letting life in

I'm flying solo for the next 5 days. I will miss him, as I always do when he is not here. I need him like a plant needs the sun, like turkey needs gravy. It's not all bad, though. I plan on spending some time alone, something that I am less motivated to do when he is in close range. I find quiet comfortable. I listen for the sounds of life around me - a neighbour's laughter, hesitant strains of violin music, a dog eager to be walked - and smile to myself in my warm, sweet-smelling space with the golden wood and bare walls. This is precious to me, this pseudo-silence.

He often wonders what is happening in my head, what I'm thinking when I'm smiling slightly and sitting quietly while the world whirls around me. There are times when I am consumed with what transpires in my immediate sphere because it is impossible to not be willingly enveloped in the shouted laughter, the erudite ribaldry. So many good things happen there. I learn, I laugh, I get judo-tossed (sometimes) to the floor. Love is lavished upon my nose, legs are entwined on couches and heads are pillowed on shoulders.

Then there is me, outside it all. The me who wandered off as a little girl to sit in the woods in a sheltered spot near water, sometimes with a book but often with nothing but her thoughts to occupy her time alone. My mother would always smile upon my eventual return, knowing what I had been up to. I don't have a secret garden now, but I take similar refuge in a patch of sunlight on a square of floor stained the colour of honey,the dust motes that dance in front of multipaned windows. The grainy texture of a plaster wall, crowned with moldings thick with years of paint pleases me, satisfies me in a way that is visceral. I love the details, the essence of that which makes something itself, or more than itself.

So I'm letting life in over the next 5 days. I'm going to take the time to count the motes, trace their lazy choreography through air undisturbed by the comings and goings of others. I will take my grandmother's violin out of its case and remember her fingers on the strings, her merry bow arm. I will sip soup out of an oversized mug and bump heads with the kitten that will be welcomed into my home as of this evening. Maybe I'll write it all down, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just smile.

fall/ing

summer
slipped quickly
through fingers outstretched,
straining for quicksilver days hazed
by heat and nights glazed hotter and sweeter
still, a season settled on bare backs, long legs and strong
arms, as season of sentences punctuated by pink polish and slim
wrists, branded by beauty marks inked intricately and dusty
feet dangled, refracted. summer slipped slick through
my hands like a caught fish, all wide eyes and
big mouth begging for depths dappled
dark and light, released by clumsy
hands quickly emptied of life
but moist with memory
of having held it
carefully for a
moment.

Need

There are words inside me buzzing and thrumming and colliding with each other like a shaken jar of bees. Will they disappear if left unsaid, or will they continue to swarm and sting? Will my tongue shrivel, my hands claw if I don't pour out the lines scrolling behind my eyes? Surely they will find an escape route - maybe through my ears or my nose? My open mouth in sleep?

Imagine waking up on a pillow wet and stained with your thoughts, like a nosebleed.

(but not as painless)

Imagine having all these words to say but waking mute.

Flower child

Those of you who know me know that I am partial to evening strolls, either solitary or with like-minded company. The light is good in the late afternoon/early evening, so I tend to take a lot of pictures. As I am also quite partial to flowers, you will likely find me crouched in someone's garden, eyeing whatever they've got going on, phonecam at the ready. Here are a few for your enjoyment...

Hibiscus, ByWard Market

Chrysanthemum, ByWard Market

Hybrid daisy, Elgin Street

Sunflower, Elgin Street

Sunflower, Elgin Street

Ave maris stella

And with the ebb of the tide she was gone,
receding into the pearly grey,
borne away on whitecapped waves.
The gulls, knowing her name as they do,
mourn her in whirling wingflight,
cries cliff-caught and returned on the wind.

Stella maris. Star of the sea.

Stella Thorne died as she lived - with grace, courage, beauty and faith. Her legacy of loving kindness is a bright star by which we might each chart our own course.

God speed you on your journey home, Nanny.

You will be sorely missed.

still

your hands are still now
skin thin like parchment and rings on fingers
curling inward
holding nothing but themselves.

(you used to hold my hand when I was little)

your eyes are blank now
lashless lids over a paler blue than I remember
looking outward and seeing nothing
or inward and everything.

(you used to wear glasses)

your hair is white now
grey gone the way of memory but still
falling in girlish waves washed
by strangers.

(you used to wind my curls around your finger)

your voice is silent now
hushed by the rush of air through the tubes
in your face and the race of the drugs through
the needed needles in your leg. every two hours.

(you used to tell me stories)

go
go now
go and be free
you are loved
you are
still

Spesh K live @ Zaphod's (Byward Market, Ottawa) TONIGHT!

