every day of my life is better than christmas

this really is the season of good news. just the other day i went to the dentist and she told me that my wisdom teeth are growing in perfectly straight; it looks as if i won't need them out (score!). and then she, quite cheerfully, asked me what i was reading. do you know how much of a psycho i felt like, sitting there in the dentist chair, and holding up the cover of my library book entitled "Regarding the Pain of Others?" she looked at me like i was crazy and i stammered out an explanation about it being a book on war photography - which it really isn't at all - and then i couldn't talk anymore because she was poking around in my mouth with that blasted metal hook and awkwardly trying to comment upon the horrors of valley forge as she'd seen them on some half-hour tv special. i'd brutishly yanked her from the familiar bounds of dentist-chair chit-chat.

but seriously, who reads susan sontag at the dentist anyway? i'm kidding myself; but no one else is buying it.

so, kids, tonight is christmas eve. ho ho ho. my christmas eve has been quite magical. as always, we kept things classy in my household and enjoyed a lavish spread of subway sandwiches and potato chips. when asked to say grace, my father raised his large soda in the air and exclaimed "may god rest in peace!" my mom and aunt cheryl looked about confusedly and i just stared down at the table hoping my unkempt hair would fully drape over my grin. we all raised our sodas in toast and peered out from our brows as we sipped at our straws. i secretly wondered if my dad had intentionally given an implicit salute to nietzsche.

after the last of the sour cream and onion chips had been munched down we headed into the living room to open gifts. my dad had already taken care of the ambiance: green splatters drifted across the tv screen on the muted weather channel and donovan's greatest hits droned a little too loudly in the background. i sat there in my corner armchair and surveyed the scene. i watched their mouths move and played the evening over in my head. suddenly, i began to laugh - it was quiet and convulsive and i felt that i should hide it. i got up and left the room. i locked myself in the bathroom and ran the water and laughed until my face turned red.

i managed to compose myself before the length of my bathroom trip seemed noticable and then checked back in the living room to see if anyone wanted tea. while the water boiled i snuck into my room and perused an online collection of war photography. i ran my tongue over my shiny teeth and mused about how ridiculously good i have it.

)

brain frazzazzled. complete coherent sentences not happening. i think after this phonology exam i can kiss my title of "linguistics all-star" good-bye. i've started talking to myself. this is why i need my bird here; at least then i can pretend to engage in conversation with another living creature. but no. my bird is gone and rachi went home and janey left me for the woods. i don't know a damn thing about phonology and i just caught myself clucking to myself.

"i was a picked lock, a broken bicycle"

this evening i had the pleasure of stumbling across the miracle of 86 e-card for their last gasp ep. all i can say is, holy shit, "every famous last word" has never sounded so crushing (in a really really good way). usually this is my morning pick-me-up song, but now that i've heard it acoustic i think it will always break my heart.

salmon snow

it snowed last night.

pigeon pity

today the sidewalks of montreal were a sheet of wet ice. i have to admit, i would have preferred to observe such conditions from the safety of my study, but having a final to take, i didn't really have an option: so out the door i went.

i wore my high boots with the awesome traction and gingerly picked my way through patches of grainy slush and shuffled across plates of glass-smooth ice. it was strange, i thought, that the surfaces should be so incongruous.

it was a long wait at the bus stop. the wind was whipping (which i never mind too much) so i pulled up my hood and stared down at the ice, thinking, for the first time in three days, of something other than logic. i was giving a detailed study to the patch of ice below me, when, much to my surprise, a pigeon bobbed its way into my field of view. he was a bold little sucker; he got right up to my high boots with the awsome traction and kept peck peck pecking at the ground. pecking for what, i wondered, but then realized that most of the granules below me were probably salt, and not, in fact, ice. apparently pigeons like rock salt. as he pecked away at his puzzling meal, i couldn't help but look down at his little pink feet with pity. i mean, i understand that pigeons probably have some crazy adaptation in their feet to enable the endurance of the cold ice below them, but i couldn't help but think they must be chapped and raw and numb. i hate pigeons; they make me nervous, but i was about ready to take this one home with me and soak its little feet in warm water and maybe apply an aloe vera moisturizer afterwards. but then, just as this image dissolved in my mind, a black-booted foot was thrust into my window of ice and pigeon. the woman standing next to me had thought to amuse herself by sending a kick in my pigeon's direction, and watching him frantically hop out of my view. his poor little pink feet were gone for good. i looked up at the woman with something of resentment in my face, and then turned to the street before me. i imagined myself stepping out in front of the neon-green van that screamed past. i wondered if i would have felt the impact.

i craned my neck and peered down the street. still no bus in sight. well, at least i have my ice or rock-salt or whatever, i thought, redirecting my attention downard and resuming my meditation on those coarse white granules.

pootatoes! (i know... i couldn't resist)

so i'd finally snacked the sweet/salty taste in my mouth into equilibrium, infused my body with the optimal amount of caffeine, and hunkered down for some serious logic studying, when there rose a commotion out in the hall. at first i dismissed the excited cries as rachel and jane succumbing to the senseless antics that so often befall overstudied students. but then i heard jane exclaim "my god! i think it's poo! i can see it!" my curiosity was immediately piqued and i was out in the hall in an instant.
"poo!? what! where!"
jane pointed up to the cabinet above the fridge, which we'd pinned down as the source of a mysterious smell that had been haunting our kitchen for some months now. we'd thought we'd taken care of it when jane and rachel threw away a bag of my old sweet potatoes they found up there, but the smell had persisted, and jane had just sniffed out its source. standing on a stool ("no pun intended!" as rachel puts it) intensely scrunching her face in disgust, jane pulled out, in a wad of tissues, a slimy plastic bag with two big brown bulges of reeking goop festering inside of it.
"it really is poo!" someone cried.
but then i realized that i'd put two potatoes in a bag up there about a week before the beginning of the semester. guilt overcame me and, being a sucker for conscience - that little jiminy cricket inside my head - i owned up to the mysterious poo, er... potatoes. jane, however, wouldn't allow me to clean it up since she claimed she'd already gotten her hands dirty (but i know she secretly liked touching the slimy poo goo), so i let her finish the job she'd started. i was on hand with a can of citrus scented air deoderant though, and i used it quite liberally in all smelly areas as well as, inadvertently, rachel's face. so it looks like things are going to be a-ok smell-wise in this apartment now. i just need to stop buying potatoes that i'm never going to eat.

blip

this weekend i let my mind shut down. it still is, as a matter of fact. shut down. i'm looking at this white window of virtual space and freaking out because i know i can't fill it with anyting substantial. so why the hell am i trying then? why do i keep typing? ok. i'm petering out here. creatively paralyzed. that's what i am.