Brand New Start

This summer I lost my glasses and got new ones and couldn't help but think it meant something more than just $400 and a pain in my butt. A new way to see and be seen, you know? Clearer vision. A new outlook. I took any sort of cliched meaning from it that I could because I needed to and why not?

Anyway, another fresh face: www.thegreattidepool.com

It's currently under construction but we are/Ben is working on it. Fonts will be smaller and better and everything will look nice. And I'm going to try and write more fiction maybe but maybe not.

Make it a motto

This week we have positive or important messages. Things such as: Good things come. Go get 'em, tiger. Don't worry too hard. It's not as bad as it seems. You're probably great. People like you. Brush twice a day. 

Keeping Portland Weird

These goons. On this same day (yesterday) Stephen asks Suzanne to marry her. She says afterward, "I'm going to marry you, but I tell you that all the time." He says, "I called your bluff."

The world's largest third wheel.

"I'm engaged. I think I've opened up a whole new pandora's box of jokes."
-S. Wicks, 2011.

Ode to Rap (By Matthew Bernstein-8th Grade)

Rap music you are magnificent
A golden light from the firmament
With beat of perfect measurement
And words so eloquent
Not like a jingle in an advertisement
But a love-letter sent
Using voice as solo instrument
The best accompaniment
Like a burger and a condiment
I relish each ingredient
Rap you are my nourishment

It is no accident
Rap is often irreverent
Expressing life's discontent
Rolling waves so turbulent
Like from a volano's vent
It washes over me my enlightenment
And with child-like wonderment
Unravel each red-wrapped argument
? tied in knots of puzzlement
? decipher what is meant

And all my money will be spent
On rap with names like T.I., Jay-Z and 50-Cent
Without rap life loses its merriment
Rap music is my one true enjoyment

On the wall of a record store. Portland, Oregon.

At the Capers Community Market

At the table next to me two mothers are chatting over lunch about the lack of private schools in this neighbourhood. The one is “frankly shocked” about it. Wherever she had grown up, apparently, there were far more private schools; she says, “it just wasn’t a problem there”. Meanwhile her daughter has begun crying at the pigeon near to their table full of food; she is not, however, shedding any tears. Another daughter, who, according to her mother is “eating too many blueberries,” spits on the pigeon. This goes unnoticed.

A third daughter, clearly belonging to the mother nearest me, gathers away her family’s garbage. Her toe and fingernails match her blue eyes perfectly.

When the youngest girl’s crying grows no longer ignorable, the mothers faintly acknowledge her worry by telling stories about birds. One mother mentions a swarmed picnic once. The crying girl offers her own story about the time at the beach house when she dropped some groceries and a bird got them. The girl appears clearly traumatized. The pigeon wanders around the table.

As the pigeon approaches the middle child, she takes a large swig of chocolate milk so that she can make one ultimate spit onto the pigeon’s back. Organic milk and salvia go flying. This time though, the mother does notice. The girl gets in trouble. Lunch is over.

Pt. 4 (Things Brother Will Says)

"I did a speech on rocks that mom wrote once, and it was really interesting. I learned a lot from that speech." -W. Kane, 2011

Keep Swinging

Let's imagine a playground and you're there but you don't want to be. You're too old for a playground or something and so it feels bad being there. Or you fell off a teeter-totter when you were a kid and had to get stitches and you've hated playgrounds ever since. You can even make up your own reason for not liking playgrounds. The main idea is that in this imaginary situation you hate playgrounds. Screw that swing-set. Goddamn those monkey bars. The playground is shitty and it all sucks. But you're there, for whatever reason. Maybe because you're waiting. Maybe because it feels like you have to be. I don't know why you're at the playground if you don't want to be, but the point is that you are. If someone were to text you and ask you where you were at and what you were doing you might reply "I'm at the playground". I don't know who you are but you might be the type of person who would include a "fml" or maybe a "get me out of here". But either way you'd express that you weren't happy with where you are. But the idea is that you're stuck. This is imaginary so even though it seems highly unlikely that you'd get stuck at a playground I'm just going to let it be. We're pretending. My point is obvious and it's this: Play on the goddamn monkey bars anyway and stop cursing the swing set.

