Summer 1992 (three years prior to any running) Age 20

So I am reading the Edible Woman and thinking about exercise. Me...not just normal weight lifting or aerobics but RUNNING. Not just jogging...but running. Fast.

Why is this happening to me. I hate exercise but I feel like becoming totally fit...fat free. Tonight after I try Paul out I'm going to the track by the school behind Honest Eds and I'm going to run in Armadillo circles until I puke. Taraleigh might come.

Happy? Suicidal? When I run my ears clog up and I can't hear and my body throbs and I need that.
DISTRACTION. I think if I can just keep up this distraction then I will be okay. But when you lose distraction it forces you to look at your existence track and obviously I want to run to the end of this one and see if the next one is any longer.

Sometimes being and ex-junkie is better than having a masters in education.

I used to have guts.

I was chosen by various Canadian writers along with a few other high school students to read something specially prepared and previewed by our teachers. Since, over the summer, my teacher tried to fuck me, I decided against any preparation and in the fifteen minutes before I was to stand in front of the cameras on the top floor of the hotel at Bloor and Avenue Road I wrote this:

(Small excerpt from four page piece)

The grassy earth lifts to finger me and these long fingers whsper my name and signal the finale. In time to the rhythm Bristleback and I spread ourselves over the whole scene, enveloping it in a raw orange-red bristeled sphere....we are not sticky. We are as slippery as a lightbulb and then we do light up....

Owls and Betrayal

Spent a weekend on the water; being grilled to borrow money from my grandparents and signing useless promise notes to them. I also heard a new cluster of information about my first four years of life and I am still sorting through it. Some of it was too much to listen to so I shut my ears.

I also pushed you away, which I regret. I am not stable right now but, of all things, I wish so much to be able to not forget that you are not an enemy. No excuses.

I also rested this weekend. Felt good. The drive back here was very calm and restful, right until I parked.

The minute I walked into the house I felt panic seize me. I pushed it down as hard as I could. That was two hours ago. I am losing the battle. My heart is beating so hard I am trembling. The nausea which lifted all weekend is back twofold and I can hardly catch my breath. It is purely physical. I am not thinking anything except that everything is okay, is good. But my body betrays me. The betrayal enrages me and, I have begun reverting to old ways of punishing myself. I try to knock myself out, to puncture my mutinous brain with screws in the wall that used to hold cardboard prints of owls I have just given away to your sister. The screws dare me.

Can't wait to move I think.

Saw two men who were in X's band right beside me in groucery store line.

One of them I spent hours and hours with and was friends with.

They kept talking loudly trying to get my attention. I am pretty sure they saw me because of this.
They are pretty nerdy/nervous around women and given the context I guess akward. Maybe they
did not even notice me in my giant glasses.

I ignored them and bagged my groceries in such a way to avoid eye contact.

Letter from Grandmother, July 19 1998

Hi Chantelle:

It was great hearing from you!! We were wondering how you were getting along in "Algonquin" and a lot of the time on your own.

Sounds like you are pioneering...clearing land, 2 goats and a dog (I'm glad you have a big dog) and a garden, but the pioneers didn't have a van to drive down the country roads to the beach to lie all day in the sun. What roads? They didn't have a big house with lots of bedrooms either. It sounds like its been a great place with a lot of good memories for many peopole and still good enough for you to spend a good summer there doing what you do. Writing, painting, gardening and losts of exercise. Enjoy Chantelle.

Its dull and overcast to-day and raining a little. The reain is good we need it. I am taking it easy to-day. Spent most of the morning watching the British Open Golf Tournament. It was exciting.

I was talking to your Mom to-day. I told her I had been talking to you and she was wondering how you are getting along.

We go five quarats of black currants from our bushes so will be making mor jam soon. We have had 12 quarts from the bushes but the quantity seems to be getting smaller each year.

Take care of yourself Chantelle and give my love to Max.

Lots of Love
G & G

Montego Bay, Jamaica Wednesday December 27 1995

No it is 8:30 am because I just talked to Otis the bartender. He's gonna take me to see Cutty Ranks, Shaggy, Beenie Man and Lady Saw who are playing at New Year Parties.

Where am I? Can I go on as a student when I know there is a part of me forlorn in the boredom of everyday life. For me, all what is going on here, this is normal. I feel like me here, alone, wandering around at night in the darkened streets startling pigs and chickens. And "working." Being in Toronto is a holiday of the everyday for me. A way of breaking the monotony of chaos.

Hey Girlie! Watch out for muggers with the icepick and the slashyslashy cheek!

There are two guys who meet us at the airport. They take us to this quaint place. They are our everything while we are here. Food. Tour guides. Everything, no questions asked or answered.

