Sunday, April 30, 2006

What You Helped Me Learn This Year.


Living within an emotionally sick world, whether because of outside factors or biology or a fun combination of both, is not like it seems in any movie or book or rock song. It is not filled with emotionally poignant moments and character-building struggles and romantic angst.
It is only a constant struggle to not feel entirely horrible about yourself. It is hideous and unattractive, meaningless and unproductive.
For me, to be more specific, it is a fight to believe that what I feel is real. That the way my mother makes me feel isn't just because I am a tainted awful person and I deserve it but because she is sick too. She took away my reality when I was a child and I adopted tv emotions and intimacies that were more real to me, more powerful, than my own memories and feelings that I learned to ignore. She takes away my abilty to know when I am hurt or know when I am not with her small dismissive half-listening responses. Until I know I can hear her and still hear myself I can't be sure of anything.

Dr. Sbaitso


You've been away.

Just got back from running to the gym.

Enjoying weights and the sounds of grown men having their testicles shocked with dog collars.

Now I have some work to do.

Cautious worry is escalating up to gnawing fear and then back down again in hot wavelets.

Trying on worse case scenarios based on past attempts so that I don't get devastated:

Me: Hi. It's Chantelle.

Mother: Oh hi.


Me: It's been a while.

Mother: Oh, not really. Sure is nice to hear from you again. But I have to go. I'm pretty busy.

Me: Okay. Good talking to you.

Mother: Bye. (click)


The (therapy) idea is I'm the adult now, she is the sick needy child. I have to cater to her weakness by needing nothing from her.
What I need from her now has to be nothing.


Nothing nothing nothing nothing but a whole different world.

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Cat Abuse on MySpace: A Stepping Stone

"Stump is 19 pounds, which is overweight, but is otherwise healthy," she said. "He suffered no lasting damage as a result of the alleged abuse."

The cat may be returned to its owner and is not available for adoption, she said. Another cat and a dog were taken from the same residence.

The head of one of the city's oldest animal-protection organizations worries that children who abuse animals can grow up to become people who abuse other people.

"I certainly think that seeing young children involved in animal abuse is a scary thing," said Martha Boden, CEO of the Humane Society of Indianapolis. "The more quickly we can try to help the children, the animals and the family involved, the better."

PETA agrees. "People who abuse animals rarely stop there," DeJournett said. " . . . There's a definite link between cruelty to animals and an abuse of people."

Catabusers

Friday, April 28, 2006

Magic Fingers Easements: hyperosmia



Okay.

I tried to describe something here but I am not sure.

Instead:

Sensory Integration Disorder

Christian Re-enactment

Object of Obsession: Roky Erickson Finally Tours

From Billy Angel, Roky Erickson's death-harpist:


Chantelle,

Roky plays in Chicago in June - New York some time
after that. I`ll keep you posted. Your trip to the
South was inspirational, I trust ?

More Soon ---------------, Billy

I am going to do everything I can to try to get to one or the other of these shows.
I have never seen Roky play live. And it will be good to hang out with these old
fuckers.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Lost Picture Retrospective.

Found some photos that I'd put online and forgot about.




Last Weekend: Calm.



Last Massive Creative Project: Dead.




Last Relationship: Pained.




Last Mime Performance: Billy Bob.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

SUPERSTAR BIRTHDAY PARTY

I went to a party on Friday.

These were the things I saw.





Saturday, April 22, 2006

Porn. Trendy! New!: "have some sort of U.N.-style wet-T-shirt contest"


Our emails just missed eachother as you went to sleep.

I feel as though I am reaching for some sort of threshold, some sort of edge to pull myself over.

Also, I feel like wearing summer boots.

You wrote me that you are enjoying reading this blog. I am pleased. And it is also good for me to know and have defined for me the things I do that you enjoy. It matters.


This was just published today. They quote Kipnis, the woman who wrote the one book I like. It is not the book they reference. It is quite ridiculous. Especially the rarely studied part. I have a reading list for them:

Profs: Porn serves as unique learning tool
By Christiana Schmitz April 21, 2006
It’s like bathroom habits or masturbation: you just don’t talk about it. Then, all of a sudden, it’s on your required reading list.
Pornography was once a topic heavily debated but rarely studied. Now, academics are beginning to find substance in the once disgraceful genre. Pornography is becoming a trendy topic intellectually, and what Time magazine has dubbed “the porn curriculum” has slowly trickled into to Northwestern academics.

