A Broadcast No One Will Receive

Yeah, You Know What I Mean?

2011-12-02T11:25:00.001-07:00

No.

Oh The Demons Come, They Can Subside

2011-05-17T15:59:00.004-06:00

Where am i? What time is it?

Feels like life just passed me by but time did not.

Or maybe instead of drinking at lounges with open windows and ordering bottles of wine at late-night, upscale pizza joints, i should look and see where the fuck my life is.

But there is sunshine in these days, and patios are so inviting, and dress-up foolishly parties and dress-up to the nines museum launches let us run around, and dinner parties on my little patio are begging for me and my friends, as are the tickets to music festivals and to the other side of the country. And any bar or television beckons me with hockey playoffs.

But i should calm the fuck down and sort out this mess that is my completely directionless day-to-day, which has actually become my life.

Packed and All Eyes Turned In. No One To See On the Quay.

2011-03-18T17:18:00.002-06:00

i don't think i can do this anymore. Or at least, i can't feel like this anymore.

Bring It.

2011-01-31T10:16:00.001-07:00

30.

Space To Breathe It, Time To Savour All That Night Air Has To Lend Me

2011-01-04T00:33:00.008-07:00

New Year's eve, sitting at home at 9pm, i realized i didn't want to see people i know and instead, went out to a local haunt to meet people i don't know.

Tell Me Where You're Goin'

2010-09-13T16:23:00.023-06:00

Thank you for being such a bright, smart, and amazing guy. i will always remember the late night drinks and smoking and long conversations and running around the cold streets and getting lost from the crowds.

Shine on, buddy. You will always be a cosmological force, the star that you are.

...

http://prohab.ca/

Since You Got Me Up

2010-08-05T17:30:00.002-06:00

i have been spending a lot of time alone these days and nights in my apartment, which is feeling more and more like a dark cave lit with many ugly candles. i just sit and stare, and then the oven clock tells me that half an hour has passed. This doesn't miff me, because i just wrap the knitted blankets around me tighter and keep staring, and then soon it's time for bed.

Sometimes, though, i go out. i have really only seen a handful of people on repeat, and though they get me out, they don't seem to mind visiting me in my cave either. They are also clever enough to know that i am less creepy and disconsolate when they bring a bottle of white for safe passage.

And i am oddly surprised at the company that keeps me now, these very different people that have wandered in and taken me in. The cosmological congruency i think, is that we have all been terribly good at being terribly aware of being terribly unsuccessful in meaningful relationships. So bottles of wine go down, tears are spilt, bad Chinese takeout soothes us, and we bond over terribly terrible memories and the terribly good ones too.

Then it's time for breakfast in the rain.

It's summer. Sometimes, i do go out, and the sun does shine. So do my raddest of the rad friends.

weekday night gardens and ship fries

gardens at a glance

through the looking glass

tarp runner and folk fest buddy

main stage night tales

lanterns weaving in the dark

trail leads to me

let's dance

horseplay and tomfoolery

Sunday morning gospel jam

...

mountain strolls and lavender

...

amusement and skyrides

Entering the New Beast

2010-06-11T16:53:00.035-06:00

Image heavy,

OR

Music and snuck-in gin and little bottles of flavoured vodka, being a wing girl, naps on hills, getting lost and spending a night in a campsite on the other side, no balance between cold and sunburn, ignoring media duties, smoking a plenty, and being with awesome people that i will never meet again.

morning hike in

the gorge in the sun

new friends share drinks and drugs, oysters and avacados

favourite stoop

the only warm place is at night, with Z-Trip

a gentleman's maintenance

limited daily breakfast

slipping through, the time has come

we're heartbroken

sneaking into the range life of Pavement

rain at midnight in the Booka Shade

gots all kinds of sweets for a soul man

Marlboro country outside the Honey Buckets

sunshine last

a Band of Horses steals our hearts

Neon Indian fucks us up

the boys and free beer and avocados

as dirty as white gravy

Running Away From The Belly Of The Beast

2010-06-11T16:22:00.014-06:00

i have nothing elegant to say. Instead, i will remember not showering for 4 days and sleeping for a collection of 16 hours like this:

leaving Vancouver in a car of strangers

welcome to America, assholes

meatloaf and jambalaya

accent sardine can lined with pbr

field of fucking dreams for 4 hours

10am cocktails

This was the beginning. The rest was even more surreal because i didn't realize where i was or who i with most of the time - wandering and healing in the pits and crowds.

You've Applied The Pressure To Have Me Crystallized

2010-05-12T15:08:00.002-06:00

100.

And a new start.

Let's forget that we stayed when we should have left. Let's not steal each other's favourite cds when we pack apart our old life. Let's stop talking about it and let it go, let it be forgotten. Let's smile when we see each other on the street, and think that the 3 years was a good lesson to learn.

i'll miss you. i'm going to sleep in a sleeping bag and sit on pillows when you leave, and the bookshelves are going to look awful bare without your Henry Millers and Roberto Bolanos.

Drunk Girls

2010-05-03T16:46:00.005-06:00

i've been stuck in a long rut, spending time and effort on a lot of bullshit, and getting angry about being in my little box that i cannot see out of.

This weekend, i apprehensively took a step out of my box. i forget how terrifying that can be. But after some wine, it becomes less terrifying.

Someone stood by me all night and helped me out of the box, actually. Inadvertently, someone made me take a step out and a step back and helped me along to remember that sailing boats around hidden islands is as good as schooling, and brilliance in life is brilliance despite the bullshit we practice that convinces otherwise. i knew that he was protecting me, with LCD Soundsystem, dancing badass, whiskey and purple grazers, and from people that don't like you if you don't like Tom Wolfe.

All i could do the next day was buy him vegan dim sum.

A Strange Arrangement

2010-04-29T10:26:00.006-06:00

Someone else is leaving me for the west coast.

My editor and i polished off sake and bottles of wine last night. It was like being on drugs when we watched the blizzard in the cold yellow parking lot light fly a million directions into the night, like sparks of snow with poisonous trails whipping behind them. Inside the cozy abode, we downloaded a lot of music, broke my dollar store wine opener and had to venture out into the snow again to get a new one, smoked a pack between us, and marveled at an old Valentine he made for me now stuck on the fridge.

Now, if only he can secure accreditation for Sasquatch, we will still get to spend more summer together.

She Left A Week To Roam

2010-04-03T21:28:00.003-06:00

i drove out to the mountains alone.

