this blanking life

this blanking life

Marika Pea

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In which I am not batshit with stress for the first time in months

[Dec. 20th, 2009|09:22 am]

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Current Music

Final Fantasy: The Chronicles of Sarnia

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It is 8:48 on a Sunday morning, and for some reason I have been awake for three hours. I am on holidays, and I feel fantastic. All my term work is handed in, I am reasonably assured of good grades in everything (fingers crossed for Syntax!), I don't go back to work until January 4th, and I have spent the weekend catching up with most of the lovely friends I haven't seen in ages. It is all grad school applications and wine and baking and sleep and poetry and reading for fun for the next two weeks.

Clothing swap at

iminu_urin2 's with the girls yesterday. I have many new cosy sweaters, some cute tops, and a red and white dress. I love our clothing swaps. I get to see my favourite non-English department girls, and we eat snacks and listen to music, and go through one another's clothes, and even though we are all completely different shapes, we all go home with a heap of lovely new things, with a big pile leftover to take to the Goodwill. It's all extremely body positive, and one of our best traditions. Went to Kristian's with Erin afterward to watch The Dark Crystal, which I had never seen, and is awesome and ridiculous. We sat around afterward talking about feminism and literature and relationships and, oh, yesterday was just so full of comforting nice moments.

I have a pile of poetry edits from the last month+ of writing group to tackle over the break. I want to send out some more submissions before the new year, but goodness is it a daunting prospect. I've barely touched any poetry in weeks, and when I sat down to my first writing day in ages on Wednesday, it was a real struggle to get anything out that I was pleased with. Still, I plug along. I tidied up the sonnet that I wrote for my poetry class last winter, and I actually rather like it, wonder of wonders. I may send it to Juice, along with a few other little things. I'm trying to hold back some of the other stuff with potential for paying magazines. I think I'm going to send out five or six poems to the three magazines on my hit list that accept simultaneous submissions, Prism, Prairie Fire, and Existere. Here we go again. It would be nice if I would hear back from Arc before Christmas, so I can re-work and send out those poems in good conscience. I was good at being patient until December, and now every evening my heart slumps a little at the lack of envelope on the counter.

This sudden freedom from scholastic obligation is leaving me at slightly loose ends. Anyone have reading recommendations? I keep picking up books (The Woman in White, Automatic World, The Remains of the Day, Famous Last Words) and putting them down when they don't sustain my attention. I need a really engaging not-too-convoluted novel right now, so I turn to you, my well-read lj-ers, to advise me. I'm in the mood for something along the lines of Michael Chabon/Ali Smith/Jeanette Winterson/Heather O'Neill--something with a strong engaging plot, and narrative that clearly loves language. Otherwise I may just pick up an Agatha Christie from the pile on my bookshelf. Which, come to think of it, wouldn't be so bad at all right now.

Okay, I think it's late enough to rattle around in the kitchen without triggering any wrath. Time to go make promised chocolate ganache toffee bars for today's Scrabble party at

omandolino's.

* * *

Currently reading: honestly mostly just blogs these days.

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HMMMMMMMM

[Dec. 20th, 2009|08:47 am]

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Current Music

PJ Harvey: Memphis

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Apparently this is becoming a tumblr for literary quotes that make me go "HMMMMMMM." Today's was posted on Jessa Crispin's Bookslut Blog. "The many mysteries boil down to three. There is the kind that can be solved: who planted the bomb? Will the travellers reach their destination? What is Mother's childhood secret? There is the supernatural: dark metaphysical forces, never to be fully exposed, yet hinting of themselves in a way that suggests the author could reveal more if he chose, and might do, in his next book. And there are the insoluble mysteries: what lies beyond life, what beauty is for, why the innocent suffer and the guilty prosper, what goes on in the heads of other people, why life keeps fucking us over just when we're doing all right -- these are the mysteries the books dealing with them can't solve, and it is for this reason that the best of these books are the ones we keep rereading." -- James Meek

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The more you do...

[Oct. 27th, 2009|09:26 pm]

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Current Music

Iron & Wine: Naked As We Came

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Excitement! Came down to make breakfast this morning to a large envelope addressed to me on the kitchen counter. With a return address from the university department of Awards and Financial Aid. I tried to not get to excited. After all, two of my winter grades from last year... kind of suck, actually. So the chances of this being scholarship money are slim. And when I got a merit scholarship last year, the letter came in a small envelope anyhow. But inside! Was a letter from the Awards department... awarding me the Writers' Circle Award for Original Poetry scholarship that I applied for way back in April! I was sure it had been awarded already! But no! So I get a nice little certificate, and $525! Guys, this is the first time that I have ever made money from writing. I'm so pleased. I didn't think I had a shot in hell at this thing.