Pt. 3

"My mind blows my mind."
-W.Kane, 2011

Pt. 2

"There's only two ways it could go: really bad or, fuck, I don't even know ... worse."
-W.Kane, 2011

Things Will Says Pt. 1

"You gotta know your character. Know it. Him, her, whatever it is. It could be an inanimate object like a spoon. Like a spoon on a mission." 
-W. Kane, 2011

What happens in Stanley Park

(This silly formatting was an accident)

Just stand out there and stick your glove out in the air

"This is embarrassing."
"No, this is summer."

The Vancouver Canadians win the game against the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes 5-2. Beers cost $8. Floats $1. We go swimming in the ocean afterward and dry off by a satisfying bonfire.

Why porches are more open than unlocked front doors.

Two parents look on at their brilliant toddler. Not brilliant in the intellectual sense of the word, but brilliant to them, as most children are. His hair, much fuller and darker than either of his parents', rouses suspicion in the neighbours. His complexion too. The mother is not fair, but not dark either, and her hair is a floppy, weak, light brown. The father, in his youth, had hair the colour of hotel towels and sunlight. Pure white blonde. Now, the father's hair is thinning, a fact he has not yet and maybe will never come to terms with. He opposes his son's first hair cut. His son has beautiful brown black hair with a lustrous sheen, a fineness uncommon among his drooling peers.  The mother takes her son out on the porch anyway, with scissors in one hand, and her newly non-infant in the other arm. How grown up he'll look, she thinks. She cuts without hesitation, as her husband looks on with skepticism.

The sounds that go with this moment are this: There is just one snip, but it is a slow, deliberate snip, as though the scissors are going through the kind of rope that ties boats to docks. Not a hacking though, still a snip. A heavy snip. Then you hear a sort of exhalation, mixed with a "tsk", followed by laughter, the kind that really is uproarious. Real uproarious laughter. While the toddler remains silent, this laughter grows and goes on until it eventually dies down to make room for these words: "Well, maybe I can fix it." And this reply: "I think that might make it worse." And finally, "Can it get any worse? Might as well try."

Via Lynner Winner Chicken Dinner

Thinking of new names for my brother: Benner Wenner Fred Penner, Benner Wenner Big Tenor, Benner Wenner Money Spender, or...

Jasper

Rule of thumb: The cat always chooses the lap of the woman whose nose feels like it has needles in it, whose eyes are itchy and watering, who has sneezed 10 going on 11 times already today. The cat never chooses the woman who paid the cat's medical bills, who gave the cat a home, who wants nothing more than for the cat to choose her lap, at least just once. The cat can smell her desperation, and chooses the smell of fear instead.

Making plans for the future.

Plan: A picture of these two kooks daily, to be illustrated and bound together for their viewing dis/pleasure.

Another plan I have: Reading in the park today.

Also: Getting dressed.

barely creative writing called "What’s Ours is Yours" about what the word ours doesn't mean and how not to share

This cake is the fruit of our combined labour. It is layered, chocolate, and fucking delicious smelling. It is the product of our combined hours in the kitchen. Your ingredients, my hot oven. And so this cake will be our cake. We lick the beaters, the spatulas, the spoons. We butter the cake pan with our fingers and we wait. This cake is probably just as delicious as that cake but this cake is better because that cake is theirs and this one is ours. This is our cake. Look at how our cake rises. It is three stories high and there are coins wrapped in tinfoil hidden in the icing. This is our chocolate money cake and it is a masterpiece. Our masterpiece. We’re going to split it down the middle if we can bear to bruise its icing. We’re damn proud of our cake. We take pictures of our cake. We're looking forward to eating our cake. I'm about to cut the cake.