Painkillers, Fleet Foxes Americana, sun shining on my face, windows down.

i ate lunch at the foot of the mountain as the old Canadian Pacific train passed by. i drank strong illy coffee while people bought strong cheeses and loaves of bread.

i miss being alone.

Poison

2010-03-05T20:33:00.006-07:00

i have been passively letting things happen and passively letting time pass. It's been three years.

Now i don't know what i am doing again. i want to be able to let things go. i don't want to miss things that no longer exist.

Invisible, hanging there in the sunlight.

still an unpacked suitcase...

Don't You Know That I'll Be Around To Guide You

2010-03-01T16:49:00.003-07:00

After two weeks of partying, i am sick and hopped up on cold and flu pills. These little pills that bleed red when moistened layer my world with surreal haziness. When this happens, i take more of the red pills, because i don't want this detached world view to subside.

...

i came back recently from the Canadian west coast. i miss my best friend. i miss the cherry blossoms and the mountains. i miss the ocean and the damp coldness at night.

Reading week and the Olympics also collided with my week-long jaunt. It was madness. But i saw so many of my friends, met many new ones, drank so much beer and so many martinis, ate so much vegan food in so many vegan restaurants, listened to so many records, walked so so much, picked up my cover story for the Vancouver edition of the paper i write for, and was happy just to be marking papers while he sat across from me writing memos for his latest case.

Sometimes, i wonder if we are able to be better people if we are with the right company.

Love In You Over The Soundboard And The Phone

2010-01-10T01:18:00.010-07:00

Notes to Kieran by cy

There'll Be No Milk As Sweet

2009-12-23T02:59:00.000-07:00

Cold nighttime sneaking into empty apartments of an old heritage building is a nice way to unwind before Christmas. It is even nicer when it is with someone who can make you remember that though things are bad, it isn't all shit.

Black Pepper and Wine, Smoking On the Balcony

2009-11-24T12:15:00.012-07:00

We sent our guests off with beers and cigars for the road. i love that we all live so close to each other these days - i can finish a beer and 2 cigarettes walking from your place to mine in the brisk nights.

Put Your Hand On Your Heart And Show Me

2009-11-19T00:41:00.013-07:00

i won't believe you until you put your hand on your heart by cy

(alfred) + (monome) + (5 gins) + (late night Wednesday) ----> (coughing out a lung) + (fever and chills)

i am getting so fucking old.

Got Lonesome Fuel For Fire

2009-10-24T07:39:00.014-06:00

Insomnia. It's been a long time since i've woken up in the darkness and couldn't sleep again. It's been a long time since i've been able to remember the way things were.

i'm listening to a capsule of the 00's right now, wide awake but getting sleepy. It is reminding me of so many things. i used to listen to Camera Obscura and Jens Lekman and Interpol, did i? i just found an old copy of the Believer shelved in my apartment too. Old like when Elliot Smith died. Old like i used to watch Subterranean on Sunday nights when we stole satellite signals from the States. Old like the indie shows and beer. Old like when we used to be sick of being in love. Old like when i would still organize my ipod. Old like when i'd pick up and leave. Old like when i served tables and ate loaves of bread. Old like when the breeze would float through my window and make my record player dusty while i read thick books. Old like when he took off his jacket and laid it on the wooden ground for me to sit on in the humid Ironwood while M. Ward played. Old like when i used to write and was alone.

i'm old enough to miss things. Or at least get nostalgic for turning on the bright lights. The sun looks like it might come up now.

...

Today, i watched the campus with a chance acquaintance and some cigarettes. He told me that i need an adventure.

i know.

The Unfamiliar Is Right Below Our Eyes

2009-10-13T16:46:00.005-06:00

i woke up this morning beside him. i fell back asleep. When i woke up again, i didn't remember what happened the past weeks and past days. And when i got out of bed, everything came back - all the confusion, the bad feelings, the sadness, the embarrassment, the complete loss of all the things i thought i could do.

i almost threw up in the bathroom.

The layer of snow on the cold city made everything so surreal today. It matched my dejection and apathy. When i smoke in the little hovel by the science building, i can watch the quiet and white-dusted campus like i am watching a silent film. Everything looked sad today.

My heart actually hurts.

Freedom Is the Mastery of the Known

2009-08-23T17:02:00.004-06:00

All summer, i've been staring out my window, watching people get stuck in the shallow waters of the river on their colourful, rope-tied rafts.

i am inside my apartment, watching the beautiful youth and summer pass me by, floating along with beers and no life jackets.

A few more days until judgment day. And then this Hell can end.

All Wrapped In Bones Of A Setting Sun

2009-05-19T05:12:00.005-06:00

“I can see the

ocean. I miss you.
I’ll call you
tomorrow after my
phone is set up.”

i am almost cried dry. It’s that fucking song or the grocery isles, or when i close my eyes and inhale what i think is you. It is definitely the sushi stand that is now closed with a ripped-out fridge and concrete dust floors, and now i drink your tea and eat alone. i don’t know why this is happening because i knew you were leaving.

Watching the Warm Poison Rats

2009-04-01T16:19:00.004-06:00

There has been a lull here, and there. So i suppose the lull has been pretty constant.

It won't stop snowing where i am. i've never had a problem with the snow or how it likes to visit the city every now and again in the months of April, May, and June. But this year, "Fuck off." i have used my space heater so much that it is now broken. Next to the broken heater and un-shoveled sidewalks, i think about Barcelona. i would sit on the terrace and smoke packs of Marlboro Lights, drink cold white wine, eat avocados, and talktalktalk. At night, i would run out and watch the djs spin and the old bars would serve tall gins. In the afternoon, i would sleep in past siesta because of the night before, and because the heat would slow things down. Grocers always fresh, Sundays always closed, days always long, little streets narrowed with heat and architecture, vintage and parties and music and art and popsicles all the time.

i will not be able to go anywhere this year. i have spent all my money on something responsible. And i have to stay and study for the big one. This dark hole that i live in is also under a rock. i can't wait to crawl out.

...

Last night, a man found me and told me that i was mysterious and beautiful. i watched him smoke a lot of weed prior to the comment, and i think that he wanted sex. But it was still disturbingly nice to hear - i don't go out anymore.

What Happens On the 13th?...

2008-12-15T16:08:00.010-07:00

...it is still happening. i am marking the undergrad finals. i knew this pile of exams would eventually haunt me after the madness, so as i was composing the final, it seemed that inditement of a narcissistic bonus question would be quite appropriate in maintaining (regaining) my sanity. Indeed, it has become more for my enjoyment now than for their marks and well being. It seems to have served both purposes.

i realize some of them shouldn't have spent their talents in bacterial biochemistry and physiology, as there are clearly better ways for them to use their mad skillz. Enjoy the wit.