I am appallingly busy these days, as usual. I have two or three things due every week, and a fair amount of reading, so I've just had to grow accustomed to only getting four to six hours of sleep on weeknights. I try to catch up on weekends, but I'm tired a lot. It's amazing what your brain and body learn to accommodate though, This time last year I was exhausted all the time, and I was taking one less course, and working a bit less. And I wasn't writing much. Now I get way more done, because I'm just... not accustomed doing nothing. Writing group is a good motivator to keep generating material, but I feel like I have to write all the time lately, not just in bits and spurts. I was going over some old drafts that I wrote for my poetry class last winter, and I can tell that I'm a much better editor than I was a year ago. It's gratifying. I went to talk to Professor Sweatman about a workshop that she's doing on working with editors next weekend, and I think I'm going to go. I'm hoping to meet some people who might be useful if I do get this chapbook manuscript off the ground. I told her a bit about it, and she sounded intrigued. Fingers are crossed. I'd love to finish a first draft before I leave the city (if I get into grad school), since I'd want to leave it with a publisher here if I can. I don't know. I don't know if anyone is actually going to be interested in this thing when it's all done and written. But I need to write it to find out.

I should probably go read some Monique Wittig and figure out what in the world I'm going to do for my term project for Gender, Literature, and Culture. I started thinking after our first class on Stone Butch Blues that I'd like to do a sociolinguistic inquiry into queer discourses. The evolution of pronouns... but maybe also how words like gay and lesbian and queer carry different social values and different inferences of insider/outsider depending on whether they're used as nouns or adjectives... I don't know. I did a project last year for Linguistics on code-switching, and maybe I should revisit that... and Professor Milne seemed really gung-ho about me doing a creative project... so many decisions. So much reading.

* * *
Currently reading: The Danish Girl still. I can't tell whether or not I like Ebershoff's writing style or not. Sometimes it seems a little self-conscious, and not as clean and elegant as it might be, and sometimes it's just right. Still not too far in though, since I've been writing presentations and grammar exercises and things. Finishing up Ariel for Creative Process. Skipping around in the latest issue of Tin House (which Dominion has now, finally! Yes!), which is lovely. Matthea Harvey has two poems in it. Swoon.

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Open letters

[Oct. 24th, 2009|12:45 am]

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Neko Case: Porchlight

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Dear U of W English Department,

Thank you for reasserting your amazing qualities so fiercely this week. I needed it, badly, I need to leave you at the end of this year, but thank you for reminding me that I will still miss you terribly, that you are full of people who are kind and sympathetic, brilliant and enthusiastic, thoughtful and careful, helpful and encouraging, people who have changed my life. The borrowed book, the conversation on the bus, the email to your librarian friend, the words you wrote in my copy of your new novel, they pulled me through this week.

Dear Debbie,

Thank you for existing. Thank you for Stein class, for your warmth, for everything above. Thank you for your amazing book launch tonight, complete with tulle, cake, wine, jelly beans, rose petals, a beautiful book, and a sensational dramatic reading. I still cannot believe that you've asked me to read with you at Aqua in March. I am so lucky.

Dear Karen Solie,

Thank you for
... The loneliness composed on the road, after hours,
off-shift, out of it, or left behind, the vindictive
clairvoyance of local law enforcement, protracted
incidents represented by lacunae in your resume,
strategic notions pursuant to the project
of getting the fuck out of there, or making
the best of being stuck where you were,
in those rooms now creaking in a forest of outlived rooms
recalled as eras are recalled, their outmoded fixtures
and period costumes, motes afloat
in parallellograms of windowlight. Who are you?
What of you persists? Your life build on intervals
the way a chord is, on changes that alter you
by thirds, by fifths, in silences the progression climbs
to where each song ends, and the next begins.

Dear DRC,

You still suck. Cancelling our meeting on two days notice is not cool. Your concern on the phone on Wednesday was appreciated, but the fact that you haven't gotten back to me about when we're meeting Monday morning is not.

Dear Syntax,

I got an A+ on my graphic analysis test. Suck it.

* * *
Currently reading: Boy Meets Girl by Ali Smith, for Gender, Literature, and Culture, which is very promising so far, and The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff, for same, which is pretty promising so far. Also, carrying around Karen Solie's Pigeon and rereading "Double," "An Acolyte Reads The Cloud of Unknowing," and "Listening to The Revelator" (see above) over and over and over.

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Full of failing foreign tongue, my dialect of stammer come undone

[Oct. 16th, 2009|10:01 pm]

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Frida Hyvonen: I Drive My Friend

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The last two weeks have been full of utter fail, and I am so glad that it's the weekend. I am so tired.

