wallflowers by cynthia yip

christmas couch at Tammy's

December and Me

So then it's December. This leaves me uncertain as to how 2005 passed me by with the utmost stealth and the lightest footsteps. December shocked me into a small stroke this afternoon, when i peered over to the calendar for cashout verification.

December!

So i remedied the distressing convulsion with the calm of a cigarette in the bitter cold. And the blowing snow shared the cigarette with me, draining the luscious flavour of the imported Japanese Marlboro just as urgently as i was able to manage.

And then i said to December, "Maybe this is a bad idea. i think i need to rehabilitate myself."

And to reply, a cold and painful gust of wind into my face, snow whipping at my cheeks and into my lungs.

Le Coup Pour L'Amour

Dark warm quarters that house just me and my lover in a corner. We laugh and drink bottles of water to Moon Safari and kiss over the candle. People wander and laugh around us with their food and drink. And i kiss him again, this time on the forehead.


Sexy Boy...

Apollon deux mille zéro défaut vingt et un an

C'est l'homme ideal charme au masculin


- Air, Sexy Boy

the hifi by cynthia yip

Please Purge

i am mad.

i think my heart is going to explode. Explode into a mess of hate and hate and hate. Leavings of malice and malevolence spatter the walls. Hostility oozes into the carpet and odours mingle with sweat. The bile and stickiness will never wash out. You can taste it, and it makes you want to rip and vandalize the things around you.

My heart is like tar, but still it pulses with a thick power that makes me want to throw up.

Tin by cynthia yip

Conversations When It Is Quiet

Me': So what's new?

Me: Nothing.

Me': Hahahaha. You're pathetic.

Me: Well, there are new hostilities in my life. And as a result, i feel very alone.

Me': Go on...

Me: You wouldn't be interested...

Me': Yeah, you're right. [exits]

Lost In The Rain In The City

A new year begins in the cold and the rain as we all run for cover. i have no certain place to run to, but i am running nonetheless towards some refuge. Unfortunately, this is one that i have poorly and hastily imagined for myself, and it appears to be already crumbling upon my first stay in its imaginary, yet still paper thin walls - this place can cozily house me and my decrepit dreams.

There really should be little stopping me from riding the carousel progress - in fact, there should be many a thing pushing me to the front of the line of screaming kids. Those around me have moved on and grown up, or they have made amends. i feebly have lost my youth and spirit, my friends, and my dignity. So what mores have i gots to lose?


failure is always the best way to learn

retracing your steps 'til you know

have no fear your wounds will heal


- Failure, Kings of Convenience

Little Left To Be Desired

Sometimes, i get a bit confident in my goings ons, and then a hit to leave me smeared with blood, caked onto my eyelids and nose, and i am tasting it on my tongue.

So then, keep it simple and always remember that everything is transient and relations pass, including those i once thought were important. It was speeding towards me for the past five years or so, but then i think that it may not have been as obvious as it seems now.

But now i am aware, after sipping many a whiskey over the booming sounds of the hifi with the most beautiful man by my side, i think well - i certainly should have known better.

i feel very stupid.

It's time to go.

Or maybe i have been left behind.

Tennessee Swing

i am back in the sick swing of things in Calgary, and the swing is not the dance that i am used to. It has become grotesque and contorted; my hips can't move like that without me being terribly disfigured and hurt. My misshapen twisted ugly body will swing nevertheless...hey, what's a girl to do? - you've got to dance!

So dance.

Alright, i admit it; i can dance, and i can do the new swing with unflinching flair. Unfortunately, i like the old dance and vehemently decline the new one. Fuck the new one. The new one - mendacity.

Brick: Somethin' hasn't happened yet.
Big Daddy: What's that?
Brick: A click in my head.
Big Daddy: Did you say, 'click'?
Brick: Yes sir, the click in my head that makes me feel peaceful.
Big Daddy: Boy, sometimes you worry me.
Brick: It's like a switch, clickin' off in my head. Turns the hot light off and the cool one on and all of a sudden, there's peace.

Then there's peace.

An Independence Day, Please?

Proud Bostonians crowded the streets along the river in the parks, illuminated by the loud noises which followed the brightest blasts in the sky. i walked home after the fireworks from the Esplanade to Brighton, and despite the thousands of other people doing the same, more so were cramming themselves onto the T as if it were a competition involving a phone booth.

Jeff is stirring restlessly in bed - we have no air conditioner, nor do we actually have a bed - because it is so humid. Tomorrow, he has to head back to work and we are back to sharing a key for his building.

So empty. And so confusing.

There is so much i have to do, but when i arrive in Calgary, i will have nothing left.

guitar hysteria by cynthia yip

Stood By The Gate At The Foot Of The Garden

The rain is hard today, and the rivers have flooded over. Don't make plans to go rafting, no matter how luring the rapids may seem when you walk by; the fire fighters have enough on their hands as it is.