Bust out your bling, fluff that fade and get your ass out to Zaphod Beeblebrox TONIGHT(Friday, June 16 2006) to check out Spesh K, the hottest underground MC to come out of Halifax since Classified and Canada's answer to Gorillaz.

Joined onstage by:
Jugga (from the Boogaloo Trybe and the What's the 411 Tour)
John Akpata (2004 CBC Slam Poetry Face OFF Champion)
Ritallin (poet/MC and author of Cerebral Stimulation)
DJ Alive (CKCU FM Word Life Show)

Hosted by: Nathan Bishop (Celtae, Nathan Bishop Band)

Venue: Zaphod Beeblebrox, 27 York St. Ottawa
Cost: $8.00
Doors: 8pm
Age: 19+

Go West, young man

This past weekend, N and I spent several hours at WESTFEST flyering the masses for a hip-hop show he's promoting (shameless pimp post to follow). We took in some great spoken word performances and a couple of fun local bands. There was a nip in the air, but that didn't stop the fun-lovin', hemp-clad Westboro hippie set from taking to the streets in droves...with their dogs. There were pooches partout. We saw approximately a bazillion dogs, from the prancin'-est of pugs to the beefiest of bulldogs. It was less WESTFEST than it was ButtSniffFest. Despite the canine cornucopia, however, the prevalence of poop was virtually nil. Kudos to the stoopers.

I didn't bother taking any pictures - being far too busy gorging on hotdogs and cotton candy - until we stopped by a used instrument shop for a quick gawk at the merch. It turns out that guitar shops = photo ops...



Hanging guitars



Hummingbird detail



More hanging guitars



N puttin' down his rock star thang


Gee whiz...I hope I don't get in trouble for posting that last one...

*blocks a nose flick & prepares to leap*

Good times.

Window shopping

Looky what I found during a recent evening stroll in my neighbourhood:

Now affectionately known as "the evil nurse window" (Cartier @ McLaren), it looks even better when backlit at night...

...comme ça. It's very Darryl Hannah à la Kill Bill Volume 2.

And then there is this apartment building on McLaren. It's really quite cool.

Get out for a stroll in your 'hood. It'll cure what ails ya.

Streety graffiti

No To War on Elgin St. (outside British High Commission)



Fast Food Zombie (à la Swoon) on Wellington St. (in front of Métropolitain Brasserie)



Sleepy Sheep on the side of Boushey's on Elgin St.



Lion on Wellington St. (near the Chateau Laurier)


Ottawa is definitely not what you'd call a Mecca for graffiti artists; that being said, one can still find little nuggets of street art goodness around town. You just have to look.

These captures are from some of my recent rovings. I'll post more as I find them.

Kingston, ON...yet more pictures.

Night garden - detail of cherub




Night garden - cherub




"Kiddush" urn


Yeah. I went a bit nuts with the pictures in Kingston. These were taken at night, on the way back to the hotel after N's gigs at the Tir. I have a thing for twilight/night photography. Again, resolution is a factor...speaking of resolution, I should probably make one to get me a digital camera.

(Aside: I have never, ever enjoyed a walk more than I have with N. Hand-holding, critter-watching, tree-smelling goodness. He stops and waits for me while I take pictures. Love him.)

Hum. I think this is turning into a photoblog.

The Hotel Belvedere - a pic"tour"ial

These captures are from a recent trip to Kingston, ON (see "Road trippin'"). The resolution is dicey - a phone cam will only get you so far.


Welcome





Architectural detail





Bumbershoots





Lobby reflection / Stairway to Heaven ?





Lobby chandelier





Check-in (through stair railing)





Marble bust - drawing room





Pensive woman - drawing room





Wrought iron detail - drawing room





Radiator - drawing room





Lamp detail - drawing room





Door to terrace - drawing room




More door





Secret garden - terrace





Urn and ivy detail - terrace





Cherub - terrace

Road trippin'

Road trips are fun. There are people who shudder at the thought of piling into a wheeled conveyance crammed full of people and their stuff for hours at a time. I am not one of those people. Having been raised in a road trippin' family, I am more than content to perch in the back of a car amongst the luggage and watch the world outside roll past.

A couple of weekends ago, I took a little road trip to Kingston (ON) with N and one of his bandmates - they were playing at the Tir Nan Og. I was playing roadie. We made the journey on a muggy Friday evening in a tank of a Jeep that was packed to the roll bars with bags and musical instruments. I sat in the back, curling myself around N's guitar. It was a comfortable fit. Then, after gassing up and negotiating the ubiquitous Queensway traffic, we were on the highway.

