...Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night and just lay there, in bed smiling, because I'm so EXCITED to go to work.

Organic Lapsang Souchong Star. smells like dirty bbq rack. lovers of single-malt whisky and fine cigars, appreciate heavy aroma of pine wood fire. a man's tea. thats why i drink it. puts hair in your pits. swallow and throat feels thick with smoke. like deep inhale of tobacco leafs. fermented. rolled. ready for lips, for lungs. in. out. tuff as is sensual. testosterone, meat. Black. Fiery. Yang.
Quangzhou Milk oolong. velvety. smooth. like kissing butter. clouds. and ground flour. creamy orchid. safe yet sensual. e x p a n d i n g and contracting like breath to body. leaves unfold. e xp an d. expand. weaving in and through the boil. Full mouth-feel. Bursting Wuyi mountains. softly it came. moon fell in love with comet.comet passed by . as comets do. moon cried milky tears--chilling tea fields, withering leaves- a gentle creaminess left behind. Another tragic love story later- leaves expand. envelope. grow. space, cup, body. nourishing friend, delicate lover.

Fill me.

.war.god.

I'm a dreamer. Always have been. My dreams are consistently intense, detailed and emotionally charged. I forget very few. I think of them often. I sleep for them always.
I dream in colours, in feelings, in stories, but never before have I dreampt namely in concepts. This happened Thursday night. I woke up with information swirling through me, that was not my own. Concepts were laid out, as if wired to me. Perhaps it was a prophecy of caution, or perhaps it was just another of my subconscious' paranoid conspiracy plots. It was weird. and chilling, nonetheless.
I dreampt it was the future. I had grey hair. So perhaps 30 or so years from now?
The unadulterated roots of organic Christianity, was a threat to the state-- values of non-violence, simplicity, love, and selflessness, conflicted with the government's lust for war, consumerism, exploitation and greed. In a quest to build the wealthiest/advanced nation, Canada and the UnitedStates were in competition with one another, to expand their "Empires". Wars were ramped. Countries upon countries were once again under imperial rule, as Canada actively conquered previously independent lands- the colonialism of the 21st Century. Bodies raped. Earths stolen. Cities and villages across the world were exploited in order to financially honour and benefit the Home Empire-Canada. No land remained untouched. Resistance, conquer, bloodshed.
The government needed and depended on war and violence to sustain its own power. So militarism became the new nationalism--the new religion. To be patriotic and essentially non-american, to love God, to love your home, was to fight for it. (sound familiar?). Except this time, it was required to live.
Because it was the age of technology, books were more and more rare. Everything was digitalized, which meant original texts were more easily manipulated. Bibles in book form had stop publishing decades ago, and the State disposed of what was left. Instead, the "real", the "accurate" Bible was digitalized, just like any other book, and in doing so, the State ,in fear of having its people rebel, removed all the passages that spoke of love. If people followed love, war would not be possible. Love was striped from the Bible. and along with it Jesus and his teachings of non-violence and social justice. This Jesus, and these teachings were replaced with a war-mongering God filled with vengeance and Old Testament rage. This God invested himself in nations.
Because it was too risky to abolish religion all together, the state simply altered it, to further their political vision. They knew even people who didn't follow it regularly, would be offended by its removal. So, people of the future continued declaring themselves "religious" and "christians"-- and eventually all forgot what love was ever really about.
Soon Soldiers became the new Saviour. --The symbol to all, of the ultimate sacrifice. To know a soldier who was martyred for the empire, was to have access int heaven. Soon every man, woman and child, were and became soldiers in this fight. War was church. Guns worship. Death victory. and because of this Canada got richer. Got bigger. Got better. Perhaps Nitzche was right to call religion the opiate of the masses.