Valuable lesson learned this month: The Disability Resource Centre at the U of W is also full of utter fail. My Syntax prof shifted her teaching style after the first two and a half weeks of introductory exercises. This would be great, except that the new style is that she delivers an oral lecture at a million miles a minute, writing all her examples and defining all her terms on the chalkboard. I have glaucoma, I am extremely nearsighted, and even if I sit in the front row, I can still only see about a third of what she's doing. Her solution is that I ask if someone in the class can copy notes for me, but this still fails to address my inability to correct my own homework along with the class, to put the verbal lesson to the written examples, and so forth. I trundle off to Disability Services to inquire about their note-taker services, and what do they tell me? The only way that I can get a note-taker is through a meeting with the co-ordinator. The soonest I can get an appointment? The 22nd of October--20 days from then. It's absolutely ridiculous. I'm taking five classes, working two jobs (between 16 and 22 hours a week), and participating in a weekly writing group. I do not have the time to chase down DRC people, I do not have the time to sit in my prof's office for an additional half hour to confirm that I've understood the material, and you know what? I shouldn't have to. The point of the DRC, and, really, anti-ablist discourse in general, is that in this context, it is not my responsibility to run around like a headless chicken, being pushy, in order to not fail a class. I should be able to lead a perfectly normal, busy undergraduate lifestyle, and not have the fact that I Have a Disability impede my academic work. The assistant at the DRC gave me a sad kitty face, told me that there was just no way that the co-ordinator could see me sooner, what with it being so busy at the beginning of the semester and all (semester had been in session for three and a half weeks), and asked if I needed my books enlarged. I swear, if one more person, upon learning that I am visually impaired, deflects my questions or concerns by asking if I need my books enlarged, I am going to lose my shit. I am a 22-year-old woman, and I am perfectly capable of informing you of my needs--in fact, I'm trying to do it right now. FAIL.

The winner of the week, however, is Professor Hunter (aka Catherine, my creative writing prof), who I went to see as soon as I sensed the roadblock that the DRC. She has been so understanding and is really the reason I made it through last week without melting into a stressed-out, teary puddle of goo. She called the DRC, she talked to my prof, and while it looks like she can't actually force anyone to do anything, it is a good feeling to have your department head on your side in the event this shit doesn't get fixed, soon. The current situation is that I've got someone from the class who knows the material really well sitting next to me, so I can copy his notes, and ask him questions without worrying that I'm making him miss things. It's still HARDLY an ideal situation, but at least I don't feel like I'm going to fail my test on Monday.

On the bright side: My seminar was cancelled yesterday morning, so I slept in, and then wrote a new poem. I drafted like a madwoman before and after work, and brought it to writing group, and the others had basically all good things to say about it, and I just feel so much better about life. Catherine mentioned last spring and again in the fall that I should bring her some poems sometime, and I finally dropped off three today. I don't think we'll get the chance to talk about them soon, but I feel like I've accomplished something. My mother keeps harassing me about sending a bunch of poems to the CBC literary awards--apparently now that she's seen the tangible evidence of my work, she's convinced that I'm going to win, and pay for grad school with my winnings, etc etc. I have pointed out to her that people like Meira Cook and John Barton and Sarah Klassan win the CBC Poetry Prize, not 22-year-old undergraduates with no professional publishing credits. "Well, I haven't heard of them! And maybe you'll be the first." Yes, you haven't heard of them--they're poets. Anyway, my Cyclops poems are a long, long way from being anything that I could submit, and the majority of my other decent stuff is currently on the desks of editors at CV2 and Arc. Oh, mother. Where was I? Oh yeah, bright sides.

jocelynxheartand I went to see On the Other Hand Death at Reel Pride last night, and it was absolutely delightful. And really bloody refreshing to see a queer-themed comedy that's not so damn campy. (ETA 10/17/09: queer-themed? WFT Marika? Discourse FAIL. Let's go with queer-positive, or perhaps comedy-in-which-there-are-queer-characters-that-are-not-massive-stereotypes-and-whose-sexuality-is-not-portrayed-as-OMG-I'm-Queer-guiz!-every-minute. ANYHOW.) Also, Margot Kidder sounds exactly like Debbie, of Gertrude Stein seminar fame, and that ups the awesome factor by at least 50. Speaking of Debbie! She is the March reader for Aqua's Landsdowne Poetry reading series, and she's picked Kristian and me to be her guest readers! SO much excitement. Even more exciting when it sounded like they were going to pay us, but apparently MAC won't approve the funding for me, since I don't have any professional publishing credits. Damnation. But still--a poetry reading with Debbie! I am so excited.

* * *
Currently reading: Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. I bawled my way through the first quarter of this today. Even if the sixties are behind us, we still live in a shitty, shitty world sometimes, and it makes me ache.

