april follows march

march 26 2000

Just before our love got lost you said
"I am as constant as a northern star"
And I said, "Constantly in the darkness
Where's that at?
If you want me I'll be in the bar"

On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue TV screen light
I drew a map of Canada
Oh Canada
And I sketched your face on it twice

Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
Still I"d be on my feet
I'd still be on my feet

Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I'm frightened by the devil
And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid
I remember that time that you told me, you said,
"Love is touching souls"

Surely you touched mine
'cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time

Oh you're in my blood like holy wine
And you taste so bitter and you taste so sweet
I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
Still I"d be on my feet
I'd still be on my feet

I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said
"Go to him, stay with him if you can
Oh but be prepared to bleed"
Oh buy you are in my blood you're my holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I'd be on my feet
Still I'd be on my feet
I'd still be on my feet.

                -Joni Mitchell 1972

this music, released by Joni Mitchell March 21, 2000, is destined to greatness.
 

march 24 2000

i am not the only one who sees movies in the car or films the world
around me in silence. i am not the only one who feels vomitiously
sick to my stomach with guilt after disturbing my neighbour. i am
not the only one who doesn't mind deleting email.

i have done wrong things. i have pushed buttons beyond the edge.
i have lived to feel that guilt and lived to resurect my hope.

i may only be the racoon with the guilty conscience, hovering about
the neighborhood in the dark; small of significance, and guilty, but
not really. my intentions are mostly good, even great. i have large
amounts of remorse for tiny bits of anger, and once the process of
self-forgiveness has begun, there is nothing that even the holy spirit
can do to stop it.

and i entertain myself by writing out these follies in all their poetic
glory in this place of huge silence.

march 15 2000
 

i am on a personal crusade.
generally, i excel in such things; firstly, my personal nature is such that i understand who i am, what i want, and secondly, i have rarely taken to embark upon journeys that i do not desire, tasks that i am unable to complete, and activities which do not bring either myself or someone else joy.

this one is different, and i wasn't going to write about it - i was choosing simply to be totally caught up in it, raising my blood pressure, increasing my anxiety, and focusing nearly every ounce of my energy on it. i've decided to channel some of that negative energy (why is it negative you ask) to this page, ultimately to you, the reader. whether or not you believe in such a cathartic process is irrelevant.

what is this dramatic personal crusade, you ask?
i am looking for a place to live. plain and simple.
not so. i can't have imagined in my earlier days being on such a high-energy mission with so many variables. i can't believe that i have gotten here. it makes me feel old. set in my ways. unflexible. i think that is the part that bothers - no - disturbs me the most. what happened to that student apartment that was totally and completely unlivable? what happened to just wanting to be with my darling dearest, roofed and fed, waiting for the next rain storm? my insides churn just at the thought. i have become so difficult to please in this one element of my life, and it is eating at me.

you wonder why i have been absent for so many days? in the morning i read the paper. every single ad, not only the ones in the areas we want to live. i circle, i call, i look up streets on the internet. then i put my galoshes on, coat scarf mitts and headband, and walk around the neighborhood for one hour.
i make phone calls that do not get returned, i post my ad in the newspaper, at the grocery store, on the internet.

to not know the answer and to not have all of these factors within my control pains me in a way that i can not describe.
 
 
 

march 06 2000
 

it's a fine line the world between the deep sleep dreaming and the awake; at least for me, the entertainment of bridging that gap; an awake world that i am not afraid of;
afraid to admit, at least to mine own self; to stretch what is not real into the imaginary world of my awake - and even sharing it, makes me feel a little bit more alive...

and discussing flying dreams with my neighbour, we reach across the room and touch each other in a very private way, unknown how private even to ourselves; and afterwards delving into our own selves just that much deeper, to know how similar two strangers can really be...s
 
 

march 4

12:12 PM (noon)
i should be required to explain myself when it comes to ranting on about the irony of men, but i'm not quite sure that i can come up with those words just now so i will wait.

i'm up-and-downing. probably on the way to some great epiphany (i love that word). i'm happy, in a dulled sort of way. i'm on the edge of something. i think.
 
