theme to my own great escape

for the record

2006-01-03T18:25:00.000-05:00

in the spirit of rob, i give you
the (gradually accumulating) highlights of kimmy's homecoming:
1. rachel and i befriended cute and sleepy australian boy in dorval airport.
2. new mattress delivered by sketchy dudes wearing jncos in a large white truck.
3. fell asleep on couch while watching the king of jordan go scuba diving in the red sea; drooled on the throw pillow, and some crusted to my face.
4. friends rule (lisa pepe, you need to be done with your effing finals already, damnit).
5. sighting of the chainsaw sharpening shop between Long Island Quarry and Kim's Nails.
6. holding the enormous tv while babs (mother-woman) blows dust off of it and into my face. twice.
7. babs hangs a christmas stocking for our dead dog, puts a tennis ball in it, and bursts into tears. what a feel-good christmas eve.
8. receiving a controller that, when hooked up, transforms the tv into a giant etch-a-sketch.
9. falling in love with the amazing, flamboyantly gay boy working at michael's who likes my necklace and calls everyone "honey."
10. playing an intense game of wheel of fortune with jack-jack and beka, being unable to spell "shepherd," and getting my ass kicked by beka. "sleepy hollow" my elbow.
11. being torn apart from my molly at the canadian border. just awesome.

i cannot believe how quickly time speeds.

"Item: the poet has to feed himself and fuck himself."

2005-12-29T21:18:00.000-05:00

it's difficult to be left alone when you're home on vacation. and then, when it finally does happen, you pace the house wondering if there's anything at all you should be doing with your time. mostly i devour libary books or simply grind my teeth, but sometimes i choose to do stranger things. this evening, for example, i guilded a tiny plastic horse in a gold stamp inkpad. i've had both the horse and the inkpad for over a decade now and i am truly amazed that the two have never come together before today. why did it take me over ten years to entertain and satisfy such a simple whim? and why should i have done so just now? i cannot imagine what else i have tucked away in the drawers of this desk, what other childhood relics i've yet to guild or press together.
in other news, this is what i've been holding in my hands for the past few days:

what an ingenious cover for a book of poetry that cleverly describes the corporeal and erotic activity that is both reading and writing poetry. and how silly of me to only realize now that i've been lying in bed with and manipulating the body of a woman these past few nights. not that the poems themselves aren't screaming this very message, but i'm not accustomed to attributing such vocal wit and power to something as simple (and complicated) as a photograph. and honestly, i think i would have overlooked it entirely if i hadn't first consumed jong's poetry and digested the ideas verbally, which allowed me to then process them non-linguistically.
i've noticed the same phenomenon in another book of poems i picked up: "The Poetry of Solitude: A Tribute to Edward Hopper." having somewhat of a ridiculous preoccupation with solitude, i snatched the book up without pausing to consider who in the hell Edward Hopper might be or what it might mean that this poetry was written in tribute to him. but i'm glad i did. why weren't picture books this wonderful when we were kids? each poem is paired with the Hopper painting upon which it reflects or builds, and i spent a good two hours objecting aloud and enthusiastically to the various interpretations and elaborations. but whether i agreed with the poem, the words became my decoder to the paintings. for me, nothing is graspable unless i've first slipped my hand into a glove of language, and only through that glove am i able to interpret and reshape the contours of the visual.

All for some bizarre hometown necessity!
Some ache still found within you!
Now it will go with you, this scene
By Edward Hopper and nothing else.
It will become your own tableau of sadness
Composed of blue and grey already there.
Over or not, this suffering will not say Hosanna.
Now a music will not come out of it.
Grey hat, blue suit, you are in a midnight
Diner painted by Edward Hopper.
-- David Ray

i need to read that before i can read and fully appreciate this . how absurdly inflexible of me, i know. i promise to work on it. and to guild all the tiny plastic horses i may stumble upon in my own amply few moments of blue-grey solitude.

christmas list

2005-11-25T23:31:00.000-05:00

things i'm asking santa for this year:

1. ~~apple-green sequinned slippers~~
2. money for books (of poetry)
3. sweet new playgym for molly, preferably natural wood with peeling bark for her to nibble.
4. spandex leggings. any colour, except maybe puce.
5. a backbone
6. undies
7. the magic bullet (so i can, in turn, give it to my roommate rachel for her birthday).
8. a heart
9. a hot-tub
10. a haircut
11. fresca. like 10 cases.
12. a clue

really, i don't ask for much.

her head was a hole lost to time

2005-11-11T23:35:00.000-05:00

time conflates before me. everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen equates if i think of it just right. or wrong? procrastination becomes a joke within this mindset. how am i supposed to put off what has already come to pass? i'm not saying i don't have any choices here. i do have choices: i don't yet know what has passed, but that it has. i am small and shriveled, old and more flaccid, gone and forgotten - all of that right now. and now. and now...

this morning i didn't have my headphones on as i walked onto campus: i had been talking to my neighbour during the bus ride, and the exposure of my hands to the cold didn't seem worth three minutes of song. as i cut through the adams building a group of three girls kept a distracted pace at my side. one of them was loudly complaining about the loss of her contact lenses, how weird it felt to suddenly have nothing there.

"it's like... my face feels empty! so weird!"

your face is empty, i thought. and then reminded myself that i must sound that way sometimes, too. that i must feel that way sometimes, too. i didn't look at her face. but i looked at the faces of her friends, to see if their own contained anything at all. nope. feigned interest, maybe.

outside of the adams building there was a cranberry muffin, neatly wrapped in saran wrap, placed on the edge of the sidewalk. i eyed it curiously, appalled at my temptation. later, there was taboule on dr. penfield. a whole pan of it. sacrifices to the gods of absence and time, just waiting to never be already claimed.

of beer and bald brows

2005-10-21T23:31:00.000-04:00

i promise you i'll never dream again.

actually, today was a good day for dreams; daydreams realized in the simplest ways are probably what keeps me so goddamn optimistic all the time. i wish i weren't. i wish i saw everything in its harshest light and dullest color. defeated disappointment. unfortunately, i think instead: next time things will be better. do i even have to tell you i cracked my head at an early age on the leg of a rocking chair? the scar must be more than a skid-mark across my left eyebrow.

this beer bottle decidely gives off the richest tone of any beer bottle i've blown across. i've been working on it for some two hours now. nursing the pint and a half and enjoying the pitch as it falls with the water level.

what's your favorite part of speech? me, i'm enamoured of the preposition. the connector that specifies relationships. what could be more informative? what does it matter if i have a noun and a pronoun, a heart and a thought, if i do not know how they comingle, if they comingle?

of. that's my favorite. origin, possesion, source, agency. what else can possibly matter? but it used to mean separation. i suppose it still does, we've just refocused those implications. lexical optimism? i'm not the only one who's cracked an eye.

ps. what's your favorite part of speech? seriously, answer. i know you have one.
pps. the pretty pictures on my blog aren't loading. netscape sucks as a photo host. does anyone know of any functioning, FREE alternatives?

last race home

2005-10-08T19:47:00.000-04:00

we took our last walk together a month and a half ago. it was our usual route - the road through the marsh behind the cabin, flooded by beavers - and only he would go with me.

we trudged through soft mud together, he leading the way, pausing frequently to sniff and to listen for adventure. we reached the stream that the planked bridge used to straddle, and found that it had been washed away with the flooding. only the side logs remained. with a running start, i leapt across, but he held back, unwilling to forge the stream, but determined to hold vigil as i wandered without him through the muck that lay ahead. if i looked carefully through the flashing leaves and shadows behind me, i could see the constant shine of two brown orbs, bright and warm, fixed on my back.

as we returned through the woods i felt a surge of energy. this was my brother at my side, love and habit intertwined, two kids grown up together. for old times's sake, i challenged him to a race down the camp road.

"1... 2... 3!"

his small legs pumped efficiently beneath him. he kicked fragrant dust into my path, ran with an envigoration i hadn't seen in a six years, and beat me to the back porch, panting with victory.

i want him here with me now, or back at the camp on a damp night - stretched out in my lap, head before the hearth, grunting in sleep as i play with his paws.

but i can't have that at all.

he's gone. and i can't begin to say goodbye.

random act of blogging

2005-10-03T22:03:00.000-04:00

so i tried to crash a local poet's "random acts of poetry" reading on the arts steps this afternoon (i'd been tipped off by a reporter/friend from the mcgill daily who was going to cover the story), expecting her to stand, leg perched upon the block, and recite the words aloud, gesturing grandly to apathetic poli-sci students and bewildered first years scurrying late to class. she didn't though, much to my disappointment. instead she made the reading a personal experience, approaching "randomly" chosen individuals, and reading them a "randomly" chosen poem, face to random face. i realize now that this is probably a much more appropriate way to read poetry to strangers - grandiose gestures would have shut people's ears and understanding - but i was disappointed because she didn't randomly pick me as one of her audiences. sure, my prior knowledge of the event would probably have ruined the effect she was going for, but still... i wanted to hear poetry. bitch.

i spent the entire bus ride home telling myself that i would make up for not hearing anyone else's poetry by writing a poem of my own. i scanned the blurred sidewalk for subjects; an old man heaving up a hill after the bus and the indifference of the driver and the passengers (including myself) were going to be my inspiration. ready to write and full of stock phrases, i got off the bus and headed down my street. as i approached the house that my apartment is in, i noticed a woman with a beagle loitering in front of my downstairs neighbour's apartment. she was wearing a wide brimmed, black hat and a jacket much too heavy for the warm day. i dismissed her as just-one-of-those-eccentrics-you-see-in-these-parts.
when i reached my door, however, i became aware that she was talking to me, and plucked my headphones out of my ears (of course i hadn't been listening to the sounds of life and the city, everyone knows it's all worthless din). the crazy lady had found a small shaggy dog without a collar, and wanted to know if it belonged to me. i told her it didn't but my french must have failed me because she brought it up to me anyway. just when i thought she was going to shove the dog off onto me, potential fleas and all, my neighbour from downstairs, phil, came out to see what all the hubbub was about. crazy lady asks him if the dog is his, phil says no, and crazy lady tries to shove the dog off on him. i guess she read the reluctance in phil's face, though, because a moment later she suggested the obvious, that she already had a dog and dog food and she could take it until the owner was found. so off crazy lady goes, small shaggy dog under one arm and beagle on a leash in the other. neighbourly chat between relieved phil and i ensues and a few minutes pass. but just as i was telling phil my theory about our upstairs neighbours being dealers, another woman bursts out of the apartment next to phil's, frazzled greying hair flying at all angles and nasty heather gym shorts clinging to her bony thighs, screaming: "mon chien! KAAAAY-CEEEEE! KAAAAY-CEEE!"