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SO BUSY	[Sep. 20th, 2009\|10:33 pm]
Ugh, I am so busy, and I haven't had more than six consecutive hours of sleep in a week, and the nearest end in sight is December. I have three jobs. Three! Luckily, I am done at the registration office on Friday. I got hired on at the university library, at the Student Computer Help Services desk, doing tech support. I'm getting paid more than I've ever been paid before ($11.23 an hour!), the job seems really laid back, I'm gonna learn all sorts of neat stuff, and it's gonna look great on my grad school apps. Which I need to get moving on. Oh god, oh god, so much to do. I'm taking a full courseload for the first time since my first semester of university, and I don't know how I'm going to manage. For the most part, they are going well. Professional Style and Editing is awesome. It feeds my grammar nerdiness. Though it also inspires fear at the horrifying lack of grammar understanding out there. Many of my classmates seem to have a seriously hard job sorting out the relationship between subject and noun, and verb and predicate. Ugh ugh ugh. Oh the other hand, in linguistics, the prof doesn't let us use any so-called metalanguage, so I spend half the time trying to figure out how to express what could be easily expressed with the language from my grammar and linguistics background, and not really reaping the intended benefits of the expectation. SO FRUSTRATING. The prof's methodology is theoretically really great, but just not working for me in practice. I dunno, hopefully it gets better. Topics in Gender, Lit, and Culture (I proposed to jocelynxheart that we abbreviate this as Glit--I don't think she was too impressed) is awesome so far. I like the people in the class, Professor Milne seems very intelligent and personable, and we're starting with Tipping the Velvet, which I love so much. I was worried that it wouldn't stand up to a re-read, but ti's just as much a sexy, clever romp as last time. Creative Process hasn't really gotten going yet, but I think once we starting analyzing the drafts, it's going to be excellent. I'm just happy to be in a class with Catherine again--even if it is with fifty other people. I haven't been in a class so big since first year politics! The S. E. Hinton class also seems really promising. The prof seems lovely, and her focus, cultural studies, with investigations into gender performance, teen socialization, and the cultural role of Hinton's work sound very much in keeping with my interests. Writing group is... okay. Ahniko is leaving for four months in BC soon, which is going to suck, as she is one of the kindest, most encouraging, and sharp-eyed people that I know, and while four months with Gloria and Louella won't be bad at all, she will be missed greatly. I'm also feeling insecure about my work right now. ( cut, since this gets long and kinda angsty ) This weekend has been ridiculous. Working the book fair (on the bright side, I got to hold a $7000 first edition, first print run of The Pickwick Papers--leather binding and spine still fully intact--and touch a book from the early 16th century), Jocelyn and Mykael's parties, and I've been too emotionally crazy to get most of my homework done.I need to go make some attempt at sleep. Good night. * * * Currently reading: The Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson. This is phenomenal. The language undoes me, and you need to read it yesterday. Sharing the nuances of Geryon's grief through Carson's unbelievable imagery brings me some comfort these days.
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School! Ahhh!	[Aug. 27th, 2009\|04:08 pm]
Summer is almost over! How did this happen? Probably the fact that the weather has been distinctly autumnal for ages has something to do with it. School starts in thirteen days. I am almost done my degree! I'm taking a full courseload for the first time since my first semester of university, and I'm a little terrified, but thankfully, since I'm nearly done my degree requirements, I don't actually have too many writing-heavy classes. My courses this year are more twigged toward writing and understanding language, rather than lit studies, which I'm thankful for and excited about. I'm done with English lit. It's been a really rough break-up, and I sure as hell hope that library science pans out, because it's the only career path that I feel good about right now. ( But on to my course list... ) In writing-related news, dontmentionlove's soon-to-be-former writing group have asked me to join them. They meet every week, which is going to be a bit intense, but good for my self-discipline. I'm pretty honoured. These ladies are serious, and really know their stuff. I have another REALLY exciting piece of writing news (no, not publication), but I want to wait until it's completely for sure before I spill the beans. Stay tuned! * * * Currently reading: Bee Season by Myla Goldberg. Chiara told me about this, and I didn't think I'd like it, but it's so sweetly and thoughtfully narrated, and a really honest and inviting story about a family evolving. Also reading Men & Cartoons by Jonathan Lethem, which, right after reading Aimee Bender's phenomenal Willful Creatures, seems like an un-heart-ful and detached Bender pastiche. Nowhere near so good as Motherless Brooklyn.
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Montreal and reading in rez	[Jul. 25th, 2009\|12:59 pm]
Montreal was wonderful. Kristy's wedding was lovely--pretty fancy, but very tasteful, and it was good to see all my family out there. Despite staying in the suburbs (Brossard), we got into the city a few times, and, oh, how Montreal still holds my heart; its blocks of narrow brick and stone buildings, its stylish residents, its commotion of languages and cultures, its food and beer. I went to bed Sunday and Monday nights with aching calves and feet--the culture of transportation is completely different there. If you need to go far, you take the metro or bus, if you're going anywhere under 20 blocks, you simply walk. I had breakfast with Jayne H. in the Plateau, and then we walked to her apartment in Mile End, then around the mountain to Outrement, which is pretty much the most charming neighbourhood ever (lots of trees and red brick and gardens), and where I had never been before. Then back down to the Plateau for beer and hummus at Casa de Papolo--hours of walking, and I barely noticed the distance, just looked and listened and smelled and talked. My residency at Aqua is going pretty well. The last two or three days haven't been as productive as I'd hoped, but I have some very rough drafts for some new poems, so hopefully I can make good use of my final week to smooth them into something worthwhile. My office is huge, and lovely--two good-sized windows, a big old wooden desk, a cough and chairs, a little bookshelf. And it's quiet. I will probably never have such a nice office again in my hole life, so I am trying to take advantage as much as I can, even though things are insanely busy these days. I'm housesitting again, this time for the Letts, and while it's lovely having the whole big house to myself (when I'm actually there and awake, which is not frequent), I miss sleeping in my own bed. The reading went well. I was nervous, and I probably could have been a tad louder, but I'm proud of how it went overall. My creative writing prof came, and was complimentary the next day, which meant a lot, as did the number of you lovely friends who came. Talking to my mom about what I was planning to read went much more smoothly than I ever would have guessed. I think it helps that my mom went to university with my writing prof and holds her in high regard, so mentioning Catherine's class and advice in that conversation helped. Not that I think I should have to legitimize what I write based on my prof's approval, or anyone else's, for that matter, but it does make my life easier sometimes. Okay, my lunch is done, and I should get back to work. * * * Currently reading: Watchmen, still. I'm determined to finish, so I can feel justified in hating it properly, but it's a slog. It's not well-written, and the character development is terrible. Comics has made great strides in the last 30 years to become a legitimate literary form, but Watchmen has so many of the flaws that comics are criticized routinely for: bad writing, poorly developed female characters, a pretty unnuanced approach to good and evil (rather than investigate the roots of evil acts, it seems to simply state that everyone is inherently evil to some degree), and I never feel as though it takes risks with the artwork. People love this book though, and if you do, I would like to hear why, as I fear I'm missing something, and want to like it. Also reading A Curious Beatitude by Sarah Klassan, which has some lovely imagery, but doesn't really hit me in the gut the way that some other things I've been reading lately have.
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Quick post	[Jul. 17th, 2009\|10:07 am]
Details later, as I am IN MONTREAL, but the long and short of things are: The reading went well; I didn't throw up or say anything horribly embarrassing, everything with my folks was fine, lots of you very lovely people and others came, including my creative writing prof, and I feel pretty good about everything. Now I am in Montreal. In the past 24 hours, I have hung out with my relatives, bought two adorable dresses, went TO THE PLATEAU (my family all lives in the suburbs, which is not the real Montreal experience at all) with my cousin to help her with her maid of honour speech, and consumed the following: poutine with real cheese curds from La Banquise, bagels (though not from Fairmount or St. Viatur), St. Andre cheese, locally brewed beer, and lots of delicious non-Montreal specific food at my aunt's place. Life is excellent, my cousin Kristy is getting married in seven hours, and I will return to my regularly scheduled program on Tuesday. A bien tot! * * * Currently reading: Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, from the last book club. I don't like this nearly as much as everyone else seems to, and the last third is taking me forever. It creeps me out in a way that I don't like; generally I enjoy moral ambiguity and questionable motives, the the morality in this book is so far from my own, and the rest of the plot is so unsatisfying, that I can't get into it properly. Though it is certainly and interesting snapshot of the anxiety that characterized Cold War America in the 80s. Also, Novel About My Wife by Emily Perkins, which I started on the plane and read late into last night, and which is deliciously unnerving and well-narrated. Jessa Crispin from Bookslut has been blogging a lot about this book, and I can see why.
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Recognition!

