000-08:00

Help me!

My good friend Rob, my true friend Rob, Rob who is still picking up the pieces, Rob from NYC, sent me a reminder of how truly lucky we are to be alive.
Forget the politics. Forget which side you are on.
Remember the tears. Remember to cry.
Remember to feel what you feel deepest, and do not run away from that.
Run towards it with all the strength you have in you.
In that direction, your strength will be infinite.
As big as the universe, as bright as all the stars together.
And you will see that nothing ends, nothing begins.
You will finally understand everything.

I am tired

So tired

Of being lost
Of fearing death
Of fearing the unknown
Of fearing tomorrow
Of fearing the past
Of fearing strangers
Of fearing friends
Of fearing myself

I am tired
Of looking for happiness
Of running away from heartache
I am tired of getting so high before bedtime
Only to feel so low in morningtime
I am tired of sitting in my car
Moving a hundred kilometres an hour
While my heart stands still
I am tired of filling up my bank account
While my heart remains empty
I am tired of
my whole life trying
I am tired of dying.

2001-11-01T09:04:00.000-08:00

me gustas tu.

"Happy indeed we live, we who possess nothing. Feeders on joy we shall be, like the Radiant Gods." -Dhammapada.

Thank-you Phil for calling me away from the computer the other day, away from staring at the cracks in my face, away from wondering "why me?". Thank-you for eating with me and walking with me. In the walking I found movement again, or it found me.

Thank-you for reminding me that there are many mees, some that sit and suck their thumb, some that walk through crowded markets, some that destroy their bodies to be high, some that cannot do the simplest thing for anger, some that can dance with children, some that can love and some that can hate.

Thank-you, great mystery, for the running water in my bathroom.

2001-10-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

Vacant
[My brain's being turned into a parking lot]

"TV screen makes you feel small
No life at all" Goran Bregovic

I caught myself by chance watching tv in a mirror at my friend's place.
I mean I didn't move anything, except for my eyes and saw how I look.
The only thing to compare to the eerily vacant expression of my face were pictures I have seen of kids playing video games. I saw a fruitfly fly into and out of my slack-jawed, open-mouth. I heard the prairie winds blow through my belfry.

Gone. Evicted. A Louer.

So, I tried it out in public. The lady at the salad bar gave me more salad than usual. The T.T.C. collector got mad at me and told me to get a life. My neighbour looked at me and then quickly looked away. My mom made me some soup. My cat had a staring contest with me (and won). Some teenagers laughed at me. The bank teller processed my bills fastest ever. And a business women sitting across from me on the subway looked very uncomfortable.

You should try it sometime.

2001-10-26T09:50:00.000-07:00

The Trickster.

Had my first flu like symptoms on the computer. The evil worm magstr- infiltrated my computer. It takes random files from my sent-e-mail folder and sends them to random recipients from my address book. Fun. It seems to choose the most soppy, self-absorbed schlock it can find on my harddrive and sends them to my most vaguely known addressees. The results have been...well...unbelieveably embarrassing.

For example:

"Everything in existence points in one direction
> That I will finally fall asleep
> And wake up later today with a headache
> felling like I've missed the day
> and it's slipped away again into evening
> and no memory of this
> and less love in my heart"

-sent to my stern uncle in Japan, who still thinks I am engaged and have a full time job, though both ceased to be factual two years ago.

or:

"As you know, words quite often fail me in conversation when I need them most in the moment, especially when I feel threatened or an ‘off-note goes by. And then the pent-up emotions come rushing out a few days or weeks (years) later in a torrent of fear masquerading as prideful anger."

-sent to that cutie who finally gave me her e-mail address after I assured her I was a stable, well-adjusted, human-being.

But you know, this virus thing has been kind of good for me. Liberating. Like running naked across the court at Wimbleton.

2001-10-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

Latest Developments From The War

To feel good in the morning.

Some say I've got it easy
Living in the first world.

Materially, yes
Spiritually, no

So
I may live a lot longer than
a child in Kabul
a woman in Lesoto
a man in San Salvador

But at least they are alive
in their suffering

Me, dead
in my happiness.

2001-10-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

Sucks.

It's thursday and I'd like to inform myself that this thursday sucks. I suck. My cat who just attacked me for no reason sucks. The thought of making more porridge sucks. The thought of going to the corner store to buy a can of soup or something sucks. Brunch sucks too, with all those sucky people sitting around, smacking and burping like they are supposed to be there. Sleeping sucks. Getting up with the birds sucks. Writing this blog sucks.

Sincerely,

Big Suck

2001-10-08T18:25:00.000-07:00

What we may have here.