I'd very much like to diagnose the dreary weather for my strong feelings of inadaquecy, but i am afraid that it is a bit more than that. i feel so alone, and so abandoned. i feel as all the people i may turn to for approval and guidence have left me on their doorstep, ringing their bell helplessly as the rain soaks through my clothes. No reply. The good thing about the rain is that the tears that stream down a pathetic face are hidden from the drops falling from the sky. I cry until my contacts fall out and the bell is broken.

Those eighties songs, like the ones from Joy Division, raise this very hollow empty feeling inside my chest. i wish you could feel it - it's feels ice cold. Even when a warm and comforting band like the Kings of Convenience cover a song like "The Eternal," it feels no different. i am very lucky to be surrounded by people i love and people who can find some sort of appreciation for me, but being as unreasonably foolish as i manage to be, i still feel rejected and heartbroken by others more. i am not certain at what point i decided to rely so heavily on others for my peace - it is impractical, and moreover, completely asinine.

The observation I am doing
could easily be understood
as cynical demeanour
but one of us misread.

- Misread, Kings of Convenience


The proper thing to do when you want to let someone go is to tell them. However, i recieve no reply.

Not All Days Can Be Happy Ones

Some less than others.


I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.
—Jack Kerouac

Why Do Molecules Not Just Fall Apart Into Atoms?

It comes as quite a shock to me that it is April 04 of 2005. i can't seem to grasp a hold of time.

i am very unsure as to how the minutes can feel like hours or how the hours can seem like seconds, and how all the other units of time can confuse themselves in my state. It's more than remembering how summers felt like they lasted forever when i was still in grade school - everyone can recall time differences with this cliché-ridden example - but i can lose a whole day to what seems like a couple of hours. Or a whole month can feel like it passes in a few days. i feel like i have lost a lot of years.

Einstein says that it is all relative. In his Special Theory of Relativity, he predicted that time does not flow at a fixed rate, when generalized to explain gravitational time dilation . I am that observer he speaks of, watching something fall into a black hole; i'm here far away, thinking that time stands still, but the object is already long gone.

cherry blossoms by Cynthia Yip

Gosh, it's cold here. And for these past two years, i have been immuno-suppressed girl. This makes for a poor match, in my opinion.

Well, the cherry blossoms were taken two weeks ago in Vancouver, prompting the question on more than one occasion, "why do i live in Calgary?" Concert billings over there should be enough to make me wander west, as well as the supportive vegan culture. Ah yes, just in the coming months, The Kills, Low, Pedro the Lion, Bloc Party, Dizzee Rascal, Clem Snide, The Ravonettes, Feist, K-os, The Decemberists, Phoenix, Dogs Die in Hot Cars, Crooked Fingers, Weezer, Puffy Ami Yumi, The Thrills, Buck 65, Mando Diao, Gang of Four, Mercury Rev, Ivy, and Damien Jurado are all making stops in the mild bustle of Vancouver. Keep in mind, i did not mention the acts that are also to make an appearance in Calgary. i suppose if i were to live over there, i would be a perpetual poor machine.

This is a very mindless post.

To make up for the sloppy bit above, here is an intruging exerpt from http://www.blacktable.com, as follows,

On Sunday, Christians around the world will celebrate the resurrection of their savior, Jesus Christ, by wearing bonnets, manhandling rabbits, and popping Peeps.
Did you know that the Just Born Candy Company -- the manufacturer of the frighteningly fluorescent chicks and bunnies -- makes misshapen marshmallow confections for other occasions? There's a summer star, and something green and Christmassy.
But before driving your blood sugar into the stratosphere, notice the mixture of "ingredients' is called slurry. Seriously: Take the "Factory Tour." The ingredients are simply called "slurry."
Chew on that while you try to chew your chick.

Well then, Happy Christian Ressurection Holiday to you and yours.

A Symphony That's You

At Richards on Richards, there were two Kings of Convenience


i would love to be able to dance gracefully with the skinniest limbs possible, as if they floated in a gangly tangled mess.

Erlend Øye did just that in the most balletic crossings of the stage that night in a striped shirt fit for a small 12 year old boy. His eyes peered behind his huge retro-television glasses as he effortlessly instructed the crowd to call Eirik Glambek Bøe a "plukke", even if Eirik felt like a very skinny one. As the mellow audience, we were asked to join the Kings by being Feist (though she was delightfully there), backup singers, the makeshift choir Erlend created, and some whistling violins. It was the best concert that my silly self has ever attended, leaving me still in some sillier state of harmonious bliss.