So, all of this context, was just in my head, before i even experienced the dream itself. It was really bizzare. The dream portion itself was a flashback. It was as if I was myself an elderly woman, recalling the sad state of the State, as fragments of violent memories flashed through me. The memory I saw was of myself, a bit younger, running through the darkened tank filled streets, to find sanction at next. Churches all around had been turned into military training camps. and Next too became a sacred place for training. I entered its doors, and on the walls where art of joy and celebration once hung, were banners draped. Banners with pro-war slogans; "God Bless the Fight", "One Empire; One God" . The room was empty, and I began ripping down these massive massive banners, throwing them to the floor and tearing them to shreds. All the while, screaming, and cursing and crying. Then five men came into the room-- decked in the military garb of the time period --- solid black. just like riot-cops. They pulled me away, elbowing me in the stomach as I stood. I fell to the floor again, and another one grabbed a fist full of my hair, and threw me against the wall. I kept screaming all the while, "Love your enemy". I kept screaming verses, that had since been deleted, that supported peace and called for active and selfless love. It was like I was diseased, the verses kept spewing out of me like froth at the mouth. They deemed me a crazy woman. Many were young, and had themselves never seen or knew the original document i quoted from. The State had killed off the "radicals", the Christians who refused to be coopted. the Christians who knew and lived for a Kingdom of the spirit, not the man. (Fellow nexters had all been murdered, years ago, for refusing to cooperate).
As i hovered against the wall screaming out in rage, Andrew entered the room and the men immediately threw him to the ground, each taking turns to kicking him in the gut. They kept demanding he stand up for himself, to show his power, to wzcersise the defense he had been taught, but instead he remained gentle and non-violent. Blood seept from his body, as more and more soldiers, cops, and government leaders encircled him, each taking turns beating him merciously. He represented all they hated. His refusal to forget jesus, was the threat to the nation. Instead of scream or retaliate, Andrew just simply told them, "My belief in Love, is stronger than all the violence you use, to beat it out of me".
And that was that.
The beating continued. And I ran around the outside of the circle, half naked, body bloddied, screaming, words I can't understand now, arms wailing, eyes popping.

He died that night. In that circle.
He died.

and I woke.

hello

The first time we met was at a bus station.

I had just come home after a long day of snowboarding. Your sister skied.

The man at the station referred to you as "our dad" because your face was hairy, and I was only 15.

"Your Dad is here to pick you up" the man said, pointing at you, in your mom's plum coloured mini-van.

I was cold and sleepy, so I crawled in the back seat without much of an introduction.

You were her big brother. Her old old old slightly dorky big brother, who quoted Lord of the Rings, and memorized the Bible.

Her old old old big brother, who wore the same oddly shaped navy blue sweater, with a terrible orange stripe across the chest.....everyday.

You were this. and I was a 10th grade, wanna-be-punk, with a hot-pink cat collar around my neck and metal studded goggles.

I sat, indifferently, in the backseat and you drove- making small talk like a Dad might, and every now and then I could see you smile awkwardly at me through the review mirror.

You dropt me off at home-- I forgot to close the van door behind me. You laughed a little. Awkwardly. I wandered inside, unfazed, and without much of a goodbye.

This was our beginning. The unromantic and anti-climatic hello that pre-empted 9 years of intimate friendship, six years of love, and 3 months of marriage.

Forest Child :

I grew up in the forest.
Far far away.

Like most children of the forest, I had the ability to talk to trees. and small woodland creatures. Like others, I could sense time without a clock and would never tire of playing in the woods. But unlike the children who grew up in my forest, I, as a forest child, possessed the unusual ability to talk to a mysterious and strange God. A God, that for many years, was created and re-created, as childhood shifted and transformed. A shape-shifter. A voice. A spirit. I knew it and felt it. And sometimes the memory of that connection, is the only thing that continues to connect me to it now.