Sitting by the pool, reading From the Social Construction of Race to the Abolition of Whiteness by David Roediger 1994, I feel soothed. Long slices of my face fall, papery, into my hands.

The radio stations are ALL good.

The discos are ALL dancehall! Everyone dresses in gold and crystal and mesh with fronts and are suprised when I understand them. Some guy from Montreal just asked me to translate for him.

I brough some pictures of my dad here. They are on my dresser in my room. I feel so at home here already. "I've thought of hotels as the most ideal places indeed to be." Shampoo Planet D. Coupland page 31

***

Last night I let Otis kiss me and I felt a bit guilty about Eddie. I feel like I'll never leave here and never see him again anyways.
Before I left Eddie asked me if he thought we'd be stuck together forever.

Everyone here is always chopping at the undergrowth with machetes. Too much life here. Went to a strip club here last night too and the girls were upside down grinding their hips!

Then we went to The Keg. It is an outdoor dancehall on a rooftop. It cost $J60 to get in.
Everyone was dancing so well! Keith started dancing with me and did a good job. "No Problem" he said, which I think
he meant it was okay dancing with me. He was drinking rum out of a baby bottle.

I was the only white person there, but no one seemed to care. Maybe because I was having fun.

January 25 1996 Los Angeles

It is the beginning of my second week of living here. Hsin-Dan has spent most of this afternoon askme me
what is "Mall-i-boo" like and what does double digited mean as she reads through personal ads.

Be interesting to date some guy in a wheelchair. Just to talk to him and what he has been through. Hsin-Dan is bored because we can't find any strip clubs to make money at. In New York at Harmony we could clear $500 in a couple hours no problem. But the no-touching rules here move the prostitution links so far away we are afraid to touch because of them.

Her boredom is catching. I'm drinking skim-milk weakend hot chocolate adn coffee to amuse myself and reflecting upon re-manufacturing my identity.

When I am with Max's friends, who use strippers as entertainment, I say nothing about it. When Hsin and I are together we can't wait to work again somewhere fun.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH CAPITALISM. There is a seminar tonight at 7:30 pm on West Pico Blvd. I don't have a car so I will dissect an article instead and then stick it to the wall with band-aids.


****

Last night Hsin and I went out to The Dresdan and a tall guy who was pretty creepy looking dropped a note on my booth table and then moved to the other side of room and stared at me.

The note said: You are so beautiful.
That's it. As soon as he had seen I read it he left. I put it in my pocket and Hsin-Dan and I continued to giggle at Mary and Elaine, the crappy jazz performers. Plus she flirted with the bar tender.

Los Angeles 1996 continued

March

I walk to the grocery store. I buy grapefruit and an LA Times.

At home I become she and she starts her eating ritual.

Finally, she can't breathe.

April

The pain in my genitals has finally become too great and convincing. How could this happen to me I am healthy, fit, drug and fat free? Has a penis caused this, or worse, a clitoris?

I wait in the main waiting room of East LA Women's Clinic for the doctors to get out of their meeting. My appointment is for 10:30. I stumble to the desk and tell the thick woman there that I can't stand the TV (hispanic preachers) so I am going to wait in the tiny room by her desk. Really I just need solitude. I begin to pace because I am sure I deserve all this pain. The room is square so I cross it diagonally. In the room is a table with a phone on it that staff periodically use. And a sign about AIDS, and one about maximum occupancy. I reread the signs over and over in English and Spanish.

I decide to tell Max. I call him and he arrives. He is not supposed to be in here, the signs say so in both English and Spanish. Only patients are allowed in this part. He has a coffee of course. I am so thirsty I try to drink it.
We sit down.
He spills the coffee and tries to fix it by moving his chair.

I wonder if he is my enemy.

Faulty Lines

I have been looking to the past to avoid the present.

It shouldn't be so hard. If I could just think clearly about it, what is going on is not so hard. But the battle of the last few weeks
to continue exectuting tasks, ordering other people around and making decisions which will effect the next five years of my life is made harder because I believe firmly that there is one, right and perfect way for it to go. It is not going that way and I feel right now that I can, using some sort of unnamed mental energy, to force it to be.

That is what I do sometimes. I think that the bad things that have happened in my life are my fault. Not because I did something but because I didn't do something. My stepfucker killed my dog because of me. My dad died hating me because of me. My mother stays with an abusive man because of me. My last relationship plauges me to the brink because of me.

This because of me is I really, genuinely believe (even though I know it isn't true!) that if I sit on the ground, crush my eyes close and really concentrate hard on something it will come true. I just have to really visualize it strongly and for long enough that it causes my eyes, head and body to really ache and shudder. It has worked in the past and so when it doesn't work now it is because I am not trying hard enough.