phil and i exchanged that wide-eyed "oh, shit" look that so often passes between two dog bandit abettors, being found out. phil, the native francophone, begins explaining to crazier lady that a woman was concerned for the dog and took it just until the owner could be found, and look, in fact, she's actually just down the street there, with KC in hand, safe and sound.

for reasons that only another mildly insane quebecoise woman could understand, crazier lady grabs me by the arm, and begins shaking me frantically, repeating "mon chien! KAAAAY-CEEEE! KAAAAY-CEEE!"

when i did nothing in response but knit my eyebrows and point down the street, she commanded phil to go get her dog for her, which, mysteriously, phil actually did.

crazier lady and i watched as phil ran a block down the street to the other woman and, because i needed to fill the awkward silence i said (in french) "Look, your dog is just there. The woman has your dog and you can have him back now. You can get him." well, that's what i thought i said, anyway, but those were not the words crazier lady seemed to hear. something snapped inside of her, and she charged like a mother moose down the street towards her KC, passing phil, and snatched her KC out of crazy woman's arms. i was too far out of earshot to hear what was said then, but i can imagine it was something like "tabernac! bitch!" because crazier lady proceeded to slap crazy lady up and down her torso and kick crazy lady's shins.
phil and i, from different ends of the street, exchanged that wide-eyed "oh, shit" look that so often passes between two witnesses of a dog-inspired, crazy lady, cat fight. without waiting for the action to end, phil walked dazedly back up the street to where i stood.
"did you see that? where do we live?" he asked, and then said something in french that i couldn't understand.
"j'pense q'elle est une peu folle," i said.
"yeah, i think so," phil replied.
"well, it was good seeing you," i offered.
"yeah, you too."
i ascended the stairs to my apartment, where the key remained in the door. i pushed myself in and locked the door behind me, sank to the floor and let everything out.
no poetry for me today, just an hour of warm and lonely laughter.

EXCLUSIVELY BY EXCALIBUR

2005-09-22T20:50:00.000-04:00

Having spent half the summer safely hidden behind my uncle's dark, oversized "Excalibur" sunglasses, I'm left feeling naked and exposed on these dimmer days. Suddenly the movements of my eyes are no longer secret, and it takes me a minute to remember that the person across the bus from me can actually see me looking them up and down, nibbling their personal appearance like a mystery danish. Rasperry? Strawberry? Prune? So what if I am nibbling? Don't most people dress to be nibbled in the first place? It's probably all in my mind, but the looks they shoot back are reprimanding and defensive : Hey, you nibbler, I was saving this for the lunch of my own self-perception. Back off.

And now, because my blogging was interrupted, and the train of thought lost forever, I will discuss fruit:

Mango was probably the most intense person I'd ever met. She thrived off of and radiated intensity - it was an airborne contagion that seeped through the pores of your skin in her presence, and entered your bloodstream directly. With Mango, there was no such thing as a casual conversation - the girl was incapable of shooting the breeze or passing the time. Every moment, every subject, was novel and astounding, worthy of the most profound wonder and awe.

"Fruit," she'd say. "Fruit," her eyes widening with the madness of an enclosing serial killer, "The most amazing fruit experience I've ever had was with a papaya." Her words fell with measured cadence; her hand would grip the arm of your chair and those crazed eyes would look deep into your own. "This papaya, it wasn't a normal papaya, it was the richest, reddest papaya I've ever seen ... it was so red - like dark, oxygen-rich blood!" As these words sank in you would suddenly become aware that your own eyes had widened enough to instigate a headache, the hairs on your arms would rise in fascination and anticipation - all for this bloody papaya.

"And then," she'd continue, "I took a bite, and it was the most sensual fruit eating I've ever experienced - I mean really, really sensual. The flesh had this musky smell to it, and it was so soft, and so sweet ... and it got me thinking about how in some cultures the papaya is, like, a symbol of a woman, and i totally understood it. It was really amazing..."

And then she would plunge from the depths of fructal intensity into the basin of cultural intensity, all the while holding you hostage with those enormous and furious eyes.

nail nibbling.

2005-09-13T23:27:00.000-04:00

i've been looking for a symbol of myself. something that i can destroy with a physical release and rebuild with careful thought. an effigy to burn and to redefine. i could make one of those rainbow sand-jar creations out of the ashes, and bring some old lady somewhere some joy. i could delete my facebook or myspace, one deliberate keystroke at a time, but honestly, neither of them actually represents me. i may be represented in my writing; in my journals, in my hack-poetry, in this passionless blog. but i'm too much of an egoist to destroy such a direct reflection of my thoughts. conundrum.

just because i wanted motion

2005-09-01T22:23:00.000-04:00

it's too hot with the window closed, too cool with it open. there is no in-between zone, just short alternating intervals of equal discomfort. if i didn't have this music i couldn't be typing right now. it's just that's how i've been lately - heavy and awkward and still. i'm hoping the beginning of classes will shake me down and back to myself and all of my stupid ideas. oh, how i miss my stupid ideas, i wish i knew who has them now.

you come back to class and your classmates are married, your classmates are in love, your classmates think they belong, your classmates have a list of everything that they want to do in their lives, and your classmates have the determination to do all of it. they're wonderful, even if it isn't all that simple, which i doubt that it is.

if you walk down cartier right now, and look up into my lighted study, you'll probably see me hunched here, scratching my nose or rubbing my eyes, thinking hard about what it is that i don't know i want to do, opening and closing my window, indecisive as ever.

you've watched me change

2005-09-01T19:50:00.000-04:00

and it's happened again.
it rather needed to, didn't it?

at least there's walking around in one's underwear...

2005-08-15T23:07:00.000-04:00

i spoke to three people in person today: the man who came to (unsuccessfully) fix the hot water, the mumbling woman behind the counter at hsbc, and the mumbling woman behind the counter at marché st-jaques. it doesn't matter, though: there are few people i would liked to have spoken with, anyway. i was happier walking down ontario street, losing myself in the flavour of my market apple, completely impervious to the world around me, than i am in most social situations. and that is me: i am the girl whose grandparents had to call her name repeatedly before she could hear them over the roar of her book; i am the girl who can't do a math problem because she loses herself in the tiny possibilities, forgetting the bigger picture of the formula. i was born with an attention that operated like my own personal set of sound-proof headphones; all that i ever needed was to find a proper jack.

solitude in the city, it's something few people manage to find, but i've got it, right here in this empty apartment. dogs bark, keys clank, and i look out of my window with a distant curiosity, vaguely touched by these blips in my steady stream of single-minded perception. the trouble these days is that i seem to have lost control of the cord; the jack i plug into escapes my power of choice. the same sad song is droning on, and my logic fails to call me back.

CHAPTER XVI: Special Methods of Examination ...165

2005-07-26T22:46:00.000-04:00

samm just asked me how to say "bat" in french - "bat, like the flying animal." i haven't responded; i don't know. yet i know that i probably should know, and i know that i probably should look it up. but i'm not going to, and this, i know, is probably a sign of my lazy downfall. sorry, samm. give "le rodent aux ailes" a try - maybe someone would believe you, and that's probably all that matters. on the off-chance that they don't, however, i recommend looking askance, humming an unfamiliar tune, and changing the subject: "were you aware that coleridge's 'this lime-tree bower my prison' was resultant of his wife spilling a pot of scalding hot milk on his foot? ahem, yesyes, quite..."

tomorrow i'm getting on a plane for california. i spent most of this evening listening to rufus wainwright's "california" and the decemberists's "los angeles, i'm yours" in rotation. neither of them have anything particularly good to say about the west coast, but i, self-indulgently, appreciate anything that gives a direct reference to tomorrow's destination; both of these songs ought to figure prominently on my mile-high playlist, as well.

the other day, while perusing the dollar books in a skowhegan thrift store, i stumbled upon what many outdated medical procedure guide book collectors (i leave the syntax and semantics of those last few words up to you) must only dream of: a 1942 edition of "Gynecology for Nurses." yes, it's that special; special enough for me to capitalize it properly. anyway, this little guide book is complete with drawn and labeled diagrams, detailed, and slightly antiquated, descritpions, and an entire chapter wholly devoted to the procedural instructions for seven different types of enemas. holy crap (and lots of it!), what a find. i'm toying with the idea of toting my little gem on the plane with me, you know, just to catch up on the old endocrine system and completely disgust/horrify/amuse/intrigue my on-flight neighbour. but who knows, perhaps there are more vital reasons for me to bring along the guide: there could be turbulence, displacements, infections, heck! a woman could go into labour - i would be the only one qualified to deal with the situation! if it were 1942, anyway.

o, sinnerselves!