I grew up among pagans and tired ex-catholics. (that's why im still 10% pagan, and 10% Catholic).
I grew up in a forest that had no church. We had a building--a tinylittle wee building, that once was alive with song and word, but had closed it's doors, like most things did, by the time I was three. It lived there, among the trees, dying. Its wood rotted. Its windows boarded. It, like the tiny boarded up one room train-"station", lumber mill, fire-hall, and eventually even school, became abandoned. My home, has now become a ghost-town.
So, as a forest child, the concept of "church" was quite foreign to me. Until puberty struck , I was fairly certain that churches only existed in America- in Big Cities and on Tv. It was a concept, almost as mythical to me as a mail man, or street-lights.
I grew up in a two-room school that had 30 kids, total, on a good year. I had a fairly unconventional education, to say the least. I also had a teacher who loved this guy named God. She spoke of him often and I was intrigued, so from very early on, I stayed after-class, on Tuesdays for Searchmont's equivalent of "bible club". This became my only "formal" introduction to this thing called Christianity. I latched on. Fiercely. While most forest children stayed primarily for the greasy chips on a napkin /purple Cool-Aid, and to watch the fat on our teacher's arm jiggle, as she did the actions for "Whose the King of the Jungle", I stayed because of mysticism. (though the chips and the arm fat, were defiantly a motivation as well).
I took the basic teachings of the Bible, and invented my own pseudo-religion (or denomination, to be fair). One with no authority. One based on feelings, rather than logic. One that saw God not as an elderly white man sitting in heaven, but rather one that understood God as love spirit. That floated and spiraled within and around all of life. Without a church, everything became church. Land, not buildings, became sacred spaces. The forest became infused with this love spirit. Prayer became a language, learned but not taught. It grew fluid, not because it was a rule or a compulsory, but because it grew out of desire. A desire to connect with this love spirit, I could feel inside of my tummy. I could sense in others. I could see in the earth around me. I wrote songs for it. I spent a good six years or more of my life,quietly singing myself to sleep every night. In those quiet moments, I felt like my entire body was in the presence of this thing called God. This thing that held me. That knew me. That loved me.
My "faith" was mine, though I was admiate about sharing it. The main recipients of my then evangelism, were my snails. I taught them all I knew. I decided, when I was seven, that this thing called heaven wouldn't be worth living in forever, if it didn't have snails. So, I baptized, ALL 200 or so, of my pet snails. A drop of "Holy" puddle water on each of their tiny little snail heads, and a prayer of love for each of them. It took about a day. But I was at ease from then on. I even had a mini silver statue of Mother Mary, for the snails to slime over, once they were "saved". (In case you were unaware, The Virgin Mary cries tears of joy, when mollusks accept her son into their hearts)
Because my parents were, at that time, "born-into-it, but don't-practice-it" Catholics, they felt it necessary that their daughter experience the catholic rituals of "First Communion" and Hail Mary chants . so, they drove me an hour into the "Big City", where I wore an over-the-top frilly white dress with matching white lace gloves, held a rosary, regurgitated some Catholic propaganda, and had my very first Holy bread wafer.
At this point, I did not know the world had Protestants and Catholics. But I rebelled anyway. From what I understood, the Jesus meal should be offered to anyone who feels/honours the love spirit. It shouldn't be limited to city boys/girls who dress up in fancy white, and call their priest Father. I declared myself officially NOT-catholic before I even hit third grade- and reverted back to my initial DIY ways.
Though I proclaimed Catholicism to be hypocritical and spiritually uncouth, at an early age, it's influence still informed my own practices/interests in weird ways. For a while, I really dug mini statues of saints. My teddy bear still wore a little rosary, and I still had a thing for holy water. But most importantly I was infatuated with nuns. When I wasn't pretending to be a teacher, or day-dreaming about being a sex-therapist, I was quite insistent on becoming a nun. In fact, the very first thing I EVER googled, once the Internet was invented, and in my home, was "nuns". I had a major crush on them, though the whole celibacy thing through me for a loop, since I was an unusually sex-obsessed/aware kid. (but that deserves its own blog-entry). Looking back now, nuns were the first "Christians", I ever read about, that seemed to be doing this whole God-thing right. Unlike most of the people around me, they were actually doing what Jesus said. They were radical. After Mother Theresa died, I use to ask God to pass along messages to her, when I prayed.
I use to have this reckless trust in God and in Love. I use to cry when I prayed because the feelings of their presence were so intense. I use to believe that the world wasn't broken yet-that with a little love, anyone could change. I use to have the unusual ability to talk to a strange and mysterious God. When I was a forest child.

Looking back now, I realize my version of spirituality hasn't changed all that much. and I'm sort of glad. I've gone through periods of denial and shame. I struggle often with burdensome amounts of doubt and skepticism. I go through intense droughts of anger and recluse. But at the end of the day, it's the memories/life of my childhood connection to the love spirit, that often pulls of through. It's that level of intimacy I yearn with all my heart to be able to experience and allow in myself again.
It hasn't been until recently, that I've realized my story/history with "God" is a bit off-beat/unusual. Unlike my "protestant" peers, I didn't grow up with little old church ladies, choirs, hymnals, sermons, camps, bible verse finding contests, organs and church etiquette. I'm unfamiliar with traditional "chuchie" language, rhetoric, songs and "worship". A lot of things my partner takes for granted having been born and raised in the church, feels really unnatural and at times even offensive to me. Somtimes it causes tension, because our stories so greatly inform how we experience and know God.
Im realizing now that growing up in the forest, and being unchurched has its definite pros and cons. I'm lucky I was able to avoid being burned by the church. I never felt forced or guilt-ed into connection. I don't feel overly brainwashed. Creativity was a big part of my understanding of the Spirit and Creator. I wasn't jaded/broken by other Christians. I held onto my innocent naive hope longer. I owned my beliefs and remain a fairly free/independent thinker. But on the other hand, I developed a really unbalanced attitude towards Christianity. I find it really hard to appreciate and respect the church. I have A LOT of issues with authority. I lack logic, and base most actions/beliefs on "feelings". Christian-eese makes me panic. If I start to talk like a Christian and use words like "Jesus Christ", "Salvation", "evangelize", "missioning", "The Second-Coming", "The Good Lord" and "secular" etc. etc. I get desperately ill inside and want to vomit. I have a reallly reallly tense relationship with my Bible. I harbour a lot of resentment towards other Christians. Corporate prayer still creeps me out. and I'm quite stubborn and critical.
It's a difficult process transforming a very private/individualistic faith into one that embraces and is subject to community. I'm glad that shift is happening, and that I've found Next, as a home to explore and experience these changes. I'm really thankful that's its become a "thin space" where I can be honest about my story- where i can struggle openly yet still experience love. A space where people, not walls, define church. Where I can slowly reclaim and re-learn this whole church thing, without sacrificing who I am. Where to be a "Christian" and to follow the teachings of Jesus is radical. Is subersive. is counter-cultural and revolutionary. Next for me, is a sacred place where God is once again mysterious and mystical. A place where I can encounter the traces of this love spirit, and hear the voice, I once felt and knew, as a young forest child.

