just like now

i make sense of life
living by arbitrary rules--
"girls must never say 'whore'."
"you must kiss me."--
but they never stay unbroken.

28/04/2008

It's been about a year since I posted this list, which still hangs on my wall. I am very happy to find that I have fulfilled a good many of them, and gotten a great deal closer to others. Here are some I feel I have completed.

I want to paint the walls cream coloured and cover them with everything under the sun.
they're not cream coloured, but they are just covered in lovely things.
I want people to know my name at the coffeeshop and the bookstore and the thrift store.
I was overreaching here. Knowing my name is too hard. But they all recognize me. At the coffeeshop, I am the girl who comes in and draws artcards and drinks chai and leaves random artworks on the tables. At the bookstore, I am the girl who sneaks around in the very back of the maze and leaves artcards in the chapbooks. At the thrift store, I am the militant girl who looks through all the racks, starting with the dresses.
I want to laugh in the rain.
The rain is mine. I own it. I even cause it sometimes.
I want to be at home, alone.
Loneliness never worries me. Even when I don't want to be alone.
I want it to be just right.
This took a while. But I truly am perfectly content with where I am, especially the discontent parts. Being discontent with some things is just right. Not being totally happy is right- it is living.
I want to know at a glance how everyone fits into me.
Sometimes I worry if I judge people too quickly. But I sometimes suspect I can read people's very souls in a two-second look. (But sometimes they still surprise me, which is good also.)
I want to sing.
This one came pre-fulfilled. I was born singing.
I want to know which troubles are truly troubles.
This is like the 'just right' thing. I know now that the things that are wrong in my life are really overwhelming right because there is Jesus and because there are lost and destitute and broken people.
I want mothers to smile at me.
They do. They don't know I have designs on stealing their children and cuddling and playing with the to my heart's content.
I want musicians to watch me.
The right kind, too. Indie musicians have become my kin.
I want to make good food.
I still don't have enough time for cooking with school and work, but I do love to cook things.
I want to be understood. I want to have no need for understanding.
Being misunderstood is an idea invented by teenagers. But a lot of you lovelies who read this are the people who make me feel as if my soul isn't the least bit alone. You understand me, and I love you for it.
I want to sit in places no one else sits.
This is so much mad fun.
I want to be the girl who looked different yesterday.
Somehow in the last year I developed a penchant for wearing costumes instead of outfits. I am usually dressed up as something that is not what I was dressed up as yesterday.
I want to own a little piece of earth where sanity and insanity do not quibble.
I'm not sure I own any actual pieces of earth... but sanity and insanity are becoming better friends each day.
I want simple pleasures and pleasures no one else enjoys. I want common pleasures and uncommon pleasures.
I have them.
I want a blank notebook with cream colored pages that I can fill with everything under the sun.
I have it. It is lovely.
I want a collage.
I am almost made of collage.
I want to busk.
I haven't done any official make-money busking, but playing music for the public in the city has transpired.
I want the windows open.
They are usually open.

