My Ever-occupied Phone

February 28, 1997

I cannot force myself to have something to say.
Usually, it just comes out not exactly when i want it to.
and recently, discussing with g, getting the feeling that he really wants to hear
what i have to say. what a concept. asking questions, waiting for the answer, and thinking about it. coming up with another and another, as if my opinion really counted for something. wow. thinking about how different he is from p, who is much more sure of himself, but what does he know in return? often arrogant, rude, seemingly self-centered, i couldn't imagine him asking for someone's opinion, nevermind listening enough to formulate another question from it. so g is going around, collecting all of this information, and using it (i assume) to create his own answers, his own subsset of knowledge. he's evolving and growing. learning. and p? it would seem that he is evolving to a lesser degree... but i know that he would like to.

just like the plankton filterers.

there are those who would accuse me of abusing sentance-structure, or whatever. but don't they get it? it's there to be abused. the offended may move out of the way, but in fact i believe they have much to gain from facing what is different...if they can see it, that is. i like to have the offended around me, they stimulate me, they challenge me...and, of course, it's always good to be put in your place. the avant-garde will never do that.

i see the internet as [practical mode] a cafe. one huge corner store, barbershop, diner, what have you. a few ads on the wall, and a bunch of human beings hangin around, chattin. Some more knowledgable than others, some more interesting. but they're all people, and they're all in public. some of them don't like being in public, some thrive on it and take up WAY too much space. a select few are brilliant...but most are just passing time...

happy march.

February 26, 1997.

Observation Bias.
This is one of the great ruling forces of allkind.
it tells you when you are happy
when you are sad
when you have chosen the right RRSPs
and what to eat for lunch.

The observation bias states, simply, that you are more likely to see things when you know they exist. You are more likely to notice something if you have learned about it recently. Entirely based on timeline-linked perception, it is capable of dissecting even the minutest of activities.

I must go now, I will write more about the observation bias today and be back.

Febraury 25, 1997.

take me there where you are going
take me there where i can wander

perhaps my wandering, roaming days are over?
perhaps i know where it is i want to go.
what a feeling.
perception.

February 24,1997.

california calling. where to start?
moldy sheets and Segovia twirling around the karma that binds us now.
reminiscing about screaming curses of last night coming from the walls
from a place so far from what we know. so outside of our realities
and piercing to our hearts. we don't know what to do with it.

silly boy squawking.
Can You Spell Squawking?

gosh darn. there's so much going on that my shaken head
keeps telling me, 'just do it'. something needs to be done,
so do it, gosh darn. ignore much of the silliness going on
around you. briefly contemplate the direct effects of your
behaviors, set both feet on the ground, all sights on the
skies, and your heart on your wildest dreams. it is yours
now.

February 23,1997.

what does a mother feel when she watches her child yawn?
is she pleased that he is sleepy, or worried that he is ill?
what does she think when she looks into his little mouth and yawns herself?
is she wishing he's as tired as she is, or thinking...
"Why don't you yawn when I yawn?"

"don't let what they say stop you" you cannot prevent it from influencing you,
but don't let it stop you. no one is going to tell you when to stop, when to go.
if you know this yourself, then stop waiting for them to give you approval...
you know what they don't. you know what you want,
stop assuming that they are thinking one way or the other.
they all have different points of view. in essence,
Stop thinking about them. they will only get in your way. forge.
be the pilgram in your own right.
be the daring child that you are. it is written now.

projects. work mishmashing with life.
who i am is becoming clearer.
:)

February 22,1997

Style sheets

there's a thing called style that i don't fully understand. it seems to be important, but something steers me from it. organization of certain kinds are not in my nature. the hard way around is often the more interesting. look, i may as well admit it, i'm disorganized by nature. i have a hard time seeing things all at once. selfish? narrow? nah, it's just how i am. this part of me, i accept.

i do know, however, that organization is important for the rest of the world. i mean, for the buying world.

crazy dreams. cheeses. cassoulet.

the buying world we live in.
Yes, i want all and nothing.
NOW!

February 21,1997.

winter now has rocked us to sleep.
comfortable in boots,
beers on the balcony are neither behind us nor coming.
once a harsh trap, a cave;
winter now embraces me.

unable to frighten me now, i'll pay those bills
my lover's eyes see what i cannot
in the winter, we have time for more
yet we slouch, we couch,
and the the coffee but warms our souls.

February 19, 1997.