She's a medievalist from Los Angeles.
When she's not in Houston
She's in England

A new sort of hero
for a new sort of audience

2001-10-07T11:31:00.000-07:00

Ruminate.

"Sleep on.

I've given up on my brain.
I've torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.

If you're not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you,

and sleep."

2001-10-06T14:47:00.000-07:00

You can do anything you want.

I asked him why he never said anything. He said that he realised when he was seventeen that he could do anything he wanted at any time he wanted. Not like he was rich he said. He said it set him free and scared him at the same time. Whatever he was doing he could stop doing if he wanted to. But if he stopped doing some things he could hurt himself and others. It goes both ways, he said, you can also start doing new things but sometimes you shouldn't if it would hurt you in the end. Most of the time people talk about what they can't do or what they've done way too much already, he said.

2001-10-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

Letter from the Orange Planet.

There's like no atmosphere anywhere here. But I am having a great time, though I miss you, and tell Catherine I miss her too. Go figure, I finally find a place where they give you whatever you want, and guess what? There's something about this place that makes you not want anything! Just my luck. I win the lottery and all of a sudden money's out of fashion. Perfect! Like the time I 'discovered' The Smiths in that import store, and no one knew about them, and I swore forever my allegience to them because they were my little secret, and then they hit number one on all the North American charts. Poo-tana! So, like there are no secrets here. Everyone just knows what's up with everybody else. And all you get to eat is bananas. But that's all you want to eat. I keep feeling this deja-voo feeling, and then I feel like it builds up inside of me and I will all of a sudden run into you, here on the Orange Planet. Except I feel like if I saw you here it would be different from whenever we've met on Earth lately. Like the first few months we knew each other, and spent all our time walking around the city telling each other as much as we possibly could about each other, making big gestures with our hands in the night air, that original feeling of not being able to get enough information about you, of not being able to get enough time with you, of not being able to get enough sight of you.

2001-09-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

Leaders with vision
Created my subdivision
They're laying sod as we speak.

***

My boston terrier
Looks like his head is going to explode
Whenever I come home.

***

They are building a new school
To accomodate my gene pool
So, I've got to sell my boat.

***

Just as we have built a military and political coalition
What we are seeing now, tragically
Is that God is not answering his phone.

***

Certainly if there is any information
It is possible that these people might die
And "That's the CBC News"

***

Tonight cloudy
We are expecting time to be our ally
Until we can laugh again.

***

You guys have never played it safe
But the organizers have said
I just wanted to test the waters.

***

By night two he was trying
To still see the foolishness
In the world.

***

2001-09-16T20:30:00.000-07:00

Explaining what has happened to a person 400 years ago.

There will be these huge buildings, shiny buildings that will reach up almost to heaven from where we stand. Imagine ten cathedrals atop each other. You will be able to stand at the top of these amibitious buildings and look down upon the land as if on top of a mountain. And there will be these craft, "planes", that fly like birds except they will be the size of a large church and fly far faster than any bird you could imagine. They will shine also because we will have perfected the making of many kinds of metal and glass by then, not to mention the making of lights far beyond the candles you use in your time.

Imagine these buildings to represent something above what is base in the human character. They are products of beautiful mathematical precision. They will be testament to the great human ingenuity to see such mathematical patterns in nature as you do not yet now. The huge flying boats will fly people all over the world, families from many countries will move from strife by flying in these airships. It will take part of a day to fly over to the New World. We will be able to fly so fast that we can shorten or lengthen a day. Business will be done between cities at an incredible rate. We will fly mostly between huge cities with shining towers at their centers, because many of us will gather to live in cities the size of which Rome and London have only hinted at. They will land on huge smooth pieces of land as hard as a rock. The same rock-smooth surface will connect our private and communal houses, letting us move at speeds you wouldn't imagine, as fast as the wind in these craft on special wheels, called "cars", though smaller and slower than the aircraft which will go faster than the wind.

How miraculous, you say. But I am sad to report to you that with all these grand inventions of our imagination, there will still be one way in which we will not have used our imaginations to rise above what has come before us: religion. In this way we will not have come far from the fearful place where you are now. We will not yet be able to open our eyes to see that we live on one huge planet, that we all share one huge house. And so all our ingenuity, hardwork and vision will come toppling down, as we will yell at each other as you do now, "Your God is not my God." We will still selfishly say, "God bless my country, my people, my family", to the exclusion of others. We will still call others of whom we are scared, "Godless". Just as the Church of your time has called many strangers "heathens" and "savages". And just as in your time, once we have convinced ourselves that a people are Godless, we will believe that our God will turn a blind eye when we subjugate and murder them as we would not our own. It will not be until much later in both our histories when we will use our imaginations to realise that, just as there is only one Earth and one Universe for us to see, so too is there only one God for us to believe in. And we will see that this one God never turns a blind eye to anything because it is itself everything. And in God's oneness, no people can be a stranger or enemy, because their God will become our God, and our God theirs. There will be no more "us and them", only "us and us". Can you imagine, my friend, how tall and shiny the buildings will be then?