there's always room for creativiTEA

My old bedroom has successfully transformed itself into a creativiTEA room-- a sacred space for art to be dreamt, felt and born. A sanctuary of sorts, for herbs to grow, for tools to hang, glitter stored. A place where wood is carved, poems bled, cards imagined and loose-leaf drunk.

And today I sat hunched over our new, yet old, vintage wooden desk, sunlight pouring through the shutters; nibbling on grilled eggplant drizzled with balsamic vinegar, and sipping away at a perfect Chai, with the perfect amount of maple syrope in it, Louis Armstrong's perfect voice dancing softly through my air, 2 bottles of brown glitter in hand, and desktop full of cardstock.

Suddenly all was right in the world again.

Like Life you flow through me/and yet/my own veins and body remain oblivious to your powers.

Heart beats/and you listen/ because you are there. In me. There.

Heart aches/ and you listen/ because your job/ was to mend/not break.

But you do break/ Though your pieces/ remain the pieces of myself/ i cling to most.

These pieces/they float in me/ and like tumors they ground to the walls of my insides.

I feel you in the pain/ I feel you grow/ cell by cell.

Until you become a fear/ too BIG to remove/ too much apart of me to decipher where my flesh begins and your pieces end.

To cut you/would be to cut me/ and that is the tragedy of this love.

You become in me, a second life/ tiny and beating/ alive yet dying

No doctors could detect you/ No surgery could dissect you

but still like a tumor, you swell in me.

And instead of despair/ my fear embraces/cuddles/nurtures and delights in you

because to the world you were a secret/ but to my body you were real.

They tell me you're diseased/ They say to live without you is to heal.

But if to heal means to live without you/ than i'll remain ill/ so not to lose you.

Because in losing you/ I would be lost/ and that's the worsedisease of all.

So you grow/because I let you/ because I am bound/ in/and/to you.

You grow as I cry out your name/ You grow until your name cries out in me.

Until each breath seems to pass through you

Until each heart beat rhythms to keep you alive.

But these are lies/ the lies I create myself/ for myself

because I fear who I'll be/ once your gone.

So you grow/ you grow until you rupture/ and i am left with the mess/ of the mound you used to be.

You are the mess that oozes through me/ painfully/ through leery veins/ past a hurting heart.

Slowly you find your way out/ blood/tears/vomit and urine.

Soon you'll be gone entirely/and I'll be here mourning the loss of the space you filled in me.

But I'll let go/ Soon I'll let go/ of the pieces of myself I swore were you.

And in this loss/courage will someday find me/ and without you I will breathe/feel/step and live

without you.

and as me.

For 22-years, I made my world in her womb. There I lived. There I breathed. Sheltered and dreaming, I waited. Waited for the Life that would find me after birth. Afterbirth. A bloody, tangled mess. It pours out of you, and I follow. I flow through you, and into a space that is not my own. I follow because it is time.

It's time, but im not ready. Not ready to breath this air. So thick, it gets caught in my lungs- it steals my cries, replaces words with shallow inhales.

This is not my home.

I am not home.

But they tell me I am.

my Agenda as an Unemployed Post-Grad.

out my back door.

ORGASM Inc.

Les and I saw ORGASM Inc. http://orgasminc.org/ tonight, on campus. It's a really great documentary about the medicalization, (and i would argue invention of) "Female Sexual Dysfunction" (FSD) and the role pharmaceutical companies play in defining and marketing "normal" female sexual pleasure. It got me really riled up. The entire film, I sat there writing about 10 different essays in my head, all at once and daydreaming about which of my potential thesis statements I preferred. It made me realize how much I friggin miss school. I miss feeling outraged after a good debate. I miss that pulse of passion that circulates my core, whenever new ideas evolve. I miss the creative energy I could pour into crafting arguments with a punch. I miss my old language-- as I was ranting to les after, words I'd forgotten about started pouring out of me--- my feminist Lexicon. Words like "hegemony" and "foucauldian repression" "commodification" and "methodologically flawed". I miss uncovering corporate conspiracies. Or at least pretending to. and having an enemy. I think I might miss that the most.