Glad tidings. rain now. everything is grey, soaked. me? buzzing around.
eating leftovers and finally relaxing. today's ideas. politicians? discussing with graeme ... wondering if i came off too loud-mouthed and opinionated, as usual. but how could they be good? it's a losing battle, and don't call me defeatest. there was a time when communities were homogenous enough to be run by someone who had the same goals as the majority, but it would seem those days are long gone.

don't get me wrong, homogeneity isn't my thing, but neither is trying to rule pre-determined anarchy. How could you possibly attempt to do more good than bad, when causing positive change for the most, is literally impossible?

[someone is telling me that i'm starting to sound pretty harsh, but unfortunately for most of us, my opinions are pretty harsh. I'm always willing to see all sides of an argument, but i'm just not afraid to come to my own conslusions.]

i guess sometimes i am whimsical, but the strangest thing is that i don't feel like a whimsical type. when i hear my voice recorded, i sound so serious. wierd.

being productive is important to me. i like to accomplish tangibles. i like to create. people seem to notice this, and that's good. ahah! an interesting phonecall from moo

"Mais j'trouve pas de refrain a notre histoire-
Tous les mots qui viennent sont derisoires,
J'sais bien qu'j'l'ai trop dis
Mais j'te l'dis quand meme....
je t'aime..."
-P.Bruel

February 17, 1997.

OK i will try to write some real words today. once again feeling wrapped up in life, I enjoy this.
once again rushing and feeling needed. performing. cooking. discussing. wound up. i am this way. i am the way i am. so often i hear myself telling myself to be something, someone, else. 'be more like her', i say. 'act more like him' i tell myself. 'if you only do this, and don't do so much of that, then you will seem more like them. people will like you more.' And then, 'What is this, some kind of personality contest? Well, yes, in fact i believe it is. so then i am back with my original dilemma. in order for more people to like me, i must act more like them. then 'but you don't really care who likes you'...'you are who you are'...but i do care, i do care...

Do you get it? it's all part of my "What am i" routine. maybe that's why i like being so rushed that i cannot even think straight. Wisdom. Words. peering in to a life. what a treat, or is it?

the girl over my left shoulder is not there today. i cannot watch her think. i cannot see into her soul. i cannot even write her very real feelings anymore. her real feelings are bound to other people's real lives. she doesn't really believe that she has the RIGHT to interfere with their feelings. she doesn't want to expose their lives. she knows which boundaries are for crossing and which are not. it's so funny what people think is private. they're all convinced that their everyday lives are private. so special. i don't even think that they know what their private thoughts are. sometimes i wonder if they have any private thoughts at all.

winter is long here. eventually, you just want to go outside wearing shoes and a shirt. eventually, you just wish that outside was more approachable. you wish that you didn't have this long thaw ahead, even if it was no where to be seen. you wish you could plant flowers in the garden. What I would do, to plant flowers tonight. Instead I'm left, staring into another computer screen, trying to figure out what i should write in this place.

so much is so easy to learn. as i sat this morning, listening to someone who everyone would agree knows alot more than i do about rrsps, i spent most of the session thinking how simple it all is. that's so annoying because eventually you just aren't interested in learning anything. eventually, you start asking people questions and listening through the long, drawn out boring answers, just to feed their egos. this is the 'what's the point' part i guess. We've heard it all before...

Remembering back to the days when someone accused me of having too many quotes from a certain 'clb'... i am left thinking, why did i apologize for that? at that time in my life, those quotes were very important to me. it was just a thing. But hey, they probably thought the same thing I did listening to the rrsp info. 'Boring' ... So annoying how we can't plant into other people's heads what they will find interesting. I guess that's why you have to be interested in yourself.

nuff said.

February 16,1997

Bob did it. thirty years old and he's still into
destroying slinkys.

write about the slinky, they say. it took his thirty-nine year old sister to untangle it. "a slinky a slinky, for fun it's a wonderful toy"

a message from cynthia pouring out. hearfelt emotions.
chocolate cake and stuffed. messy kitchen. crayon drawings.
the things that stuff makes us.