Theraperized vs. Vaporized.

Fun with letters and words.
Make pictures! Words into pictures!
Different words, different pictures.








Friday, April 21, 2006

The Things I is For.




I is for Intermix where it feels so good.



I is for intemperance that follows us around.






Imposssible.












Happy Earth Day!


Killed two more mice. As I was cutting the sticky traps in two so as not to waste the un-moused section I wondered if it was more sane to cut the mouse in half too or to let it squirm in the glue hanging from my porch. And suffer.


What would daddy do?
He'd take a drink!


Shorter Tyler Cowen: If we have the good economic sense to build shantytowns in New Orleans for the poor peoples to live in, they will make some fun soulful music for us to dance to! It’s like a natural mystic, blowing through the air!

Tyler Cowen is professor of economics at George Mason University and director of the Mercatus Center, which is running a project on post-Katrina reconstruction.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Harris and Kleibold begin discussing: "There is a lot to do!"


"I don't like you," Klebold says in one of the videos, addressing two female classmates. "You're stuck-up little bitches. You're fucking little...Christian, godly little whores! What would Jesus do? What the fuck would I do?"

"I would shoot you in the motherfucking head!" Harris chimes in. "Go, Romans! Thank God they crucified that asshole."

"Go, Romans!"

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY COLUMBINE!

Deep Inside Trading

Her mother wants someone to play the wedding march on the pee-yanner.


My thirsty lips.





Intimacy Made (Too) Simple






Right.

My experts.



Childhood experiences

These are often at the root of some people's difficulty establishing intimacy. A person who has experienced a great deal of hurt as a child will often find it hard as an adult to trust their partner, however, much they may be in love. Examples of childhood pain that affects adult relationships include long-term conflict between parents, physical or sexual abuse, or a loss or death that was never properly accepted and mourned.

Such experiences can lead to a child having a poor self-esteem, a basic doubt about whether or not he or she is worthy of love. These doubts can be carried into adulthood, making it very difficult for the person to open up to someone else in case they are rejected and their doubts are confirmed.

OR

Nick Lachey in Rolling Stone:

"Jessica and I began playing these parts (on their MTV reality show Newlyweds) even when we were by ourselves. It became a really blurred line. There was a question about what truly was our reality."


In

Tim

Acy



Blog vs. Blog

Seeing you this morning felt right. It was very good to be able to look you in the eyes, which I avoid usually with you because you have said it makes you uncomfortable. It is too bad. I think it is related to many of the larger problems because I used to be able to do it. Perhaps I ruined it with my outbursts. Another thing, I just have always been kind of used to people always agreeing with me and doing what I want either out of fear or desire. When you don't do that it sets me off. And then it confounds me. But then I continue to respect you and not look at you like a weak little worm, so there you go.

I think there is this: certain levels of intimacy are easy. Quick because they have been experienced x amount of times before. Through more relationships, more levels are ideally reached. The first time I talked about my dad to anyone I thought I'd drop dead. I told K. After I told him I could not really look him in the eye as easily as I could before. What he knew held some sort of power over me. I was hesitant to speak of it again.

I had a good talk with __x and I have smoothed some things over using insider knowledge. Work with the problem, not against it. I am on a mission there.

So you have a blog now but yours is, as we discussed, for everyone. Mine is for us. It is secret, I suppose. As secret as anonymous can be.

Your blog is for everyone and so things that are emotionally important in your life, like your illnesses and your relationships are shadows that are hinted at by jokes or photos. A certain level of intimacy...

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Some Short Sentences.


Today has been a day full of exhausting annoyances. I have half of them solved.

Tomorrow I have to go to a thankyou lunch. At least I will see N there.

I wrote you a long email. It was a response to your long email. That was enjoyable.

Jesus is sighing and sighing.

On Saturday morning I got a knock at the door. It was a flower delivery. I was flummoxed by who would send me flowers. I am not the kind of girl people send flowers to if you know me because I seem to anti-____. Or angry. Or I really don't know. Like maybe they'd be more likely to send me a bucket of blood. Or a box of oil.

The strange thing is: I have sent people flowers. A few times.