Spectrophotometry and Yip,
Genomic expression is hip.
Lab reports are delivered on time,
She doesn't nickel and dime.
She's the grandmaster of CMMB,
Rocking around with Hynes (the emcee).
Enterotoxic pathogenic pneumococci,
Aseptic tequnique and she doesn't bat an eye.
- JM

Cynthia, la gentille tuteur de TP,
Ne m'a jamais saque,
Bien que mon anglais no sait pas parfait,
Et que le premier lab, je ne l'ai meme pas rappe!

J'ai done passe un excellent moment,
Meme si parfois j'ai en du mal a me mettre dedans,
Et que je ne les ai pas toujours rendu a temps,
Les "lab report," elle les a toujours corriges gentillement!

Merci Cynthia,
Je ne t'oublierai pas,
Car grace a toi,
Cette matiere je ne la raterai pas!
-JP

CMMB443.
Lab of bacteria.
Our TA is Cynthia.
She has long black hair,
Very pretty, and about us she cares.
Adorned with many rings,
I love those funky things.
-DL

And some limericks.

A limerick...By EW.
Ode to my laboratory instructor.
My TA, miss Yip,
Is cool, fun, and hip.
She taught us a real neat lab,
All the while she was so fab.
I'll miss thee, miss Yip!

There once was a TA named Yip,
Who was oh-so-incredibly hip;
Her labs never got boring,
For this we're adoring,
And wish we could leave her a tip!
-NJ

And when i am done this, and submit their marks and file away the exams, then it is time for the Fake Blood, red lips, and high heels.

Bones Floating In The Sound

2008-11-27T18:48:00.007-07:00

It has been cruelly disagreeable as of late. i have not seen the light of day, the pleasing nights, my charming friends, or a good scotch in a very long time. And it continues, one painfully consequential task endlessly linked to the next, until December 13th.

And then, i will sleep in, tucked under my covers. And i will cook a wonderful meal, lit up with wine and tea and candles, listen to forgotten cds, read absolutely non-scientific literature, smoke cigarettes for pleasure instead of stress, write long letters in ink handwriting, and watch old movies in bed. And i'll paint my nails and my lips, and brush my ratty hair, and step out in skyscraper shoes to dance and lounge with my friends and friends i have yet to meet late into the morning.

Until then.

Today, a student of mine surprised me in my lab. She baked me vegan cookies.

One of Us Will Die Inside These Arms

2008-10-09T14:51:00.004-06:00

weeping in a ballroom by cy

And I've Been Buying My Time On My Knees

2008-07-27T18:13:00.004-06:00

i can't write worth shit. Fuck.

The City That You Know Don't Want You 'Round

2008-04-14T00:40:00.006-06:00

It may seem that i have forgotten this little spot, but i have not.

i have just been a little lost. i have just been hiding in dark places. and i have been chain smoking. i have been perched, waiting for the world to pass its nights and days by me. i just stayed here. But i really want to go.

But there is no where to go here. It is a wasteland of story-high cranes and concrete skeletons amongst the knocked-down buildings and the giant holes that have replaced them. The crosswalks are closed everywhere and the city of a million persons is deserted. When the city remembers the wealth it has on the week's end, it drives itself downtown and drinks itself to death in the bars lit with large television screens.

"More than a million!," our baby-faced mayor and the developers chant. The inner city condos are selling as fast as the suburban thick-lawned, cookie-cut houses sprawled almost an hour away.

i run out to my old standbys to remember but leave early every time. i walk back to the little apartment and it isn't even midnight.

So i hide idle.

So Tired Of Playing With This Bow And Arrow

2008-01-03T17:48:00.000-07:00

Most people turn introspective this time of year, reflecting upon all the tribulations they have overcome and the improvements that will follow. i, on the other hand, threw up in a champagne glass.

So this is the new year - the year anew.

When I Write It In The Sand, There Is Something Wrong

2007-07-23T17:38:00.000-06:00

Would you love someone if they didn't love the same things as you, or be attractted to them if they did not like the same things as you? The affinity we have for others is really nothing more than an accumulation of things that we have collected - it's not you i like, it's the things you like that i like.

And it is how we define ourselves, with our things. i understand you don't define your self worth by a sport utility vehicle or perhaps a new condo's hardwood floors - i can tell this by your muted scoffing. But you, like i, quietly pride yourself on the books you have read, the magazines you hunt and restlessly await each month, the obscure music you love, the vinyl that you still buy, the clothes you wear that makes you stand out so, and the trips you might have taken around the world. Maybe our jobs and the education we have recieved along the way might creep into the mix of things. We are a collection of things, of objects, of spent money.

So if there is a pulsing want for another person, don't disguise it with justifications on why you would get along without the attraction alone. We really would be more sincere if we all just admitted that we just want to fuck.

Go Downtown With The Drugs In My Body

2007-06-14T04:18:00.001-06:00

Without notice, i have slithered away into month-long disappearances. i now hide in an old downtown house with blown speakers and mixers, packs of cigarettes, warm coffee in the rain, raspberries and blackberries, dark chocolate, and my mess of papersreportsjournalsfigurestables next to my my little white laptop (i ask her to sing to me Feist’s The Reminder, Kitsunè Maison Compilation4, some BBC Radio’s Essential Mixes, and Billie Holiday). Those are the innocuous dohickeys in my toolkit by which i attack proposals, progress reports, final projects, posters, presentations, and committee meetings. Sometimes, when he isn't around, i dance barefoot on the squeaky hardwood floors to Dragonette's I Get Around or whatever Klaxons remix happens to popup that day. i smoke by the large window and watch the rain fall from the roof edges onto the green leaves of the bush and tall trees outside. Then, back to my patiently waiting white laptop.

i haven't been to my digs in months. i haven't been at home with my family either. i just travel from the university laboratories and libraries to this abode, then back again.

i miss you. and my friends. and my family. and the hipsters and the shows (the latter i only hear about after they have passed by). and the sun. and how we used to have coffee and pots of tea. and how i used to have the capacity to daydream.

---

i got in yesterday from LA. i am tired. i am old and boring. i just want to wake up stretching slow on a Sunday with the sunshine pouring in the window, with orange juice, some dub soothing from the stereo, and rolling around in the sheets. Instead, i fly again to Québec City this Saturday. Québec City for the Canadian Society of Microbiologists Annual Conference, LA was for an extended family wedding and marathon reunion/first meetings.