2005-07-17T21:51:00.000-04:00

today i sinned against myself; i violated every principle i've ever almost had. i say almost because, for the most part, i consider myself a rather unprincipled person. sure, i've got my strong inclinations for or against certain actions or ideas, but these, i think, are more in accordance with my own human nature than with any sort of moral statutes i may have consciously or unconsciously delineated (all of this is, of course, simply my feeble attempt at self-exculpation - something i schemed up on my guilt trip of a getaway). principles, i told myself, my white knuckles crowning the steering wheel and my chest heaving away at sharp pains, are needless shackles one latches onto oneself to sidestep the risks and effort of individual judgement calls. but me, i'm a free sprit, i'm above such principles. i'm guided by my inclinations but am not a slave to them; i realize when it's ok to be "bad." my cheeks, much to my surprise (i never was much of a blusher), were flushing red at this point - but red with what, i couldn't say. indignation? if i felt indignation, it was only indignation towards myself. or maybe it was the thrill of the chase - the thrill of my renegade body stealing away from its inclinations, holding my mind hostage. but this game of mental man-hunt cannot go on forever, i (whichever part of me is "i") strove to unite my divided selves. justify, justify, justify, come back, slow down, relax. and so i justified, and breathed, and wrote. and here we all are, i think, at peace with our decisions and conclusions, amending our strict inclinations, while better training them for the next chase.

my summer job

2005-07-09T00:29:00.000-04:00

in pictures:

but there's no hook in my gut

2005-06-23T10:53:00.000-04:00

i would like to tell you that i've been too busy to post lately, or that my mind has at least been engaged in more stimulating activities, but i wouldn't have you believe any such nonsense.

the long island summer baits your line with wild fantasies of carefree living, revolutionary ease of the social life, and spontenaeity on a level that could almost reassure you of your own imagination. inevitably, one of these squirming temptations prompts you to bite in, to chomp down with soaring anticipation, but to feel, instead, the sharp pains of responsibility, isolation, and drudgery barbing themselves through your cheek. my mouth is ruined; my voice is silenced. in this tank of concentrated consumerism, i wear nice clothes to fend off my mental alienation, i read non-fiction literature to fend off my mental stagnation.

shit, i've got to get ready for work.

homemade

2005-06-08T23:00:00.000-04:00

today i crafted shoes:

they may be ugly; i may just love them.

i belong on swift's grub street.

2005-04-14T16:54:00.000-04:00

the occurences of my life run in a circular path. you'd think that after a rotation or two i'd learn to avoid the same patches of mud. but the powers of my imagination are such that i can always convince myself i'm running past different trees, rounding new corners - the road seems always fresh. ah well, i suppose mud baths are good for the complexion or something; just cut a cucumber for my eyes so i won't have to see the messes i make.

one day i ought to collect all the entries of this blog (and the old one too) and make an anthology of the world's worst metaphors: "Kim the Hack: an Anthology."

ps. check out the hairs on the leg of my little dragonfly buddy. ain't that sweet? maybe i should have less passion for things like insect hairs... except, if you really think about it, they're incredible. true intricacy is infinite and mind-blowing, a worthy object of prolonged meditation.

yesterday's craving

2005-04-09T13:09:00.000-04:00

i swear i will not complain once in this entire entry

2005-04-06T17:35:00.000-04:00

it's chucks and bikin' weather in mtl, and i'm taking full advantage! admittedly, the whole tonsils-swelling-up-to-the-size-of-grapes thing plus all the recent phlegm-hacking i've been experiencing has kept me from biking as much as i'd like to, but what i have done, i've loved. sure, it was tough in the beginning: that first day barrelling down pot-holed sherbrooke was intensely painful - never have i felt such horrible crotch chaffing, not since i lost my virginity to my bike-seat in fifth grade, anyway. but since then i've toughened up, and it's been smooth cruisin' through horn-blaring traffic and screaming pedestrians - the din of the city harmonizing with my screeching, rusted breaks and the sun glinting off of my shiny purple helmet.

hmm... i sense myself petering out here. well, all i really have left to say is that it's spring in montreal and that's enough to keep me happy for days on end. the snow has melted, the stench has cleared, and i feel like i've just woken up from a very long nap. it would feel good to type "glorious" right here, so i will:

glorious.

flapping about to keep up my strength

2005-03-23T00:23:00.000-05:00

i wanted to do something cheap; i wanted to post something old; i wanted to feign creativity.

wing envy. flightless wings look just as appealing, though the air that they move will never be shaped to lift. but at least the air moves, you could say; at least she will not allow its stagnation. i will not allow my own stagnation. this is a verbal slap across my verbless face.

i'm falling again - falling like i fell through the connecticut air. except this time there is no impact; this is an astronaut's fall - endlessly down and around, till my fiery descent into the elastic ocean. and my tiny bolted window does the scenery no justice.

anticipating my 19th birthday

2005-03-15T23:55:00.000-05:00

On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I would shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

-- Billy Collins

ps. new comment system's up.

she records her summer goals

2005-03-09T18:44:00.000-05:00

summer approaches quickly, and summer makes me nervous. if it's possible to bungle up one's summer at all, then i certainly did that last year; and i don't mean to do it again. i mean, just look at the shit i did last summer: i took up cooking and baking, i read copious amounts of literature and poetry, i slept for hours on end, i trained myself to ruminate in the third person, i crafted nifty little pins out of fabric and clutter that fell apart within a week. and then, folks, four months of my life were gone. and what did i have for it? a knack for peanut butter bar baking, half a notebook of useless and self-depricating journal entries, a passion for annie dillard, and a couple of pins hot-glued to neon green micromachines and princess-pink barbie shoes. i'm sorry, but that's simply not enough to account for nearly half a year of my life (yes, i know, i'm so difficult to satisfy, the micromachine pins were sheer genius). but this summer is going to be different; this summer i'm setting GOALS.

and here's my first go at it:

1. Get a job and make lots of money.
2. Don't work too hard, take some time to relax.
3. Read.
4. Grow my hair really long so I can hide in it even more effectively.
5. Learn to bake something new.
6. Devise a new useless craft.
7. Remain as pale as possible
8. Write journal entries and poetry that are slightly less self-depricating.
9. Make a new friend who is not a snapper turtle living in the Maine woods.
10. Retrain herself to ruminate in the third person.

excerpt from an undated journal entry

2005-02-28T18:05:00.000-05:00

found this in my "real" journal. it amused me:

I arrived at the Trottier building 15 minutes early for phonology and, feeling parched enough, opted to buy an apple juice from the vending machine. Upon approaching the machine, however, my cheap Long Island girl instincts kicked in and I became very reluctant to part with a precious loony. Resolved to work up some mucus in my mouth and swallow that, or else find a water fountain, I began to turn from the machine, when a shiny object caught my eye. No! It couldn't be! I turned, I looked, I beheld: a loony that some careless engineering student had left in the change slot! How sweet!

Minutes later, while still gloating over and happily sipping my free apple juice, I noticed the presence of that enigmatic boy with [details omitted] from [insert place here] in the corner of the room. He was smiling his unassuming smile and talking to two girls who'd evidently spent too much time preening that morning. Instantly I became self-conscious of the brusque and ungainly way I was throwing back my head, attempting to get every last nectarous drop out of that can. I suddenly wished for a straw, and for clearer skin, larger breasts, a flatter stomach, thinner thighs, and more elegant clothing. Way to ruin a free apple juice, bitches (a term that does not exclude me).

poopsie goes down

2005-02-25T00:46:00.000-05:00

you know it's not home anymore when you don't want the computer to remember your passwords.

hey, kids. i'm on the island, sitting here in my pajamas, wishing i could shower, but holding out because jane used up most of the hot water. but i'm not writing here to tell you all i've discovered that this is no longer home. i've known that for a while now. i'm writing here to tell you that i'm flying backwards through the connecticut air, dreading my impact but enjoying my weightlessness. when i land there will be a soft thud; the ice will resist my form. i'll probably lay motionless for a few moments, sprawled helplessly for dramatic effect, then i'll dutifully contract, grab my elbow and whimper; i'll roll my sore neck for days.

but hey, i'm a limber young lass. i can take it. right?

the maine woods, or something like them

2005-02-17T10:32:00.000-05:00

Through the twiny veil of her tangled hair, she stared into the brook below and beheld cotton clouds gliding through a liquid sky - a sky submerged beneath the leafy branches swaggering over her head. Her arms crossed each other tightly as the cohesion of these images startled forth a quiet gasp. She had been reduced to another stratum in the atmosphere; she was merely a shadow divorcing the branches and their water.

A moment passed, and she took a pleasure in her placement, forgot all unnatural visions of the world she’d been sold.

A breath later she realized how long she would sit cross-legged on those two ancient planks, humbly and efficiently straddling her silent stream.

Now a mendicant of the forest, she dips her hands into the offering below; dips her hands and devours, as she ripples with the world.

the fucking yodelers

2005-02-14T17:20:00.000-05:00

well, kids, i have another paper due tomorrow and we all know what that means: obligatory procrastinatory blog update!

so this weekend, while i actually did nothing of great importance, i did manage to solve an old and perplexing mystery. as some of you may or may not be aware, ever since we moved into this apartment i've been complaining quite a bit about the "fucking" neighbors upstairs and their goddamn hippie yodelling. in january, however, the neighbors upstairs moved out, leaving us with a new batch of do-nothing, rap-rock blasting, obnoxious punks instead. oh well, i thought, at least i won't have to deal with the hippie yodelling anymore, not to mention the seriously embellished moans of neighborly copulation echoing through my room while i'm sketching syntactic trees.

you can imagine my great surprise, then, when i woke up one bright sunday morning, to hear the shockingly familiar cries of lust resounding througout my bedroom. holy shit, i thought, it sounds like the same fucking. i refused to believe that two tenants in a row could be such astounding actresses; i knew the pitch and rhythm of those moans all too well - they had to be the same. i tried explaining this to my roommates, however, and began to sound a bit ridiculous. "i swear, guys, it's the same sex!" i asserted, but rachel and jane looked skeptical. for me, that alone was enough to induce self-doubt, and i told myself that all fucking sort of sounds relatively similar. besides, if i were right, it would seem kind of creepy that i had such honed fuck-recognition skills.