Is it wrong to say that I loved the drive? Aside from the gorgeous, bruised violet/pewter light (humid summer evenings are pretty like that), I think it had a lot to do with the smell of wet green. It was heady, fecund. I could smell it through N's passenger-side window, even at 100 kmph. That smell. It's so....Ontario. It's not at all like home, where it never gets warm enough and the vegetation is decidedly un-deciduous. You need plowed fields and broad-leaved foliage and juicy undergrowth to distill this distinctly Upper Canadian essence.

At any rate - that smell, that verdant stench, does things to me. Combined with the dusky light and the rise and fall of conversation over the rush of wheels beneath me, I was in heaven. Sensory bliss. Being within arms' reach of N in all of his deliciousness was the relish on the kosher hot dog of goodness that was the drive to K-town.

- - Tangent: There is something decadent about that subtle stickiness of the skin that happens on a muggy evening. It's a feeling that makes me stretch slowly, loving the heavy warmth, the barometric pressure that means summer and greenery and ripe cherries and less clothes. It's luxurious. Erotic. Like strolling shoeless and white sundresses with staps that insist on sliding down over bare shoulders. It makes me want to fondle the produce at outdoor market stalls and play hooky from work to go fishing. I want to eat peaches and run through sprinklers and drink sangria and make out on a balcony at night. Ah, summer. - -

I digress. The trip to Kingston was fantastic. N & Co. rocked the Tir both nights. I attended my first Saturday services at a very welcoming Orthodox shul (separate post forthcoming). The highlight of the weekend, however, had to be the gem of a hotel at which we stayed - the Hotel Belvedere. "Love nest" is putting it mildly. Our room was a haven of peace and comfort, fully furnished with beautiful antiques. The bed was so good, I can't even tell you. Breakfast - a light nosh of English muffins and preserves/cheese, fresh juice and coffee - was served either in-room, downstairs in the drawing room or outside on the adjoining terrace. We did breakfast on the terrace on Saturday morning, right after shul - it was lovely, a veritable bower. Cherubs, ivy and birdsong. The whole works. The drawing room was the french-doored picture of gentility, perfect for coffee sipping and chatting in the p.m. Delightful.

I could go on, but my next post (all pics) will say it better. Stay tuned.

Shabbat

She is beautiful. She comes to me draped in fine linens, glowing in candlelight. She is there in the wooden match I hold. She is there behind my closed lids, behind hands held over eyes. She is there in the words I speak softly, the light I gather to me. She is there in the flames.

She is reflected in the delicate curves of the kiddush cup, mirrored wine-dark, rich with the promise of repletion. I see her in bread held aloft, broken and shared. She is the guest of honour at our bountiful table. She is the prayer, the song. She is the thought spoken aloud. She is the silence.

It is almost Friday. I can't wait.

On Government Cheese

Look outside at the bruised sky and tell me
that you don't wish you were out there in the
almost-storm.

Feel the carpet on your walls and look around at
the detritus of a day squared. Water bottles. Laptops.
Long briefings and brief longings.

(for freedom)

Sunday drive

wheels rushing over pavement
stop in two languages
at the house on the high hill
in a wood awakening
from wintersleep

take the river road
cross the steel once, twice
see how the real ice has melted
from the banks where the red and white
treasure is kept

gather the loaves and the small fruits of the vine
hoard the smiles sold to lovers linked by hand
bench-perched
backs to the sun
lithe shadows cast long before them
and the water as their witness

past the the pastures where
iron horses graze by moonlight
beyond the red bridge covered
by the small magic of children
lies a house where music could live
in sun-soaked staccato bursts

(you can jump)
(it's deep enough)
(but you have to swim against the current)

and now the music of traded glances
sung across a crowded table
voices weave like cats through legs
nimble fingers strum strings
sleekly, sweetly like iced cream
savoured slowly in the dark

wheels rushing over pavement
winding westward with
twilight in gentle pursuit
happiness is hand-fed
on the road home.

Me, myself and pie

The solo, late-night pie excursion is imbued with an undeniable charm. I derive a great deal of satisfaction from occupying a whole booth by myself, spreading out my things in a decadent sprawl, a feudal lord presiding over a green vinyl fiefdom. I am separated from the rest of the room from the bridge of the nose down. It is perfect. The baby seal shirt will not offend and only I will know that I am not wearing socks.

My fortress walls are permeable, though, to snatched snippets of strangers' talk. High-pitched, frantic profanity and fervent, well-meant but misinterpreted advice mingle, penetrating my porous shell. Lives are happening out there, lives bathed in neon, stiff with product, barely covered by short skirts. Pastel polos, popped collars and two eggs over easy with two versions of the same meat. White bread. Wristbands. I bite my lower lip and caress my phone and consider pie.