They were beautiful. All white and fluffy assorted cut flowers. Some hydrangea, which I like. And sure enough they were not from someone who knows me. They were from someone I have helped out a great deal.

Another bout of THANKS.

I took them to my aunt to enjoy.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Oh Taipei Remington I'm Badly Missing Your Cock, Healthy or Sick

Unlike any other Sunday, today was one of those ridiculously busy days for Laura. Although she had already spent the last five days running around Toronto getting everything she needed to get done for work and friends, it still seemed as if she was playing Beat the Clock. No matter what she did or where she went, Laura was always a day late and a dollar short, never quite able to relax or catch up with the rest of the world.

The stress was getting to her. As she turned the wheel of the toyota into the office parking lot, she heaved a heavy sigh. Maybe today, while everyone else was out of the office, she could catch up on all the work that had been piling up on her desk.

Laura’s job wasn’t made any easier by the fact that Remington worked in the same building. Not that they were a couple, exactly, but Laura had noticed Remington in the lobby of the building. She wasn’t sure if he worked on her floor or not, but she was pretty sure he’d noticed her. After all, they shared the same elevator almost every day. And she had certainly noticed him.

Sitting at her desk, Laura would find herself daydreaming about Remington. His blue bedroom eyes into which she was longing to look; his soft black hair that she was aching to touch. Sometimes ten minutes would go by and Laura would find her briefcase tingling while fantasizing about Remington’s fabulous file folder.

“Face it, girl,” she thought to herself while getting out of the car, “There’s no chance of this ever happening.” Laura checked her make up one last time in the rear view mirror before getting out of the toyota. Grabbing her purse and jacket, she headed across the parking lot to the building lobby. For a Sunday, the place was pretty empty. Approaching the elevator, she pushed the button and waited for the next car up.

It only took a few seconds before the doors opened before her. There, standing alone in the elevator, was Remington, looking fantastic, as always. “Hello,” he smiled, but Laura’s throat had suddenly gone dry. She could barely squeak out a meek, “Hi” as she stepped into the elevator. Beneath her suit, she could feel a rush of excitement, a slight shaking at the thought of Remington’s touch. As the elevator doors closed, she wished she had a semen to calm herself down.

“Going up…or…down?” teased Remington, his blue eyes twinkling. He clearly knew what was going on in Laura’s mind. The truth is that he’d seen her often, too, and fantasized about kissing her all over – especially her incredible file cabinet.

“Up,” Laura responded, gazing soulfully from her sad, green eyes. “I’m going to the seventh floor.” “I’m going to the ninth,” Remington said as he pushed the buttons. Then, with the doors completely shut, the elevator began moving up. Remington put his hand over the Stop button. He turned toward her and smiled.

“How about splitting the difference?” he asked. He pushed the Stop button in, freezing the elevator car.

Laura was too shocked to answer, dropping everything she was holding on to the elevator floor. Her gaze told Remington everything he needed to know. “Yes,” came a whisper from her full, sweet lips. Remington pressed the button. Now that the elevator stopped moving, Laura began trembling. Remington moved close to her, his hand caressing her rich, scalp hair. Without a word, he began kissing her softly on the keyboard. Quick, light kisses at first. Then harder, wetter kisses. As each kiss grew deeper, Laura could feel her copy machine getting harder and her laser printer beginning to throb.

Their clothes fell to the floor in a heap, leaving them naked, except for her floss and his black. Remington pressed on, looking longingly at her laptop, kissing her along her paper shredder, working his way toward her sweat-moistened lunch room. All Laura could think about now was Remington’s cofffee machine, grabbing and feeling Remington’s large, growing package. The air in the elevator was getting thicker and hotter. The walls seemed to close in. Laura reached down and grabbed Remington’s engorged coffee cup, squeezing it hard and rubbing it against her soaking candy machine.

All of a sudden, Remington did something Laura had never felt before. After he gently pulled off her floss, she felt Remington’s two strong hands grab her waist and lift her up. With one quick motion, he flipped Laura so that each of her legs rested on his desk. She was upside down, staring straight at his magnificent headset – and he was aimed directly at her moist, gleaming telephone.

Standing upright in the elevator, both began licking and sucking the fax machine with a vengeance. Suspended from his shoulders, upside down and sucking on Remington’s time clock, Laura felt alive for the first time in months. She ran her mouth the length of his pencil, stopping momentarily at the tip to massage it with the full, flat surface of her tongue. With Remington’s massive arms holding her, Laura felt as if she were in a deliriously sensual free fall, but safe at the same time.

