Wednesday, March 29, 2006

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my office is becoming like my bedroom in the 9th grade.

there are posters on the walls. photos of my friends.

and i never seem to leave it.

and i get sent to it often.

or rather, i send myself there. GO WORK, you soulless wonder! you empty hipster! you hack.

ah, hack the dreaded word. the word that brings up horrible connations (not to mention phleghm).

do you hack at a keyboard? or type clumsily. can you hack away at a piece of poetry till it resembles a "call 1-900-FREE for details"? most definitely. i have done it oh-so-many a time. of course, that's me deciding that my words are poetry, when in fact they could be mere rhyming disasters.

i have a masters in rhyming disasters. i have a phd in d-umb.

and so i sit in my faux-teenage room, with the cool poster on the wall that says i went to some music festival last summer with bands that no adult has ever heard of. and yet, i am an adult.

as i scream "I hate you, work!!" and slam the door.

Monday, March 27, 2006

multi-tasking

want to be

sun-basking
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loose lips sink ships
loose lips sink ships

you know, there really isn't enough nonsense in the world. i like to think that by adding bits and pieces tonight, that i am somehow helping the cause. i mean, it's only 6:29, why should i actually do any of the things on my to-do list?

what a depressing thing To-do lists are anyway. The one i have right now (and i have made about 5 today - i even make to-do lists of what to put on my to-do lists, only to forget about them later, leaving scattered and forgotten lonely little lists in my wake). anyhow, the to-do list i have at the moment is a thrill a minute, and i shall paraphrase four of the items on it for you.

1. write many silly lines about a part of the world that i have not an inkling of a clue about. the south pacific. the "far-flung" islands, as this old tahitian cookbook i have for inspiration is calling them. i like the idea of being "far-flung". it reminds me more of a game of horseshoes in the backgarden than geographical location of islands -- but hey. so i weave words about enchanted evenings and torchlight luaus that i've never seen. just call me visionary. or a bullshitter.

2. write copy to accompany corporate awards to be given out to large phone company employees. large meaning the company is large, not that the awards are only given to fattie fats. this is your typical inspirational gobbledy gook -- "when you shine, others will shine too", "to excel is to be the best you can be" and so forth. just call me a guru. or a fool.

3. write clever headlines to be on corporate cards for large airline. have written down "flights that won't cost you an arm & a leg-room", chuckled, then realized that it made very little sense, but loved it anyway. just call me a genius. or a dumbass.

4. name an online quiz for gigantic internet provider. happy-friendly super-duper-almost-strangely nice clients have input on this one, so am going to give them some feeling of creative "power" and pretend that they're helping me write this one. just call me a martyr. or a whorporate worker.

so rock out with your schlock out. and let me get to my to do and don't want to do and probably won't do but of course, have to do, so will do list.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Itchy feet.

what a term. when your feet really itch, do they want to move? no, more likely your hands will want to move down to soothe them. but no matter. Point is: lately i have been experiencing the itchy feet that make you want to tiptoe around the world and back again. Or just sprint. Whatever pace, you want to go go go go.

I suppose it's all deeply rooted in my psyche, or some such garbage -- because i grew up abroad. And now I'm just a broad.
Living in Toronto and seemingly stuck here forever and ever amen. During my childhood it was totally normal to experience the exotic - and of course i took it for granted, large and in charge.

Passed Gorky park every day on my way to school. Prom pictures in Red Square. Weekend school trips to Vienna and Geneva. Ah, the tough life of a diplo-brat.

now i just watch everyone i know book trips and ships and airplanes. it's time to take these itchy feet somewhere.

ideally, we'd start in Helsinki. a deliciously cool city full of un-bottled blondes in black. Then the night train would whisk (or chug chug chug) us to St petersburg, where we'd touch down for days of fun running across little canals and staring at magnificent buildings and gazing in awe at the wonders in the Russian museum. But ultimately ultimately ultimately, we'd give in to the pull of the real destination - Moscow moscou Mockba.



And there we would drink five dollar champagnesky in the park, smoke Opal cigarettes, wander through the markets, dilly dally in the metros, buy pirated cds from shady street vendors, dance at crappy and vaguely threatening bars, chit chat with ex-pats, hit the old Tretyakov, the new Tretyakov, the Pushkin, the everything.

And now with my new appreciation, Red Square would be magnificent, not a backdrop to my adolescent formal wear.

Now, the question is, can these itchy feet keep me walking away from every store in town so i can save the money to go?

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

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ah the perils of procrastination.

I mean, really - whatever am i doing? 11:30 on a Tuesday night, and i was meant to have written down at least 200 brilliant ideas by now. I love the way an evening can so easily fritter away to nothing. And yes, i realize that for many 11:30 is merely the beginning of a long and romantic encounter with insomnia - but not for me.

No, i slurp up sleep like a sorority girl does a jello shot. With giddy enthusiasm.

I long for my nightly trip to dreamland. In fact, so much do i long for it that i am far too organized, and my mind ends up plopping down at the departure gate at least 2 hours before flight. And though good intentions mean i pick up the work i packed, reality and excitement for the coming journey leave me daydreaming of nightdreaming.

Ideas will just have to wait till morning's arrival, bright and early at 6. That's when my best thinking seems to land anyhow. It must be something about the quiet streets i slip through on my way to work - the traces of yesterday and the hints of what could happen today - the sun rising on a dirty but gorgeous Chinatown sidewalk, the grande cafe americano with steamed milk that never fails to slosh up through the slot in the top and onto my waiting hand. Slurp, slurp.

So - evenings -- apathetic. And mornings -- poetic. And this post slightly ---- pathetic?!

Sunday, March 12, 2006

what a contemplative life i am leading these days.
Image hosting by Photobucketoverthinking overthinking, too much drinking, and my headaches sound like the endless clinking of glasses against eachother. I suppose I should expand on such a vague statement - but then I'd probably overthink the explanation. I need to have some sort of device installed in my mind (or maybe just a simple upgrade) where at a certain point I can vacate. Go on auto pilot and do, say, write, feel without mentally smothering.

And overthinking plus drinking is a dangerous equation, reserved only for fools like me. It's like they say:

Absinthe makes the heart go ponder.

Of course, no one said that. It just sounded utterly delightful in this head of mine. Point is, boozy makes your mind go woozy, and then your overthinking turns to mush. And by mush I mean frustration and anxiety and insecurity and a whole lot of nerd patrol all mixed up into a melodramatic thought bubble the size of Kansas.


I guess I can chalk up this maudlin yammering up to the fact that it's sunday sunday - always a day for regrets, frets and rather-forgets. And omelettes, if you're feeling slightly gourmet.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

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well, all is well.

Thankfully my old flame was uninterested in re-igniting. Relief is sweet, like 5 cent candies from the 7/11.

My hospital trip brought back fond memories of chemo-drips and blood-request slips.

Of course, i had to wait an hour for my appointment - which gave me ample time to re-accquaint myself with familiar yet alien surroundings, take in all the old sights and sounds and smells of illness and grief -- wan smiles, weary greetings, wigs, wrinkles and bad magazines, crumbly soda crackers and no-name gingerale. Ah, the nostalgia of it all!

And I couldn't help but stare at the woman nearby, who sat crying into her crossword.

Funny to think that it's been six years.