February 15, 1997

the baby is thirty. maybe i should have taken my own advice.
'just tell them what they want to hear'. then again, there are
probably times to do this and times not to. it's hard to keep
remembering that this is my life. my words. i can say what i
want, right? not necessarily so. there is the wise factor, the
thing which prevents us from doing or saying things which
will lead others to dispise us. Hey, if i'm drowning i'd like
someone to throw that towel. so is that the only reason we
want others to like us? unfortunately, the picture i have
of biology only permits me to see emotions that way. sure, it
feels good, but that's only en route to passing down those
chromosomes. them's the bottom line. funny, because as i
write this, i think 'maybe they're not witholding thoughts...
maybe they aren't thinking things which they wouldn't say'
but they must be, because when we talk in private,
they always have things to say. so i'm not so evil, after all.

"Old McDonald had a work permit
EIEIO
and with this in hand he moved to the Sates
EIEIO
with a tax break here, and no snow there
here a job there a job
everywhere a job job
Old McDonald moved down south
and is achieving financial security"

February 14, 1997

everyone's rushing about our lives these days. time speeding
by and RRSP shuffling too. what a bizarre concept to plan for
what will happen in thirty years from now. and yet for some this
is the default. being able to fully understand that you're not
planning for some extraterrestrial event, or for something
which is as far away as now is from when we were ten. like
you said, "I'm an adult now". well, i guess this is part of what
that means. being able to take charge. knowing that 30 years
will come. the first thirty came and went. and the wierdest part,

'what a feeling'

what's it worth to you, to spend most of your life wishing you were
doing something else? life is a ride, but you're the one who pays.

February 12, 1997

Wednesday. Ash Wednesday. Shrove Tuesday, Valentines's Day.
can we really hear the voice of the pepper? why would we assume that we can even begin to understand the needs of the underpriveliged? This is my soapbox, alright. I've paid for it with all the assumptions that I've grown up with.

"Just another day for you and me in paradise"

a nice small curve. just because you don't need therapy doesn't mean you can't think about it. without the necessity, you can auto-diagnose anything you like. A romantic affliction one day, a morose wit another. shit. i even have the freedom to change how i see the world. apologizing for who i am, and feeling bad about it, not just cashing in on it. the point is, what an interesting idea. I suppose I do feel bad about it. Not bad about doing it, using it, just about not having thought about it myself.

February 11, 1997.

Snow Snow Snow. White outside, warm fuzzies rampant inside.
postcards and other things. Greek Dinners where conversation flies. lyrics of life wrapping themselves. hard copies. email. eyou.

February 10, 1997.

don't complain.
don't give up.
don't fish too much.
don't beat baby seals.
it will come back to you.
it will haunt you.
Especially, don't ignore yourself.
ha ha ha.

February 9th 1997.

so now what am i supposed to say? everyone's reading what i write, how am i supposed to write anything useful? not much more different than the spoken word-just that i generally don't have to defend my spoken word in front of a group - because i wouldn't say those things in front of one.

i'm squeezing the jobe's fertilizer and thinking. feed each watering during the growing season and once a month during the dormant season. just because someone tells you can do something, doesn't mean you have the ability to do it. knowledge is only power for those who know how to wield it. most have got to know what's there before they go there.
we're not all pilgrams.
we're not all risk-takers.
we can't be.
this place gives to some, to many, the chance to take risks that they've never had. the chance to forge an open field without losing everything. it would be nice if everyone took responsibility for the future of society, but if you think a bunch of sheep are creating anarchy, imagine the result if all those sheep were power-driven proactivists with the real ability to hop the fence?

maybe you're right. maybe it's good that t.v. keeps them busy. but then again, maybe that's the plan.

february 7th

SEX Universe: Persons Male.............................................................7719
Female..........................................................7504
Persons White...............................................................13789 Black..............................................................207
American Indian, Eskimo, or Aleut..........................................67
Asian or Pacific Islander.................................................764
Other race................................................................396
Universe: Persons of Hispanic origin
Total....................................................................1304

just some ramblings grabbed from census. go ahead, try to hide.

February 5, 1997.

What a dream what a dream. must have been the szechuan. gosh, i had a flight at 9 am and there i was at 8:24 in the shower. bags not even packed, i had rearranged my schedule and was paying for it. out of the shower, rifling through my disastrous excuse for a wardrobe i grabbed what looked wearable and stuffed it into a small black bag. everything was black. [everything IS black, you moron] Running out of the bedrood (the one in my parent's house) without my tickets, I just did a u-turn hoping to find them where I'd left them. Getting into Dan's truck, I sat down and realized that I'd left the black bag inside. eventually we drove off (not sped, as i would have liked) with the horrific words of the ticket agent going through my head; "sorry, m'am, half hour cut-off time"
sorry m'am, half hour cut-off
sorry m'am, half hour
sorry m'am,
sorry

i woke in a near-sweat - aching all over.

sometimes you get the feeling that the girl answering the phone at the software company in the states is more professional than CEOs of most Canadian companies. They just don't miss a beat, using your name in the middle of sentances, laughing at your every attempt to make a joke...and they know their stuff, never fumbling for words or answers, a step ahead all the way. real art.

amazing what true competition will do for a nation. real capatilism.