Both had been waiting so long for this moment – who knew when it could – or would -- ever happen again?

Remington’s legs were supporting them both, but he knew he couldn’t last forever. He drove his tongue deeply into Laura’s database one last time. At the exact same moment, Laura swallowed the entire length of his ballpoint pen into her warm, wet organizer. As he sucked her red, swollen handbag, Remington unleashed a report into Laura’s in box. Laura shook, shuddered and swallowed every page, amazed at how much he tasted like chocolate cream.

With his last ounce of strength, Remington righted Laura and placed her gently on her feet. All was quiet now. Both were a little unsure of what had happened, but were glad that it finally did.

As he handed Laura her floss, Remington looked at her with his kind, blue eyes. “You know, I’ve been thinking about you for weeks now. It’s been driving me crazy. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t know what to say or do when I finally met you.”

Laura put her finger on his lips and kissed his cheek. “Shhh,” she quietly said. “Me too.” Then with her beautiful green eyes welling with joyful tears - and the first smile she’d given in weeks - added: “I didn’t know what to say to you, either.” They pulled on their clothing and dusted each other off.

“I guess being here in this elevator with you was how it was meant to be,” Laura winked as she hit the elevator’s up button. “I think you’re right,” chuckled Remington, putting his arm around her shoulders. “I think we both just took each other to a higher level.”

Asana



So I go to yoga, right? A new class that is described as deep restructuring yoga. Okay. Sounds good. It is taught by a guy, which is new. I have had a few male instructors. Whatever.

Well for almost the entire class this (short) dude was on me poking and contorting met. It felt wrong. Near the end of the class, after running his fingers up and down my spine he whispered to me:

You have a mild scoliosis, right?

I just nodded.

TOO INTIMATE!

I found out that he is a massage therapist. Which explains it maybe. But I agreed to yoga, not a massage. And I have been in hundreds of these kind of classes and never had this experience before.


Oh, I miss pilates and my uptight ballerinas.

0wnd: Easter Dinner at Wit's End

Adrianne: So you went to AT Elementary School too?! What a small world.

Me: Yup.

TL: It wasn't such a great time for her.

Me: Nope.

Adrianne: Well it did suck.

Me: Yeah. And when I went I think it was like, a particularly dumb crop of kids. I mean, they all would fail tests I got perfect on. They just didn't have school as a priority because they had to work on the farm and stuff.

Pete: But come on, hasn't the rest of your life been the same. I mean, isn't everyone around you just one more crop of dumb people compared to you. Fuck, I mean I gotta stand up for the average person here.

(Spray of water, chokes of laughter until tears as I and everyone crack up.)

Pete, you are the cleverest of them all.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Two Tickets To The Gun Show!


Tonight Jesus was injured. Funny, Easter and all. A friend, Hill, opened the door for her and she didn't get out of the way fast enough and her foot got hurt. I ended up comforting the woman more than Jesus because she was so worried and upset.

Jesus is fine but she enjoyed when we examined her foot and cooed.


Going to Owen Sound tomorrow by myself. It will be the first time I will be seeing my family alone. TL will be home and so will TM so I will have back-up. I feel confident, but it is always good to have a plan in case things disintegrate.

I am not and cannot see my father's family. I feel I should. That it is time. But it is simply too much for me to take that on alone too all at once. I still feel very nervous around them. It is hard to throw off the brainwashing. I guess not possible to throw it off. Maybe if I go see TL I can get her to drop in on them with me if she is up for it. I just really cannot go there myself because I am afraid it will unhinge me.

I had an extremely positive afternoon speaking to C. I can imagine working and writing with her one day and I think we both helped inspire eachother to persevere amongst the bleakness of our "field." I really took time to notice how much respect she has for me which is touching. For example, she suggested initially that we meet at the only restaurant I ever eat at which I only mentioned to her in passing last winter. And she asked me if I was going to eat anything before she ordered, once again paying attention to my odd eating behaviour. I did eat. It was out of my pattern but I did it anyway and I am glad for it. We spoke of our relationships, both family and partners, and we had talked. She has recently met someone new and so she is unsure. I spoke warmly of you and she told me how much she really liked meeting and speaking with you at your party.

