Handy or not so handy tips.

You know how there are certain bits of information, sometimes useful, sometimes utterly trivial, that stick with you and come up over and over again?

1: How to tie a square not- Right over left and under, left over right and under.
-Learned from girlguides, aged 10. I use this at least once a week.

2: When you jump or run, you bleed a little into your "hipcups".
(Still a little vague about this grotesquely named body area, but I have a vivid image of what I think it looks like. Bones, cup-shaped, holding your hip bones which end in a ball shape that fits into the "cups", small pools of blood inside the "cups". Why do I find the word "cups" so disgusting. I can't even print it without quotation marks as my typographic representation of cringing.)
-Learned this from Mr. Pierson, my insane gr.9 science teacher. I think of this at least once a month after running for the train or jumping down a few steps.

3: Count elephants after a lighting flash until the thunder happens to know how many kilometers away the storm is.
-Everyone knows this one. I used this prolifically as a child. I really preferred to self-soothe as a kid and found science to be extremely comforting. I still think of this trick during thunderstorms, but I don't count anymore.

I had more but I won't remember them until they come up again. What are yours?

Here's another list because I'm feeling listy today?

Songs that instantly bring you back to being a kid. A young kid. A not even started school yet kid.

1: Nightflight to Venus- Boney M
2: Saturday Night- Bay City Rollers
3: Reflections- Leo Sayer
4: You Don't Have to Call Me Darling- David Allen Coe
5: Anything by ABBA. I have the album images burned into my brain. The one where they are sitting on the park bench- The red-haired one in black, knee-high, leather boots and a white shawl, the blond-haired one in blond suede, knee-high boots and denim and she looks sad, it's autumn and the leaves are all around them.
6: Cover of the Rolling Stone- Dr. Hook.

What are yours?

I swear too much.

Title says it all.

Dr. Friggin Snuggles!

Ya! Dr. Snuggles. My favourite cartoon of my youth is on youtube. Get your ass to this link now and appreciate! Seriously, a Dutch cartoon with the voice of Peter Ustinov and writers such as the great Douglas Adams (RIP) can NOT go wrong and on top of it all, it has the best fucking music, ever in a cartoon, ever. Now excuse me, while I kiss the sky.

I know I've used that line before but it's always funny to me.

Gin and tonic voodoo

So last week, I had to do double duty as the receptionist was on holiday. I very nearly decapitated someone with a letter opener. At least, I thought strongly about it. I told one of the couriers, who made a couple of visits per day, to just throw anything else that came for us in the garbage. He laughed and I said, "I'm not kidding." and he said, "I just can't do it." and I thought, ya, go smoke some more pot, bike courier man, before I stab you for bringing me more work. I thought it but it would have been a special brand of funny to have said it.

The receptionist is back now, and I feel like laying gifts at her feet. Even when she comes to tell me she has to make a "pit stop" which for her, means going to "tinkle" but to me, conjures images of her re-applying deodorant...I will just be glad she is not on holiday anymore.

The T is over the clouds somewhere between Montreal and Colorado right now. He only left last night but already I miss the mister. He will be touching down in Denver and then back up into the skies, San Diego bound. It's competition time and I think, if they don't win first place this year, they may all spontaneously combust from misery. These chaps have been forgoing the necessities of life, such as sleeping and eating (the single ones still found some time for beer and casual sex though) for the past 6 months to make their autonomous underwater vehicle rad enough to take top prize. So chant some voodoo or drink a gin and tonic in the bathtub or whatever ritual you think might help and send them some kick ass vibes. C'mon, they deserve it!

I miss Tennessee but it's not all bad. I will enjoy the house staying immaculately clean and being able to eat cereal and cherries for dinner and stuff like that. In 9 days he will return triumphant I am sure.

Meanwhile, I am tracking his flight because I have a little stalker in me and because airplanes are evil things! If I track it, with sheer mind power I can keep it in the air and make it safely take-off and land. Mind power and satan of course!

Would I fuck that out?