Today I have to try harder. I have to end this the way I want through sheer force of will or I feel like I don't really see the point of living if I have to live without things turning out as I need them to. It'd be healthier, by far, I know to realize that all this is a sickness. I can see it as so. But I don't care right now.
I want to sit on the ground and concentrate for half an hour, strain all my energy towards what I want, because if I don't at least try I hate it.

Los Angeles Thursday March 7 1996

Back then I write:

So here I live in Hollywood.

Dis-satisfaction. Max just came home from work and kissed me and then left to play basketball. And he's working tonight at the restaurant.

I think of the trouble I am in, the bite mark on the back of my neck and feel boredoms flee under the struggle. That is why. I enjoy
the feeling of throwing myself into it.

I spend all day unable to get a full breath, feeling extremely relaxingly fitful and benign. I want to explode in tears. I want to be able to breathe.

**

Pressed up against the Dodge Dart car door. Victor undoes his pants and presses me more into the door.

What do you want? he asks

I want you to stop.

Do you ever have rape fantasies? Is that what your no means?

No. My no means no.

Aww. But I want you so bad. Not just your body, but I want that closeness with you. I want to come home from work and see you and kiss for a minute before we even talk. Please. Give me your tongue.

No!

Please. Don't do this to me. Just send it into my mouth.

Victor presses my hands, clad in weight-lifting gloves around his penis. She notices the size. Irrelevant.

Victor turns her to face him and kisses and she gives in once, wetting her tongue. He groans and leaps on her, biting the nape of her neck right to the bone.

Did that hurt? I'm a vampire. You didn't know that.

I roll my eyes. I am your victim. We are in a cheesy Anne Rice novel.

Yes. And you are mine.

Victor bumps her up against the door again.

Please no! I have to go. Please stop.

I hate how much I love how you say that. "Please stop!" You drive me crazy. I think about you, how much I want you. Come lie down with me. Aren't I a pervert?

No. Please. I feel so bad.

I begin to tear up and cross my arms.

Don't put your arms like that. Don't.

But I -

Don't you want me? Are you wet? If you go home you'll be miserable. He won't even be there. He'll be at work. You don't really feel like I do. That's all.

Shame wells up in my chest.

No. I am confused. You can't expect me to go from one thing to another.
I try to leave.

Victor locks the door.

I know. Maybe in 10 years we'll be together. You'll be beautiful still. I'll be old. Don't you want to feel me?
Victor pulls up his shirt.

I wanted you from when I first saw you on Los Feliz. ANd then I found out how you are and I can't take it.

Just let me go.

He drops his hands to my waistband. Slips his fingers under.

Just let me once.

No!

I want the taste and smell of you on my lips, tongue. You do it then.

I thought, I have to pee.

Max writes in Los Angeles 1996

(written in handwriting in my journal)

I feel like telling the guy who plays Elton John to give up the pianer for a moment. I should just buy a guitar so I don't have to wait to play music. Chantelle's suggested that I sing which makes me feel nervous. It makes us whites "better to sympathize with the plight of WWII jews." We're sitting in the ONyx which is infinitely more coller than anything in Toronto which is fairly pathetic. Chantelle's is seeing me as a little kid as I write in the style which has slipped through the system. I feel closer to you through the conversastion of the night. I want you to be completely honest about Victor. My confidence in your love of me is increasing and likewise in my trust of myself. This feels awkward for me. I feel a certain pressure to be eloquent and witty. Oh well guess we won't be waiting any longer.

The frustration continues and my only solice is the thought of Beavis and Butthead Winebego guys expression when he calls every McDonald's in Los Angeles.

April 1996

With Max at New Mexico/Arizona border, leaving Los Angeles:

How many more miles of disappointment need to register on my face before you try to talk to me about how I destroy everything you need and replace it with huffing.

We stopped in a stinky bar on the border. After we had a small talk about when he date raped me. The tension wells up and petrifies my feminist tongue. So many unspoken thoughts, ideas. And any spoken, done so quietly because I know that even though I feel right I am solidly irrationally wrong. Every fear I feel of angry men is my own insecurity. Every insult to my my self-respect and ability to live is really my own tense waiting for a man to violate my powers.

Except all of this is wrong. Am I so thoroughly mad that I have imagined the whole thing? Or am I tense and weary because of constant encouragement. Who are you but the voice who sings unimportant words in the choir to back up my screams and hollow-out their loved meaning?

1996 October

I have all these pictures of yung relative girls that I do not know. And yet I have them, stopped at school in varying poses of confidence preparing to be observed and summed up. All of them purposeful now, waiting to be posessed. I don't know them but they are my cousins, five of them and my sister. A sister with a head I don't know and moreover arms that ar full like a womans ans she is invited on to secondary school with her roses in her arm and I look at the roses and then her blue smile and I wait til she suffocates. I need her organs, too much.