 But you take the cake. 

To June 15th,

In 1988 you saw the birth of a Ms. Sarah Ayton, who happens to now be one of the most lovely everythings. She has grown tall and talented. She is beautiful and she is wise. She is, like her birth date, always seemingly one step ahead of me, and this I do not mind one bit. A better person I could not hope to follow. 

In 2010 I had the most fun on you. I appreciated that you were sunny and warm and that everyone on you seemed to be in the best of spirits and all full of happiness. You were really very great and I appreciated it.

Just writing to says thanks and please keep up the good days.

Yours,

Lynn

Tough Crust

I ate close to half of the pie I made to make making the pie worth all that trouble. In this case, the making of the pie--the buying of the plate, the forgetting of the rolling pin, the carrying of the groceries, the waving of the tea towel wildly at the fire alarm, the dozens of phone calls home, the taking the pie out of the oven and putting it back in the oven over and over--maybe spent more calories than my eating it. Like the musk ox digging through the snow. Sometimes it just isn't worth all the effort. But sometimes it is.

Advice Column

Financial tips from a father to his daughter named "Charisma" given while biking along 4th avenue in Kitsilano: You can't save the money that you spend, Charmisa.

The pop and catch

I want a channel that just plays clips of people trying to take short pieces of toast out of the hot toaster.

Variations on a theme

I drew these ovens almost 3 years apart.

Either/or

If it feels good doodle it.

Doodling is not just for phone conversations and boring lectures, doodling is for always and forever.

Urban Intimacy

Down Arbutus, before Second, there's an apartment facing west with mid century modern lamps, and a mid century man. He sits in his corner chair, illuminated by the light, reading the paper during the evenings. I like to see him there.

On Broadway, between Fraser and Main, I saw a man as he went to the bathroom. It was 8:30, and still bright. I stepped over his stream of pee, so that I might walk all my way over to the next bus stop to allow him some tiny speck of privacy. And because I was grossed out.

I know some of my neighbours so well in some particularly intimate ways, but in most senses, I don't know them at all. I know the details of their sleep, their snoring patterns, perhaps only as well as a lover would. But I know nothing about their career goals, or whether they prefer to use butter or margarine.

Starting and then stopping

Remind your dear self that you are well loved.  Fortunately, you know some of the world's greatest. Be thankful for those rocks that show up in your mailbox at the precise moment you need them to.* And those other rocks. Your brothers, your mother, your best friends. Those reliable few. Those irreplaceable some. Those real keepers. Those ones who are real ones. Who answer their phone on the first ring because they're your real sugar angels. Your plum cakes. Who ask you to cook buttery pasta with them at the exact moment you are starved, and are in need of nothing more than buttery, eggy, really great pasta. Remind your dear self that your self is dear. Drink down that bottle of wine and enjoy your sourdough. You are wonderful and great and I really believe you're super duper. And everything that is the worst perhaps hopefully maybe makes room for something better maybe somehow. And who are we without hope? The lower-case "l" lord knows how hopeful I have been, and how hopeful I remain. Darn hopeful. In the best way. Here is to feeling okay when you're feeling everything but okay. And, more importantly, here's to those wonderful people who make you feel that way. To my friends and family who are impossibly great, thank-you, you darn shits, for being so overall lovely and amazing.

*My dear ma' sent me a great couple of rocks in the mail but I am without camera now. You will just have to come to Vancouver and see for yourself how stellar they are.

Pascal

Learns to catch the ball in his mouth.

Today I repotted a cactus and got pricked. I went to a store called "Step Back" to look for a new wood crate to put said cactus upon. These were Tuesday's little mockeries of me and my vote. As I walked home, I passed by the NDP office on Broadway just in time to see an employee clear his desk into a cardboard box, and another take down the last sign in the window. 

(I have a very clever friend named Brodie who has (finally) started a blog which will deal in part with federal politics, and in part with whatever floats Brodie's boat. I recommend y'all read it.)