[Jun. 26th, 2009|03:09 pm]

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Current Music

The Dears: Berlin Heart

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Holy frak, I just got recognized.

I was getting a chai from the coffeeshop on the corner, and the girl asked me, "Are you the new Writer in Residence at Aqua?" and I just about peed my pants.

Granted, she is, as she explained, also a server at EAT!, the restaurant at Aqua--but still! It was pretty damn cool.

* * *
Currently reading: The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant by Tremblay, still. I am enjoying this, but it's not spectacular. Unfortunately. I don't know that I would love it had I not lived in the neighbourhood where it is set.

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employment, dates, and poetry

[Jun. 25th, 2009|12:03 am]

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St. Vincent: Laughing with a Mouth of Blood

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Life has been busy! I wrote a short post last week, my laptop ate it, and I haven't had more than a half hour online at a time since then!

I finally got a second job! I've gone from severe underemployment at 25ish hours per week at the bookstore to 45 hours a week over six days: three days at the bookstore, and three at the university registration office, which has been great. The work's not hard at all, the people are fun (I work with

lovelytoseeyou and

benjistyle!), and it's not very busy yet, so there's a lot of just hanging out in the office and being silly. It's busy though, and July is only going to be more busy, with my stint at Aqua thrown in on top of that. I might be a little AWOL in July, apologies in advance.