And so I write, while pied lives condense, coalesce and trickle down the walls of my plastic paradise. It's bound to puddle beneath my seat, pool below my drawn-up legs. I'll walk through it on my way out and I'll feel it swirl around my ankles, watch it rise in curlicue clouds with each step I take toward the door, a dense fog parting and re-forming in my solitary wake.

(I had pecan pie. They didn't have strawberry-rhubarb or apple and they had never heard of cloudberry. The decaf was effete but I drank it anyway.)

I miss him. The cadence of his slumber, his sweet sleep smell. His hand, curled heavy on the curve of my hip. I would be there with him now, in the spare room, in the too-short bed. I would walk with him through the fog of others and our wake would be significant, as the wake of two tends to be.

I expect that I shall love him one hundred times over by the time he returns.

streetsy

sittin' up here in my big office chair i stare
in my mirror you know i got that crazy bedroom hair from
wrestling in the a.m. and not playin' fair
fuck bein' in on time, even if i could
i wouldn't trade this shit in, it's all good
'cause we be sippin' java beneath the sheets
we be lockin' legs and droppin' beats
we got that precious hour if you wanna play me/delay me
i know you got the necessary will and power
to rock me straight up on one leg in the shower
you all that and a bag of fritos
a cool dude in a loose mood like chester cheeto
rollin' like a rock with a rhyme and a reason
changin' my world like a karma chameleon
got my camo tank 'cause you know it's turkey season
and i know you love it when i be teasin' you
with my wide grey eyes between your spread thighs
and my sighs while your fingers do the walking
you got me talkin', speaking in tongues
twisted, talented and various like Babylon
hittin' all my spots, spittin' white hot shots across
olive skin that's smooth like buttah
i'm lovin' it like McDonald's, don't want no other
check that clock - damn, i'm late for that reunion i'd sooner
sit here and groove but i gotta find the cheddar,
'cause i'm a public mouse in a brown brick house
across a frozen river, gotta give 'er
'til my liver shivers

peace

Joy

I am in love. Heart-thumpingly, Cheshire-grinningly, head-over-heels in love.

He told me without words. I heard him speak as clearly as if he had whispered in my ear. I answered in kind, the words that had been clamouring inside me travelling soundlessly, electrically from grey to blue and back again.

Epiphany. Ecstasy.

I am home.

You had me at "fishcakes"...

Last night was special. Crystal and china glowed and Cole Porter kept time. There were snowy linens and full place settings of cutlery. There was garnish.

He cooked me dinner, fed me morsels from fingers redolent of southern France and the sea. He moved crimson and unencumbered through the fragrant steam, hands gentle on tender greenery. The hot oil spoke and he listened. I was the knife he held, the bubbling pot he stirred. I was unprepared for him to have everything we needed.

Honeyed lips were licked while Louis growled in the other room. The last of the wine was golden and sweet and I was drunk on candlelight. He told me that I am beautiful. I didn't tell him that my heart is his if he wants it.

Is it time? Only Louis knows.

Wakey wakey

You know you're in Newfoundland when, while in the process of rummaging through a fridge in search of breakfast items, you come across a cooked turkey neck.

"A cooked turkey neck?" Yes. I can see how some would raise a sardonic eyebrow or purse their lips in distaste. You see, where I come from, we cook and eat turkey fairly often. It's kind of a staple. This could be due to the fact that a large turkey feeds many hungry people, which is great when a normal Sunday dinner with the family is comprised of no less than 15 participants. It could also be argued that the turkey serves as a convenient vehicle for all the tasty stuff that goes along with it - pease pudding, greens (turnip, mustard, dandelion and various other permutations), salt beef, boiled vegetables (potatoes, cabbage, carrots, turnip, parsnip, etc.) Or, it could be just because turkey is frigging delicious, full stop.

I won't go into a lengthy dissertation of how one actually eats a turkey neck - it's an ugly, ungainly process. There are vertebrae. There's also a spinal cord in there, which will vary in length/thickness/revoltingness according to the size of the bird from whence it came. You basically just haul the cooked neck out of the roasting pan (the neck always cooks faster than the rest of the turkey), scoop a ladlefull of dressing out of the exposed arse of the bird, throw the two into a bowl and eat it in one of two ways: standing over the stove like some sort of starving convict a la "Great Expectations", or, sitting down at the table in a darkened, fragrant kitchen and sharing the pickings with somone you love who also loves the neck. It has been my experience that neck folks are usually excellent people. My mother and her sister are neck people, as was my late grandmother O'Neill. Lovely ladies to a one.