anyway, skipping ahead to this weekend. there i was, sitting at my desk, struggling to figure out the concept of semantic trace in the wake of copy-deletion, when, seemingly in my room, a guitar struck up, and a woman's voice began an all-too-familliar yodelling routine. i jumped up, cried out, and ran into the hallway announcing the confirmation: the "fucking" yodelling neighbors never were the neighbors upstairs, they were the neighbors next door, in the other building! frantically i attempted to bang on the shared wall with my fist, but only succeeded in bruising myself. i reached for the nearest heavy object - my vegetarian cookbook - but still, i couldn't make a sound. finally, i snatched up an old wooden clog from under my bed and began beating the wall. the yodelling promptly stopped.

so, now that i know the culprit and have discovered my weapon of choice, you can be sure that i won't go to bed again without my trusty wooden clog at my side. i just hope her moans are quelled as easily as her god-awful yodels.

we'll lay in bags as dead as leaves

2005-02-11T23:58:00.000-05:00

friday night. so bored.

you know how i always pretend to have a life?
well, i don't.

ps. i just got digital ash in a digital urn. i don't understand, why has everyone been bitching about it? i'm rather happy with it. more on this later, if i feel like it.

addendum: rachel says i look like the bride of frankenstein in that picture. rock on.

nationalism in a can

2005-02-10T20:15:00.000-05:00

"Made from a selection of 100% arabica beans, including Colombian and Kenyan varieties, this delightful coffee has been specially blended and roasted to achieve a taste profile beloved by Canadian coffee drinkers. It delivers a mild, comforting flavour with a hint of lingering sweetness, just the way you like it. Freshly roasted and vaccuum packed.
CHEF'S TIP:FOR A 'TRUE NORTH' TASTE EXPERIENCE, TRY YOUR COFFEE 'DOUBLE DOUBLE,' WITH YOUR FAVOURITE DONUT."

look, canadianness now encompasses a giant can of coffee. the "'true north' taste experience," however, sounds more like the alabama truck driver or jersey cop taste experience, if you ask me.

by george, we were a car-full of happy dorks

2005-02-07T22:19:00.000-05:00

today marks the two year anniversary of the deliciously embittering "rochy or bust" journey. looking back on it, i still can't believe we survived the trip from philly to rochester; we drove all that way through a huge fucking blizzard, singing along to various (and seemingly premonitionary) mix cds and counting how many times the car swerved off onto the rumble strip (under the circumstances, it must be said that rob was an excellent driver, despite the "pretty" remark and near-death experience).

everything about that trip was so liberating: i was sixteen, skipping school, striking out on my own with a car full of 20 year olds - our destination a college rock concert in the new york hinterland - and all of this with people i'd met on the fucking internet. it's baffling that my mom even let me go. heck, we even had to tell jq's roomies that we'd met in a church group.

excitement like that just doesn't come so easily these days. and that's saying a lot coming from me - i still feel fairly envigorated when itunes shuffle picks the song i had in mind - but i just mean, the simple happiness that goes with that blind feeling of escapism. now, whatever i do, i never quite feel like i'm escaping anything; i feel too much a part of things, and that has its ups and downs.

the rochy trip, of course, wound up being more about the journey itself than the action of our destination. let's face it, that was one terrible concert (well, the openers were entertaining), but it may have given me one of my greatest "childhood" thrills.

Svetlana's Monologue

2005-02-04T01:02:00.000-05:00

Very nice, Clarissa, very nice – don’t forget to put chest forward, keep back straight. Joanne don’t be grabbing the bar so tight, you have to loosen up, let your hand sit on top… good girl. Emily, what are you doing? You’re not even on the right foot; can’t you girls even remember one little routine I give you? Is ridiculous – switch sides, girls – I don’t understand how you think you going to be ballet dancers if you can’t even remember silly bar routine. Do you think I got into Barishlovka looking like a big slob? Emily, you are a mess! Tighten butt! No, in Russia we had to take things for serious, you know, we did not have it easy like you. I mean, just look, you girls get everything you need at nice big supermarket and everything is lined up and so bright. I love the American supermarkets, especially that new one they just opened down the street. Beautiful, Clarissa – look, girls! Look at how Clarissa gets her leg so nice and high, is perfect. Emily, you slumping over when you kick, back must be straight like there is metal rod in your spine. Good, now grab floor with feet like you are cat with big claws. Better, better… yes, in Russia we never had these big supermarkets, my grandmother had to wait 4 days in line just to get a stinking loaf of bread. But I come here and there are beautiful supermarkets and walls of bread… and my God, the cheese! Girls, I love the cheese – we never used to have cheese. Joanne, let go of the bar, you are holding it too tight! OK, right, now just rest hand on top, just place it. Good girl. Yes, no cheese and it was very cold. It was terrible – everything would freeze, everything. And then – point toe girls, point – there was the ummm – what you call them? Oh, the hit men, and they go and they kill people in winter and all the bodies, they dump them in the woods and the fields and they freeze in the snow – Emily, you must tighten butt! Is like a jellyfish! Squeeze, we don’t want to see the jiggling! Anyway, the bodies they freeze in the snow, and then it snow over them and no one knows they’re there until the spring. OK, girls now hold that… leg higher, higher, keep holding… very nice, Clarissa. And so when spring come, all the snow melts and there is bodies all over the place, is disgusting. OK, legs down girls, you can relax. So anyway, that is why I never do the cross-country ski – I don’t want to be skiing over all frozen bodies, you know? Joanne, you’re looking good, by the way. Is like you lost hundred pounds, you starting to look like real ballerina now.

another form of procrastination

2005-02-01T21:26:00.000-05:00

i heard some bad news today that i don't care to discuss in detail because a) it doesn't really concern me and b) there's probably nothing good that i can say about it. but it did make me start to think about the little things we want but find reasons to put off until a later date. how deeply set in denial must we be to have successfully convinced ourselves that this makes any sense at all? there may not be a later date. you hear this everyday in some form or other, but it's so difficult to really feel it. well, today i tasted it, and i intend to savour it for as long as my fractured attention allows me.

what have i just done

2005-01-31T23:10:00.000-05:00

i've completely lost all narrative ability i once posessed. i mean, just look at that last post: lame. there used to be a (brief period of) time when the things i wrote here were actually presented in a tolerable manner, and when the topics i wrote about were insightful, zany, and heck - even somewhat amusing. but now i've got my face too much in the intricate crap of things; i can't back away to comment upon my interactions with the overall crap of things. and intricacy is just too overwhelming for me to capture at this point. if you want to know about intricacy just go read the chapter of annie dillard's book "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" entitled so. after that, you won't want to know about my version of intricacy, i promise.

anyway, i'm supposed to be writing my blake paper now. i guess i can look at this as a sort of warm-up, i've gotta get them verbal juices flowing and actively engage the language organ. oh, my poor, tired language organ - i work it "harder than my heart" and it's infinitely weaker.

(that brand new line is blow-me-away good. gosh.)

you're a fool

2005-01-26T23:24:00.000-05:00

it was one of those mornings when you successfully manage to drag yourself out of bed and into the kitchen for breakfast, but instantly regret it and spend all of your oatmeal time wondering whether you should forget you ever opened your eyes and retreat into your still-warm bed. being a nerd, i decided that school would be too important to miss today, and so i made myself go.

i gulped down a tall mug of coffee and two extra-strength pain killers before quitting the apartment and trudging to the bus stop. now, on previous occaisions i have offered scathing judgements on whiny, victimized-looking people, who wander the world over forever looking as though they were on the brink of tears, as though each brisk breeze were their own personal oppressor. but today, i must have fit that description well enough. my head was detatched from my body and all i could hear was that bright eyes song, "the movement of a hand," looping through my bus ride. never being one to suppress my listening urges, i put the fevers and mirrors album on. now, as we all know, this album is not much of an upper; by the time i made it to the top of the arts steps "something vague" was coming to its frantic moment of crisis and all i wanted to do was turn back and cry.

but then i thought, what the fuck, kim, you're just pmsing; you have no reason to cry or feel the least bit upset about anything. get a grip, go to class. and so i did. but i kept my victimized expression of hopelessness obnoxious and unwavering for most of the day. it was the only revenge i could think to wreak upon myself for the pretensions i use everyday to remain so well behaved.

and, look, i've gone all melodramatic confessional-blog here. add "hypocrite" to my list of good qualities.

by the way, if you've got to suffer death by cab, wouldn't it be better to undergo death by crazy new york yellow cab than say, montreal mini-van cab? i thought so, too.

phone beneath dust

2005-01-21T18:24:00.000-05:00

this is going to be profound

2005-01-17T19:24:00.000-05:00

the following is a guest entry by miss molly mo:

llllllhuu33ing

i think that changed my life.

Lucky Nails

2005-01-15T01:52:00.000-05:00

The air in the room stifles anyone instantly. Chemicals and polishes and fragranced lotions have stagnated there for years without ventilation of any kind; the plastic oscilating fan in the corner of the room does not count as ventilation. Eyes tracing the walls would not fail to notice the wrap-around mirrors and chipping pepto-bismol pink paint, the phoney beauty technician licenses, hanging crooked in their frames, and the enticingly huge posters of smooth white hands and feet, french-manicured and set off by bright flowers and dark backgrounds.

A chubby girl with large breasts pushed up to her chin and tacky blonde hair waited on the black leather couch, taking inventory of the month's hottest teen idols and snapping her gum loudly. She did not raise her eyes or think about the two Korean women with paper masks strapped to their faces who were bent over her sister's extremities, laquering on another coat of bad air. She felt annoyed that her sister was taking so long to finish up - those women hadn't even started on her own nails yet; she wanted to get to the mall already. Oh my God, is that Hillary Duff? Did she get cheek implants or something?

Yes, there are mirrors on the walls, three out of four of them; the fourth wall is all glass - that's the wall the door passes you through. The glass is checkered with neon green and yellow posters advertising the perennial specials: MONDAY - THURSDAY MANICURE & PEDICURE $14; WAX ARM AND LEG 24$. But there is no sign on the door, just a little bell on a long red string.

The bell rang and a frumpy young woman wearing grey sweats and a brown pea-coat stepped into the bad air. She made eye-contact with one of the masked Korean women (who reminded her of some Asian epidemic she'd seen on the news), and stated simply, "I need a fill."