I had quite the trip home from work last week! I was coming home on the bus and kinda smiled at this guy as I was getting off. Halfway down Baltimore I hear running feet, and when I turn, he's behind me. "Uh, hi," I say, rather started. And he says: "I saw you on the bus! I think you have beautiful eyes. I was wondering if you wanted to go for a drink with me." At which point I do the real life equivalent of 0_0. "You ran after me all the way from the bus stop to ask me for a drink?!" We talk for about five minutes, and I cannot decide if this is the most romantic thing to happen to me in ages, or totally sketchy. But I give him my cell number and figure if he makes the effort, he'll make the effort. We ended up going to Billabong for a drink on Monday night. It was okay. He doesn't seem sketchy, and I had an all right time. There was nothing about him that was a deal-breaker, but there were a couple of dodgy signs (such as when I asked how he asked out the last girl he asked out, and whether he chased her home from the bus stop too, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd gone out on a date, and from what he told me, it sounded like he'd never had a real girlfriend. Given that he is 29, this is concerning. Granted I have bad luck with relationships myself, but I'm 21), and we just didn't... click. Honestly, the thing that really makes me reluctant to see him again is that he just didn't seem very passionate about anything. When I was trying to guage his interests, I tried music, the arts, sports, academics, and nothing! I have a hugely diverse group of friends, but the thing that they all have in common is serious and articulate-able passion for something, usually several somethings. I don't know how to relate to people who can't get all fired up about something, even if it's math or superhero comics or soccer, or some other thing I know nothing about. Also, he got Washington state and Washington DC confused at one point (while telling a story about travelling to the former!), and maybe I'm an intellectual elitist, but my brain definitely recoiled. I'm trying to decide whether to give him another shot, but I'm leaning towards no. Too bad, it would've made quite the story.

Also, I picked up Karen Solie's new book of poetry, Pigeon, last week, and it is absolutely incredible. She is one of my all-time favourite poets, and it is excerpts like this that are the reason...

...I have dissolved
like an aspirin in water watching a bee walk into
the foyer of a trumpet flower, in the momentary
solace of what has nothing to do with me, brief
harmony of particulars in their separate orbits,
before returning to my name, to memory's warehouse
and fleet of specialized vehicles, the heart's repetitive stress fractures, faulty logic, its stupid
porchlight. If virtue is love ordered and controlled,
its wild enemy has made a home in me. And if
desire injures the spirit, I am afflicted.

So good!

jocelynxheart is off at a fancy-pants academic conference in England this week, because she is brilliant and fabulous like that, so i am rabbit-sitting over at her place. Applications for substitute patio drinking buddies can be made in the comments to this post. :-P

I feel like I had more to say, but this is all that I can think of, and I am tired.

* * *
Currently reading: The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant by Michel Tremblay. On a books-set-in-Montreal kick. Not far enough in to judge how I feel about it yet.

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culture and nostalgia

[Jun. 8th, 2009|11:46 pm]

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Current Music

The National: Slow Show

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Had a good weekend for Cultural Intake.

iminu_urin2and I went to see Shakespeare in the Ruins' performance of Othello on Friday night. I've somehow made it through four years of university without having ever read or seen Othello until now, and after this past year, I rather thought I'd had my fill of Elizabethan theatre for some time. It was incredible. It's easily the best Shakespeare play I've seen, not necessarily in terms of production (MTC's productions of Richard III and Much Ado were pretty stunning), but in terms of its ability to make me laugh and break my heart. It was 11 degrees, or something stupid like that, and we sat in the cold under a tent for two hours, and I was entranced the entire time. The final scene between Desdemona and Emilia before Desdemona's death made me cry buckets.

Saturday night I went to see The Dears at the West End with Mykael and Andrew and some others. The new West End sure is pretty! It was a little disconcerting going in, and not being greeted by dim lighting, and the smell of beer and sweat! And the Is Your Bathroom Breeding Bolsheviks? poster is now conspicuously absent from the women's washroom. The show itself was pretty fantastic. I was tired and moody, which is a shame, because they are an excellent act, but I enjoyed it all the same.

I've been kinda tired and moody in general lately, and I'm not really sure what that's about. I've been getting anxious and obsessing over things that normally don't bother me that much. I hope that it's just bad-weather-broodiness, because it's getting pretty annoying to deal with. I'm ready for real summer now, rather than 11 degree highs, and rain all day, and staying in my whole day off, not getting out of bed until 1, and accomplishing nothing but baking cookies to dunk in my innumerable cups of black vanilla tea.

At least the soundtrack to all this woe has been good. Someone posted "Slow Show" by The National to

musicfortummies, and I do not understand how I didn't know about this band for so long. I bought Boxer yesterday, and it's the only thing that I want to listen to now. To the point that I haven't taken my new Yeah Yeah Yeahs cd out of its cellophane. I just play Boxer over and over and over again, close my eyes, and think about the fact that this time last year I was drinking Boreals on the roof in tank tops and going dancing every night in my favourite city. I am doomed to a life of painful nostalgia until I get out of this damn city again. I love you Winnipeg, but I think we need to see other people.