And LA is surreal. Four days of familyfamilyfamily matted into the hazy humidity, backed-up crisscrossing freeways, mega- strip- and mini-malls, palm trees, diamond-encrusted Sidekicks, and shopping carts rattling alongside Beamers and Benzes. Between the family picnic in the hills, soy beverages in Chinatown, and dinners in Orange County, i made an expensive quick last minute escape to West Hollywood on a Sunday night, to finally dance and drink and smoke and hug a broad-shouldered man as we both ran across the then deserted Wilshire Boulevard.

family touristing

flowershop love

wine rounds the tables and corsages on lapels

first meetings and late night Long Beach breakfast

family reunion bar-b-q house in the hills

late night sneak away

nobody innocuous

happiness is...

Streets of Neon French Romance Blinking Sweat

2007-04-04T02:46:00.000-06:00

Sleeplessness for months ended the March, red-eyed to Montreal on Friday morning, still sleepless like the rest of the hedonistic weekend into this new month of April.

The Ed Banger Records Party over left me with bruises all over my body, my tights ripped, sweaty, dirty, drunk with wine and gin, and smoking packs of cigarettes in a most beautiful fox dress and blood red nails. Liquourbottlesmix of water passed groping hands in a grimy, sweaty, stylish, beautiful mad decent in the Banger pit, as we stormed the stage - "We Are Your Friends." Picture photographs taken by party people, my fox dress slipping and hair matted from the sweat of mine and others float about now, amongst the captured stage diving and kissing and sticky moist air. i slept in the dress beside warm bottles of Fresca and water.

i had packed Vladimir Nabakov's Laughter in the Dark and two packages of Benson and Hedges Special Lights, along with new sharp sharpies and every intention of reading, writing, and daydreaming the short escape away. Instead, sensual excesses coddled me with vegan feasts, cigarettes without disdain in bed and on long walks, sexy fucking results, boutique hats and plaid trench coats, endless coffee and earl grey tea; warm and lasting for hours, records and books, Just Noodles, and a playmate with freckles. A sword necklace now hangs around my neck, and i love licorice.

Red eyes to and from, Montreal's super sexy vibes.

a sign of mad ascension by cy

Busy P and Justice making Ed Rec by Reid

SebastiAn whispering Busy Justice by cy

dj Mehdi avant the jump via thecobrasnake.com

"we are your friends..." via thecobrasnake.com

"...you'll never be alone again" via friendattack.com

fucking fox grime via friendattack.com

Stochastic Reverse Engineering, Or The Sensing Of Stress

2007-03-05T00:31:00.000-07:00

The month of February was a quick blink - a flutter of my thickly smudged and mascara-coated eyelashes in the large melty flakes of snow that made the University grounds look like a cold and absurdly utilitarian ski lodge complex. Also, i had lost two pairs of mittens this February month. i suppose it was really hard to smoke with clumsy mittens anyway. Goodbye to you then, Sir February, and our quick fling together; when you made the days piercingly cold to soothe my raging anticipation propelled by my seminar to my Faculty cluster, and when we danced all the gin-soaked night to a C'est Dangereux anti-Valentine's party, and when you spun me into a panic attack in a big bed at 4am one of your nights, so all i could do was cry out for someone to lie close to me.

March hides the spring and protects her from our city's eagerness (as the last snow is always during the May long weekend, preferably when our flimsy tents collapse from the snowfall accumulated overnight onto our ever-optimistic selves, every time we decide to inaugurate camping season). But today, i believed in the coming of spring, in a borrowed and worn-in badass tshirt and a black yarny sweater, as i walked along the melted streets in the sunshine with a large coffee and a soft package of cigarettes with an accomplice. i am still sick, and i know that no amount of orange juice or Neocitran could possibly make up for the way i have been careless with caring for myself. But i try in vain to suppress the chronically surfacing illness with vitamin C, throat drops, and a few less cigarettes. Spring comes with fever, right?

Which brings me to a colloquium a few days ago, held by the Physics department of the University i attend, hosted by a charmingly eloquent Dr. Stanislas Leibler, the head of the Laboratory for living matter at The Rockefeller University. i quite greedily drank in his nimble hour and forty minute talk on "Fluctuations, Informations and Survival: Lessons From Bacteria." He gets one thinking with his slides n' slides of formulas and clever collections of variables, about some sort of intertwined world where even stochastic variations can be accounted for in an elegant model. These stochastic effects of course, are multiplied together - not additive.

Multiplying the poor things i have decided for and done to myself is a limit fast approaching infinity at an exponential rate. i am quietly screaming all the way, like one might down a waterslide.

Kisses On My Arm When I Look Away, And That Tear Your Lips Becasue I Want It So Badly

2007-01-15T00:20:00.000-07:00

January is always the most painful of months. There is no sense of renewal; just the expectation. We are left making the same mistakes, but far more indulgent and ridiculous. i hate January. And i am at ill ease becasue i have left many things to rot and oxidize in their hiding places, until they are poisonous through their pores.

Bows And A Blanket Of Weeds

2007-01-03T04:01:00.000-07:00

i tilt my head, eyes wide and watering.

It is January again. The last bit of December was especially bleak, and a new year finds me lorn and all alone sitting on the steps of the science buildings as the sun sets, a package of cigarettes beside my black mittens. Many abstractions have left me for the coming of this year, and i have abandoned many of the fancies i had carved with care into wooden tables. Time will take it all and my head will fall between my knees.

Right now, i want kind pleasures like staying up late to the night by myself and daydreaming or reading thick Russian novels. i want to starve myself until all i can do is love so calmly and deliberately, to all those i know and have to meet.

Another one, yes?

With Wooden Buttons And An Apple Core

2006-12-21T21:54:00.000-07:00

i dreamt i traveled and found you there,
in the woods one Christmas Eve,
waiting
by Hayato Nagao
...

Nights before Christmas found me coldly reconciled at a dance party soothed with whiskey, cigarettes, and beautiful young people. Then, waking up in a big old house to a blinking VCR clock telling me that i was to be in the lab in mere minutes, and i was in the same clothes as the night before. Blurry contacts and disoriented, i shake the boy on the couch next to me and we stumble out into the twilight to bundled-up schoolchildren crossing the street and on the playground in the winter morning, our breath frozen before us. i had parked my little red car in a school zone the night before.

Hurry along, all...