The Korean woman nodded in the direction of the chubby girl on the leather couch. "Fifteen minutes."

an insignificant note on the content of this blog

2005-01-11T13:01:00.000-05:00

i'm sure that this will come as a surprise to most of you, but did you know that this is not, in fact, my journal? you see, that's what i thought was so wrong with the old blog - it was pathetically self-absorbed and self-pitying. i wasn't using it to make my writing anymore accessible, but to purge my teenage angst and loneliness. so when i created this blog, one of the things that i promised myself was that i would never again make such an emotional outlet of a public webspace. for one thing, it made me seem whiny and melodramatic in a way that i scorn others for being, and, most importantly, i wasn't being as true as i could, despite my pretension that i had no qualms about being perfectly open and honest with everyone.

anyway, the point is this: i have another journal - the old fashioned marble notebook kind that i write in before i go to sleep at night - and in order to continue this blog in any sort of respectable fashion, i need to keep writing in that other journal as well. that is not to say that nothing journalistic comes across here in "your convenient love;" sure, the surface stucture (and, probably, if profusely analyzed, some shadowing of the deep structure) of my thoughts and feelings comes across in everything i write. but that other journal, massacred with its schizophrenic scrawlings, is where the real demons are worked out, where everything is stated in my most confessional of modes. and i do this all for you (well, mostly for me, but i keep you in mind too), to keep this place from needlessly dragging you through the shit we've all already been through.*

the question is: am i right in doing this? or is any censorship and concealment a sort of falsity in itself? sure, i'm coming through truer than ever in the other journal, but is there a point if it will never be read? i'm sure i could exercise the same self-therapy through a mental process that would leave no physical traces. is there a point in recording the truth if it is never intended to be known?

(i have my own answers to the above questions but sharing them with you would be no fun at all.)

*this is not to disparage confessional art forms of any kind - many artists have a knack for dragging us through the shit (as we do, often, thirst to be dragged), and they do it in such a way that makes the shit beautiful to behold and revitalizing to taste; but i, personally, do not feel that i could accomplish that feat quite so gracefully.

every day of my life is better than christmas

2004-12-24T23:11:00.000-05:00

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.

)

2004-12-15T21:39:00.000-05:00

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"

2004-12-11T22:03:00.000-05:00

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

2004-12-11T13:02:00.000-05:00

it snowed last night.

pigeon pity

2004-12-09T02:04:00.000-05:00

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)

2004-12-07T01:09:00.000-05:00

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

2004-12-06T01:53:00.000-05:00

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.

bus woman with a built-in frown

2004-11-30T17:01:00.000-05:00

why is it that bus people always make for the most interesting people? is there something different about the people who ride the bus? or is it just that riding the bus is the only chance you really get to study people in detail for a prolonged period of time?

either way, i encountered one particularly interesting woman this morning. she was sitting in the back section, in one of the backwards-facing seats, against the window. the first thing that i noticed about her were her pants: they were black spandex that had a strange courderoy-like texture going up and down them, with a few patches of material where the texture ran diagonally instead. her jacket was rather non-descript; big, poofy, green and worn, with a large silver brooch in a flourishing swirl pinned onto her right lapel. she held a yellow gingham scarf in her hands. but what really grabbed me about this woman was her face. she was easily 45 years old, but i suspect, from her collection of tiny creases, that she was somewhat older. her eyes were small and brown, but luminous as marbles, and they peered out from behind two chubby olive cheeks. her mouth was tiny, and puckered expressionlessly, except gravity had settled her jowels into a permanent frown that traced all the way from the corners of her nose to the very bottom of her long face, below even the corners of her mouth.

let us give some attention now to her shoes (i think many of you have heard my ludicrous ideas about true personality being found in the shoes, so you'll understand why i give them such special attention here). having studied her face and the rest of her outfit, i never would have suspected such shoes on this woman (except that, as always, the shoes were the first thing i studied). they were those white chunky sketchers sneakers from circa 1999 - 2000. the kind you saw on all the trendy 12-14 year olds around that time. a surprisingly youthful, no matter how outdated, selection. normally, i would have assumed that she had bought them, without considereing their connotation, probably because they were simply on sale or second-hand and she'd wanted a pair of white sneakers, end of story. but then i noticed this woman's watch - spongebob squarepants - and the ear-bud headphones subtly tucked into her well-creased ears. her head was even bobbing to an energetic beat, and her hair was cut very short, geled, and dyed the same shade of reddish brown that i've just dyed mine (further proving my theory that i now have the official hair color of middle aged french canadian women trying to rekindle the sparks in their lives). these observations gave new meaning to the sneakers - this woman had something totally different going on: she had found a way to contradict the suggestions of her age and built-in frown - no one wearing those shoes with that watch and bobbing her head with such enthusiasm could be all that bad. a whole new respect for this woman burgeoned within me at this realization, even if it was totally unplanned and purely the result of a botched value village trip.

now that you've all seen how superficial i can be, let me just give you one little conclusion that today has brought me to:

bravery is nothing more than a momentary lapse of intelligence - not to say that it isn't completely necessary at times.

rollin' back

2004-11-30T01:48:00.000-05:00

i remember, about a year or two ago, reading an article in the new york times style (or maybe it was real estate?) section about a couple who had fashionably remodeled an old church into an edgy, modern, downtown apartment. at the time i simply thought, how cool, how innovative.

but now i think, isn't it strange that religion is now so impractical to our (um, i speak for new york, not jesusland) society that a church is less useful as a sacred place of worship than as a fashionable living space? where once priests muttered prayers at altars, blessed body and blood, now there sits a kitchen sink, perhaps a garbage disposal, grinding up somebody's refuse. where once there hung a cross, i bet they put up one of those flat-screen plasma tv's. and the vestry, i'm sure, makes for quite the spacious shitter.

don't worry, i'm simply noting the irony here folks.

and maybe one day, say a hundred years from now, the most fashionable young couples will be remodeling abandoned super wal-marts. or maybe by then they'll all have been converted into giant blue and yellow cathedrals. that's right, kids, look for the rollbacks.

new hair/old chair

2004-11-29T17:23:00.000-05:00

"damn volcanoes - sons of bitches!"

2004-11-29T01:49:00.000-05:00

did you ever play "hot lava" when you were a kid? you know - that game where you couldn't touch the floor because it was really a river of molten lava and you frantically had to jump from piece of furniture to piece of furniture, sacrificing the occasional stuffed animal to use as a stepping stone (how sick is that? i'm pretty sure i always chucked them down face first too).

i also had a variation of that game where my bed was a boat in a storm, and stuffed animals were always being whipped into the surging ocean by the hurricane-force winds. it was really quite tragic, and often i even fell into the water and came within inches of my life, but always i somehow managed to pull myself back on the ship, using only one arm, because it was more daunting and heroic a task when the other had suddenly become paralyzed.

damn. those were the days.

have to practice the french somehow

2004-11-24T01:58:00.000-05:00

j'espère que vous êtes tous à mêmes de s'avouer que la convenance est le plus grand moteur de vos vies.

pourquoi rêve?
pourquoi pense aux gros idéals?

vivez la vie facile; vivez la vie heureuse.
ou, si vous voulez,
ne la vivez pas.

what the 24 has taught me

2004-11-22T21:06:00.000-05:00

having nearly completed my third month of busing to school, i feel that i am now properly qualified to be a proper judge of proper bus etiquette.

"bus etiquette?!" you exclaim, "pishaw! ain't no such thing! spit or be spat upon - that's bus etiquette for you!"

well, you wily fool, that may be the case in the united states, but up in the great white north the canadians have a different way of running things, (beyond such trivial issues as peace-keeping, freedom of speech, the right to healthcare, and the mosaic model of multiculturalism).

so here you have it,
The Canadian Charter of Bus Etiquette:

1. Waiting for the Bus: It is acceptable to wander about the general bus area before the bus is in sight. Once the bus is visible down the street however, it is preferable to neatly queue up, single file along the curb and, at a distance of two blocks, ready your pass for inspection. (Addendum: Rachel points out that if there is ever any confusion as to who is in front of who in line, one must always defer one's spot to the other person. Unless, of course, one is having a bad day, in which case it is acceptable for one to push ahead.)

2. Boarding the Bus: Wait for each and every disembarking passenger to make it safely on the sidewalk before even approaching the first step. If stuck behind a lethargic, androgynous old person, remain calm and patient. Always help the flustered women to lift the baby carriage up onto the steps, no matter how you feel about children, young mothers, and base fecundity (look at it this way, not helping only clogs the bus stairs and further delays your commute). Oh yes, and always be sure to smile politely at the bus driver and give a greeting that corresponds appropriately with the time of day.

3. Choosing a Seat: This is the tricky part. Whenever there is an empty row, that is your best option. When no empty rows are available, ensure that you leave at least one seat of breathing room between you and your neighbour. If you are unable to secure that minimal distance of one seat, sit in a seat that is partially separated from its neighbour by a metal balance bar.

4. If You Must Must Must Sit Thigh to Thigh With Someone: Sit up very straight and adjust your legs so that they fill as narrow a space as possible, even if you have a hopelessly fat ass. Always keep a steady posture, no matter how the bus is jostled: it is most unpleasant when a neighbour sways and slouches up against you as if you were a wall. Never fall asleep and lean your head on your neighbour -this is beyond unpleasant; it's downright distasteful to drool on a stranger's shoulder.

5. Communicating With Other Passengers: Zero communication is preferable, including zero eye contact. If you must study the faces around you, at least have the decency to pretend to be looking out the window at the bum picking through the trash, or the cripples having a smoke in front of the rehabilitation center. If you must communicate to get by, a general "Excusez" is the preferable expression, regardless of the language or age of the person whom you are addressing, (using French, the official language of Quebec, exempts you from the possibility of death by a pissy bus-riding Quebecois Nationalist).