Some of my old favorite enemies to pick on were: capitalism, essentialism, sexual repression, "science", and of course, co'optation. This movie happened to touch implicitly on all 5 of my fave foes, so I'm just going to rant about it a little.

Basically the documentary traced the race for pharmaceutical companies to develop a drug to treat alleged (yet mythical) "Female Sexual Dysfunction"-- the inability for "40% (though I'd question that) of women to achieve orgasms". Film-maker Liz Canner uncovers the connection between the medical industry and marketing campaigns that effectively invent, define and capitalize off of the medicalization of female sexuality (or lack thereof).

In other words, let's tell women their "abnormal" so they spend lots of money trying to get "fixed" and be "normal" again. Let's make another billion dollars of profit off of sexist socialization that teaches young girls their "naturally" less-sexual than men, and should fear or be ashamed of their own friggin vagina, and let's milk this for all it's worth. Let's invent an illness, under the guise of "science" and pump out ridiculous "facts" that were gathered through flawed and slanted methodology, and then...let's make it accessible on public broadcasting, so women all around the world can be reminded by celebrities like Oprah, that there's something wrong with them if their not having explosive orgasms after every screw. I know, let's not stop at that. Let's reduce and simplify female sexual pleasure and desire to being merely hormonal and completely negate the complexities of context, culture and socialization. While we're at it, why not completely reconstruct limiting and exclusive concepts of "good natural healthy" desire and sexuality, in order to make even more money off of the fears and sexual anxieties of unsatisfied women everywhere! and then market it with a semi-comical commercials? Or better yet, on Dr. Oz..

What the hell!?!

I love this. First of all because it blatantly points out the role of both capitalism and "science" in socially constructing sexuality. In the Victorian era, in the West, the illness called "female HYSTERIA", was invented--- a diagnosis which thrown on women who were merely irritable or tired, or causing problems. seriously! common'. What was seen at the time as a legit medical female problem--was really a creative way for the "man"-- medicine/science-- to exert control over women, and regulate/police/fix their "way word" expressions of "femininity", in order to reinforce a very limited, passive and socially-constructed regime of woman-hood that would complacently serve and honour the patriarchal society at the time.
Remind you of anything?
Interesting that one of the treatments for this "female hysteria" was "pelvic massage"-- basically the doctors would stimulate the hysterical woman's "genitals" until she had an orgasm, or as the medical industry called it, a "hysterical paraoxysm". Interesting that a simple orgasm could allegedly help "cure" female hysteria (aka irritable woman).
MAYBE THEY WERE IRRITABLE because the only place they could reach orgasm was at the hands of a doctor, since Victorian sexual repression brainwashed women to believe that sex/self-pleasure was morally corrupt, sinful and evil.
Perhaps Female Sexual Dysfunction is the modern-day equivalent to the Victorian Hysteric Woman. Perhaps in the same way that "hysteria" was invented to regulate/control and limit women, so to is too is FSD. The pharmaceutical companies race to find the next female viagra, is a clear example of their power in producing and perpetuating new definitions of "normal". Perhaps instead of a pill to create a blood-flow to the clit, women should be told to go squat over a friggin hand mirror, and figure it out where it even is. (we're not taught to explore, know or love those part of our bodies...and i think this is seriously the leading cause of this alleged diagnosis, NOT hormones) Instead of expecting a pill to increase libido/desire, maybe they should focus on pressuring the school-system to adjust their sexual education programs, to teach females to be empowered sexual agents and give them permission to actually HAVE a damn libido. Maybe we should stop lying to our women about their "natural" sexual passivity--maybe we should stop normalizing men's sexual appetite by giving them uncritical permission to be horny sexual-beings, because of their "nature", while regulating, sensationalizing or stimitizing libidous-women. Maybe we should question the next time we see male-masturbation as a normal, healthy part of coming-of-age, and female masturbation as inappropriate or non-existent. SERIOUSLY. As far as we've come as a "sexed obsessed culture", we're still deeply entrenched in the sex-negative ideals of our history. I believe 100% that the remnants of guilt/shame produced by religion, essentialist-science, abstinence sex-education, body-image-insecurities, high rates of sexual/physical abuse (1 in 6 women) and history, are the the leading reason why "40% of women can't climax regularly", not some invented Sexual Disorder.

The real cure? A cultural shift that teaches our women to love, appreciate, know, explore and celebrate their bodies, especially their vaginas. Without guilt, shame, insecurity or fear. To live and advocate for a more expansive understanding of sexuality-- one that affirms the complexities of desire as relative, flexible and fluid. (not merely hormonal) To shift away from our societal obsession with the coital imperative and instead define and experience intimate pleasure as something that extends beyond orgasm. To love and advocate for a world that seeks to create egalitarian and consensual sexual relationships between women and their partners. (a world that does not use sex as violence/power/or punishment, through rape) For men and women and everyone in between or beyond those categories, to be seen and honoured as equally sexual-creatures.