Like the title says: This is what I wondered, in exaspertation to myself after making the same little mistakes several times over, "Would I fuck that out?" It's a hybrid of -would I cut that out and would I fuck off. So there ya go.

wanting relief from reality's prompts

Suddenly, the summer has broken and autumn's preview is playing. Just for a few days I guess. The currents of cool that come in autumn always make me wistful for a field to lie in. Certain music gives me the same feeling-Nick Drake, Lush, Cocteau Twins...This morning, the combination of overcast sky and crisp breeze paired with Nick Drake on the iPod made me yearn, ladies and gentlemen, yearn I tell you.

The thing about this life of rising, grooming, travelling, occupying the mind with tasks...It's all response, response, response. Responding to lists and tasks and people. No time to close the eyes and let the mind play in the forest. Luxury is lying, with eyes closed, in a rolling field with sweeping branches and leaves of willowy trees, billowy tufts of fluffy white in the blue sky, and a soft travelling breeze, clean and cool. Luxury is being curled up on the grass with slow moving beetles, swadled in a soft wool sweater with the sun peaking through the leaves, warming your closed eyes while you dream.

Instead, my eyes have to stay open, in an office and I must respond, respond respond to reality. Always answering it's prompts...

By the by,
Here is the group portrait I did for The YPF collective at their request, in trade for some lost prints bought by a friend. See here for full story.


If only I had mis-spelled xylophone on purpose...but it's funny so I left it. Funny to me anyway.

Submarines and radishes

It's show and tell time:
Look, T's team's submarine was on the front page of the Devoir culture section.



It looks so sexy and cool.

They will be competing with it this summer in San Diego. Surely I will post the results when they kick American ass in their altogether more enticing, Québecois way.

And then there's my accomplishment. Here is my first cultivated crop from my garden:



They tasted just like real radishes and everything. Growing vegetables is super cool. Rad, even.

Mrs. Dalloway:Edited by Carrothead.

My copy of Mrs. Dalloway died in my hands last week so I took my lunch hour to go buy a new one. I went to the super-mega bookstore near here and found 5 editions that all sucked chipmunk ass. Shitty paper and horrible fonts and ugly ass covers edited by Carrothead or whatever chump was passing through the publisher's office that day...So I went to go find a used copy instead.

Near work, right in the middle of financial-land, there is a pretty decent little independent cd store with used books. The delapitated little house that it's in, sticks out amongst the glass tower blocks like a barn owl piloting a rocket ship. I couldn't find Mrs. Dalloway but I needed Between the Acts also, so I got that. A proper edition. At the counter, I re-enacted a High Fidelity scene with the guy working there. Basically, I asked what was playing and ended up buying it. Just like when John Cusak put on the Beta Band and everybody started digging it. I kept expecting Jack Black to come racing out of the back, yelling "A Cosby sweater!". The difference being, this time, the guy wasn't trying to sell a bunch of copies because he only had one and when I told him his selling tactics worked on me, he said he was actually kind of hoping he wouldn't sell it because he was really into it. I asked him if he was sure he didn't want to keep it for himself. He hesitated and then assured me that it was okay. That's probably just how I would run a record store too: "Wait, don't buy that from me, I want to keep it! As a matter of fact, everyone out of my store, you're all annoying me with your presence."

The cd is Bows and Arrows by the Walkmen. Apparently it was a critics darling in 2004 and had songs ending up on the OC but don't let that stop you from checking it out, if you had previously arbitrarily ignored this band, like I had.

Endorsing like a fox-marshmallows and bikinis.

Often, before work, I will browse in the drugstore on my way. It usually makes me 15 minutes or so late for work, but no one seems to ever mind. I take a different section each time and look at whatever is in it. There are a lot of strange things. Maybe I'll start a weekly feature of "what's frigged at the drugstore". So I'll start right now. In the "fancy" section, where they have exotically scented creams and candles and all that, there is a line of body mists by Calgon in food scents. One of them is marshmallow and it smells. exactly. like. marshmallows! I was very nearly tempted to buy it just for the sheer novelty of smelling exactly like a bag of freshly opened marshmallows. It would be funny to me, but maybe not so funny to all the people wondering who was hiding the stash of marshmallows. Probably, a lot of people would be getting the urge to go make a campfire. Does a roast weenie body mist exist? I think I'm convincing myself to buy the marshmallow in a can.