 
 
 

irony

march 3                                                                             my sterile life
 

7:30 AM.
it's not that i don't like ME, it's just that it seems a grand shame to have to spend one's entire lifetime inside of one personality. i'm watching Angelina joli and the girl next door, with infectious smiles from a distance; and maybe
some people see mine as such, it would be nice to know what it feels like to be tall, just for a day. to not be patted on the head so many times, to be addressed as if i knew as much as the men, which i do, to be seen as someone to reckon' with.
just once.

across the street they still walk around with the now visibly grown baby, watching the flakes come down staring past my wistful eyes; maybe they see the recycling
truck, maybe the baby is crying, maybe the snow flakes in the window pane were cut out by their eight-year old niece one night before Christmas.

so it's a friday morning and i've got several social events planned for today. i wish they were a little bit more stimulating to me and it's not kind to say they're not but even though i pointed myself in this direction from day ONE these weren't the kind of social events that i was waiting for. people sitting around being some shell of themself facing the music with the same smile; my gut is churning
just to write it and really now tears well up because i wish i could really find the words to explain the emptiness that i see around me, the shallow surfacing that so many people do and the ones who don't are extradited and called assholes by the ones oh fuck forget that this is going nowhere and i'm swearing.

i never, ever want to get onto that subway and see the dirt first; never want to see that as a place i don't go, somewhere i am afraid somewhere that i don't have to be; how ironic that we spent our childhoods there and now that we should know better we are above ground in cars; living in this sterile fantasy land where people laugh because the boss is looking yes i know, i'm getting seriously disgusted with myself too.

staring at these words might motivate me.
they might not.
i wish i was a revolutionary.
 
 
 
 

march 2                                                                        the faithful loser
 

7:55 just the facts mam. i guess that's what it's about, really. if i ask you for the facts, then please, only give me the facts. if i ask you about your pet ferret then please, tell me all about your clowns and your closet ghosts. tell me your wildest dreams and your loftiest goals, your artistic flair in the shower and your sweet imagination. tell me about your uncle hortentius and your aunt betty who live in southern new mexico and keep goats in the back. tell me that you are afraid, that you've always wanted to be a dentist, tell me that your favorite colour is
mauve. but if i ask you for the facts, please mam, just the facts.

well i guess that says it all doesn't it. the question is please MAM. noone said please SIR just the facts. or did they?

to hear a question, just one question in a meeting to be answered by NO. to be answered by YES. to be answered, God forbid, by I DON'T KNOW. a heavy hearted sigh from this little poots who lives and angts in this man's world. who touches what she sees with her brand of corporate bullshit,
flaunting what they cannot see, what only she sees.
a game that she plays by herself. with herself.

so i'm internally blue, standing out on a yellow background. looking optimistic and slightly shocking. corporate enough but if you read between the lines i'm no corporate bullshitter. i'm just little old poots typing words on a page. watching those ones who run this place, and waiting for my messiah, waiting for a global reunion of the ones who think like me to carry me away into their brand of enterprise. where are they now, those. i do believe that they are looking for me. i guess that is what makes me the faithful loser.

and then she reformatted the date because there was nothing left to say,
really.
 
 

wwwhhhhiiiiittttteeee      rrrraaaabbbbiiittttssss!!!!!!!! is     what we shout.

another sunny day and poots stares out the windows into the outside. knowing what she wants, what she really, really wants and being made to feel guilty for it is how she feels now. in actuality she's only getting a little bit paranoid in her adult life, that if she goes after what she realy really wants, that somehow something will let her know
it's not right to have exactly what you want. this has been learned to me and i am angry as i write those words. when did i stop going after what i really really want?

perhaps it's not entirely convenient, perhaps it's work. which section of my brain is making me hesitant, afraid, which is it and i will get rid of it soooo fast... poots is chewing because she is bored. one paragraph tells that she is worried of work and the next tells she's bored. maybe
she is bored with using energy on the same old things. i don't know what else to tell you.
it's the time of year when the java just doesn't quite hit the spot. at least wednesday comes. and goes. and comes. and goes.

or maybe it's just getting thinner what she really really wants. will we know it when we see it, i think so. i think we're tired maybe and disillusioned. that is why we should do it. change is always good even if it's work. go poots go!
so i've slammed my leg on the table and stretched. now what? i'm not focused at all.
i'm all over the place.

maybe i'll come home for lunch.

jittery, you'd say it's the coffee.

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