There. That felt good. It's nice to beable to rant again.

I know
it's you.

dear steven harper: it's wrong to steal.

I believe that EVERY human, INCLUDING those who have been 'criminalized', deserve the chance to find healing, freedom and purpose in something beautiful. (like having the opportunity to nurture and care for plants and animals on a farm). The closing of the Prison Farms is a living symbol of the Harper government's continued exploitation of human dignity and true rehabilitation. Profit should NEVER undermine redemption; nor should it take precedence over the quality of human life. The self-worth and honour of those who have been demonized and oppressed by the prison system, should NOT be dismissed. True growth and genuine inner change will not come from the neoliberal "responsibilization" model of punishment; it comes from respect, grace and opportunities to learn and practice patience, care and gentleness. Super-Prisons are NOT the answer, nor is closing the prison farms.

shame, harper, shame.

with . and. gone

Thistles

in the left side

of the curvy part

where heart

and blood meet

thistles dig

deep

dig deep

into

flesh

into skin

into raw

where you've been

circling me

with and gone

gone and within

where tongue meets

skin

and salt of

sweat

thistles in the evening

come nightfall

come sunrise

you are in all

and yet still

so far

far

away

thistles

in the left side

of the curvy part

of heart

where life

and feeling

meet

over and over

over

again.

raspberry fields forever

This evening julian and i went to a lovely raspberry farm and picked amazingly delicious raspberries. We snuck ate copious amounts while in the fields. so much so that our bellies told us to stop. but we didnt listen.

there's something strangely magical about being near large fields, with an overlapping of fresh fruit and wild flowers, around dusk, on a hot summers eve. my lungs felt like wings. breathing in all that amazing rural air, they, my lungs fluttered about in the cavity of my chest.

whimsical. it was.

sleep fight

Ever since we moved, I've been experiencing extra peculiar sleep/half-sleep-behaviour: sleepwalking, sleep- talking/laughing, hallucinations, and at times, unexplained sleep rage.

The following is both 1. an example of my strange sleep actions 2. the coolest fight andrew and i ever had.

******************************************************************************

10:20pm: both fall to sleep in respective rooms
11:30pm: Shannon, still sleeping, gets out of bed, pillow in hand, throws open andrew's door and screams, "ITS 11:30!".

Andrew: sleepily murmurs, "huh?"
Shannon: stands angrily in door way: "WHY!?"
Andrew: more awake but not really: "Shannon (with frustration) go away. i dont care what time it is"
Shannon: yells even louder this time in pure rage "WHY IS IT 11:3O Andrew! WHY!?"
Andrew: "yes, its it IS 11;30" (lingering sarcasm) "so what? stop asking why. i dont know why!"
Shannon: panicking cry, borderline fearful, "BUT....ANDREW WHY is it 11:30?"
Andrew: flips out and yells at shannon, grumpily.
Shannon: still pretty much asleep, throws pillow to the ground, yells "why!" one last time and slams andrew's door shut. sleep stomps away, apparently, still audibly mumbling "its 11;30..." . falls asleep. wakes up, with no pants, on top of a heaping pile of laundry, the next morning, forgetting the entire thing but wondering where her pants are...

AM:
Andrew: (a little ashamed) "hey, uh, shan, are u still mad at me about the time?"
Shan: "what?" (genuinely confused)
Andrew: proceeds to explain above.

An Environmentally Concious Alternative...

four days with god

Thursday
i am
with fists
clenched pounding
on your legs
like towers
they loom high
below
i lay small
by your feet
crying, punching, cursing
those legs
all i can reach.

Friday
i am with absence
on a bed
arms crossed
door closed
distance for spite
silent but you hear
your ear to the door
i left you
crying on the other side.

Saturday

Asleep

with breath

i scream

in sleep
I hate you

but you creep in

and kneel

on those knees

that were always too tall to see

you kneel by the bed

i swore you from

and with one big hand

you gently sweep one small strand

of hair from my eye

and kiss my head.

Sunday

You drink orange juice

while i pace

wondering how many oranges

it takes

to quench you.

you stand

i sit

and once more

your legs

are all i see.

.my god,my god.

.

found

I was five

the first time they found

cancer

in her body

they found it

in a freckle

the one i use to talk to

by her belly button

they found it

and i found her

crying as she brushed her

long blond hair

crying as it fell out

clump

after clump

after clump.

screaming

alone

in her room

with a fist full

of golden locks.

strand after beautiful strand

tangled tightly around the shower drain

lying mockingly by her pillow

wound painfully amid the bristles

of a brush soon deemed enemy.