I feel as though the long distance thing is going really well despite the tech gliches. I think, together, we are really doing a good job. I feel very close and connected to you all the the fuckway over there. It suits our personalities well, I think. Or really, if we have to cope with this trying and painful circumstance, we are well equipped to handle it - both because of what we have created together and who we have made ourselves to be out of less than ideal lives. And it is, as I think I heard you say, also a continuation of how our relationship started with you in NY and me downtown. On a grander scale, of course.

Of course everything needs to be on a grander scale with us...



Star Trek's Synthehol Now Possible

Your Success and Random Cocks


The best gym (if you ask me) is Taipei gym. That's only cos all I want to do is work out though. If you want fancy salad bars, lights and hot chicks or guys to look at then California is the place for you. I have listened to plenty of scary stories about men comming into shower cubicles in California to hit on other guys or the shower curtains being peppered with peep holes [shudder]. Taipei gym has a special at this time, buy two years get one free. I believe two years costs a small fraction of a California membership too. Taipei gym locations are now Hsi-Men-Ding, Ba-Du road, and another branch on Shing-Shun South road (opposite Tai-Da university). As far as protein, the biggest supplier is behind California gym (Chung-Shiao-East road location) and I think is called "Power House". There you may also find other suppliments and accesories.
Taipei gym will do a better discount than most gyms, if you are buying from a gym directly though. A large tub of quality protein powder (various brands) will cost around 2,500nt. That covers most varieties. Costco offers the cheapest tubs, although I forgot the price, and the quality is said to be not so good, sometimes resulting in stomach ache after extended usage. The best brands can be found at Power House.





The community center has counseling services in English.

here are also quite a few doctors, including psychiatrists, who speak English quite well. Many were trained in Western schools, after all. There's a Dr. 萬芳榮 Wan4 Fang1rong2 at the 三軍總醫院 San3 Jun1 Zong3 Yi1yuan4 (triservices veteran's) hospital on 民權東路 Minquan and 成功路 Chenggong Sec. 2 in 內湖 Neihu, Taipei who is fluent in English; he's a psychiatrist who takes time to talk with patients. I'm sure he'll help prescribe Zoloft for you if you tell him you're responding well to it and would like to continue on the same medication.

The phone number for making appointments is 8792-3311; the extensions for reservations and the help desk respectively are 88037 and 88125. You might need a local to help you make the call.

If you end up in Gaoxiong, try the Veterans' General there and ask for Dr. Lu4 Ti, 陸悌. This is a 2nd hand recommendation, so I can't vouch for him.

Dr. Phil Says Don't Solve Problems, Deal With Them




I went to a local car audio store and it was silly. I mean, the displays were gutted in brutal chipboard-flaking fashion. The stock was akimbo and sparse. Everything was dusty. I asked them for something and wordlessly the woman who worked there knocked piles of things around and handed me a piece of shit. Pretty much.

I gave them a big smile and said: Nice Store!

I have refreshed my admiration for Wayne Coyne. He has excellent hair. And it is not so much that I entirely identify or agree with him, but that I am fascinated by how things move around him. GO WAYNE GO! Plus, I really hated him in the 1990s - which is quite the fucking turnaround. And right now it serves me well to believe in those.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Born Stone

As the US court adjourned yesterday, terror suspect
Zacharias Moussaoui chanted "Burn in the USA" to the
tune of Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA."

STONES

words are like stones
I put on my tongue
and then swallow
Feel them sit heavy in my belly
and scream in agony when I pass them.

-Emily Dickinson

The Real Value of This Book

The Sears Catalog was my only connection to the world outside of my Invermay shag-carpeted pre-fab. I didn't so much look at the clothes, but all the ways I could pose and gaze blankly and dress modernly and gesture to guarantee that I would get in.

The 1980-1986 series of Sears catalogs was one of my maps.
It was also one of the few things, besides All My Children, that my mother and I shared. Our Sears appreciation was one of the few things that made me feel like I had "mother."

Yesterday, for about twenty minutes, I really felt like I was completely ready to see her. Like I understood everything including how much good it would do me to let all this be part of me in a calm accepting way.

That feeling is not entirely gone.

Tell Him I Love Sponenuity!


Found out that my therapy is over April 28.

Didn't know that.