And i did have very good company for the unfortunate drive out, the vegan dim sum, and the wandering strolls in the warm evening and the sunny afternoon, even if i couldn't see him in our hostel bunkbeds while we talked.

It Broke. Time To Fix It.

Wow, it was a nice day today. So, good news, i saw a man with a snake today. And i saw motorcycles popping wheelies on crowded streets. And it was super warm today. Was it super warm and sunshine-y for you too? i hope it was.

i met a friend who i hadn't seen for two or so odd years today; he is now married and planning to buy a house with his wife. To me, this is shocking, as he is younger than me by 3 months. Dear Iris is planning to go to Norway for a term, costing her more money than i have been able to save for as long as i worked my feeble waitressing job. And a boy i can now call my tentative friend is back from Sweden, Russia, and Egypt. Other friends are working with the UN, in grad school, or fast en route to becoming a doctor. i have been watching the world from the comfort of my small room, my life not extending past the boarders of the perfectly-sized windows. A wise and un-enthusiastic man once said at the Night Gallery in a thick Scottish accent: When you're secure so you feel much safer?/When days never change and it's three years later/It's like your life hasn't changed/And you're three years late/How does it feel to be three years late?/And watching your youth slip away/What seems different seems different today. That was almost three years ago.

My ass is numb from sitting here for so long.

i Am A Slumlord

Life has handed me many a good thing. i am a very lucky person. Sometimes, i want to run around and hug everyone because i feel as i could burst with love. Somehow though, i always manage to destroy all around me. i get so comfortable, oozing into routine, and in a sloth-like puddle, i lose all sense of significance and slump into a heedless ingrate. i collect greed like a snotty child collects stickers or rocks. i feel like i can't be satiated; more attention, more cookies, more comfort, more clothes, more appreciation, more love. i am a giant pudgy indulgence rolling down a hill and collecting everything in my path.

i keep wanting to feel certain things at certain times. i am however, fully aware that life is a random collection of events which happen as the system sees fit. This equals some pathetic disaster for me, because even when i am in the moment, i seem to be watching from the outside, my nose pressed helplessly against the glass. i used to be temperate and meditative. Now, i am rapaciously waiting to feel. Sometimes, i am particularly hopeful when the sun shines bright and beats warmth on my face, and i think i can clear my mind and heart. i have repetitiously learned that unfortunately, this optimism is quick to pass and really, i feel like shit and am a toxic receptacle, filled to the brim and almost overflowing. Wait...it has overflowed.

cityhalo by cynthia yip

Empty Cupboards

So here i am, after a welcoming and friendly reception at the Thompson House, and i leave in tears. This must prove the social ineptibility that i have been denying for all the years of my meager existence. i look at others around me and i don't quite understand that this is perhaps what i am supposed to be a part of if i am a capable and functioning member of my demographic. The difference, i realized, in my teary mess walk back to the dorm, is that these people had it together. Even if they were sincerely cynical as to what was to come after the P.hD. or even a post doc, there was a radiating sense of independence and confidence. It may have been the pitchers of beer talking, but somehow, i think it was a little more than that.

There are many things that different people aspire to, and i somehow believe that my goals are no different than anyone else's. This is perhaps a false belief and perhaps the reason why i seem to get myself into a bit of emotional trouble. This is in no way my pathetic guise to make myself seem like a special case or some grieving and emotional artist type, but there are barriers that i like to put up for my own (dis) pleasure.

So then, what the hell is Capitan Bringdown's problem?

i don't want the responsibility of other's hopes on my weak and brittle shoulders, so much so that i don't even want my own hopes or aspirations (or is it the other way around?). i keep on being told that i have potential, but that is really a nothing term. i have gone nowhere, and it is a polite way of saying; you have gone nowhere...i hope you can try to fix that. And potential for what, Buster? No answer. After all, it is the perfectly ambiguous and equally clever thing to say to someone who is running into a brick wall.

And if you gut me, i think you would find that i have no guts. i can't imagine this helping the situation either. i am not destined for great things, or even mildly great things, or even mediocre things. i am stuck. All my own doing. Something's got to give.

Bon Soir

It is a nice bone-chilling bit cold in Montreal, dreary with lightly falling drizzle turning to snow within a matter of minutes. i don't like that i have to pull out my grade school level French and the embarassing response i recieve afterward - people looking at me quizically.

Hui Neng Spoke Of A Mirror And Dust

i am terribly unhappy. i just can't seem to get it together. Even in the most mundane situations and routines, i can't control myself.

i want to run into a monastery, starve myself, and meditate all day. i miss the slow calmness of the temples and the silence that never felt lonely. i want to feel detached and empty.

But now, i go on and read Master Hsing Yun's lectures, and i feel increasing resentment because i cannot apprehend Humanistic Buddhism. i am quite certain i am not to feel this way if i were to practice Buddhism properly.