* * *
Currently reading: Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, for book club. It's taking forever. I get a little twitchy when a book takes me more than two weeks to read, and this one is no exception. I appreciate what Rushdie's doing with regard to the mythologization of Indian/Pakistani history, but he does it with so much more grace and style in Shame. I am looking forward to the discussion though. Assuming that any of us manage to finish it! We're not doing so well with that lately.

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I am writing for myself and strangers

[May. 28th, 2009|10:03 pm]

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Current Music

Neko Case: Middle Cyclone

]

I got an email from Kelly at Aqua Books yesterday, and... I got the residency! Really! They liked my cover letter, and that I had a specific project outlined in my application. I am so excited. I get an office guys! And a reading. This has necessarily catalyzed a small freak out, as my family is going to want to come to said reading, and... I am not so excited about that. I love my family, I do. But my family life and my writing life are very separate. That is one of the major reasons I am so thrilled about this residency. It's a month of writing somewhere that is not in public and not within earshot and interrupting-distance of my parents. My mother always asks awkward questions about my writing, especially my poetry. I haven't told her when the juice launches are for the past two years because she nearly made me cry when I read the first year that my work was accepted. She means well, and she wants so badly to be proud of me, but it's difficult to talk to her about why I write what I write. I'm especially anxious because the project I'm developing is largely about being visually impaired, but influenced and structured by the Homeric Cyclops story. And I don't know how she's going to react to that. I will have to figure that out in the next month and a half.

But! I was excited, and I got sidetracked. Aqua wants a bio and a photo for the press release (WHAAA!), so the amazing Laura and I traipsed around the Exchange District with her camera today, and we actually got some head shots that I don't completely hate. This is all way too much public-ness for me, guys. I am a little anxious. But pretty enthusiastic overall.

* * *
Currently reading: That Summer in Paris by Morley Callaghan, which oozes obnoxious ego, but has a small amount of charm anyway, mainly since it's another memoir from Modernist ex-pat writer in Paris, which I do love (see: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas; A Movable Feast). Also, Hover by Jon Paul Fiorentino. I'm not sure about this one. Some of his wordplay risks cliché, and it's not as imagery-driven as much of what I prefer to read in poetry, but it has a voice and charm that I rather like.

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Eight short things

[May. 19th, 2009|10:43 pm]

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Current Music

Frida Hyvonen: Dirty Dancing

]

1) Leonard Cohen was amazing. If I am half so seductive when I'm 74, I will count myself lucky indeed. The show was a full three hours long, and he did all my favourites. I wept all the way through Suzanne (that song will always remind me of the Montreal summer and how badly I miss my de Bullion housemates), and thought I'd melt into a trembling puddle during Hallelujah and I'm Your Man. Worth every penny.

2) I handed in my Aqua residency application! Kelly said that they received about a dozen apps, so I think I have a reasonable shot. I wrote the best application that I could; now all that I can do is cross my fingers.

3) I'm putting together my first submission for a Real Paying Poetry Magazine. This week I'm going to send four poems off to Arc Poetry Magazine. I should have my first rejection slip by Christmas!

4) I need need need to get a second job. Aimee's been giving me some extra hours at the bookstore, so I keep deluding myself that I don't need to look urgently yet, but I really need to get on that. I loathe job-hunting. And writing cover letters, which I've been doing a ton of lately.

5) I finally finished reading The Information by Martin Amis, which was our first book club book, though no one finished it in time. It was grueling. I honestly cannot think of any other book I've read that is this nasty and ill-natured. 374 pages of utter contempt for its characters, literary-types, women, black people, poor people, and its reader. The satire is over-killed by the book's own mean-spiritedness. I can understand why people might like Amis for his language--he does some nifty tricks with word choice, but it's far from redeeming. We're doing Wetlands next, which should make for a great meeting, if not high literature.

6) Luckily, I also just finished Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem, and it was one of the loveliest things that I've read in a long time. Reminiscent of Michael Chabon, solid and dexterous language, and a generally a great literary noir mob mystery, narrated by a word-jugging, Tourette's-suffering orphan on the tail of his gangster mentor's murderer.

7) I am thoroughly enamoured with Swedish indie music right now. I bought the new Fever Ray (Karin Dreijer-Andersson of The Knife) album and Frida Hyvonen's latest album last week, and they're both fannntastic. Does anyone have any Lykke Li they want to swap for either of these? I hear they're great, and I want to expand my Swedish music collection! That little nation is doing some excellent work atoning for the sins of ABBA.

8) I bought some deliciously sassy shoes on Friday. They're two inch stilettoes (!!) with a mock-Oxford lace-up front, in black patent leather. They are so beautiful and badass. They are also definitely not walking shoes. I tried jogging a block to the bus stop in them, and my feet started to go numb. For Display Purposes Only.

* * *
Currently reading: Ex-Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman. I love this so far. It's a little collection of essays about books, reading, and writing, and it fills me with the warm and fuzzies.

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Publication!