2001-09-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

Sundance.

"It is almost always performed in the late spring and early summer, near the time of the summer solstice. Most sun dances begin with erection of a circular lodge or corral around a solemnly chosen and cut central pole. During the next three or four days, periods of dancing, accompanied by singing, drumming, or whistling, are interspersed with periods of rest and meditation. Dancers do not eat or drink during the three or four days of the dance, although some do chew on bear root to keep their mouths moist. Towards the end of the Sun Dance, participants experience visions and receive blessings."

2001-09-12T21:54:00.000-07:00

My man Spiderman

I've made friends with spiderman. He climbed into my yard one morning while I was watering the morning glories. We went for coffee and talked and smoked. He really chatted up one of the owners. Spiderman comes to visit me mostly in the mornings, that's, when he's not working. Once I groggily awoke to a low murmur of puss-puss-puss and saw my nervous cat eyeballing him as he crooned to her from behind the chair. We went for coffee, and he talked about quantum physics. He was very excited about it and kept mentioning a "Schroedinger's cat". Another morning, he climbed over the fence while I was taking a shower, I came out to make coffee and found him surfing on my laptop. Once I was taking a nap and awoke to a hammering on my door and my name being called out, but when I checked there was no one outside. Once he came in using the ceiling and went straight to the washroom. He spent a long time in there and left quickly. He clogged the toilet. Two weeks ago he emailed me this incredible close-up of the sun. It looked like a mass of slippery beads jumping all over each other. It looked very hot. Look at that he said from in front of my computer when I came in to make coffee the next morning.

2001-09-09T21:53:00.000-07:00

OK there's something in the air, there's something going 'round, all of my friends are freaking out right now, all of them - which usually makes me wonder if it's all in my head, couldn't be all of them at once. But it's not. The animals are acting up too. Racoons are walking into my kitchen (right about now), birds are flying funny, aphids are swarming, my friend literally ran into a coyote in a cemetary. There is an early fall pairing frenzy going on outside, everyone wanting to find someone before the long cold winter hits. Young professionals jump like salmon from restaurant to bar to disco on some downtown streets. I wonder what Montreal is like? Must be insane, their winters are so much harder and longer than ours.

2001-09-07T07:57:00.000-07:00

To blog or not to blog.

"Ask not what your blog can do for you, but what you can do for your blog." -Emilio Zocalo.

I am truly sorry for that blog I put up yesterday. It's gone now. It was embarrassing.

Like having your 75 year old neighbour, Marjorie, see you using your Extend-O-Matic through an open blind.

Like finding a long-lost polaroid of your father in a box in the toolshed which explains why he always said "Never drink with nuns".

Like having your new girlfriend discover the 'history' button on your browser.

Like running into your rabbi at Hooter's, during "Crustacean Thursdays", your lips covered in melted butter.

Like having your almost father-in-law trip over your collection of interspecial-XXX-manga which you left out by mistake.

Like stumbling upon your cat's collection of dead and half-dead mice, while showing that room you always wanted to rent out.

Like having a friend walk in the room while you are actively wondering how your girlfriend's silk-tanga feels on the skin.

Like realising that "Perineum" might not have been the best name for your new souvlaki franchise.

Like having to tell the UPS man that the clearly-labelled limited-time-offer Extend-O-Matic Gift-set is not for you this time but is actually addressed to Marj and Stanley next door.

Like seeing your new grilfriend's phallus-shaped tongue-piercing for the first time while she spontaneously demonstrates her rendition of the Maori-scary-face dance at your church's annual picnic.

Like trying to place some amount of guilt on your drunken co-worker who has written on everyone's napkin at your office's annual Christmas party the internet address of the site whose ad ("Make an extra five-hundred dollars every two weeks, from the privacy of your own washroom!") you answered five months ago.

2001-09-04T07:03:00.000-07:00

Am I awake yet?

I am not sure.

I still feel this wave of anxiety hovering over me, like a tsunami is gathering in the middle of Lake Ontario going to come wash away all vestiges of my life.

Flotsam and jetsam.