Throwing things away

In the process of packing and getting rid of things I have come upon some things written in the past by me that I would like
to remember and so they follow.

The capitalized poem Andrew wrote in my journal (after he had read it) and shortly after he raped me, leaving me covered in soapstone dust which is a carcinogen, was his way of communicating to me in my language because back then I spent hours a day buried in my notebooks.

December 1994, Andrew's Letter to me

SOMETHING STUPID LIKE I LOVE YOU
WELL YOU MUST KNOW HOW FIRST
COLD LIKE BLUE
BLUE AS I AM
FOR A LIER HAS BEEN LIED TO
OF CORSE I AM ALWAYS RONG

RONG ME.

FOR THATS WHAT MAKES EVERY
THING OK.
FOR ONE WHO DOESN'T BELIEVE
IT MAKES IT HARD FOR
ANOTHER TO HAVE MORE FATH.
AT LEAST ENOUGH
THROWBACKS TO JUSTIFY AND HURT
LIES TO PROTECT AND HURT
A LIE IS WHEN THERE IS ENOUGH FOR
ONE AND ONE DOESN'T REALLY CARE ENOUGH
FOR ONE LET ALONE 2 OR MORE.

November 1994, Nelson B.C.

Dear Kevan,

I just felt this feeling about me and you that was like nothing. Closeness is funny. I am with someone at this instant who I feel closer to than anyone before, but in most other ways quite distant.

I am slowly learning that instances are all that matter and that building tomorrow is for the insane.
You were in my life for a long time but of matter of only small amounts. I must not want to be treated well. Heart racing.
All this talk takes me to a creek I played in as a child. I caught frogs and stuck pins into the space between their legs and they never even cried.

It is so damned cold outside. It is not the living I despise it is everybody's noticing of my life. I want to live in the floorboards and survive off spilt foods.

I haven't known what time it is for a week.

Saturday October 30, 1994 Nelson B.C.

Devil's Night: "The woman is perfected
Her dead body flows
In the scrolls of her robes"

I am in a place called the Sanfrancisco of Canada and I am staying with this person I never even talked to in high school after four years of sharing classes. TL is away for a bit in Vancouver. It is weird here, people living in self-built cabins in the woods. No phones, no heat, no water but lots of welfare. The person I'm staying with is moving tomorrow across town but I can't move in and TL has the tent and I'm homeless. But happy. Very white here and so hippy it turns my hate of their dumpy-ghostly trippyness livid. I am fufilled in my unliked lost loved surroundings and the mountains are purple at night.


****

I spent Devil's night with a boy who doesn't read very well but whom I may love I guess and he only reads comic books and doesn't even read them just looks at the pictures.

"Why are you staring at me? For the same reason you are staring at me."

Naked except for panties with 100% cotton label still affixed. It itches but gives good diversion. For here in this wood heated box there are no distractions except for the ones (she) and I invent.

Thursday September 12, 1994 Wolfhead Montana

Got tailpipe fixed and TL and I waited for two hours in a Town Pump where a nice MIssouri man who worked there kept us amused.
Called Ruth. (grandmother)
She said: "Oh heavans. Don't do what you know you're not supposed to."

I am just a set of positive dichotomies to her which may be upset by the bad vibes of the continent.

September 1994

Journal Entry from Duluth Minnesota:

MOTEL $18 a night. Smells like urine and mould.
But TV! and an unpurposeful surrealist painting of a blacksmithy.
Huge water mark on the ceiling.
Blue mottled carpet so stained it looks green and no Gideon Bible!
No closet rod and a whole solar system of fuzzy fungus in said useless, doorless closet. Blue wood panelling?
and nobby bedspreads.
Public school heater and tea towels for drapes.

The neon flashes the simple, obvious name: MOTEL in the theme hue of blue.

Aaron (the guy giving us the cross-country ride who has herpes) would take Mudhoney's song "Fuck me, I'm sick" and use it as his anthem.

September 15, 1993

Dear Ms. Karen Oliver

Re: Estate of GLEN EDWARD OLIVER, Deceased.

After a careful review of the above-named file, it has come to my attention that we do not have an up-to-date address for your daughter, Chantelle. Since she has reached the age of majority, we will be distributing the assets of her late father's estate to her in teh very near future. As such, we would appreciate it if you would provide us with a n address or pass this letter on to Chantelle, so she may contact us directly.

Thank you for your assistance.

Yours truly,
Suzanne Noble
Estate Officer
Lower Mainland Region
Tel. No.: (604) 775-1811