----------------------------

music filling the house now. dancing and being me. wondering if my inability to dance like this in front of others is related to the twisted way i choose to connect with people. wondering why, why, does positivity breed positivity. relishing - no, more than that if anyone is allowed, in his words. His beautiful words.

beautiful, beautiful

boy...

February 4, 1997

...dusk in the decarie.

There is a place where people fear. A place where some never go. A place where some people just spend too much time. It's called the Decarie. But arriving in it at dusk, isn't so bad. not so bad at all.

when you arrive, its almost daylight still; and as you flow lower, deeper, longer, you take your place in a place where noone merges-where no one cuts un- where the pace becomes dreamlike, patterned, and to a great degree, peaceful. There are no options here. Your hands can come off the wheel with ease. Jot a few thoughts, apply lipstick, rearrange your socks - whatever your fancy, if it can be done in a car, you can probably do it in the Decarie.

And then you'll notice the shimmer. the lights which begin to appear above you. Engineered to be just at reading height for those locked in, the dusk is now making them more readable. TAV, Chalet Barbaque, Ruby Foo's, Shell, take your pick. Ahhh, dusk in the Decarie.

February 3, 1997.

It seems to be another period of self-checkism. I'm not the only one doing it, either. It's around you, just look. How many people do you know right now re-evaluating their lives? How many are getting a divorce? How many are taking or planning trips? How many have invited you for dinner unexpectedly? How many are being offered jobs? quitting? just look.

When the positive times come, the negative ones seem far away. filling out a survey and i was asked if i often think people don't understand my pain. my default was to connect immediately to this idea of pain, but when i thought about me, now, and pain, i thought-hmmm there ain't much. this period of self-checkism keeping the pain away. growth and a feeling of liberty. strength renewed in watching others behind me. it doesn't take too much, i tell ya, and i'm embarrased to say what was the principal motivator-nah, that's not true. I know what brought me here and it was a complex series of moral boosters, any of which would have boosted anyone's moral. i am thankful for them all but trying to not loose sight of what i was able to while there, in the height of heights.

bla bla bla. i'd like to admit i'm rambling, but that little blond girl is still staring at me from over my left shoulder, and this time she's got a quizical look on her face. She says "hey! you <are> rambling, but you're a rambler, so nevermind them, what they think. You've rambled your way into the hearts and minds of many. You've rambled your way into jobs, opportunities, friendships, and more. You're going to keep on rambling until something better comes along.

You wanna know what's going on?

Far beyond where the horizon lies;

Where the horizon lies;

and the land seeps in to

mellow blueness, oh please,

take me with you;

Let me skip the road with you

I will watch you walk

we can walk and walk

I put a pebble in my shoe

I can dare myself, I can dare myself

author?

February 2, 1997.

It would be impossible to remember all the thoughts i would like to write here in one day. it's difficult, and yet i think; who am i to say which of those thoughts are important? who am i to say which describes me more? maybe none do. but i hope all do. I hope. active weekend. physcial activity, yeah! in the snow!

February 1, 1997.

Greetings to a white February! It's so white out there that there was just no other color this page could be. It's white, white, and more white. I don't think I've seen so much snow since I was eight.

functionally dysfunctional. am i. am you. am we.

Zoltie: Dutch Licorice. http://www.zoltie/blackened.candy

And now back to our regularly scheduled programing...We are going to drive our cars across the lake this weekend. why? because we can. there are actually streets plowed on the lake, with heated ice-fishing shacks all along the way. the roads are lined with discarded christmas trees. in the summer it's a ferry crossing, and the same fees apply.

we also eat:

poutine: quebecois culinary delight, consisting of greasy french-fries layered with salty curd cheese and topped with boiling hot 'gravy' made from powder.

in other words, deep fried fat, covered in fat sauce and lumps of fat. but it keeps our pelts smooth during the winter. salutations.

Poot'sPlace

The MEP Index