Why do we love the neck so much? I have a couple of theories. One stems from the fact that we are not a wasteful folk. We share an inherent frugality that stems from a heritage built on large families from outport communities who lived off what the sea and land provided on a seasonal basis. Not much went to waste back in the day - there were no supermarkets in these tiny, isolated outports. Refrigeration was a bit on the sketchy side as well. So, if you turned up your nose at a nice bit of meat from whatever animal was on the menu, odds are you'd go hungry. Eating the neck just made sense.

A far less noble/romantic hypothesis can be attributed to man's basic survival instincts. The human race has been housebound for quite some time now, but if you strip away the iPods and trendy shoes, we're basically just a bunch of animals milling around waiting for the meat. What does a lion do when faced with the plump carcass of a freshly-killed ruminant? The lion feeds. It doesn't push aside what isn't boneless or skinless or grain-fed for its enjoyment. No, the lion gorges on the ambrosial organ meats, the rich, dark viscera. Bones are crunched and salty marrow is slurped and savoured. Tender stalks of necks are mouthed and mascerated by bigger animals with bigger teeth. That is, I think, a big part of what the turkey neck means to me. It's primal. The turkey neck is my right as the animal at the top of the food chain.

Animal though I am, I cannot overlook the social aspect of the neck. I mentioned previously that my mother is a neck person, as was her mother. The neck constitutes "a moment" amongst women in my family, shared amidst the ordered pandemonium of clanging pots and rising steam of dinner preparation. I was raised in warm houses filled with the laughter of grandparents and parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, untold cousins and their significant others. We grew up around the communal table. We laughed and sang, told stories and danced to music scraped from fiddles and squeezed from accordians. It was a never-ending cycle of food preparation and consumption as a family unit.

I learned so much from being with my mother and my grandmother in the kitchen at our various houses. I learned more than how to prepare the food that we would share - I learned about life, about being a woman. I learned what it would mean to be a matriarch presiding with love, pride and and aching sort of joy over a boisterous, brilliant family. The joy that I took from sharing tender, salty bits of meat with these women in a kitchen filled with the smell of their love of family is indescribable. I still have that with my mother. It is precious and beautiful and delicious.

Home

There are too many good things about being home with my parents in St. John's (NF) to list in one post, so I'll just go with the top ten:

• The air smells and tastes better here
• It's cold, but not Ottawa cold
• Flannel sheets
• Fishcakes for breakfast (yummers!)
• The smell of my grandfather's Brylcreem
• My brother and sister, who are both crazy like me
• The ocean
• The streets, lanes and terraces of Old St. John's
• Normal drivers who stop to let you cross
• My parents. The best people in the world.

My next few posts will no doubt be flavoured heavily by all of the above. Be ready.

a.m.

Warm, tangled limbs. Hair tousled over eyes closed.
Lashes luscious smudges on pale cheeks. Peony
lips parted in chai-scented dreams.

Mmmmmm.
What time is it, baby?

Our long lines run parallel in repose.
Mouths find hollows of throats, necks as hands skim
skin in quivering glissandi. Breath is liquid
in the shell delicacy of an ear.

Just ten more minutes,
baby.

Dinner for two

I am having dinner tonight with a man who makes me positively weak in the knees.

He makes me laugh. Uproariously. It's not everyone who can make me laugh like that.

It also bears mentioning that he is highly intelligent, extremely articulate and more worldly than most.

This is a dangerously heady combination.

Hmmm.

I believe in people

My friend/colleague/fellow blogger colouringitpurple recently posted about an experience we shared late last week ("Why don't people care just a little more?") at a local fast-food joint. The incident and fallout have been on my mind since then.

There are cold people out there. There are people who pretend not to notice as they walk past an outstretched hand. There are people who turn up their iPods or pull out a cel phone when they see a homeless person on the next block. There are people who don't hold doors or give up their bus seats for for the elderly or infirm. There are people who don't step out of line to help someone who really needs it, no matter how easy it would be to do so. It is wrong and it is sad. However, for me to sit here and pontificate and pretend that I've never been one of them would be hypocritical in the extreme. I could do more. A lot more. Everyone out there who is as well-educated, well-paid, well-housed, well-fed and able-bodied as I could do more for those among us who require assistance. It's not always about spare change. It's a steadying hand under the elbow of an elderly or disabled person on an icy sidewalk. It's a coffee or a sandwich for someone who says they are hungry. It's helping someone get a drink of water when they are thirsty. Sometimes, it is simply a smile.

