the water is boiling
Summer has, at long last, arrived in Montreal.
And it is simply way too hot and sticky in my apartment for woman or cat right now. I don’t want the weather to change, I love it too much, I just so do not feel like setting up my giant beast of an AC (I say with full awareness of how, in so many ways, privileged my problems are). It isn’t exactly the re-installation that I’m worried about, it is taking it back down in November, after I will inevitably let it be too cold for too many weeks before dealing with it, that I’m trying to avoid by just not setting it up in the first place. It was a bitch last November; I am still not over it.
Josh told me about his knee injury and my response was to talk about how tragically fucked up my own right knee is, still, 6 years after it crashed into the ground, shattered like a mother fucker, and decided not to recover. I didn’t realize until 40 minutes and three new topics later how self-involved I’d been though our entire conversation. Josh didn’t seem to mind, or at least he didn’t seem bothered. One day I’ll tell you about mine and Josh’s failed attempt at a surfing trip and you’ll understand why we will mutually forgive each other most things for the rest of our natural lives. We have a bond.
My French teacher told the class 2 levels above mine that his English is as bad as my French. I think it is hilarious that he gave me a shout-out in another French class. Also hilarious is him thinking what he said is true. His English is far superior to my French.
I had a goal of focusing on French right away, of learning the language. I am putting it off the same way I’m putting off the air conditioner. I am sure I will continue to put it off the same way that if I ever do get the AC up I will end up suffering through 3 weeks of cold before taking the AC down again in November.
I wonder what I’d procrastinate about if I’d grown up speaking French and if my window sealed around the AC. Probably as many other things as possible.
The water is fucking boiling.
the orange line.
I somehow got on the metro going in the correct direction even though I thought I was going in the other direction because I thought the other way was the correct way.
My throat hurts because I am smoking too much these days. I need to stop smoking. It isn’t that I need to quit. I don’t need to quit something that I never really started. I just need to stop. Like the person who drinks too much pop. I need to stop drinking too much pop only my pop is cigarettes and I need to stop with the so much of them.
If she were a little bit less beautiful I might be able to stop smoking.
I am here right now. Right here.
This moment is kind of perfect. This moment right now. This time we’re in. This time I am in. It is kind of perfect right now.
I want to tell her everything. About all of the things.
I’ve never wanted to do that before. I’ve never wanted anyone to know anything. And I want her to know everything. But the good kind of everything. The kind that makes everything more real.
When Brett was 4 he was cast as a sheep in the Church Christmas Pageant, which absolutely infuriated him. He wanted to be God. The sheep role just wasn’t going to cut it. “I want to be God,” he yelled, “I don’t want to be a sheep! I already know all of my lines, baah baaah, baaaah!”
Brett did this thing during the pageant, he performed a death scene. Right there on stage, his sheep character, well, keeled over and died. It was dramatic, and the poor 17-year-old they put in charge of directing ended up having to carry him off the stage at the end, as Brett stayed true to character and dead. Until of course he was actually off the stage and the play had ended, when he jumped back on to take credit for the applause (“thank you, thank you, thank you very much”), and to ask the audience if they had “any kestions.”
I want to tell her about Brett and the dead sheep. I want her to know how full of life my baby brother is. That he is this hilarious person that was just too full of life to be a sheep. So much life is in him that his sheep had to die. I want to tell her about all of the love that my Travis has in him. About how damaged Travis is, but how much love he is so full of. I want to tell her about Tyler and how he always wanted me to walk on the safe side of the street, about how he still does today.
I want to tell her about all of the things. And not because she needs to know, but because I want to tell her.
“He was still bah baahing as I was doing up the car seat harness. He was bah baahing over and above the car seat straps,” my Mom said the other day, “none of us will ever forget how upset he was that he couldn’t be God.”
I want her to know these things.
I want to hear all of her things.
Bruce Springsteen on Darkness on the Edge of Town
And more than rich and more than famous and more than happy, I wanted to be great.
Jon Landau on Darkness on the Edge of Town
We didn’t want any sweetening. We wanted the coffee black.
a most beautiful moment.
I have one favourite movie, The Shawshank Redemption. There are movies I enjoy more, and certainly movies I watch more often, but there is not any movie I love more than Shawshank.
And this is a most beautiful moment, the most beautiful scene, in this most beautiful film. It won’t embed, sadly, but follow the video to YouTube. Watch this, be changed.
maybe we ain’t that young anymore
I would like to get some fish. And a fish tank, but obviously in the opposite order.
I would like two more tattoos.
I’ve moved to this new city and things feels different even though they feel the same. They speak French here and everyone dresses very well. Everything feels different; everything feels the same.
i need a phone call, i need a plane ride
It’s another one of the things, like rescuing kittens, that I do.
And when I was 14, and told that we were moving back to Canada after 4 years in Seattle, I was not happy. I was pissed off.
So after hearing the horrifying news, and after phoning Meryl to tell her the horrifying news, I started getting ready to go immediately. I took down all of my posters. I started packing my clothes. I got ready to go, 3 months before we were actually set to move back to Canada. I got ready to go, because I was pissed/sad, sad, sad.
I wish I could summon some of that “energy” now. Just a bit of it, just for a little while.
I am moving in 6 days. Back to Canada. After 3 years away. After 2 years in Manila. And I have not packed anything. Actually, that’s not true. I put some DVDs in a bag and then I wanted to watch a bunch of them this weekend so I took them all out of the bag and now they are just on the floor not in the bag.
I have 2 years of life in Manila, 3 years of life outside of Canada, and a lot of shit, sitting out completely unpacked and completely not ready for the move to the other side of the ocean.
Someone make me mad. Sad. Pissed. Sober. Anything. Just a bit, just for a little while. So that I can get stuff into bags and boxes and ready to go in 6 days.
Shit needs to get done here.
we seem broken
Sometimes I want to write everything that has happened down on postcards. Postcards with photos of Jack Kerouac on the front of them. And send them to the people who say they love me right now. Because maybe if I told them everything they would love me more. Maybe they would love me less. But at least they would know me. And so their love or their non-love would be real.
I was dating someone for a little while. I broke it off last week.
She asked me a month ago why I drink as much as I do. I told her that I need to be able to breathe. And then I changed the subject. I wasn’t letting her in. I never would have.
Josh is here now. And his love is real. Because we’ve done this many times before. Many lifetimes before this one. Real love.
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