6. Standing on the Bus: If forced to stand on a crowded bus, never, and I mean never, press your two large buttocks against the person behind you, especially if that person is shorter than you and could possibly feel every intricate ripple smushed against her sensitive lower back.

7. Disembarking: Hell, you're getting off. Chances are, you'll probably never see any of these people again, so screw 'em. Push, shove, and trample feet; do all you must to get your ass off that tin can of mobile hell.

these sensational bones

2004-11-22T01:07:00.000-05:00

last night my dream had all the elements of a 19th century british sensation novel: dark secrets, old buildings, gender-bending characters, woman in distress, and class consciousness. i woke up wondering why secret passageways and social ranks were spinning about in my mind. it wasn't until mid-breakfast with jane and rachel that something clicked and i exclaimed "By gum! It had the plot of a sensation novel!" jane and rachel looked up, partially amazed but mostly confused, cracked a smile, and turned back to their toast while attempting to humour my stumbling explanations.

i also woke up with bones on my mind. stripping something down to the bones. or maybe it was discarding the bones. i don't remember the metaphor but i do remember the concept: paring down each thought, each expression, each action to the core of its motivation, and addressing that in response. too often we get caught up in the frills of ceremony and totally skirt the entire issue at hand.

i'm guilty of doing that about 90% of the time. like, what was the point of this post anyway?

she gave of them willingly

2004-11-19T21:53:00.000-05:00

some people think it's strange that i made earrings out of molly's feathers; i do not.

and no, i didn't cruelly hold her down and pluck them, i patiently waited for each one to molt and stored them in a ziplock back in the top drawer of my desk until i had enough for the design.

erica's critique: kim, that's weird. that's just weird. that would be like if my bunny died and i made a lucky key-chain of his foot.

the pants

2004-11-18T17:24:00.000-05:00

today i had a genuine case of what rachel likes to call "the cranky pants," or simply "the pants." i don't get them very often, but today i was well justified in my pantage... yesterday being what it was. and today, after running into the language lab 10 minutes late for my french exam, likely failing my french exam, and cursing out the prof in my head for completely ruining my oral composition, i had nothing good left inside of me: i broke down, and attempted to buy a diet coke. i waited online at the snax tabagie a good 2 minutes before i realized that i'm a genius and left my wallet at home. a broken woman, i threw the soda back in the case. i didn't want to be seen by anyone, i didn't want to talk to anyone. there was only one thing to do: sit with rachel in her natural disasters class.

rachel was in her usual spot, the middle of the very back row, and i hopped over and collapsed into the seat next to her. she could see i had the pants and understood; she didn't try to make me talk. the auditorium was dimly lit and the cramped seats were surprisingly soft. i put on my headphones and fell asleep, dreaming of tornados and ice-storms.

palatal click x 7

2004-11-17T21:41:00.000-05:00

If Molly could speak fluent English, I think I know what she'd tell me.

First, she'd take a few moments to tell me off and curse me for keeping her in that cage and leaving her alone during the day.

Then, she'd divulge to me all the secrets of the universe. I mean, come on, she spends enough time in that cage nibbling on dried fruit, focusing and re-focusing her golden eyes: she must have figured out something by now.

And finally, she'd tell me that, in the future, she'd prefer if I got dressed in the bathroom, as she is incapable of acclimating herself to the tastelessness of human nudity.

My feet are cold, I'm going to put on some socks.

Btw, today someone told me that we learn the rhythms of our language in the womb. Do you believe it?

shrimp-roaches with beady black eyes

2004-11-14T02:26:00.000-05:00

all i've wanted to do lately is sleep and sleep and sleep. it may sound boring to you, but that's only because you're an uncreative dreamer. or maybe just because your life is more exciting than mine. who knows.

today i dreamt that the sink was full of dead insects - overflowing with dead insects. they were a pale, milky colour, transparent and rubbery in texture, with black eyes, and shaped like miniature cockroaches. most of them were thin and about an inch long, but a few of them were fat and about four inches long. i was completely disgusted by this sink full of "shrimp-roaches," as i somehow knew them to be called, and the only way i could think to get rid of them was by running the water and rinsing them down the drain. but when i tried doing this the sheer mass of the little things and the occaisional fat shrimp-roach, would clog the drain, the sink would overflow with a watery mess of rubbery insects. i stopped the stream of the faucet and waited for the water to drain, then continued adding a small bit of water at regular intervals to slowly push the mass of insects through. it was a disgusting and tedious process, and i can't think why, but my cruel mind added the unneccesary detail of the soft slurping noise that resulted from such a clogging, unclogging, and re-clogging of the pipes. it was altogether horrible and fascinating. and when i woke up i was all at once relieved and disappointed.

i <3 being an english major.

2004-11-12T18:42:00.000-05:00

departmental wine and journal release parties in the english lounge = drunk kimmy by 6:00 pm.

she does sing louder than i...

2004-11-12T01:00:00.000-05:00

today i stepped out on the front balcony singing a miracle of 86 song loudly to myself, not suspecting that anyone was around to hear me. oh! how wrong i was! no sooner had i finished the line "hiding my face in my hands/ auditioning my escape plan" than one of my "fucking" neighbors popped her head out of her doorway and reached into the box for her mail. i was so startled that i said hello to her in english (usually i bust out the sing-song "salut!" in their honor). apparently she'd been standing there in the doorway for the entirety of my little outburst... i should have charged her for that performance. although, i guess you could say it was kind of a fair trade; i get to hear her performance every night through the ceiling for free. in fact, from this perspective, i still owe her several.

usually when people piss me off i fume about it for a few minutes in my head, bitch about it for a few minutes to a friend, go home, and sleep it off. it's all over by the next day. but, as of late, i've been making an effort to hang onto my anger. why shouldn't i? i'm entitled to be pissed until i'm not. so i will be. otherwise i'm just one of those green bristly doormats that people scrape their scat-covered boots on.

i've also decided to embrace confrontation. i'm totally going to be the bitch in yo grill, mofo!

i guess we'll see how that goes for me.

"i hate ze men and zere lying ways!"

2004-11-10T23:19:00.000-05:00

today at the writer's circle meeting we discussed humourous writing. the big words of advice were "just think to yourself, what's the funniest thing that could possible happen next, and write that." ok, sound advice, i'm sure, but what if your sense of humour (being an ex-pat, i feel compelled to spell it the canadian way) is just horrible and fumbling and generally unpopular. i am the master of cracked and unappreciated jokes - no one ever gets my humour! either they take it seriously, in which case i sound like an idiot, or they simply don't think it's very funny, in which case i look like an idiot, sitting there with half of my pathetic, expectant smile hanging out like a fruit of the loom underwear tag.

anyway, since rachel's computer crashed monday night and she spent the wee hours of tuesday morning wrapped in a blanket, collapsed and teary eyed in my doorway, i agreed to record the important bits of her life in my blog for her.

the important bit of rachel's day:

at approximately 10:15 rachel decided to give herself a haircut. she put on a wife-beater, grabbed the scissors, threw her head under the tub faucet, and emerged about 15 minutes later with her new look, entitled "I Hate Ze Men and Zere Lying Ways." then she put on her courtney love slip and proceeded to spin around in front of my mirror for a half hour, repeatedly screaming the name of her new look, and probably deeply perturbing the boys downstairs.

loophole, haha!

2004-11-10T01:26:00.000-05:00

so, i'm not allowed to link my roommate and dear friend rachel's blurty, but she never said a damn thing about quoting it!

rachel's post from Nov 1st:
"the things that happened recently in ascending order of interest:

- i cleaned my room
- the person who sat next to me in history smelled like
salami
- there's a boy who looks like a well-dressed TA (front creased pants
and sweater vests) in myth and i'm attracted to his responsible and
clean-cut look
- i saw the worst bumper sticker in the world. it said: "genetically engineered corn is killing monarch butterflies...what's next???"
- we got sex advice from "nickers" (splash 'n boots)
- there was a(n incredibly false) rumor going around (between me and kim) for a while (a day) that someone we know was involved in a menage a trois "
wow, i post too much. damn! i can't get out of this block quote thing!

"it's a naughty business, that."

2004-11-09T21:16:00.000-05:00

hot damn, canada is cold. i wore spandex pants under my skirt today... bad idea. well, to some (i am not included in this "some"), spandex is always a bad idea, but today it was even worse.

after class i met rachi and jane at cinema du parc and we caught a 5pm showing of i <3 huckabees, which was wonderful. it was simply hilarious, and surprising: i couldn't believe that a movie had actually met and surpassed my expectations. although, napoleon dynamite definitely did that too... "get off, napoleon! make yourself a dang quesadiLLa!" oh yeah, about i <3 huckabees... did i mention that jude law fakes a terrible american accent?? my god, why would he even attempt to change it, his character could have totally been british without significantly altering the plot of the movie, though i have to admit, listening to jude law slip in and out of his overdone new yorkish did significantly add to my entertainment. but hey, either way, it's jude law. and he's hot. and so is jason schwartzman. so i ain't complainin'.

so the AIM-free week thing is going well for me so far. i've had no great temptation to sign on and check away messages or type meaningless banter to anyone. actually, the hardest thing has been controlling my impulse to run to my computer and put up the clever little away messages that pop into my head. but that's what i'm here for, to express all those clever thoughts. though somehow i think they lose a bit of their cleverness in the transition from thought to text. it's a shame, that.

that really isn't a good way to end an entry but lately i've had a hankering to write a sentence of that form.

plagiarists of the world, i spit on your uncreative little minds.