I stood in line and watched my friend's face tighten and go red with shame, anger and sadness. I watched her step out of line to try and help someone who needed it. I sat across from her after and watched her cry over the injustice to which we had just borne witness. I asked her to tell me what she was feeling and I listened, meekly dunking fries one at a time. She told me that it makes her sad to see people being overlooked. She told me that it breaks her heart to see a person who obviously needs help from someone - anyone - being judged or looked down upon rather than being lifted up. She told me that she has been that person, the one who needed help but was helpless to ask. I felt humbled.

My friend is a scholar and an activist and an artist. She is fighting for social justice both at home and abroad. She is a woman with a disability - although I don't think I've met anyone more 'able' than she. I sat in that restaurant and looked at myself through her and saw a need for change.

Thank you, my friend, for making me believe in the good in people...and for taking some of the chill out of this city of ours.

Out the wazoo

Some people probably think it's lame to post music lyrics and quotes and stuff, but I don't. There are times when others have just said it better. Case in point: the Stars lyrics I just posted. Delicious in a sweet/salty way. Like kissing someone who is crying.

When there's nothing left to burn...

God that was strange to see you again
Introduced by a friend of a friend
Smiled and said 'yes I think we've met before'
In that instant it started to pour,
Captured a taxi despite all the rain
We drove in silence across pont champlain
And all of the time you thought I was sad
I was trying to remember your name...

This scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin
Tried to reach deep but you couldn't get in
Now you're outside me
You see all the beauty
Repent all your sin

It's nothing but time and a face that you lose
I chose to feel it and you couldn't choose
I'll write you a postcard
I 'll send you the news
From a house down the road from real love...

Live through this, and you won't look back...
Live through this, and you won't look back...
Live through this, and you won't look back...

There's one thing I want to say, so I'll be brave
You were what I wanted
I gave what I gave
I'm not sorry I met you
I'm not sorry it's over
I'm not sorry there's nothing to say

I'm not sorry there's nothing to say...

(Stars, 'Your Ex-Lover is Dead')

If / Then

I was the still one
sitting quietly
Bench-perched
Alone but not lonely.

Your smile was brilliant
You poured it over me like warm honey and
I wanted to consume you
I wanted to eat you whole
right there
in the lobby.

You are
sex and sushi
tattoos and croissants
weed/caffeine/cigarettes
books and Perl and porn and
the Internet.

That is your algorithm.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition

Everyone's talking about it, so I won't bother with a lengthy regurgitation.

The Tory margin was smaller than many expected, which can be directly attributed to ass-puckering fear at the ballot box. Harper will run a watertight government until he decides to pull the plug and orchestrate another election while the Liberals are still floundering in post-Martin disarray. He'll decimate them. I give it a year.

Paul Martin did a surprisingly honourable thing last night by announcing his resignation as Leader - I'm not sure that many of his supporters were expecting it, but it was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do, as a matter of fact. It's going to be a torturous Leadership race for the Grits while Paul Martin sails into the sunset under a Liberian flag (merci, Dr. J!), cackling madly while wiping his arse with wads of hundred-dollar bills.

The Bloc went down. There is simply not enough of an appetite for another referendum. Duceppe took it well, delivering a fiery, near-militant speech the likes of which we haven't heard in quite some time. We haven't seen the last of him.

The NDP did well, as expected. They are still everyone's best friend. They'll whore themselves out to the government in exchange for writing the next Budget and all will be love, peace and s'mores. On a personal note, it was intensely gratifying to see Paul Dewar kick Richard Mahoney's ass in Ottawa Centre. Buh-bye, you big frigging loser.

I spent the evening with my political junky friends, hurling insults and slanderous jibes at the many TVs and laptops strewn around the well-appointed living room of a certain residence in the Lees area. There was wine. There was cheese. There was a taco platter, the contents of which I could have easily consumed by myself, had I been alone. There was also a rousing (if slightly slurred) rendition of 'Afternoon Delight' on the back patio for which I can not be held accountable. Thanks to the hosts for doing the voodoo that they do so well, as well as to all the sexy bitches who drank, swore and pretended that they didn't notice me eating all the Mexican dip.

Good times.

Bring out your dead!

It's Election Day, which to me is the equivalent of combining Chrismukkah/Kwanzaa, St. Paddy's Day, the May Two-Four long weekend and my birthday into one glorious, spite-filled, booze-soaked Day of Goodness.

The Paul Martin sleaze machine will be brought to the grinding, humiliating halt we've all been predicting for years. Note to The Board: You are MORONS. You deserve to lose.

The Liberal Party will get the enema (sans lube) it so desperately needs. I want my Party back, dammit!

Canada will have a Conservative government. Say what you want about them - they can't do much worse than Team Martin (those words will continue to make me throw up in my mouth for a long, long time). My advice to voters? Hold your nose and swallow quickly. You'll barely notice the taste.