Garden Wall Of Eden, Full Of Spiderbites And All Your Lovers

2006-12-04T00:57:00.000-07:00

There is not anytime to breathe when the semester's end sneaks up on me - i am so tired and rusty. But i let out my first sigh of breath along this stretch on a Friday, when the term paper left my hands for the professor's, and i decided for my sanity to consciously avoid any later indulgences in my studies for things eukaryotic.

i thought, on the dark and cold Friday night leaving the lab that i would congratulate myself with the best coffee in the little city with a stack of papers to mark by my side. Alone at last...not to last. Because Thursday and me and boy from a long time ago chanced upon each other and by Friday, we didn't mean to meet but did. He left the OR and found me in my snuggery, heavy with the smell of espresso. i took him to another, heavy with the smell of cigarettes and martinis, and by 4am, when the alcohol had cleared out of our systems, we said goodbye.

i woke to an empty house Saturday, but sleepy phonecalls catching back and forth from a lady i love woke me up at last - tea is what ladies have Saturday afternoons. And then they serve and have angry drinks with boys and friends when it gets darker in posh niches, and by midnight, they are hungry and drink Chinese beers in Chinatown and eat vegetarian noodles with burley men. By 2am, they drive to a hotel by the railroad tracks with a divebar for off-sales liquor and drink with the men back at the house until the morning.

Mourning Sunday morning because another boy in the house starts his cold lazy day off with waterfalls of pot, opening and closing the backdoor where i try to sleep - the fireplace is off in the morning. i rub my eyes and can taste the night before, but i ignore the blurry vision and hangover, and careful not to wake any other sleeping bodies, i take out the papers to mark until the house is bustling with hunger.

Vegan brunch to be had on a busy avenue, and i buy a small stack of cds that will dream me pretty dreams before we make it to the restaurant, and a pirate scarf after the pumpkin pesto tofu and yam hashbrowns. Somewhere in between, my cheeks blushing and anticipating, i saw the beautiful boy with whom i don't get to spend my Tuesdays or weekends with these days, to uncomfortable delight.

My weekplanner covered in cd stickers and i had agreed that i was not to see high jinx and hedonism until mid-December. But now, my brain works better after the coaxing from good and bad drinks, packs of cigarettes, and the wonderful people i get to be with. This week's end was a long and marvelous fuck up.

One More Tired Thing, The Grey Moon On The Rise

2006-11-06T02:45:00.000-07:00

There is snow on the ground now. And there are less stubbed cigarettes littered around my white boots where i stand with my coffee, outside the grey university buildings. Strangely, the coldness of winter soon approaching has initiated a convulsive heat through my body and flickers of vitriolic discomfort rising in my rib cage and into my breaths. i am choler, in black mittens and a young girl's old dress-up jacket. i bite my lip hard, just like i can feel my hands crack to bleed into the dry air and the floating flurries.

...

i have been baking a lot. Baking is like doing an experiment in the lab, except more delicious. And usually, the results are tangibly better.

The Film Has A Story, But It’s Of Little Importance

2006-10-16T01:33:00.000-06:00

These days are so different from the ones i used to have. i feel like there is no coherence and i just wander along, falling into one dysphoric situation and then on to the next - it's like some Lynchian feeling of awestruck confusion mixed with absurdity and ultimately, utmost fear. My old daydreams are now replaced by visions of myself violently crashing my scientific caravan into a hypothetical dusty and hostile territory. And i find myself often thinking about a robot-loving boy, and how his robots will stare blankly at me from his desk in the blue glow of the computer screen as i lie there.

There is something very unsettling lurking about. i am not sure what it is. But i have unlimited faith in a secret weapon to calm myself: a Norwegian duo strumming placid musical modulations over large headphones.

Free-Fucking Radicals

2006-09-05T23:50:00.000-06:00

Back from Montreal with a newfound hatred for Air Canada. Fuck the national airline - it should have gone under years ago, and it seems to have no problem carrying that mentality as the insignia of the corporation.

*Punches the unused boarding pass*

But then i digress...

Montreal was a wonderful way to cap off the summer, with a multifunctional media pass used often to blow my mind to little melted bits, and a groovy/crazy magazine posse to cover an amazing festival named after how ridiculous Jacques Cartier must have looked to the Mohawks. On the second day of the fête, when Nick Diamonds mentioned that summer was indeed over, i felt very inclined to believe him. It was curiously astounding to fully realize the season had passed me by so quickly, a terrifyingly breakneck giant humming and spinning whirl since the rainy Norwegian spring. It did make me want to throw up a little.

Strangely, summer has never been an issue, although with such a short one where i live, i have always understood why the townsfolk worship and celebrate the two months with all glee and jubulance. However, this year is the first time i have felt any kin to the season. Maybe every summer for the last three years has presented itself to me without consequence because there was nothing to end it. The summer would turn into the fall slowly and the days would get shorter with the trees becoming yellow and red. Then there is the first cold that leaves frost on the windowpanes and then the snowstorms become more frequent. Warmer days then seem to creep through the darkness and you realize that the snow is turning to rain, and it's almost summer again.

This year, i am heading back to school, wet behind the ears. Hence my obsession with the ominous end of summer - an obsession leaving me with a weathered face, little sleep, charred brain and decreased liver function.

Indulge me.

a mind melting and Dinosaur Jr. in the wind by cy

in the Salon des Arts by jesse

dusk with James Chance & the Contortions by cy

how sad Clap Your Hands Say Yeah makes me... by cy

Sonic (fucking!) Youth by cy

waking up to interpretive dance and Islands by cy

up close and personal with Tokyo Police Club by jesse

Wolf Parade after soundcheck... by cy

sheet music standing by The Hidden Cameras by cy

beer o'clock at osheaga by cy

Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley makes my heart by cy

Kid Koala spinning for his mum by cy

The Flaming Lips and the massive explosions in the rain by cy

the posse by cy

It's The Ticking Of The Clock When You Wake Up Alone At 7am

2006-08-16T03:21:00.000-06:00

Insomnia is my summer lover every night.

Quiet music floats from my stereo to hold my dreamy stream of consciousness, until i start dreaming to believe that i am in a haze of weary abstraction, folding onto the day's dreams, daydreams and preoccupations, and then i begin muttering nonsensical responses to the eventide. My eyes are closed, but i can see shadows dancing from my musings and from my candles on my dresser, so i curl up tighter. My dusty window lets in cool night time breezes as i am tossing and tangled in my little pink worn-thin blanket.