Vegan chocolate tip: Ritter Sport 50% Cocoa. It's awesome.

Christ, maybe I should be getting paid for all this product endorsement.

I bought a bikini yesterday. It was on sale so what the hell. I figure, I am an assault to the sensiblities in any kind of bathing suit so I might as well get a 2 piece. It seems to be a presuppostion that only hot-bodied gals get to wear bikinis and the rest of us should cover up in a one-piece with a garbabge bag of shame over our heads. Thing is though, a one-piece doesn't really do much hiding of anything. It's just like stepping into sausage casing and popping out some holes for your arms, legs and neck. It might squeeze all the middle in but then it just emphasizes your big fat legs. Or rather, it emphasizes my big fat legs. Also, who doesn't love that feeling like the bottom of your suit is trying to rid up your private zone, through your digestive tract and into to your sinuses, while the top of your suit tries to pull your shoulders down to your ankles. So fuck it. Bikini all the way. Doesn't stuff anything anywhere...let's it all hang loose and will probably slide right off as soon as I hit the water but what the hell. I'm just going to do a freebird with the bod. Lay it on the line. Know wot I mean?

Smells like teen lemon cleaner.

I had some time to kill after eating lunch so I went to the department store across the street. Normally, I run through the perfume section like it's a tuberculosis ward, but I had been talking with my sister about her new favourite perfume, so I thought it topical to see what's happening with the world of fragrance these days. The last time I bought or even glanced at perfume I was 15. I bought Coco. Wore it for a few years. Still like that one to be perfectly honest.

Anyway. I noticed that they now have elaborate ways of testing the scents. All the designers have their little sample things you can spray on to test their perfumes out instead of sectioning off your arm with a million different perfumes, like in the the olden days of my youth. For instance, Sarah Jessica Parker's has a little grey ribbon to spray it on. Calvin Klein has dried out beaver intestines, whatever...

So apparently, some of them (all of them maybe?) are pre-sprayed. I made the grave mistake of spraying one kind of Calvin Klein on a piece of paper that had been pre-sprayed with another of his perfumes but I had tried sniffing it first, before spraying and couldn't smell anything so..so the counter lady found this abhorrent.

She grabbed it out of my hand in horror saying "That one's already sprayed with another scent!" and then sprayed the right one for me while I was muttering that I didn't think it mattered because it seemed strong enough to win against any smell. I muttered all of this in pretty bad french so she switched to english to say, in a very exasperated, drawn out and pained way that: "It's not that strong.", as if to say, shut-up and like it, what do you know about perfume bad french speaker? You can't even test them right!....I replied to her quite vehemently, after pronouncing an initial, gut reaction "Eyuchh!" that, "Yes it is strong, actually. Quite strong. It smells like bargain store, lemon cleaner." Then I laughed and handed her stupid scent paper back. She looked shocked, which is really lame, but I guess she expected to me to feel shamed into bowing to her superior perfume knowledge or something.

So that was that, I sniffed a few more of the weird, cheap ones that were on sale like Essence of Dirt and Eau De Grilled Cheese but the headache came fast and strong from all the goddamn fakey smells and I fled, into the night. Or rather, into early afternoon...

I'm sitting here with a million chemical scent's adhered to my DNA now, with the most pounding headache. I've washed my hands but I can't get rid of it all! I'd almost rather smell pee. Hmm...I wonder if that's the antidote, like when you get a jelly fish sting.

That's all I need, to be caught in the bathroom by some lady from the new office across the hall, who have, by the way, turned the bathroom into a complete pig sty. Have I mentioned this already? It makes me so mad! Just sit on the damn seat? If you all didn't hover above it and piss all over it, we could all sit on it. What are you afraid of? Leg germs? I don't know how they do it, but I tend not to sit with my vulva or asshole directly on the seat. I figure that's what the hole in the seat is for so why are they so paranoid to have their legs touching where someone else's legs have touched? And don't even get me started on not flushing. Man, do NOT be fooled by chicks all done up in make-up and heels. They tend to be some of the dirtiest, seat-pissing, non-flushers around. Anyway, so I was almost caught kissing my "guns" when one of them walked in the other day. I was checking out my muscles and thought it would be funny to do (it was!). Point is, I don't need to be caught pissing on myself to get rid of perfume smell, is all.