--
here are all the incompletes:
I want my own apartment- urgently.
I want not to forget.
I want to support myself with art.
I want to know how to sew.
I want to own the streets I walk down.
I want to drive away whenever I feel like it.
I want to improvise.
I want a wicker loveseat that the sun shines on, with illustrious cushions.
I want to dance when I walk and when I stand still.
I want to stay up late talking.
I want to have teacups.
I want to care.
I want to hold someone's hand.
I want to wake up because I can, not because I have to.
I want to speak, I want to speak what I want to speak. I do not want to speak incompletely. I do not want my words to fail others.
I want to be the girl that you saw walking by and couldn't forget.
I want to be the girl that walked by and smiled.
I want to be the girl who helped.
I want to have no reason to close myself.
I want to fear no frightening thing.
I want to change the world in small ways.
I want to love freely.
I want to have somewhere to go.
I want to be faithful to my thoughts. I do not want to be a hypocrite. I want to love my enemies.
I want to play songs; I want never to be asked to stop.
I want to find all the things that belong to me.
I want to give.
I want to rise above.
I want to talk unafraid.
I want to meet the eyes I couldn't meet.
I want to please the old men and women.
I want to please my mother and father.
I want to please my God.
I want to please myself.
I want to be the girl you had to tell everything to.
I want to be satisfied not to know all the answers.
I want to satisfy others with not knowing.
I want to be content, not knowing what to say.
I want to be kissed.
I want to be remembered.
I want to be loved.
I want to be the girl who didn't assume too much.
I want to wear a dress.
I want to put more into the world than I take out of it.
I want to not be categorized.
I want to make people brave.
I want to make people happy.
I want to be humble.
I want to say good night, good morning, goodbye.
I want to know stories.
I want to laugh until it hurts.
I want to cry for people.
I want to sacrifice.
I want to understand philosophy and art.
I want to think about what I am saying.
I want to be the girl who didn't hurt you.
I want to be full.
I want to be a remedy.
I want to be moved.
I want to make the tired commuters smile.
I want to make the powerful think twice.
I want to think twice, ten times, a thousand...
I want to not steal.
I want my bed to be waiting for life.
I want the sun to shine in patches in my apartment.
I want my own to be proud of me.
I want to be quiet enough.
I want laughing people to include me.
I want to do, make, say, think.
I want to be sensible. I want to be poetic.
I want to know when to laugh at myself. I want to not always laugh then.
I want to make people talk to me straight. I want to answer straight.
I want to turn around and find you waiting there.
I want to need nothing but Jesus.
I want to need Jesus so badly it hurts.
I want to balance ideas.
I want to help needy people.
I want to wear a red dress and a teal cardigan.
I want you to be happy because of me.
I want to make you happy in yourself.
I want you to be happy with me.
I want to be happy in me.
--
of course I know most of these are lifelong projects. That is incalculably good. I love to be alive.

When we did believe in magic, and we did die...

On wednesday I saw forsythia in bloom. I always forget, despite the picture of it hanging above my desk, how much I love forsythia-- it is the most joyous thing I know, and I can't even taste it or hear it in music or anything because it is so complete in itself.

So this weekend, I am going to sneak out in the car with pruning shears, and steal all the forsythia I can find from all the unsuspecting gardens. I will put it all in vases and water jugs and seed pails around my room. Every song I listen to will take on a new meaning; when I walk outside, the sun in my sky will be a bright toy that makes me laugh-- and oh, I promise it will be my sky.

Everything is earnest and complete.

mere anarchy, baby

griffon lurked in the shadowy part of the room, straddling a wrong-way-round chair. his fingers ratcheted out bloodless noises- tap. tap. tap.- on the grunge and grey of the brickwork like metal. i lay defiantly in the pale watery light coming in through the window bars. turning and turning. the best lack all conviction, and we were the worst, filled with passionate intense mechanics and lassaiz-faire and many months had gone by.

from forty or fifty stories down, you could hear the gunshot and sirens, the shuddering of collapsing buildings and the dull roar of fires, but there was a strange calm in our cell, for nothing human reached us. no screaming horrific murdered, no shouting gunmen, no bereft or destroyed plaintive voices. it made the destruction seem peaceable, tolerant- we didn't care anymore. it was like griffon said one time, as we stood pale-skin-to-pale-skin at the window watching flames play over the city. "it's just anarchy, baby," he muttered against my face. it was the last little flame of hope dying in my heart and the final takeover of my inhuman side when i pulled away from him a little and studied his grey eyes, the fire in the city, the dilapidated cell, and the endless endless hard blue sky. it hurt for a second, what he said. then i shrugged. "mere anarchy," i said back. i talked almost against his mouth, but it wasn't like there was anything there anymore. certainly not desire. certainly not passion. certainly not vivacity or breathing or liquid motion. the whole world had walls and our bodies were blank and pitiless machines, and only the sky was real, turning and turning and fading and arched, but-- too far away to hear.

listing again- things I want in my future place of dwelling

Sometimes, I don't write nonfiction posts for weeks on end. Apparently, this is not one of those times. So, listness:

1- Rough/unfinished/stone/stucco/plaster, etc. walls. This is a must. If my house has ordinary smooth walls I will be unhappy forever.

2- Total lack of uniformity in architectural features. No thank you matching windows, fixtures, etc. I want everything to be kind of a surprise when you look at it.

2- Lamps. Awesome lamps in many corners.

3- Red patterned fringed rug. I somehow feel like I'm missing an important descriptor there.. hm. Anyways, this photo from CubistLiterature is a fine upstanding example of some things I love in a room/place of dwelling. (If you're wondering whether having Craig there is one of them... yes, obviously.)

4- Stained glass somewhere.

5- A fire escape would be awesome, though not practical in all situations.

6- A room entirely devoted to red.