And then, the twilight is overtaken by violent punches of pink in the sky, making way for the dawn over the parade of cookie cutter houses along the horizon.

Fucking insomnia.

Wet Wet Wet

2006-08-09T23:53:00.000-06:00

Tonight found me soaked and screaming while running to my little red car in the severe thumderstorms. Last night was dance floor sweat and spilled drinks in the electronic steam of the hifi.

So now, i have to do some laundry.

Wir Jagen der Monotonie

2006-07-16T02:34:00.000-06:00

It feels like the days are stretching longer and longer. i am waiting for something to happen. It feels like i am just waiting for the days to end.

i busy myself with long nights on the rooftop patio of Broken City and in the bizzare amusement park that happens to be in town for a while with my media passes and magazine buttons. i daydream with Hayato in the afternoon at work and chain smoke with my editor all night until the wee hours of the morning to his favorite records. i watch Alicja and Anne splash around at the lake while i take pictures. i watch old movies with my boyfriend while we eat vegan Chinese takeout, and drag him down to hipster hangouts when i need to smoke. i am busy, but i always feel like i am waiting.

We are chasing monotony. With cigarettes and whiskey.

Honey Kisses Clouds Of Fluff

2006-07-04T00:44:00.000-06:00

This beautiful long weekend of Canada Day saw none of me, as i was bedridden with a bad allergic reaction to a still yet to be known substance. Falling in and out of sleep for 3 days in the heat of the house lead me to the realization that summer is really almost over. So i dragged my sorry and swollen self out today, grabbed my dear friend and headed downtown to Prince's Island Park with slurpees in one hand and kites in the other, Wilco blasting out of the speakers of his old Ford Topaz.

We photoboothed, sucked down our "mix" slurpees, flew kites in the grass with no wind, laughed a lot, met up with friends for sushi and video games, and then had fries and brownies at the Denny's before we said goodbye at midnight.

Gosh Ryan, i am gonna miss you when you go.

The Paper Chase

2006-06-23T15:55:00.000-06:00

Of course i would have to come back to the little city. But i am horrified this time at how quickly i get properly thrown back into the blocks of routine that teeter and stack to make my life.

Like how all the faces of the regulars at work contort and bellow just like i remember, and i am punching things into the computer without hesitation even though it is a new menu. Or like now, how i am looking at my dusty tape player sitting above the monitor, and i know i should at least start transcribing the Kill Rock Stars interview i did on Monday, seeing that the piece on their 15th anniversary was due two days ago. But instead, here i am...looking for things to write on this blog...procrastinating so i can dream that i am not back and settled again.

Two Extra Weeks? Here and There? One Then Two?

2006-06-15T00:29:00.000-06:00

enemies like this?

Amsterdam was rainy and soaked my clothes and journals with its endless downpours. i stood in the cold to try to get my clammy hands on tickets the night of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs show, which was sold out months prior, joining the many other beautiful and polite locals with the same idea. No Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but something even better was the Radio4 show at the same venue, which is delightfully an old converted Dutch milk factory. Radio fucking 4. Fuck the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Anthony Roman: So the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are coming here in a few days.
Crowd: [cheers]
Anthony Roman: Did you guys know that they have four members now? They're touring with an extra guitarist.
Guy from crowd: [screams] Yeah! Four!
Anthony Roman: [speech about the Brooklyn scene and New York music]
Guy from crowd: [interrupting, screams] CGBG's!
Anthony Roman: Uh, are you just gonna scream out every New York landmark now?
Dave Milone: [screams] Yeah! Empire state building!

associé de crime?

Paris is supposed to be a romantic city, so on my third visit, i bring a companion. After a month of reclusive Norwegian bliss and talking to only myself, it felt vaguely unsettling to have a whole person with me on my junkets, or a human response to the mindless blatherings i would expulse. It felt slightly better after a week, and sharing my umbrella became a more romantic affair. The days passed with kissing, fighting, smoking, and wandering. Sustained on continual cups of coffee, we turn out to be the biggest goofs and watched The Da Vinci Code on the Champs Elysees late at night, then ran to the Louvre the next day. A few days later, we watched Marie Antoinette a few theaters down the avenue and caught the morning train to Versailles.

Weaving Sunlight Threads In His Hands

2006-05-11T12:30:00.000-06:00

Seven hours on a train from Oslo to Bergen.

Velkommen ombord. I Toget Til Bergen.

Then Bergen, along the wharf and in the cafes, in the sunshine and then in the cold winds. i am drinking the strongest coffees i have ever had the pleasure of drinking while warm and light Bergen dialects of Norwegian are spoken around me in soft sing-songy tones by beautiful hipsters. And the steep cobblestone streets lead down to Bryggen along the harbor one way, and paths to pretty houses in the lush green mountains the other. Bicycles everywhere, especially near the university buildings which are scattered along the main streets and museums, where beautiful students step outside to smoke cigarettes between classes.

i spend all my money on postcards and stamps, coffee and organic fresh baked bread. And my shoes are worn thin and breaking apart, because i have walked the charming town so much, over and over again.

i am in love.

2006-05-02T04:41:00.000-06:00

the juniper bends, as if you were listening by cynthia yip

Last night, walking alone in the cold and rain that are the Oslo spring streets, i wandered into the darkness of Rockefeller. Inside, i was serenaded into a warm haze by the beautiful Mr. Beam, and then made to dance by Joey Burns and his culprits.

Oh, will it ever stop raining here?

Scandinavian Anxiety Syndrome

2006-04-10T05:02:00.000-06:00

Plane ticket printed on a university computer. Passport no longer to collect dust.

Currency conversions and blowdryers, adaptors and tylenol, antibacterial soap and sunglasses, five cameras and hundreds of packs of chewing gum, insurance card and cigarettes, ipod and huge headphones, notebooks and my killer boots, cds and Journal of Bacteriology papers, vitamins and sharpies, lovely sandals and powdered ginseng, ziplock bags and ripped converses, delightfully thick books and water bottle, clean sheets and AA batteries, shower footwear and pretty dresses, hoodies and a little suitcase too, a bar of dark chocolate and kisses from the peeps i love.

And all the stuff i am forgetting...

Into my backcountry backpack.

Part Of Something Bigger Than Just On Our Own

2006-04-05T03:44:00.002-06:00

So much admiration and ovation and love.

My funny valentine has been accepted into the University of Calgary Faculty of Law today.

Congratulations and kudos to mon petit ami...