Tonight, I'll be glued to the results with The Best Friend, His 'Other' and the rest of the sexy-ass political animals that comprise my peeps. Hot politics and cold vodka. There is no other way.

I'm off to my local polling station. Get yourselves out there and VOTE. I'll leave you with this inspirational tidbit from another oh-so-quotable Conservative leader:

"We've climbed the mighty mountain. I see the valley below, and it's a valley of peace. "

- George W. Bush

(insert diabolical laughter here)

The webs we weave

"You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."

- Charlotte, from 'Charlotte's Web' by E.B. White

I am unbelievably fortunate in my family and friends.
Thank you to the beautiful people in my life who listen, talk, or are just 'there'.

La douleur exquise

And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

Can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you...

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial

Can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you...

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to leave it all behind?

Can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you...

('The Blower's Daughter', by Damien Rice)

Basic instinct

Where do you go when your heart leads but your head is too scared to follow?

It's survival instinct. Fight or flight. There is quicksand between the two. There is no middle ground, no safe zone. The harder you struggle, the further you become mired. Survival handbooks state that the way to get out alive is to stop struggling, stop fighting it. Stay calm. Don't move. Someone will come to your rescue.

But what if nobody is there? What if, after an eternity of sitting quietly, waiting for salvation, you realize that nobody is coming? Shouted pleas dull to hoarse whispers. Whispers become whimpers and fade to stunned silence. Night falls. The darkness swallows your frightened noises but offers no solace. Nobody is listening.

'Forever' does not exist. It is a fiction, a fairytale. 'Forever' is the space between one heartbeat and the next; it is fleeting, transient. It is a tempting myth, red and round and alluring like a ripe apple - we crave it as a means to assauge our human hungers, but beneath the perfumed skin lies galling, poisonous flesh. The taut, shiny exterior belies the rotting core. 'Forever' is a bitter fruit best left unplucked.

Help

I want more than anything to know what I want. I want to be the one whose actions match the confidence of my words and the image I try to portray. I want to be honest. I want a happy life. I want to be loved as much as I love.

I don't want to be scared. I don't want to be angry, jealous, doubtful or bitter. I don't want to fear the future. I don't want money to matter. I don't want to be a convenient solution for someone. I don't want to be an emotional landfill for others for the rest of my life.

My tears are quiet.

I am so tired.

The heart of the matter

The human heart is an organ of exceeding delicacy. Yes, it's a big lump of hard-working muscle (probably wouldn't be too tasty on the eating side), but I'm talking about emotions here. Feelings. We know that emotions are essentially a series of chemical reactions which emanate from the brain. Why, then, does the heart feel hurt by emotional upheaval? That tightness, that ache...where does it come from? Why does it hurt so fucking much?

Meat eaters

I love meat. Hunks of barely charred animal flesh, drowning in luxurious lagoons of their own velvety vital fluids. I am reduced to a slavering animal by my "meat moods." I can't get enough flesh...it's perverted, like I'm some sort of sex fiend. The thought of sinking my teeth into a dripping, squirting morsel of recently alive muscle tissue is enough to make me growl like a lioness over a freshly disembowelled gazelle. My mouth is filling with saliva as I write.

I am going out for steak with The Best Friend tonight. With him, I have no shame. He knows that this is what I have to do.

Vestigal, schmestigal - our teeth are pointy for a reason.

Rrrrrrrrrowrrrrr.

Shots fired!

Last night's second-round English debate was fun. The format was far more engaging and conducive to actual "debate". Steve Paiken of TVO did a fantastic job as moderator, asking tough, intelligent questions and poking/prodding the candidates in all the right places.

The clear winner of the evening was Stephen Harper. I hate to overuse this phrase, (Blog Parrot Syndrome, or BPS, is a problem when everyone is talking about the same thing), but Mr. Harper was looking and sounding VERY Prime Ministerial last night. He didn't rise to repeated (read: desperate) challenges issued by Martin (ie. patriotism, Notwithstanding Clause, etc). He simply shrugged them off with an air of "I don't have time for your petty mudslinging and over-the-top emotional grandstanding. Here are the facts, Canada..." Harper was completely on message all night: Liberal scandal(s)? Check. Liberal arrogance? Yessir. Liberal dishonesty? Can I get an AMEN??? He tore Martin apart on gun control/crime fighting, coming across like a very determined LEADER who is dead serious about cleaning up the streets. He managed to sidestep becoming embroiled in the unity issue in a way that didn't seem evasive - he simply let Duceppe and Martin go at it in the corner. Oh, and he has also minimized his trademark smarmy smirk, which might make it easier for Canadians to buy what he's selling. At the end of the night, the strength of Harper's performance lay in the ease with which he responded to the questions and the comfort and confidence he radiated at the podium. If you're looking for a "knock-out blow" (gah! BPS!!), I'd say that was it.