I remember chemo was the word that

made it real

as if it took baldness and vomit

to remind us all

she was dying inside.

I remember she let me touch her head

afterwards

and it felt like a kiwi

I remember not knowing

how not be to afraid.

I remember when I found him,

my dad

sobbing quietly on the bathroom floor.
I never told him

I saw

his tears then for the first

and last time.

He never found me

watching

through the creak of the door

and they never found me

hiding under their bed

as my mom would

pray and vomit

with violent sorrow

for hope to find.

hope

to find.

They found more cancer in her

yesterday

not for the first, or second or even third time

they found it

after
An 18 year struggle

after an 18 year fight

and still its the word chemo

that scares me

and still it's the thought of my mommy's own baldness

that makes me shake with fear

because its this that

visually and constantly remindes me

that the cancer is real.

and still

you do not find me

hiding.

mourning.

waiting

beneath the bed

it is me

i now find

praying and vomiting
in violent sorrow

desperate

desperate

for hope

to be found.

This time coming home meant leaving it behind.

Kosher Salt. In my eye.

What I liked about the past 3 days:

A Comprehensive Listing:

• i like that Levon sometimes wipes his boogers on flowers. i like that his curls make my heart sigh and his eyes make me feel comfortably and wonder fully lost. i like holding his sticky Popsicle juice hands. watching his wild dance moves. i like when he has lengthy conversations with me about cats. i like when he squats and u can see the waistline of his big boy underwear. i like when he sings songs about peeing to his "wiener" as he pees, to encourage and praise the pee to come out. i like when he smiles and the world feels like it was made just for him. i like that he thinks the John A MacDonald statue in the park is really a statue of Old MacDonald. i like that he still drools on my thigh. that sometimes he seems to know more about life than i do. i like that we get to be friends.
  
• i like that laying in a field of dandelions makes me feel powerful. i like finding little yellow and orange spiders on my arm, remind me of ordinary miracles. i like that sometimes i find myself eating a hot apple on a hilltop and feeling as if life doesn't get any better. i like that there are moments like this past weekend, that make me feel as if I'm complete.


• i like when people named Al gives me surprise and delicious books that change how i see the my world. i like that when i read a good book i have spirit spasms that my whole body feels.


• i like that my life has been blessed with alot of AMAZING succulent women.


• i like that sometimes eating a mango naked is healing


• i like that blenders are magical. i like that i can put in pineapple and kiwis and grapes. and make juice. i like that i can add rum. and make even better juice.


• i like that fiddle heads are CREAMY and gorgeous. and remind me of eating shrimp. sort of.
• i like that beets taste like the earth's womb. i like that they bleed purple. i like when i "accidentaly" rub beets all over my arm so that i too am purple
• i like that i've been sleep walking lately. i like the places i end up.
  
• i like my mini flower and herb garden that hangs off my fire escape
  
• i like that i looked outside my bedroom window and saw a middle aged woman's naked buttocks. i like that she didnt feel the need to wear underwear with that kilt. i like that her partner decided to spank her on the sidewalk at midnight while making out below


• i like that from my window, i am invisible and can watch creepily. i like that im a border line pervert. but not really. but sort of. i like that thats ok.


• i like that i wake up in the morning next to a very large tomato plant, that my friend Julian gave me from his garden. i like that julian exists. i like his arm full of beautiful and vibrant tattoos. i like that they reflect his equally beautiful and vibrant personality and soul. I like that he notices things i dont. I like that he hates the my gaudy decorative wooden spoon. i like that he loves the earth enough to treat it right. i like that he built an natural eco-shower in his backyard. i like he has a bazillion pets. i like that when we talk, i feel heard.
  
• i like that i can go from being in the heart of kingston, the busy bustle of downtown life, to the middle of farm land, in a matter of minutes. i like that the ferry to wolfe island is a skip away. i like that andrew and i rode our bikes around the island as the sun was setting and explored secret hidden graveyards. i like being around tombstones. alot. i love the power that oozes from the earth. i like the life. i like the promise. i like the comfort. i like that there are stories there i dont know. i like pretending if im quiet enough I'll hear them.


• i like that Andrew and I made homemade pretzels last night and that they were delicious. I like that i fretted all afternoon cause the recipe required a "dutch oven" and i thought it meant i had to actually buy a brand new oven/stove. i like that andrew made me feel better. i like that he had a secret dutch oven under his bed that i didnt know about. i like that he's a better cook than me.


• i like the dinner i made last night: cous cous, with garlic, lemon and cumin. on a bed of fresh spinach. with lightly grilled eggplant, fiddle heads, and red peeper, in olive oil.

i like getting unexpected cards from friends I havnt seen for far too long

• i like that i now have a beer diary. i like that im going to eventually try every bizarre and unusual beer at LCBO and that andrew is going to keep a detailed record of my experience, as well as a detailed rating system.
  