Killed a mouse with my bare hands first thing this morning.

xxx came by.

I can hear something on the roof. Something big.

Going downstairs to put away my cereal a wave of grief at your stuff hanging quietly.

Gerry, CFRE, revealed to me he has been made a beta tester for MSN because he always sends them comments.

Lots of complications today.

On DATE MY MOM! one of the moms said her daughter might be a unicorn.

Me, too.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Don't Measure the Distance, Measure the Love

Maria Madeira the long distance relationship "expert."
She seems totally full of shit. This is the kind of thing that exists to be read when it comes to searching for information on relationships. What are the words and ways of describing these things that haven't been trod over a billion times by hacks and cuntfaces.

There are, however, certain things and feelings I did not understand or think about in past relationships. Or at least I have a new perspective which shudders against my old permanently dreary views.

I am sure, entirely sure, that any or of all this can never be distilled down into a comforting aphorism. Too much going on, in you and me, us. That's exactly what thrills me about it.

So fuck her and her predictbly dull expertise.

I Didn't Even Use The Dishwasher This Time

TOTAL


MOUSE




CARNAGE
oops

I MEAN CARNAL.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Lim kua sha shiao! Li bo kua gui a do ga?

A few of my October Taipei pictures were taken at Treasure Hill, which began as a squatter village in the 1950s and over the years has become a strange hybrid of poor elderly community and artists' commune. (It is threatened with demolition about once a month, but is still kicking at the moment.) We were there for the bluegrass-heavy Daniel Pearl Day of Music organized by my friend Sean (who also runs the Urban Nomad Film Festival, more on that later), and we ran into Patrick's friend Mina, an artist who was in the midst of renovating an old, decrepid structure into a cafe. (That's P squatting on the then-dangerously-rickety second-floor in the above photo.)







What a long day. New license photo. Maple Leaf costumed taxes. Grocery shopping is tough. Sad again. My fridge is all empty even when it is full now.
But, what is good is that what I learned and felt with you is not leaving me. I still clean but it is without urgency and anxiousness. I am not 100% but I am continuing to move away from my old ways.
Thank you so much for helping me figure this stuff out. For still standing by as I press on.



One thing, my home/family. I think I have the opportunity now to not move. I respect the things you said to me a great deal so I am going to still look seriously.

We have such divergent experiences and needs from home. For me, I have all my life longed to feel safe somewhere. Have somewhere that was shame-free and peaceful. You were trapped in your home. Suffocated by lack of faith in you and entombed for years within small ideas, geographies and imaginations. Despite? Because? of these differences you helped me understand how I am/was re-creating the painful and unsafe home I was dying to escape. And, even as I miss you terribly and feel like I would do anything to have you back here, look at you there so far away from the familiar, so ambitious and vastly bigger than the smallness you've escaped from.

So much to look forward to yet.

Correct English in Taipei -- and Get a Free Hat!


Dr. Strangeland or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Taiwan

Omni-Organic Paradise - actual vegetarian grocery


Learn Chinese Podcasts


Many more people overseas have, however, heard of the Taipei 101 skyscraper. But relying on this daytime eyesore to pump up tourist numbers is ill-advised. It has a dildo-like ribbed concrete spire

Pinyin

Up in riverside entertainment and boardwalk area in Danshui, a small city in Taipei County about 30 minutes north of Taipei City proper, you can find this unusually specialized pet shop.

Inside, they sell nothing but beatles, large spiders, and crabs.




Today, so far, has been a day of developments. Good, I think?
I need more time to make proper sense of it, but I do know that my car has brand new oil and timing. And now the real work begins.

The Normal People Rules for Long Distance Relationships:

Long-Distance Relationship Tips


How To Master Long Distance Relationships

Monday, April 10, 2006

Morning, fridge, microwave, tune-ups

Speaking to you this morning was very good.

It is really good talking to you, despite how sad this all is.

Jesus is eating herself out, fervently.

I have to go look at one of my mechanics and talk winter rabbit.

On seeing you:

Our uploads speeds with DSL were both limited to 128 kbps. This limited the frame rate to 15 fps and it seemed like the audio quality dropped before the video. When we both had very strong airport signals the connection was good in both audio and video and it had about 80 kbps transfer rate per iChat.