But then again I felt this a few hours ago and woke up from it only to realize that I was still in high school, with the whole of my life ahead of me hanging on passing a french test - which looked more like Babylonian to me. Fear Rising. My whole life rides on this one moment, and I'm fucked. That piercing itch/stab that starts at your scrotum and shoots up through your intestines turning over half-digested food, continues through your stomach releasing all the butterflies, envelopes your heart in a searing fist, moves up through your neck like an electric eel, and lands in your brain like a suicide bomber in Jerusalem screaming, "Fuckers! This is it! The End!!!"

And I couldn't take it any more. "This can't be really be happening", said a little voice. "Wake up. This is not really happening. True, your french still sucks but you haven't been in high school for fifteen years. And anyways, even if you were, what's one french test. Why so freaky? Wake up."

I don't think this was the 'voice of reason', or the 'voice of God', but then who was it that brought me back from the brink of pissing my bed and rocking back and forth on a park bench yelling out, "I never wanted to write no french test! Fuckers! I'll show you whose the boss! You can take your deadlines and your electric eels and make goddamn stew. Hey, you!".

They say that most people wake up before they see themselves die in their dreams.

Do most people wake up before they go crazy in their dreams?

Where's my little voice, now?

2001-09-03T04:52:00.000-07:00

Labour Day[Canada]

Originally Mayday, but moved due to capitalist paranoia that workers might actually think of themselves as human beings instead of cogs that make the wheels of 'progress' continue to roll over and reshape reality as we know it. Upwards and onwards!

Moved to early September, to give peons one last weekend to drink a two-four and further rot their brains so they don't notice how incredibly empty their workaday lives are. Yo, Dude!

Moved to early September to give soccer-moms and hockey-dads one last day to properly clean the cottage, load the minivan, ignore the budding artistic talents of Ambersley and Tyler by force-feeding them yet another Disney video, worry about west-nile virus and ebola infiltrating our national borders, disinfect the dog and children. Honey, did you pack the Tylenol?

Moved to early September to give us one last day of 'freedom', so that we don't realise that we are free everyday to reshape our lives, fall in love, see something beautiful, feel something bad, do something that isn't a repeat of something we've been doing on auto-pilot ever since the terrible-twos (which are terrible because we realise that our life is going to be exactly the same as our parents', and we have no words yet to communicate our fear and outrage). Goo-goo. Ga-ga.

Moved to early September, to make room for the Victoria Day long-weekend in May, to further remind the Quebecois that they live in her Majesty's Canada. Tabernouche!

Moved to early September, to once and for all cut any memory that Canada formed as a country out of European (where they still throw tomatoes on May 1) colonial interests on the bones of the First Nations. Megweetch.

Moved to Early September to give Yukio yet another day where he doesn't know what to do with himself, yet another day where he realises that all of his friends do know what to do with themselves and are doing it in some incredibly beautiful location overflowing with joie-de-vivre. Goo-goo. Ga-ga.

2001-08-31T11:55:00.000-07:00

BLOG - PERSONALS

[vote on which one will work the best for me to find my perfect mate]

1. 23, SWM Frat-boy, 5'7", 245 lbs, He-male, looking for Britney Spears or someone who is trying really hard to look like her. Into head-games, quiet nights in front of pay-per-view-wrestling, masturbating in airport washrooms to Maxim or FHM, Mustangs and high-end SUV's, indefinitely sponging-off of my Executive father because I caught him boinking the maid Esmeralda, Fort Lauderdale in the Spring time, spending a few months in College in the Fall, surfing or skiing in the winter, and doing fuck-all in the Spring. If I don't turn-you-on then you are a stupid lesbo and so don't even bother tyring to GET SOME OF THIS!! Eat-me!!!

2. 78, IWAO-M (Independantly Wealthy Albertan Oil-Mormon), 5'1", 110lbs, seeks thirty twenty-somethings to populate my five-hundred acre ranch in beautiful Southern Alaska. Did you ever wish you could have been around to clip Howard Hughes' toenails or disinfect his stretch limo? Did you ever wish you could start a master-race after all the foreign and lefty weirdos are once and for all wiped off this planet by the hand of God? Are you into Matlock and group gumming? Well, shit, get yr ass on down here!

3. 98 000, LPHG (Late Paleolithic Hunter Gatherer), 3'2", 75 lbs. Looking for my perfect primate. Into long walks in the park, barbecues, dom-sex, squatting by beautiful red sunsets and clubbing.

4. 33, ISI (Incredibly Shy Introvert), 6', 175 lbs. Sort of looking for something. Maybe. Likes going to the zoo with mother. o.k. - bye....