7- Starlightbooksesque eclectic bookshelves

8- Many, many musical instruments. Right now I have: drums, obviously, my kit and djembe, my percussive frog, possibly the guitar I have assimilated, and harmonicas. I need to expand my collection. (I also potentially own one of the recorders scattered over our house, but I can do without, yes, please.)

9- A tower room would be ideal, with a little bed and a desk, all cramped and beautiful. But I'm not sure that will ever come to pass, now. I guess I may still dream.

10- Rooms that remind me of old grainy, discolored photos of studies/libraryies from the sixties, seventies. ex:

11- Teapots and other items pertaining to tea. Mismatched pretty tea cups and elitist tea gear, and things.

12- Roses, somewhere outside, since I am being idealist and I rather like roses (this is why, despite the inherent awfulness of it, I pick off and destroy caterpillars from our rosebushes...).

13- Pens everywhere. The good kind of pen that has lots of ink in it so you can draw on your skin with ease. But that's not why I'd want pens everywhere. They would be for writing, of course.
14- Far-reaching musical players. I want to be able to play and hear loud music wherever I am in the place of dwelling.
15- Unusual heavy little statues/bookends/paperweights.

16- Artwork EVERYWHERE.

17- Plants. Plants are.. necessary, even though I'm not particularly into plants at all. Appearance-wise, they are necessary.

18- I'm not very fond of pets, either, but I think a cat lends a certain distinguished air to a place, do not you?

19- Bottle candles and old travel posters for in case I'm in a 50s/60s novellish cafe mood.

20- A wing chair. Wing chairs are mad love. They are awesome beyond belief.

21- An air of potential mystery, secrets laughing at you from darker corners and pantry cupboards.

22- Jars of food items such as flour and coffee beans along a windowsill.

23- Potentially a garlic braid, just because I was always enthralled by them as a child.

24- Frequent aromas of baking bread. I really really wish I had time/breadmaker right now to make bread, but alas... the breadmaker is broken, and this ridiculous university thing...

25- Close proximity to neat little foreign grocery stores and outdoor markets and now I'm wandering off on a food tangent.

26- A matress on the floor. I am not really fond of bedframes.

27- Old thrifted portraits in gilt frames.

28- Etsyness all about the place.

29- Not enough space for all the music- esp. vinyl, but CDs as well- that I have. Similarly, not enough room for my collection of poetry chapbooks and pretty stories and literature and vintage novels.

30- A typewriter.

31- A certain sense of disrespect for the long-established way of taking care of things. Writing on the walls or carving my name in the banister, if I feel like it.

32- Doors painted colors other than white, please. Primary-colorish red, yellow, blue, or green is better.

33- Things that can be lit on fire, since I love fire. Candles, obviously, but a little fireplace would be oh so nice.

34- Clothing, espeically my shoes and dresses (I bought two lovely thriftie dresses yesterday; happiness), on display, instead of hidden away. Potential ways of doing this include a shoe basket and just having a bar to hang dresses on instead of a closet (such as I think perhaps Craig is doing in the above picture, only he doesn't have dresses). Likewise for jewelry, only not on necklace trees like I have now, because they fall over too often.

35- Lots of space for vagrant friends, indie bands, church people, and.. um.. mysterious pen pals.. to stay the night.

35- Awesome glassware. Coloured glassware is best of all.

36- Old maps. Also a globe, in brown tones instead of bright blue. I feel totally bereft for not having a globe, and have since I was a child.

37- Mismatched furniture that is slightly worn/threadbare.

...and this concludes my flight of fancy. In real life, if I have a quarter of the things I list, I will be happy beyond belief.

(In other news, it appears my capitals have come back out of hiding. They've been gone for just aeons...)

esoteric my hardest swear word

i could tell by the way you look at me that you
disapproved; the motives that moved me delighted me
shocked you.

but what could i do? deny the ridiculous deliciousness
laughing in your eyes like that? i know you like to
pretend you haven't been waiting for a girl like me since
the fifth grade or the sixth and i promise i promise
i won't hold it against you, i will wait for you
i will let you get over it your disconcerted expression.

esoteric my hardest swear word instability my greatest joy
i am buzzing like insects against your skin i was
only pretending to sleep.