I won't go into a huge post-mortem on our current Prime Minister's performance last night, suffice it to say that the term "post-mortem" has rarely been more appropriately employed.
Martin was, again, painful to watch. He still cannot choke out a coherent, meaningful response to any issue without gratuitous use of the words "basically", "fundamentally" or "very, very important". He flaps. He flails. He stutters and stammers. He jibbers and jabbers. You've heard me go on about this before, so I won't belabour the point. On actual issues, Martin came up pretty much empty-handed. His repeated and childish efforts to trip Harper via flamboyant Charter challenges and patriotic provocations were slapped down effortlessly, leaving him looking like a total eunuch. And my God, the scandals. The scandals. Are killing. Paul Martin. His credibility is in tatters, now an open joke amongst the other Leaders. They were literally laughing at him. That ain't good on national television. All that was left for him last night was a ride on the unity train...and something tells me that that train has already left the station.

Jack Layton. Not much to say that hasn't already been said, although his continued reference to the "3rd option" and his reluctance to sell the NDP as a Party that could form a government was disappointing. A lot more people are going to vote for the Dippers this time around. They are going to see gains in lots of areas, maybe even Quebec (home of the social justice platform). This is when a Leader should ramp up the team rhetoric and make people believe that their vote will deliver their Party from the ignominy of the backbenches. It was a missed opportunity on Jack's part last night. That being said, he still delivered a solid - if not slightly grim - performance, as he has in all previous debates. His sorrowful countenance as he scolded Martin for his patent dishonesty and shocking inability to govern was as satisfying to watch as a big plate of ESD mac and cheese is to eat. Speaking of fromage, though, the way he begs the players to sit down again at the unity table is kind of funny. You can almost smell the S'mores roasting from here...

Gilles Duceppe was on fire again last night. I don't get tired of hearing the man speak in either language. There were a couple of times when he seemed to waver, but I rack it up to language issues - he always manages to get back on message. His open disgust over the "Liberal scandals" moved me to the point where I could feel my lip curling in a mirror-image snarl when he had Martin up against the ropes with "Exactly HOW many RCMP investigations are being conducted within your government?" Ouch. He is utterly unintimidated by his opponents because he doesn't give a shit which squarehead gets in, as long as he gets his referendum. That's just the way it is. And yeah, it's still tonnes of fun to watch he and Layton double-team Martin on social issues; it doesn't matter how you slice it, the Jack and Gilles Show is just plain old good times.

Ok, so can you tell that I enjoyed the show last night? It was by far the best of the campaign - I hope the same for the French debate tonight. Thanks to my 407 homies for comfy chairs, tasty treats and stimulating commentary...you are both Master Debaters. See you ce soir!

McPolitics

This weekend, I noticed a congealed puddle of puke outside of my usual morning coffee establishment. So revolting, so noisome was this heap of vomit semifreddo that not even the mangy flock of Elgin St. pigeons loitering in the area managed to rouse themselves to give it even the most cursory of pecks. At this stage of the game, the Liberal campaign can be likened to said lagoon of barf in that it: (a) stinks (b) is awful to look at, and, (c) is full of indigestible material in which nobody is interested.

The second round of Leader's "debates" airs tonight and the carnivore in me smells blood. Team Martin is hemorrhaging like a razor blade-licking hemophiliac. It would be painful to watch if the Team in question hadn't been responsible for the demise of the Liberal Party I used to know and love. They deserve to have their asses handed to them for running such a shoddy, amateur campaign. Tonight, our ill-fated PM should be riding the unity, same-sex and education issues. At this juncture, however, it seems unlikely that he will get traction on anything, plagued as he is by scandal du jour and rumoured mutiny amongst those closest to him. It is going to be nothing short of carnage tonight. The other three Leaders all have firm grips on the hammer that will certainly drive the final nail into the coffin of Team Liberal hopes for an Election Day victory.

I will be Debate Dating again tonight with my 407 Partner in Crime ("fraternizing", indeed!!) and his Trusty Sidekick (love to love him). Stay tuned for invective-laced debrief demain.

I heart love.

I love to see people I love in love. There is something divinely scrumptious about seeing someone who means the world to you in the throes of amour.

It's better than a ten-dollar banana split. It's better than the corner slice of cake with all the icing. It's better than pizza with gravy.

You make me smile my best smile.