• i like when i smell something good in the air, and then realize it's my own armpits.


• i like that humans can actually drink cat nip, and that its a natural anti-depressant.
  
• i like reading about vitamins while your babies sleep.
  
• i like the feeling i get right before I'm about to go home to the Soo-- i like that over the years, miguel has become part of the family i come home to be with.
• i like my grandma and I's friendship. I like that talking to her feels like chatting playfully with a bestfriend. I like that we have weekly phone dates. i like that she knows all about my life, i know all about hers. I like our conversations. i like when she gigles. i like when she tells me cute stories about her dog moochie. i like that we've ended every phone call with "i love you", since i was a tiny little girl who just learned how to talk.
  
• i even like that i have kosher salt in my eye.

real

There is in my life two distinct worlds-
the "real" word, as they call it
logical, practical, tangible, painful
real, as real gets.
And the "dream world", as I imagine it,
creative, emotional, mystical, strange
surreal as surreal gets.


The second i find home,
the first, i am alien
thrust into
against myself
a foreign space to travel cautiously
with eyes closed, and fists clenched.


I float in, i drift out
between these worlds i find myself
but often
my dreams, are my powerful than my legs
and they carry me further into the imagined
further away from the world you know as real away from the judgment and the jadedness
away into a place where bravery isn't necessary

and doubt isn't possible.

It's hard to stay there,

cause the man keeps bringing me down

down down down

to the space

where they take me down

and steal my mind

corrupt my thoughts

with mindless hate and apathy

with money, with greed, with war

with indifference disguised as comfort

with complacency and the bullshit of "Independence"

These are the shackles

bound to my wrists

my ankles

tying me down down down

to earth

to ground

they can tie me ,

and try to domesticate

train

and strip me

but they can't pillage my dream

they can bind my ankles together

but they can't stop me from dancing

No, they can't tie my spirit down

down down down

cause my spirit -- it wanders

it tip toes fearlessly into the thin spaces

into the thin places

where the real

becomes the surreal

it tip toes into the hard realization

that perhaps one world is enough

perhaps these worlds - the real and the dream

collide.

Yes, they collide.

Maybe what the "real world" needs is a little more imagination

a little more dreamin
a little more heart

A hole,

in the earth

for the surreal to seep through

into the pores

and the veins of a very real world.

maybe dreams weren't ever meant to be something to escape into,

but rather something we use to confront what we're trying to escape from, in the first place.

maybe it's our dream worlds,

that can unshackle our wrists, so we can write boldly against bondage

maybe it's our dream worlds

that untie the rope around our ankles,

so we can walk courageously

into reality, towards freedom

on legs that know and resist

with each step

the tragedy of imprisonment.

Maybe it's dreaming,

that makes the real world

real

after all....

...I often wish beets were big enough to hug

deflated

Is it weird that while I was showering this morning, I caught myself drawing in the steam on the shower doors, a chart that compared the pros and cons of Marxist and Existentialist feminist theories?

Nah...it's gotta to be normal.

P a t

My friend Pat has schizophrenia,

though he'll tell you he's just

crazy.

My friend Pat likes orange juice

without pulp,

and carries all his belongings

on his back

in a pack sack

my mom bought me

in 10th grade.

My friend Pat

has more bruises

than teeth

more cigarette butts in his pocket

than money.

He told me the angels don't talk to him

as much as they use to

anymore

and I believed him,

that they use to.

My friend Pat sleeps under a tree,

at Skeleton Park.

Sometimes I see people step over him,

as if he's just an inconveniently placed

pile of dog shit

and I wonder sometimes,

if that's how he feels

crawled up in his sleeping bag,

waiting for the angels

to speak to him again.

He came to church once,

but left early

because he was having a bad hair day.

He came to dinner

drunk

and read us poetry,

he unfolded from his back pocket

he found it

but there weren't really any words,

he read anyway

and I believed him

I believed the words were real

because he said they were.

My friend Pat,

he'd often speak of Marie

his old lover,

he hasn't seen in years.

I wait for Marie to come home,

wherever home may be,

and though some say she

isn't real,

I pray anyway

for her to come

quickly.

to prove them wrong.

My friend Pat,

he'd come by for a red-rose tea bag,

once a day,

and then another

just to wash his hands.

He'd tell us stories,

about his childhood

and leave abruptly,

after filling us in

on the latest conspiracy theory.

He'd keep his shoes on,

cause he claimed his shoes

were cleaner than his feet were.

He'd fall asleep in our couch,

in the middle of the afternoon,

and hide his books

under our barbie-Q.

My friend Pat,

once said he loved us

and I believed him

because I felt it

even though everyone just says he's crazy.