The end.

koochy cooking

So yes, I was bored enough at work and lazy enough about ways to entertain myself, that I actually went to one of those popular time filler sites. I followed a link from there that's all about bad date stories, mostly written by illiterate 12 year olds. Turns out, the stories were not at all amusing but the spelling and grammar! Hilarious! I know I get lazy sometimes and make mistakes, but holy donkey kong. As a bonus, some of their mistakes have given birth to great new idioms.

the next day i was snuggleing with him again and we were all koochy cooking again and his sister ...

Koochy cooking eh? Love it! I think she meant hoochie coochie but...

Oh and sorry to be giving yet more attention to a useless waste dna but can you believe this?



Click here for the source. Thank you Smoking Gun for your tireless efforts.

A man's got needs

I have been bombarded with more smell’0’memories recently. So many of them…

Yesterday, while walking to the train, I walked past someone and got a particular whiff of smoke that immersed me in a memory of my best friend from grade 6.

Tammy was new to our school and therefore, wildly teased and abused immediately. I’ve always had a thing for underdogs so I befriended her and actually, she was pretty cool and fun. She had a totally uncensored imagination. No shame. One of her games was to pretend to be married to a member of Duran Duran- Simon Le Bon for her and Nick Rhodes for me. The game basically consisted of us greeting Nick and Simon at the door after their hard day of New Romanticness, then we’d immediately go to bed. I would just lay there, feeling like maybe this game was a bit too weird for me, while she simulated consummating her marriage to Simon by basically bouncing up and down on the bed. When it was my turn, I often found some excuse to get out of it. Nick’s got a nose bleed or something…

She had a cubbyhole into the side of the house in her bedroom. It was cleaned and decorated with posters and just big enough for the two of us, some candles, (safety first in the 80’s!) and some Tiger Beat magazines (Do they have Cougar Beat magazines for older women?). I was sooo envious of her cubby. I wanted one real bad. I often wished I could be there alone but I could hardly boot her out of her own cubby. I will stop saying cubby now.

Her parents were very young. They still sported metal head haircuts and wore tight jeans and owned records like Balls to the Wall by Accept, which we were fond of playing often and singing along to. This was much to the annoyance of her parents but greatly amusing to her younger brother.

They had moved in with her grandmother. Her house was like it came in a time machine, directly out of the 1950’s. Architecturally and with the moldings and door handles and mint green paint and sparkly, melamine kitchen table and everything-dishes, drapes, clocks…just like a time warp.

At the back of the house was a long, mostly empty and unused room full of windows. The window ledges were the kind that are big enough to put a pillow and sit and read on. This room was like an afterthought, it didn’t quite fit with the rest of the house and no one seemed to know what to do with it, which I thought was crazy because it was so calm and serene; all the trees and flowers in the back yard through the windows, perfectly quiet but for the ticking of that 1950’s clock.

We adopted this room as our Barbie lair. We had a mansion set up for her on a mountain (window ledge) with a ski hill(pillows with white covers) and a sauna(a box with a door fashioned out of tinfoil). The most exciting Barbie accessory that Tammy introduced me too was the Barbie waterbed. Made from baggies and water but not Ziplocs because the seam would make it not sit right, rather, the super thin, soft baggies that had to be tied closed. I think they always leaked but it was worth it.

Tammy liked to play the part of Ken, which is what most girls wish their best friend wanted to do. She always made him act like he was a head injury victim with more than a slight tendency to stalk Barbie. Always peeking in her windows and asking her “How’s it going?” even though Barbie would be telling him she was going to call the police if he didn’t stop. It cracked me up everytime.

Her grandma, who also looked straight out of the ‘50s with her high-waisted, ice-cream coloured, pencil-leg pants, her dyed jet black hair in that brushed back, teased for height, helmet of hair style and her black, drawn on, arched eyebrows. She always had a cigarette. She moved and talked super slow. Not slow in a feeble, old lady way, more like, slow in a shot with a horse tranquillizer way. Her manner of standing was remarkable in that her pelvis was always the furthest think jutting out from her body and her feet turned outwards like a duck. Often, she would quietly drift in to our Barbie world to have a relaxing smoke away from her headbanger daughter and her metalhead son-in-law. Without saying anything or interrupting, she’d just smoke and watch us play.