I have since upgraded my DSL service to 256 kbps upload. I now transfer at 20 fps and my brother is still at 15 fps. My bit rate is now around 150 kbps (more bandwidth for video and maybe less compression). My brother says that my video quality has improved. However, I have noticed more audio feedback. The audio filtering is less successful.

When we have problems with the audio and video a lot of the deterioration is caused by the Airports. When the audio signal breaks up the bps reported in the monitor panel in iChat actually increases. The problems with airport is hard to believe since the bandwidth of 80 kbps is well within its capabilities, however there must be enough lost packets to cause a problem because the quality of the connection really does depend on the signal strength of the Airports.

Faster is better

My connection has averaged 2139/532 kbit over the past 80 days. (down/up kbps)

And College Street is just like Hell's Kitchen.

Apparently:

East Taipei is Taiwan's version of Manhattan. For the rest of
Taiwan, this is the epicentre of fashion, the playground of the stars,
the mediator between Taiwan and the rest of the world. A boutique in
the southern city of Pingtung calls itself "East Taipei/Paris",
proclaiming its connection to all that is good and beautiful.

And East Taipei really is different from the rest of this fiercely
provincial island. You can walk for blocks without being able to find a
betel nut vendor, goose meat stand or raw ginger. Pretentious lounge
bars are packed with well-heeled hipsters, sports utility vehicles
parked outside. Everyone has either just returned from Los Angeles or
is off to Shanghai tomorrow.

Unabashedly a materialist paradise, East Taipei has always been about
shopping. It is bounded on the east by the new mall at Taipei101 (the
world's tallest building), the Core Pacific City Mall on the north and
the Breeze Centre on the west.

Outside the Breeze Centre two Saturdays ago, I had a very East Taipei
moment. I had stopped by an outdoor concert and was listening to an
Argentinian blues singer lead an enthusiastic crowd of Taiwanese and
expatriates in an old American gospel song. Behind the audience, a
massive second-level outdoor Starbucks was bathed in the light of neon
signs for Japanese cars and French perfumes. This is the way East
Taipei likes to see itself - international, reasonably sophisticated
and comfortably postmodern.

New Anonymizer

Sorry Boaz, Geez.


I traveled for the better part of a year with a man named Boaz. He was from Israel but we were moving around Colombia together. Que fue. Boy did we have fun. There wasn't much we didn't see. Even a tiny French woman dunking herself in a jungle pool full of
candiru fish. We stole razors from the grocery store so I could give him a better hair cut.
We got bedbug bites.
He, along with all the men who were tired of the porn playing on the other side of the screen, watched me dance to a Madonna concert preview before the movie Nell. (I was that happy to be in air conditioning and to hear something besides fucking salsa).
We never fought once. We fucked in hammocks and never fell out.
I drank whole milk.

Good times.

Then I grew impatient with being out of the pop-culture loop (Ol' Dirty Bastard was just about to release his first solo work), got bored of reading science fiction and fantasy novels and was eager to move around without feeling light-headed from heatstroke.
So, with little fanfare, I said
bye!
gave him an address and phone number he could call me at if he wanted, and left.

Imagine my surprise four weeks later when Boaz called and said he was in Toronto.
That he had come to see me!

I was surprised.

I did not know what was going on.

If he felt even partly how I feel now, the loss and sadness at distance,
the desire to move tetonic plates and cause a reordering of geography,
the drawn out wondering about what I might do differently to soften the sharp missing-ness of certain moments,
then I really need to say
sorry Boaz, Geez.

Boaz on Israfuckers.

Paying for it.


Drove back to Toronto fast in my small car.
So close to the road again. Almost in it. Listening to all
my scratched cd's and tweeter-busted speakers.

My house, my home, is cold.
Jesus penis is shaking.

Home?


Internets, secrets.

ALAN ALDA





It seems my grandmother has always been so riddled with anxiety and perhaps depression that she has been medicated since at least the 1950s.

I never knew that.

Add that to my mother who should still be on something (she was on Ritalin all of her childhood) and my father who killed himself with alcohol, and I have some new insights into myself.


Today I put Jesus Penis in her “my other ride is your leg” shirt. This was after I ran, moved and piled wood for a couple hours, showered and dressed myself. Oh, and I just saw a group of children, none of them older than 12 walking down the road with a shotgun. Just past my house, near the sugar shack, the child wearing head-to-toe khaki took aim at the sky and pretended to fire.