BCing you soon

That time in the middle of the pond part way up that mountain watching my brother slide down like a penguin from the snowy top.

Essay writing is a joke:

Q: How many words is twenty pages?

A: Two!

Unlimited Long-Distance

Scott calls me and he says to me, "You're gonna like this one." He's obviously pumped about it. He asks, "Where does the king keep his armies?"

I think on it and I say, "I don't know. Where?"

"Up his sleevesies."

Also, another rock:

A priceless mineral of mine.
(Calcite with an "s" is especially rare and especially special)

The second story window

What a pleasure it is to read for pleasure. Because I've realized I waste time anyway, always, I'm going to waste it better. Sometimes I forget I like books. They're what's gotten me into this mess, after all. I also like images, art stuffs, galleries. Isn't this a novel idea? I think so.

Invigil8

Those slight movements a person makes to adjust her pen to the paper before it hits it. It can take almost 30 seconds, and then, then, Ah, there that girl goes. Whether the person was debating on a  "dear" or "to", or whether she was just wondering what type of script to use. She hovers. That pen's silence. I like the way that looks. That wondering what or how to write before the writing begins. And when it begins it begins swiftly, like she hadn't even ever hesitated in the first place.

ocean breaks

Today I plundered the ocean side for barnacled beauties like this.

1993?

So it turns out I must just have some deep down thing for floral patterns on black. 

Pt.2 (More dumb rocks)

Always slightly out of focus.

I was looking up rock names and found a "rockstar" name generator. You can call me Ilene Woolfe.

Dogtooth calcite, something but I forget what, oh scholzite, I think, and pyrite from Suzanne and Stephen (tag by Scott).

A lazy and thoughtful Saturday afternoon, after a most pleasant hungover morning, after an evening of board games with good great friends, after a poutine from hell('s kitchen), after brews, after school, after Thursday, which was after Wednesday, which consisted of library fines and Fargo and microwave popcorn and vodksies with english students. Darling oh dear me these days fly by. Just last week it was Saturday too.

Shocking Life Lessons

In assemblies we learnt not to ride motorcycles, who Bonhomme was, and this jingly little slogan which has stuck with me since grade school: Don't be a silly dill, 120 watts can kill.

They showed us a picture of a pickle sticking its finger into a socket.

Baked

We would eat so much cake batter, that by the time we got around to the cake, we were bloated and completely full. And then we would eat too much of the cake. Oftentimes we'd polish it off.

(recalling all that baking we did in our liverpool, home, and dublin street houses)

Aspirations/ Awards to win in 2011

From my journal, 2010.

Enjoy Enjoyable Enjoyed

Bit Epicure from Rosa Aiello on Vimeo.

What's it to ya?

Citrine!

(From the rock store in Nelson, BC)

Don't feel too self-conscious about drinking a root beer on a bus at 10 am because:

Today, among other things that happened, a man, on the way to campus, took out a container of vaseline on the bus. He had been sitting down politely enough and wasn't someone you'd expect to do something gross or outrageous. His hair was short and thinning. He was youngish and wore glasses. He sat calmly. Then he put about two tablespoons of that greasy stuff onto a finger, dipping and redipping it into the full size tub, and then he rubbed it into his hands. Oh god did he rub it into his hands. Two Muslim women sitting across from him stopped looking at their own hands and starting looking at his. They just stared, and kept right on staring. The blonde woman in a red raincoat sitting next to them didn't see the grotesque show right across from her. She was looking at her own lap. When he was done rubbing it in, his hands looked slick and reflective. I watched as he got off the bus, so conscious of his hands and what poles he might reach for to support himself. None of us who saw him touched those same poles. Our own hands were pressed a little unusually tightly to our sides. All our lips turned down at the corners just the slightest.

I took out my bike, too small and deflated, but anyway I felt all better immediately.

Bikes should be prescribed by doctors.

Sap into Syrup

HBD

It's my mom's birthday and I love her very much and she's the prettiest and she's great.