Tammy would never censor herself or get shy when her grandmother was around. She would even throw out some light swearing like damn and jesus. Almost always, at some point, her grandma would let out a sudden, raspy, smoker of a thousand years guffaw at something Tammy had made Ken do or say. I remember one of things that made her laugh was Ken sticking his but through Barbie’s window and saying, ”Barbie, a man’s got needs!”.

Somehow, when Tammy’s grandmother smoked, it never bothered me. I can’t say I’ve come across that since, except with my own grandmother.

The whole family moved out into a big house in another part of town in some ugly suburb and Tammy started dating an older (15 years old!) boy. He was rumored to actually be a woman, which was a bizarre rumor, since I saw him and he clearly was not gender ambiguous but the rumor was a good one so it stuck. Everyone was just jealous.

The last time I saw her was about 8 years ago. She was working in a diner in our hometown with way too much make-up on and a frown. She did not want me to be there and we only briefly acknowledged each other.

I bet by now, she has kids. I’d like to think that they play her Duran Duran tapes and sing along. I’d also like to think that she’s still wacky in the head and super fun to play with and that maybe her grandma is living with her, drifting and laughing and smoking.

Are YOU game?

Dang hell if the weather ain't all screwy. 26 and humid one day, 6 degrees the next..rain, sun, rain blah blee blah blee..it's making me sick. Literally. Damn throat and ears.

Head office has sent a dvd of Al Gore's film so I guess I will be seeing it. We were supposed to take time off work to watch it but no one here is game so I'll just take it home. Watta bunch of peens, not wanting to lose precious work time.

I stayed home yesterday with plans to nurse my sore throat and maybe do a little drawing but I ended up working somehow. I had to recreate a bitmapped logo for T. He's lucky he's cute or I'd have charged for my time!

One thing I won't charge for though, because it's for a good cause and so sporting of the people requesting it, is some drawing I have to do. On saturday, a friend and I bought this great box set of prints. We split the cost and the prints and in a tragic turn of events, she lost hers before the night was through. It was made by a collective here in Montreal called the YPF. They are swell. Now I think they are even more swell because I emailed them the story and asked if they maybe had some extra prints or something they could donate to my friend for her loss. They got back to me and said yes, if I would draw a group portrait of what I think they all look like. Isn't that right on?

I think so. I'm even going to do 2 of them becuse it's so game. This is a word I have picked up from T and I can't stop using it now- Game. I'm game, your game, we're all game. Aren't we?

Soon, I will post my offerings to the YPF for the cause of my friends bad luck. Incidentally, she lost all her prints in the same bar that I lost my favourite black scarf in. A tiny bar where we hardly move around and things just effing disapear. Somewhere, someone is wearing a black scarf and looking at their newly aquired prints. I hope they are game.

Emergency oxen and opium popsicles.

Do you have a tendency toward disaster thinking? I am constantly thinking of possible tragedies and considering what I could do in the event of one, especially in the midst of travelling in a vehicle. On the train, actually, after getting off the train, in the underground track area, I considered what could be done if the whole thing started to collapse. I noticed that at the end of the track, if you jumped a few lines, went across some dirt and ducked behind some construction temporary walls, there was an opening into the parking lot beside. I figured I could dart to that area if I ever needed to. I wondered if it was better to stand under the arches of cement or the x's of cement. I also briefly entertained the idea that somehow, if I found a wire, and there was someone being a huge menace, I could throw a loose wire over the electrified part of the track and use a stick to get the other end to touch the menace and deliver 25,000 volts of kick-ass. That scenario is a bit far-fetched, I know, but I like it.