2006-04-01T03:29:00.000-07:00

dusk blossoms by Cynthia Yip

Vancouver again. Mais nous n'étions pas dans l'amour.

Misty

2006-03-22T00:02:00.000-07:00

There is still drifting snow in the late nights and early mornings. The skies are grey and crisp, and my skin cracks to reveal blood that stains. i can't feel warm. i just sit by my window and watch the snow drift some mornings, feeling bleak and fading away.

i feel so defeated and overwhelmed - i am abashed and listless, until i manage to let out a pathetic scream of lament as quietly as i can.

i just want to abandon my life and run away to a warm abode where i can draw the curtains and chain smoke cigarettes until i can't cry anymore. And no one would find me.

2006-03-11T02:47:00.000-07:00

lighten up, baby

Here is the stress and abandonment that i thought i had ditched a few years ago - it is a cigarette, and a whiskey is not far away...

2006-03-09T23:05:00.000-07:00

akron/family keeps you warm on a cold monday night by cynthia yip

Footloose

2006-03-03T15:51:00.000-07:00

When it rains, it pours.

Things can all add up after a quiet and severley uneventful three years. And then you find that in the next few months, you can be all broke, no plane ticket back, no home, and no grad school will want you.

And that boy you loved...yeah, he'll be gone too.

Spike Jonze On The Wall

2006-02-27T23:22:00.001-07:00

This Saturday was the first time that i had actually lost something that i always feared losing - my keys. i walked all the way to my car in the -20.3 degree Celsius weather, only to discover that my keys were not in my bag. So i proceeded to fondle myself through my big red mittens, hoping that they were misplaced somewhere on my body - this was not the case. Becoming increasingly cold, i retraced my snowy steps of the day outside on the avenue and inside vegan restaurants and tea houses, finding no keys.

Disheartened and a bit worried at this point, there was only one thing to do: call my mums. She didn't like this, as she was at work.

Strangely, it was my editor who came to rescue me, and with a ring to my cellphone, he was whisking me from the record store which i was seeking warmth from and driving me to the hifi where he was the dj. He fed me coffee and kahlua as i sat in the dj booth with his crates of records. When he broke the mixing board, i ran away because my mum called to say that she was somewhere downtown, looking for me.

Thanks Glenn.

2006-02-10T01:58:00.000-07:00

homecooked vegan celebration by cynthia yip on 04 february, 2006

Got A Moon Above Me

2006-02-08T02:32:00.000-07:00

Whenever i am in Montreal, i am often found wandering along Rue St-Denis. Summer a few months ago, i wandered into a sort of trade store on a corner of the street. There was this huge sheepdog that greeted me, and then a beautiful dark-eyed gentleman let me look at rings he had collected. After a while, we didn't pay much attention to the rings and just talked and listened to Billie Holiday.

Beautiful Lady Day...

I never hurt nobody but myself and that's nobody's business but my own.

- Billie Holiday

2006-01-26T00:11:00.000-07:00

i finally got to do my interview with Eugene Hütz the other day. Now i have to transcribe it. More thoughts later.

Later is finally here.

Last Call For Grits

2006-01-24T02:03:00.000-07:00

In Jumpers, Tom Stoppard writes "It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting."

Living in Alberta, the hub of New Conservative love-ins, the party swept the province with the utmost ease. And people who wanted an alternative to the strangely unnatural looking Stephen Harper and his love for overprojecting tax cuts and space defence were left with the deadpan reality that if they voted in a non-Conservative way, their vote would be rendered useless and tossed out. Ah yes, the Riding system of Canada. 65% of Alberta's voters voted for the Conservatives, and therefore, the Conservatives won 100% of the seats. Me, like 500,000 other Albertan peeps who didn't vote for the Conservatives, could have just not shown up to mark an X. Another way to look at it is that the Conservatives gained three times as many votes as the Liberals in the Prairies, but took nearly 10 times the seats. No wonder voter turnout is so low...

i just want to be represented.

You Came To Take Us, All Things Go, All Things Go

2006-01-05T01:24:00.000-07:00

This is the new year, yes? During the last bit of time, i have

baked a vegan pie for my beloved cousin, and then subsequently lost her to the beauty of the Norwegian landscape on Christmas day.

drank so much coffee over the holidays that I have once again, become reliant on the indubitable friend.

danced with all the hipsters at Broken City on the last day of the 2005 year, a drink never leaving my hand and a cigarette never leaving my mouth, unless it was to kiss someone.

lost my dignity and gained an oversupply of shame after waking up in a hotel room and not knowing where i was on new year's day, at two in the afternoon.

decided that Shirley Temples are my new preferred poison, and that whiskey shall be quietly displaced as the sweetheart.

chronic chest pains, which started on the first day of the year (perhaps from the expurgation sessions i have had since the massive new year's bender).

This list seems destructively deadly. All things go.

But the catalogue above seems slight and remote in comparison, because now, when i kiss my lovely boy, i almost cry, every time.

2005-12-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

wallflowers by cynthia yip

2005-12-17T02:38:00.000-07:00

christmas couch at Tammy's

December and Me

2005-12-05T21:37:00.000-07:00

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

2005-12-04T01:23:00.000-07:00

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

2005-11-14T23:53:00.000-07:00

the hifi by cynthia yip

Please Purge

2005-11-01T00:20:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-10-20T02:12:00.000-06:00

Tin by cynthia yip

Conversations When It Is Quiet

2005-10-11T23:59:00.000-06:00

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

2005-09-12T00:52:00.000-06:00

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

2005-08-21T20:50:00.000-06:00

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

2005-08-08T00:48:00.000-06:00

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?

2005-07-05T22:06:00.000-06:00

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.

2005-06-15T03:48:00.000-06:00

guitar hysteria by cynthia yip

Stood By The Gate At The Foot Of The Garden

2005-06-10T16:04:00.000-06:00

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

2005-05-28T01:10:00.001-06:00

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?

2005-04-04T02:13:00.000-06:00

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.

2005-03-23T23:59:00.007-07:00

cherry blossoms by Cynthia Yip

2005-03-23T22:54:00.000-07:00

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

2005-03-13T21:55:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-03-06T00:59:00.000-07:00

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

2005-02-07T15:24:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-01-24T17:24:00.000-07:00

cityhalo by cynthia yip

Empty Cupboards

2005-01-14T19:51:00.000-07:00

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

2005-01-12T16:10:00.000-07:00

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

2005-01-06T23:04:00.000-07:00

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.