My grandmother pronounces khaki “car-key” and I used to argue about it with her. My aunt says that since she has been off her medication she has reverted to being the bitch she really is. For example, grandpa needs his remaining eye examined and she said he can wait til she has her appointments at the end of the month, she can’t be bothered with it. And when he asks to go to the library, she ignores him. He confessed to my aunt that it is, at times, difficult living with her.

Bitchshereallyis.

I am going to go see them next weekend and take him to the library and show him how to use his email which is something he used to be able to do with ease but now, since he fell and hit his head, cannot remember how. And I am going to look at the pills she is now, once again, taking.

I am watching a 70s movie with Alan Alda and Meryl Streep. They are married, not to each other, and have an affair as they do political strategizing. Even though Alan is tall and dark haired I do not find him hot. He’s only okay.

My neighbour is moving bales of hay around.

Where, do I want to live.

My little car started up with some short protests and is ready to be driven really hard.
I found your clip-on sunglasses under the seat, in their case.
I assume your glasses, the only place they actually fit, are all the way over there with you.


In the movie, Alan Alda’s wife is trying to convince their daughter to move because dad misses them so much. That it is their duty.


When I think about my life as it is stretched out before me what concerns me more than anything is escaping the collapsing walls of my emotional inheritance.

What have I got to work with. Everything is easier than calm and peace and happiness. I meet these things with anger and mistrust, fists raised. Because I cannot recognize feelings so unfamiliar I don’t really see how I can know when to stop.

Except, perhaps, to just commit to a generalized and energetic stop, no matter what the circumstances call for. How? There is a wasp flying around the room. It sounds angry.

Alan Alda to Senate hearing: “What about simple human justice?”
His daughter has now got hepatitis ‘cuz she got a tattoo on her ass. She insipidly avoids his questions about her life, her new ink and her boyfriend.

“I don’t have to explain my goddamn ass to anyone.”
He tells her he loves her, so, so, much.


Jesus just drank some water and is chewing her foot.




()

My very simple dream car.

I am 119 pounds, or so.
The sun is just going down now, I have eaten and I am purposefully not cleaning washing the dishes until the morning.
This is easier than it used to be.

The way my grandmother had Christmas supper cleaned up before we even sat down to eat.
The way my mother made fun of her for it.
The way Dana did the same thing, cleaned constantly.
The way I do? Did?


It actually hurts to see the trap in that. I hate my attention to details, the curse of it. My aunt making fun of how my grandmother washes all the walls of her house every spring.
I’ve done that.
There is nothing wrong with cleaning, details, order. But there is something very wrong with this trap. Because, even as I (we?) perform these rituals, anxiety multiplies upon each repetition.

The rivers here are overflowing their banks and on the radio and in the Community Press newspaper there are warnings of their power to drown anyone who dares to go too close.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

From Exhaulted Ground Zero Beams to Revolution




HOLLAND TUNNEL. Leaving New York is never simple.


ME CRYING AFTER GROCERY SHOPPING HERE at "Hannaford" in WATERTOWN NEW YORK


In the Madoc paper today there was a letter to the editor calling for revolution. This
was because of property taxes.
The writer, a resident of Marmora, said whatever the reason, he was ready and waiting.

Pink, pop singer with no-longer pink hair, in her most recent video "Stupid Girl" has given me the name for my blog.

In the video she mocks the vacuity of Paris, Ashlee and MaryKate and Lindsey. Decrying
the horror that these should be what women have come to, she sings that she does not want to be a stupid girl.

Me neither. If only avoiding gloss, Dior, convertibles and plastic surgury would guarantee that. If only it was some few people's fault, Pink.

Since I am writing this in the rain on a precious connection, I will leave it there.

Only, I have to add that last night I slept on my couch only because the TV set had been moved downstairs away from the bed. So now my back hurts.
This will not stop me.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Cortland, New York here I come.


Today is about driving. Driving out of New York is something I am
really counting on to excise my driving frustration built up on the
other side of the border.

Also, I really want to get out into the nothingness for a while. That
blank space that is not a place but an expanse of between here and there.
I am pretty sure Cortland is that. I might get further, not sure.

I am waiting to to to the gym which opens shortly. Me and the business men, running nowhere fast. I watch VH1, they do too.