2004-11-08T18:12:00.000-05:00

today was one of my best days yet this entire semester. i felt so in control of my life, more than i ever have before; or, at least, i was more aware of it than ever before.

when i got home from school i made a massive pot of winter stew, and i think that it's the best thing i've cooked all year.

right now i'm sipping a glass of cold, tap water, and it's the best water i've tasted in my entire life.

in other news, plagiarism sucks. i recently found out that some of my poetry has been plagiarized (to what extent i don't yet know), and aside from being outraged i am completely astonished. i don't think i've ever written anything "good," and i can't believe that anyone would think to claim it for their own. what an embarassment to the plagiarist; how incapable a writer do you have to be to use my work to make yourself look better. it's totally laughable. and yet, i am outraged. it may be terrible poetry, but it is my terrible poetry, and no one else's. having ugly children does not mean that you will non-chalantly allow a stranger to kidnap and proudly display them as her own; well, not unless you're completely heartless, which i wouldn't put past you.

AIM my ass.

2004-11-08T01:33:00.000-05:00

i've decided to give up aim for a week. i'm not signing on until next monday morning. i've decided that i waste entriely too much time checking away messages that i know i don't care about. plus, i'm sick of being always there. so, this week, i am not there. but hey, if you thought to look here for me then don't be shy; go ahead and leave me some love on the tag-board. and if anyone needs to contact me you know my e-mail and/or you know my phone number. but word of advice: choose e-mail over phone; there's nothing i hate more than extended phone conversations.

so anyway, have you ever wondered what makes a good Canadian leader? i know i sure have! well, folks, tonight is our lucky night, because i have stumbled upon the answer:

that, kids, is Pierre Elliot Trudeau, great Canadian uniter and writer of the 1981 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. damn, he was so cool.

crack crack

2004-11-07T02:07:00.000-05:00

my oddest habit is most definitely nose cracking. i press down on the outside of one of my nostirls and apply pressure until i hear a little crack. then i take my finger off, and feel the sensation of my nose slowly peeling away from itself. if i inhale at just the right moment i can smell my own nose. i think it's one of my favorites smells in the world. anyway, once it reshapes itself, i repeat the whole buisiness on the outside of the other nostril. or sometimes i just pinch my nose and firmly wiggle it back and forth to get the same effect, only simultaneously on both sides.

Molly

2004-11-04T01:11:00.000-05:00

She is, for the moment, absolutely content. Centered on the wooden perch in her boxy cage, she has begun to settle down for the evening. A whim takes her fancy, and, foot over foot, she steps daintily over to her food dish; her gold-rimmed eye does not deviate from her target. Quitely, she picks out a dried carrot with her beak, and, foot over foot, crosses the cage to her water dish. There, she dunks and dunks the carrot until it is amply soft. Foot over foot, she places herself back in the center of the perch, transfers her burden from beak to foot, and naively nibbles the soggy carrot.

in case you hadn't yet made up your mind...

2004-11-02T10:07:00.000-05:00

I received the following email from my second cousin this morning. Give it a perusal, he knows what he's talking about. (btw, when i copied and pasted this out of the email window some of the spacings got a big distorted).

"First let me apologize for bombarding you with such a lengthy email.

I think all of you know me and my political views well enough to have nodoubt that I will be voting for John Kerry next week (in fact -- I havealready voted for him, because I am going out of town next week and votedabsentee). I am hoping that most of my friends and relatives will be voting for him as well, but just in case any of you have not yet made up your minds, I am writing to tell you the reasons why I am supporting Kerry.

Here they are --1. John Kerry Will Win the War on Terror
John Kerry has consistently shown throughout his career and this election campaign that he will not waver in his defense of America. He has what ittakes to be Commander-in-Chief. He will command our Armed Forces as they hunt the terrorists down and kill them so they don't ever again threaten our Nation, wherever the terrorists are hiding. The Bush campaign is lying when they accuse Kerry of being inconsistent in his commitment to the defense ofour Nation. President Bush is right that the war on terror is the critical issue forthis election, but he has been wrong about just about everything else in this war. Although Iraq is now the main battleground in the war against the terrorists, that is only true because President Bush decided to make it the main battleground. It was a mistake to make Iraq the focus of this war, because the terrorists who declared war on the United States were not hiding in Iraq. Before President Bush invaded Iraq, Osama Bin-Laden and most of his remaining supporters were hiding out somewhere along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Today, we are not sure where Bin-Laden is, but apparently he is still somewhere along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. One ally of Al Qaeda -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - was hiding out in Iraq before the invasion, and today he is still hiding out somewhere in Iraq. If President Bush invaded Iraq in order to stamp out the terrorists who had attacked our Nation, he has certainly failed.
It is amazing that Bush can accuse Kerry of inconsistency regarding hispositions on Iraq in light of the constantly shifting reasons President Bush has given for invading Iraq. First, it was because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that were an imminent threat to the United States. We have known now for some time that Saddam's WMD's were a figment of the Bush Administration's imagination, and the recent reports that the Administration decided that guarding Iraq's oil facilities was a higher priority than sending in troops to secure 380 tons of high explosives (anyone pound of which is sufficient to bring down a jet airliner), put the lie to any contention that the invasion had anything to do with WMDs. Next,Bush and his people told us that we invaded because Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda. Now that it has been proven that those ties were fictional too, the Administration is saying that we invaded in order to bring democracy to the people of Iraq. While the latest rationale offered for the occupation is a laudable goal, President Bush should have leveled with the American people about why he wanted to invade Iraq. Had he done so our Nation could have had an honest debate about whether that goal wasachievable, and most importantly, whether it was worth the cost that had tobe paid by the American people, especially the men and women of our Armed Forces. What has been that cost to date? 1110 Americans killed and more than 8000 maimed or wounded, with no end in sight to those horrific casualties. And the cost to the American taxpayer is now almost $200 billion and mounting.That's right -- after George Bush claimed that John Kerry made up the $200billion figure in the debates, the press is reporting this week that the Administration has been preparing a $70 billion supplemental Defense appropriations bill for the current fiscal year, precisely because the total of $120 billion that has been appropriated so far for Iraq is insufficient.
So the price tag the American taxpayers will have to pay for the Iraqi quagmire is now $190 billion ($120 billion plus $70 billion), which makes John Kerry's $200 billion estimate during the debate look pretty accurate. And that is just the current year. The cost -- in both lives and dollars --will grow in the future before our occupation of Iraq can end.
What have we accomplished in Iraq? In the long run, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein will probably benefit the Iraqi people and Iraq's neighbors. But in the meantime, there are millions of people in Iraq and throughout the Arab and Muslim world who now view the United States as a heathen occupying force in the heart of their world. Many of those people didn't like America in the first place, but we have now made them allies of our sworn enemies in Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organizations. George Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq has done incalculable damageto the war on terror that our Nation has to fight. If you are serious about fighting the war on terror, you won't give George Bush another four years in the White House to continue his mistakes. Instead, you will vote for the candidate who is committed to fighting a war against our real enemies, and who will tell the truth to the American people about how the war is going. That candidate is John Kerry.

2. John Kerry Believes That Tax Cuts Should Go to Those Who Need Them the Most
John Kerry has stated emphatically that he will not raise taxes on American families with incomes of $200,000 or less and that he will keep all of the tax cuts passed by the Administration for people with incomes below that threshold. Those few of us who have been blessed with careers (or inheritances) that allow us greater incomes can afford to pay a greater share of the taxes that are necessary for our Government to operate. Our wealth is not independent of government spending and none of us are truly "self-made" men or women. We all receive a myriad of benefits from the Government -- among other things, Armed Forces and police to protect our property as well as our lives, courts that enforce our property rights (not to mention providing a forum for the lucrative practice of law for some of us), highways that transport our commerce around this country, and social programs to ameliorate the lot in life of others so they will accept the rights of the people who own the property. Government spending creates the very stability that enables many of us to lead comfortable lives and that allows a few in our society to become fabulously wealthy. The wealthy can afford to pay the most taxes because they benefit the most from our system of Government.George Bush either doesn't understand this or more likely, he just doesn't care. Oh, of course he cut everybody's taxes, but his tax cuts provided paltry sums for the many and overwhelmingly benefited the richest. Bush lied to the American people during the debates about who received most of his taxcuts --Bush could hardly have been farther off base when he said most of his taxcuts "went to low- and middle-income Americans." That's just not true.In fact, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center recently calculated <http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/TaxModel/tmdb/TMTemplate.cfm?DocID=619&topic2ID=40&topic3ID=81> that most of the tax cuts -- 53% to be exact -- went tothe highest -earning 10% of US individuals and families. Those most affluent Americans got an average tax cut of $7,661.And as for the "low- and middle-income Americans" Bush mentioned -- thebottom 60% of individuals and families got only 13.7% of the tax cuts, according to the Tax Policy Center, a far cry from "most" of the cuts asclaimed by Bush.That's not my assessment -- it came from http://www.factcheck.org/ -- the website cited by Vice President Cheney duringthe debates. Over the next four years, the wealthiest 1 percent ofAmericans will receive, on average, a total of $96,634 in tax cuts, while the bottom 60% of Americans get back $350. Just like his reasons for thewar in Iraq, the reasons that Bush gives for his tax cuts, keep changing.
Initially, he promised the tax cuts because he said the Nation could affordto rebate to the taxpayers some of the surplus that had built up underPresident Clinton. Then when the economy crashed, and Bush turned Clinton's surplus into record-high deficits, Bush insisted that tax cuts were neededas a stimulus to get us out of recession. The only constants are that George Bush insisted that the tax cuts go to the wealthiest and that thecuts needed to be made permanent.At the same time that George Bush is cutting federal tax on the rich, his Administration is pursuing an aggressive program to shift responsibility for health care, education and other social programs currently operated by thefederal government to the States. Almost invariably, the States have taxbases, such as sales taxes, that are more regressive than the progressiveincome taxes levied by the federal government. The implications of Bush'spolicies are stark -- the American middle class and poor are going to haveto pay more in taxes -- or they will have to accept cuts in programs such as Medicare and Social Security. The Democrats are right -- George Bush isgoing to make the rest of America pay so he can provide tax cuts to thewealthy.