From other disaster preparing brain activity, I noticed that all the emergency things: first aid, axe, oxygen, oxen(ha. I would LOVE it if places provided emergency oxen in the event of a disaster. Think about it, they probably would come in very handy.) and such, are all in the exact same panel on the train as the high voltage area. What was the designer of that snorting when he submitted that concept? I guess I wonder how much opium popsicles the person who signed off on that idea was licking to ease the effects of the summer heat in his un-air-contidioned office, deep in the bowels of "Train-making Guys Inc."...

At work here, I realize that up on the 28th floor, I'm pretty much frigged if there is any kind of fire or building collapse. I figure the best I could do would be to go the roof in the event of a raging fire below this floor. At least I would be outside and visible to helicopters and in the open air.

At home, I have some places planned out for quick hiding in the event of an axe murderer coming in the middle of the night and have an escape route planned, depending on which window I need to use.

Sometimes, I just think about having a really good peanut butter sandwich.

Oh, by the way, party was good. No outright fistfights, almost everyone got along and pictionary was played, oh yes it was. Props to certain members of the party for being so good at guessing, it was as if they had made a pact with the devil. I'd do it again and I believe I shall.

French the Rainbow Unicorn

Oh ma gad. Oh ma gad.

Tomorrow is party. Many people vill comink. Trouble brews like moldy potato in cold soup.

"Why not try to be more positive? Look on the bright side! Kiss the rainbow unicorn on it's hot pink lips, so to speak."

Well, maybe I will try to ,metaphorically, french the rainbow unicorn about this party idea of mine but I will need several gin and tonics to do so.

I guess this whole thing is why I have had Eddie Murphy's, My Girl Wants to Party All the Time in my head for at least a week.

Today, while going to get what turned out to be a freaking excellently tasty falafel sandwich, I saw an elderly lady who looked strinkingly like my mother, panhandling on the street. I asked her why she was begging for money. She said she does it sometimes when she doesn't have enough for rent because her pension is not enough. She said she could ask her family(her kids I presume because she said she was 73) but she felt she should be providing for them, not the other way around. I suggested that they would probably be happier giving her money than having her panhandle. She said they probably would but she prefers it this way. It's her choice.

On the one hand, I believed her and wanted to help, on the other hand I thought, why ask for money from strangers when it's not nessecary? She was a nurse for decades in California and this is what she is now? Could it be true? If she had other resources, what about people on the street who really had no other option?

I noticed that I felt more inclined to help her because she was clean and approachable and looked sane. Ironically, that would make her someone the least in need of help. Is it cynical to feel that helping someone more likely to actually improve from your help is better than giving to someone who cannot be saved? Is it prejudice to think that the homeless people living on the street are so beyond the ability to function in society, that any money given will be futile towards improving their lives in the long run? Am I an asshole for thinking that everyone should be striving to live in the normal confines of society in the first place? Surely, anyone would prefer a home of their own, if possible, to a life on the street!

Where do I lend my dollar? I wish I could consult Virginia Woolf on this one. She laid it out so well in Three Guineas on the topic of governement, education and cultural life. But what of the homeless? What can my dollar do for anyone and what's the best way to give it?

No work, all blog.

I am really digging this blog at the moment. I suggest you give it a look see. Funny and good insight into what it's like growing up in the crazy world of mormon-osity? mormon-ness? Anyway, don't let that put you off, she's over it now. However, don't abandon me. Then I would be sad. I would cry. Do you want to make me cry?? DO YOU??

How the crack do I end my own quote?

Now that they have finally started selling my favourite hummus flavour in Quebec I am doomed. Doomed to eat it everyday and gain a trillion pounds and lose friends and family because I won't share. Get your own, this hummus is MINE.

The ongoing saga of: Will anyone actually show up at my party? is looking good. People have confirmed and unless it's some really elaborate, cruel joke, they are probably not lying. I know I'm not the only one with this pre-party paranoia. Mrs. Dalloway for starters. Maybe I should be worrying more about getting fresh flowers and mending my gown with the right coloured silks and whether the carpets should be rolled back further so the young people will have room to dance and court each other.

Instead I am worried people will revolt if I get the wrong kind of relish. Will everyone eat and then immediately want to go home? Can I FORCE people to play pictionary and if so, can I pit english versus french people? What will keep people happy and enjoying themselves? Chocolate? Gin and tonic? Calendars with nude women?

