just one thing.

I am obsessed with glasses.  I just bought a new pair, bringing the total number of pairs in rotation to six.   This man is wearing my glasses:

He's a little bit of a fox.  What would you do with that much hair?  I think I would always want to squash my face into it.

Now accepting applications for babes with big ol' glasses and big ol' hair.  We can be twinsies.

people that I admire, part one.

1.  "You, of all people know that the spoken word is not writing, never was, will never be. ... I'm not one of your goddamn sycophants or acolytes."

Ralph Steadman.  I admire that kind of spirit -- the defiance and I'm not yours, never was, never will be.  I'm a fan of letters that stomp and spit, illustrations that would stab you in the heart if you only gave them an opening. 

think spring.

The evenings are getting lighter, my hands are getting warmer.  The season for denim jackets, for cardigans, for little sneakers is here.  Throw your mittens into the basement and fling open your windows. 

 

Say goodbye to the ravens and winter's grey and white.    

shout.

get a little high on coffee and design your life.  play this song and this song and this song.  imagine flights, rocky mountains, drinking tea in any country you can imagine.  stretch your legs and crack your back, twist into the future.  work in vancouver, work in brighton, work in san francisco.  drape yourself in august and steam sunshine through your life.  charge up your heart, set the beat to eternity.  ride your bike and toss your hair.  flip yourself into tomorrow, flip yourself into the future.  get set and get going.  

trivial.

I have a confession.  My favourite thing about spring is the bundles of sticks everywhere.  I just want to bring them home with me.

When I grow up, I'm going to be a crazy stick lady.  I will also embrace my passion for sequins and enormous shoulder pads, and I will be very angry all the time.  My home will be filled with enormous glass vases full of sticks.  I will likely live near an orchard.  Neon lipstick will figure in my daily routine, and I will perhaps consider tattooing on my eyebrows.

I am in, for whatever reason, a good mood today.  I tried to write a post about being in a good mood yesterday, but I couldn't because I was really in a tremendously bad mood.  Which is a shame, really, because I had written such a good post about being happy.  Oh, paradoxes. 

here are my favourites.

forest green, michael ondaatje.
things made of silk, anything in smoky grey.
movies with subtitles, plastic frames on my glasses.
elephants and lions.
rufus wainwright, monsters of folk.
topknots.

I hate romance, but I love this movie.

 

erase self, erase memory.  try on a decade, try on time. 

arrangements.

things that are beautiful:
bowls of tea and beds of ferns.
wind chimes in small doses.
cream, pale minty green, ecru.
study sessions that turn into friend sessions.
old keys.
furniture upholstered in velvet or linen.

floating on the clouds of the future, ignoring the scratches and tangles of the present.  I live through pictures in magazines and the sky outside.  i'm forgetting everything, today.

Crunching bones, spiraled spines.

Cabin fever.  It's a real thing.  It's exam season, which means I lock myself up in my house all day long and don't talk to anyone.

I want to roll around on the floor, yell at strangers, maybe do some somersaults.

There's something about stillness that makes me feel sick in the pit of my stomach.  I need movement, energy, interaction.  I don't consider myself a people person, but aloneness makes me realize I am.  Also, I hate the spice girls.

I want to practice my highkicks, bark like a dog, make complex pasta dishes.

Loneliness is the strangest animal, half spikes and half smoke.

 

You know?  Just kind of hanging and hollow.

take five.

I was dragged, tonight, to my little brother's jazz festival.  I kind of hate jazz.  I think mostly because it's all that's ever playing in my house.  My bro recently conducted a facebook poll.  Option a was 'You like Jazz.'  Option b was 'You need Counselling.'  Sign me up for counselling, friend, 'cause that hot jazz ain't doin' the trick.

However.  I found myself kind of charmed this evening.  All these kids up there, rocking out with their saxophones and pianos.  Spencer says it's like he's on drugs when he plays the piano; people could be getting shot two feet away from him and he wouldn't notice.  There's some poetry in that, I think, and y'all know what a sucker I am for poetry.

These are not my little brother.  These are old men in Karachi.  But isn't it kind of badass?  Anyways.  Spencer won a ton of awards and I am kind of the glowing sibling.  Listen to some Jazz, people.  It might make you five hundred dollars in 'outstanding soloist' awards.

I am, today, a series of impossible things.

 1. Finding honesty in writing is sometimes impossible.  I sink myself into words and images, I look for invisibility.  Sometimes I find myself trapped in illegitimacies, beautiful constructs held up by nothing.  I try to keep bones in my sentences, string sinews through the air of intangibility.

2. Snapshots of oceans, of lakes on windy days, sun reflecting on water.  My mind scatters across Canada, across the season.  I want to sprint down rocky beaches and laugh on the edge of the water.  Everything looks better in photographs, in still-frame memories.

3. Twinned images:

        I am an ellipses. I feel endless, I could cover the world.  

        I am arms stretched to the sky and feet gripping the earth.

contemplate your favourites.

Summer.

1. Diving off docks into water that's almost too cold late late at night, shouting to friends on the raft, friends at the house.

2. Wearing cut-offs, jean shorts unravelling with v-necks and tank tops, bearing bony shoulders and muscular legs.

3. Running, feet pounding dusty trails and skipping past tourists and hikers, legs and face dripping sweat and reaching long and strong to the end.

4. Cycling downtown, an old white road bike and beat up leather sandals, summer skirts flying and white wine in the bottle holder.

5. Dinners with the family at the beach, summer vegetables from the garden, steaks on the barbeque, the clatter of the kitchen drifting out to the porch, six o'clock sunlight drifting to coolness.

I can't wait.

there are a number of things.

1. Everyone you know is made of dead stars.  That ring on your finger, too.  Contemplating infinity is so impossible.  The universe, as always, makes me feel small.  We are made of bits of it, though.  Universe swoops through our veins and out of our nail beds.  We're stardust through and through.

2. The early nineties are singing their siren song to me right now.  I want velvet, a perfect denim jacket, things made of expensive lace.  Everyone is wearing heavy boots, too.  If I haven't lived through these regrets yet, am I allowed to wear pleated pants and crop tops?  I've been told to make my own mistakes.

3. You're probably sick of hearing about my bones.  Today, though, my ribcage is going to split open and ooze out the liquid sand of complacency and stillness.

4. Some songs are perfect.