3. John Kerry Will Restore Fiscal Sanity So Your Children and GrandchildrenDon't Have to Pay Off George Bush's Debts
George Bush's deficits are apparently intended to prevent any futurepresident from expanding federal social programs without raising taxes. If elected John Kerry may not be able to accomplish all of the programs that he wants to implement, because he recognizes that the expanding federal deficitis a limitation on those programs. Kerry will cut the deficit to make roomto expand the programs that so many Americans need. Unlike George Bush,John Kerry does not want America's children and grandchildren don't have topay for the benefits we enjoy today.

4. John Kerry Wants to Expand Health Care Coverage for the American People
The differences between the candidates on health care are also stark. John Kerry has proposed a plan to expand health insurance coverage to more Americans. Although the Bush Administration's deficits may preclude Kerry from implementing his program fully, Kerry's plan is clearly intended toaddress the growing problem of Americans who lack health insurance, withoutimposing a government-run health plan as repeatedly and falsely asserted by Bush and his cohorts. Bush's plan, however, is clearly just another exampleof Bush's ideological commitment to cutting taxes, rather than reducing theranks of the uninsured. Bush's proposals would have only a marginal, if any impact, on the number of people who are presently without insurance.

5. John Kerry Will Protect Our Environment
I have been disappointed that the Kerry campaign has done little to pointout the tremendous damage that the current President is doing to our environment. John Kerry has shown an outstanding commitment to environmental issues in his years of service in the Senate, but his advisors have apparently decided that he won't pick up many votes by comparing his environmental record to George Bush's. That's too bad, because George Bush has given voters who care about environmental issues example after example of his complete disregard for the damage his policies do to our natural environment.
One of George Bush's first actions upon taking office was to break his campaign promise to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. (a promise that Bush either cynically or stupidly made in order to prove that he was more pro-environment than Al Gore). When his newly-appointed EPA Administrator committed to the press that Bush intended to fulfill his promise, Bush publicly repudiated her statements and said he had changed his mind (I guess that campaign promise was one "mistake" that George Bush could have admitted in the debates). Apparently the EPA Administrator was not allowed in the closed-door meetings that Vice President Cheney had with the energy industry where they convinced him that George Bush had to change his mind about whether carbon dioxide emissions were bad for the environment.
This President backed out of the Global Warming Treaty so that the United States now stands nearly alone in refusing to recognize that the world must begin to act now to reduce emissions that are contributing to global warming. The Orwellian nature of the names that Bush gives to disguise the impact of his policies is stunning. Rules that relax the restrictions that are placed on coal plants are called the "Clear Skies" policy. Building more roads and increasing logging in the National Forests is the "Healthy Forests Initiative." He claimed in the debates that he has a plan" to increase wetlands by 3 million" acres, although his Administration in fact changed the regulations to allow destruction of 20 million acres of wetlands. Just today the Washington Post reported that the Administration has proposed new rules that allow dam owners to appeal to a political appointee in theInterior Department when they are dissatisfied with rulings regarding licenses for dams on American rivers, but the proposed rules deny the same appeal rights to state governments, environmental groups and ordinary citizens. These rules will go into effect shortly following the election.
Most insidiously, the Administration has systematically cut back on enforcement of the environmental laws and regulations that are still on the books. Morale among the career lawyers in EPA's enforcement offices is ator near an all time low because they are not permitted to do their jobs.Industry is aware that they can violate environmental laws with near impunity, because this Administration is refusing to enforce the laws. If you care about the environment, you should vote for John Kerry.

That's just five topics and I could easily write on 25 more, but I want toget this email out before Election Day. In case you want to read some additional reasons to vote George Bush out of office, I have provided some links below.
http://www.factcheck.org/ <http://www.factcheck.org/> provides an objectiveand unbiased assessments of the lies and misrepresentations made by both sides in this campaign.

I don't agree with Bush on much of anything but he was correct yesterday when he said -- "For a political candidate to jump to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief."

Ron Suskind, "Without a Doubt<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?pagewanted=all&position=> ", New York Times Magazine explains how, on a wide range of issues, the facts are completely irrelevant to the decisions made by Bush and the people who surround him.
This last message and link is something I received shortly after the second debate from a savvy local Democratic leader with much experience and who isnot prone to hyperbole. The same point has been gnawing at me -- we cannot trust George Bush and the people who surround him because they simply do not tell the truth. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004897.php#more Friends: Please link to the above site. It quantifies something that has gnawed at me throughout this presidential campaign: this president is willing to twist the truth to the degree that no other incumbent has been willing to go.We're dealing with something that goes beyond the puffery that is the stock-in-trade of political debate -- it is an active effort to lie.
Please take care and don't forget to vote! (even if you think I am full of hot air).

Kevin
p.s., Suffice it to say that this email reflects only my opinion and is not the opinion of the law firm with which I am employed. "

liar! liar! that's more like it.

2004-11-02T01:52:00.000-05:00

sascha's a big fat liar and rachel's horrible at interpreting over-the-phone sarcasm!
i don't want my blog to be composed of untruths, so i thought i'd just set the record straight: that date with the noah lad never happened. i know, the shocks of disillusionment have temporarily paralyzed you. i felt the very same way when i first learned i'd been lied to, but only for a moment. after that i realized that if sascha had been telling the truth it would have been more of an earth-shattering event: guys just don't do that. no one calls when they say they will and no one goes that out of their way to get a number. so, the way i look at it, learning of sascha's lie has restored my lack of faith in the world; i don't yet have to get off my ass and re-conceive a more optimistic view humanity, and especially not of men.

i cut it close...

2004-10-31T22:18:00.000-05:00

whew... made it out of there just before the male stripper showed...

mmm... pink spandex.

2004-10-31T19:05:00.000-05:00

this weekend has been a good weekend, very social... almost too social.

i'd been planning to dress up as miss teen north dakota for the saturday night halloween party. i had it all planned out - the costume, that is - but i hadn't really given a whole lot of thought as to where exactly i would be attending this party, or even if there would be a party to attend. i guess i haven't got the patience for those silly details. plus, i always trust in my uncanny ability to unexpectedly and unintentionally stumble into a good situation. it came through last night; my roomies and i got a random invite through sascha to a costume party at ana's, someone i'd met only once before. rachel and i were hot to trot but jane was feeling a bit under the weather and opted to sit that round out.

in the subsequent scramble to put together our costumes, i lost faith in my miss teen north dakota plan, scrapped it, and whipped up an 80s aerobics outfit instead. in retrospect, it was a wise decision; nothing is ever so attractive as hot pink spandex. rachel followed through with her peter pan plans, which turned out well enough, except that she was seriously lacking the peter pan hat with the little feather in the top. it really didn't matter though, because her exclaimations of "second star to the right and straight on till morning!" were vibrant enough to compensate.

oh boy, there's nothing like a phone call to interrupt your train of thought... oh yeah, the party. so it was good to get out and socialize with people outside of my usual little cirlce of friends. i ran into a lot of people i hadn't seen in a long time and one girl that i remembered from frosh because of the really awesome shoes she had. some guy named noah who was dressed as a race car driver spent the evening hitting on sascha, and, to our great astonishment, he called ana this morning to get sascha's number and the two of them are, as i type these very words, on a "date."

the boys downstairs were throwing their very own party last night and it was still going on when we got home. we didn't get an invite in this time, though. so we had to sit in our rooms and feel the floor vibrate under our feet, merely listening to the festivities.

hmm... well i'm boring myself here, and i've got to get my arse down to coloniale for amanda's surprise party, which i'm probably only staying at for an hour, tops. after all, sunday night is study night.

update: 'nuff said.

2004-10-29T16:19:00.000-04:00

i don't even know why i make any effort to comment in my poetics class. i'm always either shot down or completely ignored. i haven't a very high opinion of any of my abilities or even my intelligence, but even a completely incompetent idiot deserves more respect than i feel that i'm getting.

ok. i'm still raging inside, but whining about it here isn't going to help matters.

rachel and i were watching a little tv yesterday, and were completely dumbfounded by a taster's choice commercial that came on. it was like the ad agency was attempting to create this highly refined air of sophistication around the coffee and the people who were drinking it. but, why? it's instant coffee. it tastes like shit compared to other coffees, the only thing it has going for it is its speedy preparation. it struck us as an unusually ridiculous and mis-aimed marketing ploy, the rich, sophisticated upper class probably never drink taster's choice. taster's choice is the coffee for the blue-collar, single, working mom driving her kids to soccer practice; taster's choice is the coffee for the lazy bachelor who doesn't feel like washing out the coffee pot each morning. this being the case, why not market to those people instead? i think they'd sell a whole lot more of that terrible coffee.

we also noted that the taster's choice slogan needs re-working. rachel came up with a good one: "Taster's Choice: 'Nuff Said." and then we extended this ingenius slogan to other products: "Corn Flakes: 'Nuff Said," "Cheese: 'Nuff Said," "Vaseline: 'Nuff Said"...

yesterday, on the bus, i watched two little kids dressed up as a renaissance princess and prince play each other at "roche, papier, ciseaux" for about 15 minutes. they were the happiest i've seen any two people at any activity in a very long time, and they were completely unaware that their happiness was spreading through the entire bus. no one could take their eyes off of those kids, even a badass-looking guy at the front of the bus couldn't contain his laughter as he watched them become more and more excited with each round, until they were simultaneously screaming "ROCHE, PAPIER, CISEAUX, LES METS (i think they were saying 'les mets,' not sure though)! ROCHE, PAPIER, CISEAUX, BOILE DE TOILETTE!" and jumping out of their seats. i don't remember my childhood being that incredibly fun. i'm so envious of those two kids, especially their halloween costumes.

simple is good

2004-10-28T23:27:00.000-04:00

I think that one of the main reasons why I haven't been updating very much these days is, aside from all this mid-term crap, that I really just can't stand diaryland anymore. And come on, that template with the grapefruit was just hideous - a good idea gone very wrong. This is my second attempt at blogger and they seem to have worked out some of the bugs that frustrated me with the service last time, so hopefully I'll be sticking around.

All right, I'm just about seeing double right now... mid-terms are inhumane instruments of torture. Good night.