I do so want everyone to have a good time. Ever so much. Quite.

Moving on, I have done sweet, f-on-a-stick, all this week at work. Maybe 5% of my day is actually spent on working. The rest is on the good old internet that I'm sure is being monitored by the company, but what the hell right? I mean what in the christ else am I supposed to do?

It's not like I refuse to work. There's nothing to do! I don't smoke, I'm not sustaining an office flirtation, I don't have that bottle of whiskey and package of chocolate chip cookies hidden behind the soap dispenser under the sink in the bathroom to take nips out of throughout the day in the handicapped stall with my feet up on the toilet so no one can see and my iPod playing the Royal Tennebaums soundtrack. I wish I did. Instead, I will just have to fantasize about going on a date with Luke Wilson before he aquired the bloat. I like to think of him permanently as Richie Tennenbaum. Do you know how many times I've watched that movie? Me neither but alot is a good estimate. A lot.

You know, I had a dream last night where a wedding was being held and the bride's parents didn't show up because they had some sort of prejudice against someone there. One of the aunts stood up in the church and said on the topic of these nasty parents and their judgemental ways: "Auden said(WH Auden? I've never read him in real life!), 'To not hear is one thing, but to play deaf and blind is ----'" I forget the last word! It was a great quote! That aunt really stuck it to them with that quote and now I can't remember the end of it. In the dream, everyone stood up and clapped after she said it. She was saying that simple ignorance is one thing that perhaps can be corrected and forgiven, but actively applying prejudice is a choice and makes you a shit. Trying to end the quote has been driving me nuts all day. Any suggestions of how to end it? Anyone? Bueller?

The post-it note will read: "you suck"

Happy Birthday Morrissey. You are getting hell old. So am I. We age and bloat together but we are still wicked cool.

Today seems to be the day where all the women of Montreal have unanimously decided; no more tights. Even though it's not that much warmer than usual, 20 degrees, I still decided that today would be dress and bare legs day. I was a bit cold and I thought maybe it wasn't the right choice. However, upon arriving downtown I noticed not one woman sported tights on her legs. Perhaps it was the long weekend, perhaps the moon is a certain distance from us that dictates our leg baring behaviour, whatever it is, today is all about it.

Additionally, it seems that today is also the day to sit in a crowded courtyard and roll your dress up at the front so people can see your underwear. Or maybe it was just that one woman doing that. She was dressed semi-business like, in that- "I'm 44 and working in a bank but I still like to party" way, with the dyed orange hair and the dyed orange tan and the line outside the lips one shade darker than the frosty berry coloured lipstick...anyway, anyway what? She was a freak obviously.I don't know why I'm remarking that she is a business woman and not some crazy methed-up street urchin. I would be the first to say that clothes never speak truly of the freak that lurks inside the skull, especially of those in business attire.

I am starting to have the usual, pre-party panic that no one is going to show up saturday. They've all changed their minds, they all hate me, actively. In fact, it was all part of a master plan to cruelly hand me comeuppance for being a stink on the face of the earth-pretending they all want to come and then they will send a wild boar with a post-it note to me instead, as I sit crying that no one has shown up, all my decorating and arranging of vegetables and cookies untouched and unloved...the post-it note will read: "you suck".

Rich Corinthian leather beverage.

Ahhh, coffee substitute, you're rich dirt taste soothes my jangled nerves. No caffeine means I won't try to bite glass and vomit blood and the essence of chicory and beetroot is practically undetectable in your deep brown depths. So smooth in the sense of not having any sharp bits of stuff in you and so satisfying. I pronounce you edible!

With love, your honorable servant in Satan,

Me.

PS. Call me sometime coffee substitute. We will talk of things.

Screw you people of tomorrow.

Ha. As two working people, here at my working place, were discussing the re-labelling of old boxes of files, one was worried about people in the future, after she was gone, not knowing what was inside the boxes. The other one said, "In five years from now, if you are not here, are you really going to be worried about those boxes and people having to go through them to figure it out?" At which point I asserted, "Ya! Screw the people of tomorrow!"

One chuckled quietly, one cast a sidelong glance. And that's the story of my life.