Come in and get comfortable.

My apartment is small, almost tiny. This cat covers up ugly switches. It cost a dollar at the place that is only open on Fridays in Guelph. I liked that place alright. These are my keys to various things, arranged in different groupings to suit different activities. I have my "just going for a jog" keys and then my "going to be out of the house all day, so who knows" keys. Other stuff sometimes hangs here too.

This is my hall wall. I doodle here and here is where I display my ever-growing collection of brown shoes in various shades. This is also where I keep a plate with change, bobby pins, cards, and, currently, this is also where I house my special diminishing pile of pear candies from the Wooly. This picture was taken using the mirror. When I write on the chalkboard, I write backwards, so that when I'm sitting eating dinner my message appears the right way around. I am very good at doing this now.

This is my new bed. I found it on craigslist and I like it very much. What I like most about it is how much it cost. It didn't cost much. A man I found on craigslist helped me get the bed from point a, to point b. I'd highly recommend this fellow to anyone in the Vancouver area. We both like craigslist because "we become our own middlemen". I made that bunting when I got bored and I listened to "This American Life" while I did so. I like it okay. It's pretty subtle.

This is also my new bed.

This is this corner. Here is where I display my rocks, books, knitting and crocheting stuffs, and my new piece of contemporary art: "Towel" by Stephen Wicks.

Here's that corner again. I have yet to stick the eyes on that little owl. Waiting for the right buttons. My friend Steven (with a "v") purchased 100 tea lights from ikea for me, which is about 400 burning hours. Here you can see a small percentage of those candles. Above my shelves is a photograph of my papa, the best guy. My brother took this photo of him in his office. There is also an old mushroom on this shelf, all the way from France, and a lamp given to me, or perhaps lent, from Mr. Silversides. The lamp gets too hot and makes bulbs burn out faster. I'm careful with it and so I like it anyhow. The mushroom is cute but it looks scatological, which is why, I figure, my best friend chose it for me.

I have a lot of stripes and even more florals. This is just the way these things go sometimes.

better out of context

Take a Gander

This summer, by the speed river, sitting, probably eating sweating cheese, maybe drinking wine, probably playing dominoes. We were watching the geese.

In the summer, as you might very well imagine, geese have baby geese, goslings.

We counted the goslings while they toddled and swam along. Our counts varied so we counted again. A lone stray gosling was hollering out in goose-speak to its mother goose, who was somewhat oblivious, it seemed. The little gosling drifted further away.

This tragic scene played before us, and I can only imagine that, nevertheless, I won the game of dominoes.

I love you tube.

How memory worked before google:

From the pages of my journal.

all or

I will read until my eyes close, knit 'til my wrists bleed, and keep running until I'm out of breath.

Radio Companionship

Is this a bad time? No, no I'm just sitting down to knit. Oh, because I thought I heard a man's voice. Oh that? That's just Ira, you know.

Too much privacy.

One of the things that ain't so great about living alone is that when I drop something and then make a great save no one is around to comment on my excellent reflexes. At times, my reflexes warrant comments.

Minor Regret

I wish that I had been more easy going about temporary tattoos when I was younger.

Twenty-One-One

I am limiting my alcohol intake. My apartment is clean. I've reorganized my furniture in a most satisfactory way. I'm thinking about everything lots and looking forward to being forced into thinking about even more stuff all the time. I'm excited for what's coming. I bought a whole chicken from the Capers. I'm embarrassed that it's delicious. I'm taking my yarn out of the closet so that I can't ignore it. It's right there in front of me. It says, "Knit me". I'm getting ambitious. I think I can do better this time. I'm going to keep my teeth in order. I won't be afraid of checking my e-mail. My rock collection will grow. My hair will grow. My nails will grow. I will add another podcast to my routine. I may or may not be concerned with answering text messages. I won't beat myself up about any of it. I will maybe settle in more. Get a few lamps. Buy some more furniture. All that jazz.