5. 44, SWM, 5'8", 167 lbs. Are you into genetically-engineering new kinds of cats? Do you like the smell of dander? Do you think dogs are stupid? Would you consider living with me and my family (Bitsy, Fuzzball, Chauncy, Pusspuss, Sly, Peter, Jimmy, and Foofoo)?

6. 30-esque, well-read wide-bottom, seeks widely-read skinny-top. Let's "connect"!

7. Something. Anything! Something. Anything! pleasepleaseplease.

2001-08-30T21:33:00.000-07:00

Fighting - Mamasan Style.

No, this is not about karate, jujitsu, ninjitsu, kendo, judo, sumo, menudo or wendo. This is about about the most subtle, most powerful, most invisible of the Japanese martial arts. It's so secret that there is no English translation possible. In fact this is probably the first time anyone has attempted to describe it in the English language.
(if this ends up being the first and last post on 'writer's blog' because I have broken some ancient Japanese code - DO NOT phone my mom).

Let's call it "Apoligitsu" for now.

It is used by certain Japanese mothers on their half-breed sons who didn't want to go medical or architecture school and works by sending debilitating psychic waves of excruciating guilt which paralyse the second and fourth chakras and in a few rare cases result in incurable Turret's Syndrome. The only other quasi-mystical, pseudo-oriental, technique which comes close to it's raw power is Bruce Lee's infamous hidden-finger-crouching-enema technique. (no, my mother never used the latter on me)

It works like this:

At the first sign of trouble you:

1) stop whatever you are doing
2) let your shoulders slump indicating an immeasurable sadness
3) relax the muscles in your neck so that you end up looking directly at your toes
4) release a wispy, almost inaudible, sigh
5) contract the muscles between your eyebrows so that they almost touch each other just under your 'third-eye'
6) slowly look up with your gaze fixed on "anywhere else but here would be less painful to me at this moment"
7) slowly and deliberately raise your forearms from the elbows with your palms up as if you have 'nothing left to give'
8) look into your opponent's eyes with an imploring disappointment
9) say the mystical words, "I am so sorry that I made your life so miserable. Please forgive me."

At this point your opponent will be very confused. They expected an angry rejoinder (e.g. You are a total failure! Everything you've ever touched has turned to crap! Go out and get a real job!! You've been working on that "book" for ten years now! etc.), but instead you have given them exasperated sadness and upstaged whatever fury they were about to release on you. If you are good, you will literally see their angry words come half-way up their throats and get stuck, resulting in fits of dry coughing very similar to some nut allergies (Brazilian and Filbert especially). They may sometimes have to sit down, due to the waves of guilt generated. And if they have been drinking they will probably make some fantastical promise to 'straighten-up-fly-right". Whatever they do, DO NOT LET UP.

You now have the several choices to finish them off:

A) slowly turn away from them, speaking softly so that they almost cannot hear you, and say "All I ever wanted for you was happiness. But I guess I've failed. I am so sorry"

B) offer them some homemade sushi with the corequisite that they move out of that damp, roach-infested, basement back in with you and forget about that lazy Canadian girl with those "American-thighs" (yes, my mother listens to AC/DC)

C) suddenly brighten-up, and tell them that although everything looks bleek at the moment you know they will make the right decision, ONE DAY, and then gaze forlornly out of the window, saying barely audibly, "what else can I do... what else can I do...".

Note: A), B), and C) may be used singularly or in combination (any order).

BEWARE: Certain extra-crafty opponents who have lived in Japan for some time or who are hiding a drug-addiction may think they know how to counter your Apoligitsu. Right after step 9) they will themselves attempt the Double-Reversal Maneouver in which, before you can apply any of the A), B) or C) techniques, they themselves begin the 9 step process (also known as the I'm-So-Sorry-Kata). But do not worry, though they may spar with you for a while:

Mother: "I'm sorry."
Son: "No, I'm sorry."
Mother: "No, it was all my fault."
Son: "No, I am the one to blame."
Mother: "No, it was me who made the mistake."
Son: "No, mom, I didn't know how much I've hurt you."
Mother: "No, I should of listened to to MY mother, and never come here."
Son: "No, really mother, I don't know what I was thinking..."
Mother: "No, I'm sorry."
Son: "No, it's me."
Mother: "No, it's me."

etc.

Remember that Apoligitsu's first and only principle or law is that the only person who can beat you at Apoligitsu is your own mother. Son's and father's may try to master this 'gentle' art but ultimately you must be able to bear a child attain the highest ranks of this very ancient, very secret, Japanese martial art. There is a really whacked-out sect of men that claims to have reached the highest ranks due to their having passed kidney stones out of their....but that's another blog all together.