a few life ambitions, before i go to sleep

i've been meaning to compile one of these for a while. these are secondary but largely all-consuming goals of my life, aside from major boring ones about careers, life partners, and offspring.. i'd also be interested to hear any of your similarly awesome secondary but all-consuming life goals. (i say all-consuming, because i spend way more time thinking about these ones than the supposed major ones...)
-----
-live by the ocean
-have a tower room
-play in an acoustic duo with a boy named 'jonas' (janie and jonas=brilliant project name)
-live in africa
-have a typewriter
-see the eiffel tower
-have a flat in paris
-drive a vespa on a cobblestone street
- see bound stems, showbread live
-drink guinness in ireland
-own a cubistliterature shirt
-live in a houseboat
-slam some poetry
-be a vagrant. preferably not alone, though. accepting applicants there.
-participate in or cause a temporary autonomous zone
-see the redwoods, drive all along the pacific coast highway
-see the northern lights
-find a friend who will take me out on the back of his motorcycle
-forge (create, not fake...) a band good enough to open for bound stems
-re-enact the 'o captain my captain' desk scene from dead poet's society at my university
-journey with/like the psalters

emergency maneouvres

put your effort here, on my side;
feel the pulse of some bursting organ there.
inflammation you can feel but not see
and my breath hurts.

in the darkroom, i saw two mirrors
and one was you, and one was me
and i walked shaking across the black marble floor,
emptied my insides out behind the red curtains.
four hours i sat there, smoke signals curling so agonized from my teeth,
my eyes little white illuminated ambulances,
my veins rupturing around the tendons of my wrist
as scrolls of film rolled across the floor.

i wrote you a note, a suicide note,
a desperate breathless love note,
i meant to die to escape the fever,
but you came and found me instead.
so i bit my tongue like a rat-trap,
like a burning obsidian eye,
though you had no use for the blood clotting in my mouth.

But put your interest here, on my side,
and you can feel pain like an imploding galaxy.
vibrant and organic, it will sink four fangs into your finger.

ontario boy

you were there on the parkway when i was just six inches tall. "oh, and here's me, fighting and dancing to avoid your combat boots; baby, it's been seven weeks and brilliant, but i am tired."so you gather me up in your breast pocket; i am ankle-deep in brown courduroy, i am rocking with your motion, going where you're going. we take an eight-week holiday, ricocheting laughter off one another like rust-red beads across a gold-wood floor. i won't miss you, but then, i might never be away from you.

and on the shore of lake ontario, you call me sandeye- the name from my story. i am twelve inches tall, clinging with one small hand to the seam of your jeans. the lake water we collect in sacks which you shoulder, and swagger under. in 2003, i met a boy with a mouth like yours, but his eyes weren't as strong and alive as yours- not half. i can taste whole atlantic deserts in the flash of your teeth, baby. seven weeks, seven seas; i think you're brilliant.

--

for a while i've been pretending i can feel your calls coming to me before you've finished dialing the area code. my heart beats on the same wavelength as your dialtone. "sandeye," you say, "scales are falling away," and i wholly believe you. I am twenty-six inches, in love with the way your hand cups around my head when i walk with you. i walked with you all day; we sat on
broad stone steps when i was tired and you are wonderfully human; the hum and strength of your blood under your warm skin fascinates me.

this tuesday we climbed to the top of the elevated wetlands, watched over the don valley and you told me many things you were sure of. coming down, i reached thirty-nine inches. my fingers were little birds scavenging for cracks to hold in their beaks, but your hands were rough as stone and one more thing you were sure of.

and today i can hardly wait to see you tomorrow; i know you will remind me of heated masculine plains. i know i will garner so many inches from the thickness of your jeans, the vibrations of your lion's voice, the cannon-gun steps of your black boots. perhaps i will grow so you can lay one arm across my shoulders, and after that i am wholly content.

university train

the girl across the hallway
breaks glass at night, i think systematically.
all day she collects bottles in the streets and the park
and then smashes them piece by piece in the bathtub under cover
of darkness. when i can’t sleep i sit in the
eyeball glow of my computer screen and listen to her shatters,
listen to the cure, and breathe like robert smith.

i used to think i’d be friends with someone like her
but she’s just a head on the door. piecemeal, i fling
my fingers up towards the ceiling, exulting in the shadows
that burst out on the white wall; i don't even try to see in the dark.
‘i make myself so sick,’ she murmurs into the dark of her bathroom,
and at 2:48 i go into my own bathroom and stare at myself
with my hair over my eyes like robert smith
and experimentally, I smash a wine glass.