[Apr. 20th, 2009|05:27 pm]

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Current Music

M. Ward: Transfiguration #1

]

Excitement ahoy! I got a letter from juice today--they are taking all four of the poems that I submitted! I am a little floored, and did not expect this. I thought they'd take one or both Montreal poems and maybe "Prayer to St. Lucy", but I definitely did not think that they'd take "pinioned". I am pleased as punch, and my mother is at present chilling celebratory wine.

The Wiretap show last night was delightful! I'd heard most of the stories before, which was rather too bad, but Jonathan Goldstein was surprisingly good live. Quite charming and gracious and only a little self-deprecating. John, Christine, and Leanne were fantastic as well. Christine played two new songs! So hopefully this means that she has a new album in the works. And John played "Utilities" (with Christine and Leanne backing him on piano and cello! Swoon.) so that small hole in my weekend was filled rather nicely indeed.

I know I'm so late to the technology party on this one, but Mykael has gotten me completely hooked on last.fm. It satisfies my delight and obsession with creative-interest-based social networking, accumulation of personal statistics, and databases. If you want to come find me, my username is redpsychlops. So much fun!

Now, I'm gonna go see about that wine.

* * *
Pretty Monsters, August Witch, Pale Fire, blah blah blah.

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But I can't remember the sound that you found for me.

[Apr. 19th, 2009|04:01 pm]

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Current Music

Metric: Help I'm Alive

]

Went to see The Weakerthans with

jocelynxheart on Friday night. It was a really solid show. The Constantines, who opened, played too long and too loud, making Jocelyn and I feel seriously old and not with-it, and the floor was full of obnoxious drunk teenagers, but the show itself was great. Maybe a little lower energy than I've seen in past, but it suited the crowd (the grown-ups anyhow) well, and my mood especially. A nice mix of older stuff and songs from Reunion Tour. While they didn't play Utilities, which I was a bit disappointed about (I really don't like the album version, but I love it live), they played a bunch of stuff that I wasn't expecting, like Virtute the Cat Explains Her Disappearance (sob!) and This Is a Fire Door. And tonight I'm going to see John K. play with Christine Fellows and Leanne Zacharias at the WAG, as part of the Wiretap taping for the Comedy Fest with

benjistyle. And next week is Leonard Cohen with

equivocated(whoops, got that wrong the first time. Sorry Tricia.)! So much musical love. Did you hear Jian Ghomeshi's interview with Cohen on Q? I could listen to that man's voice forever, I really could.

In other music news, I picked up the new Metric album, Fantasies, yesterday, and I'm a huge fan. It's got a controlled, spacey sound that makes me want to go dancing very intensely. Also finally picked up Sarah Slean's last album, The Baroness, which is lovely.

I worked over at Greenfield Books yesterday, which is the store that the guy who co-owns Bison also owns. It's technically an open store, but it's in an old house in River Heights that doesn't have prominent signage, and they specialize in rare, old, and collectible books, so they don't get a ton of walk-ins. I was a little nervous, because Michael, the boss, is very specific about how he likes things done, but it was actually a pretty nice day. He taught me how to collate a book (go through an old illustrated book to analyze the quality of all the plates), and I collated this massive folio copy of Dante's Inferno from 1866. It was pretty beat up, but the lithograph plates were in pretty decent condition, and, it being the Inferno, they were pretty intense. Bodies writhing around with snakes, crucified to the ground, holding their own heads, etc. Cheerful times. But best of all, he said that he's hoping the next time that his daughter, who is a book restorer, is in town, she will train the new woman at Greenfield and me to do basic book repair to old books, and that if I get good enough, I could do some of the basic repairs at Bison, and even potentially for other customers and make a little money doing it. I really hope that pans out, as it would be really handy to learn for grad school, and SO interesting.

April is killing me. I have no work ethic, still, again, and the weather (minus this weekend) has been gorgeous, so all my attempts to be productive melt into writing poems and going for walks and reading too much. I should really be thinking about the spring course that I really ought to take so that I don't have to do a full courseload one semester next year, but I just can't get it together. I did hand in my final portfolio for creative writing this week though. I was actually sad to hand it in--I don't want that class to be over! BUT I found out this week that Aqua Books is offering a writer-in-residency position for an emerging writer for all of July, and I'm definitely going to apply! I have no idea what my chances are (if Rebecca applies, probably close to nil), but it is worth applying no matter what. It's unpaid of course, but it's free office space for a month, a reading, and probably various handy writing connections that come with these sorts of things. It would probably mean not going to Montreal for Kristy's wedding, and maybe not folk fest even, but I could go to Montreal in August instead. I think the experience and the resources would be worth it. So keep your fingers crossed for me!

* * *
Currently reading: Pretty Monsters stil. It took me forever "The Surfer", which was probably the most disappointing Kelly Link story I've ever read. Also re-reading August Witch by Chandra Mayor. She's pretty awesome. Started reading Pale Fire by Nabokov for approximately the third time, and I just cannot get into it, so I'm putting it off for a while.

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