"Aaarrgh!" - Howard Dean

2004-12-30T02:09:00.000-07:00

2004 was a shitty year, to put it mildly. Never have i strayed from a stable emotional core as much as this wretched time lapse of 365 days, divided neatly by binge eating, chain smoking, early morning chiropractor appointments and doctor's visits, and the ultimate painful shot to the groin; "Fuck you, you are a fucking loser. Please restrain yourself, miss, from pursuing our institution any further" in the form of a polite letter. i did a lot of thinking terrible thoughts about myself and others. i have become a very angry and unpleasant person. i am teenage angst bursting from the seams of a fattened sagging body of an old lady.

However, i do chronically get ridiculously hung up on inconsequential details and need a great deal of reassurance to get by. i am just an ugly and insecure person. So in my pathetic little emo mind, i was depressed by the state of my perfectly comfortable life with all the fixin's. i am an emo adult, passionate about myself and the self imposed state i'm in. i'm weeping gently as i type. Thick black glasses and tight cardigans, anyone? Does it count if all my clothes are tight on my large frame now? Sadly, it is not simply a mental state of mind. My body actually reacts violently to trite situations now; my temperature heats up, my face feels red, i want to cry as i simply cannot control the choking feeling originating at the back of my throat, and i feel maniacal. I am often hysterical with anger.

Can I fix this? New Years’ resolutions are shite and we all understand that this is so. After all, the mark of a new Western calendar year is meaningless, barring banking purposes and the mark of a new semester. The point i seem to be emphasizing is that i am truly exhausted from being inanely trivial. i am worn-out from screaming “Fuck you!” all the time. i want to sleep without grinding my teeth and without waking up screaming all the time. My body is trying to tell me that i cannot sustain this overindulgent warping of emotion. My mind has left serenity long ago. This is as good of a time as any to try to change.

To an enthusiastic new year then, of being less acrimonious, more at peace with myself despite all my old hat antics, and to not be all Conner Oberst-y about everything. Release even the preposterously laughable notions i have held of myself. As Howard Dean once screamed: “Aaarrgh!” . Yes Howard, a spirited “Aaarrgh!” to a new me.

2004-12-25T00:48:00.000-07:00

Christmas in Red Deer

Clearly, i Do Not Understand Philosophy

2004-12-18T16:27:00.000-07:00

i believe that the collective karma over my deplorable 23 years should land me on the primitive end of the wheel of rebirth. So then i hope i will be a dung beetle next life, in the warmth of the Serengeti of Tanzania, rolling excrement happily and minding my own business...only to be reborn as a human after collecting enough good karma over many lifetimes, and suffer the same torment of the karma wheel again. So this is what makes the world go round.

It's silly, i know, to go back to the noxious juvenile elitism of high school, but i can't help but wish i could adopt existential philosophy. Sure, to linger on the borders of society and not be affected sounds lovely, but realistically, i think most are too shallow to practice it. When you start to wear lots of black and then hint to others that you like (well, not like like) Camus, while trying to casually glance at reactions, i can't imagine you being a real existentialist. Oh, but to be an existentialist.

Fuck it. Let's just all be happy and get along equally, like the way Plato would have liked us to. Then good karma would just accumulate until we were all freed from the suffering of rebirth, and we could then all get along again, but this time, as bodhisattvas or nothingness; it's our prerogative.

2004-12-15T02:31:00.000-07:00

an instance of intimacy by cynthia yip

2004-12-14T02:26:00.000-07:00

grate kicks by cynthia yip

Vegan Strawberry Cream Pie Smoothie

2004-12-14T02:05:00.000-07:00

10 strawberries with stems removed
1 banana
1 cup soy milk
1 tbsp maple syrup

In a blender, puree all the ingredents until smooth and creamy. Serve chilled. This makes one large serving for you and your sweet self. Relax with your new slurpable drink and maybe the telly or a book. Then go back to stressing about Christmas.

Rememories and Bear Cookies

2004-12-11T03:12:00.000-07:00

"Cynthia Oceanside" by Alicja, taken in Vancouver 2003

Another immature day at work full of throwing bear cookies at each other and pointing out mis-shaped ones in the genital regions. Smoked a few cigarettes between serving many a table with pristine sushi delights and tempura tidbits. Curly-haired Adrian and his guest ended up as my first table in the evening shift; we both congratulated ourselves for putting our hard earned degrees to good use. Adrian works at Telus with a degree in psychology, and i at a sushi restaurant with a degree (spelling it out in full for you as a typing exercise for fumbling chubby fingers) in cellular molecular and microbial biology. Well, it surely doesn't make me want to smile, unless it's a very ironic smile. But i gotta say, i'm not smiling.

Sometimes though, the littlest things will make me happy (keeping in mind of course, that happiness is transient).

Like listening to Cat Power and remembering the spring turning into summer when the breeze would blow the smell of soil into my room. It makes me think of my friend Alicja and our trip to Vancouver; Pearl Jam concert with three encores and Eddie Vedder singing to a Bill Gates mask, the engaging merry hours spent at Zulu Records, and sitting with deadwood along the oceanside for two of more hours.

Or when Hayato makes me a "picnic lunch" at work in the dead of winter. Recollected thoughts of how Hayato and i would have a picnic out of Japanese lunch boxes at Heritage Park on our breaks in the summer, then buy fresh cinnamon buns at the bakery and candy sticks at the general store, and then wander our favorite houses on the grounds. If there weren't terrible children at the main street schoolhouse, we'd swing on the swings until i felt sick. We'd lament going back to work while we laid on the grass and stared at the sun and clouds; sometimes, we'd nap a bit on the lush cold grass.

Or walking down Stephen Ave and thinking of the time me and dear Iris went to see Pop Revolution at the Glenbow. Tips for the innovative housewives on newspaper squares and Warhols in glass cases, not to mention dressing up as Suzie Poodleskirt and Iris as Greaser Hep Cat, then terrorizing the kids' creative area with our brand of "art".

Or a day with Son. Or even our nightly phone calls where we laugh and laugh. Yoo hoos.

Or maybe it's just a soy latte and a cigarette with my headphones on.

Drifters Unite! And Wounds Heal! And Goodbye Lennon!

2004-12-08T22:18:00.000-07:00

A little envelope from Finland arrived in my mail today, with a pretty Christmas card inside. Inside the card was a cryptically brief message as follows:

Cynthia:

Remember me still!
X'mas.

Johnson
DEC Finland

i remember you. i do not forget things like this; i was in China recently. But i have no way of reaching you. Maybe one day, all the drifters will unite, and we will see each other again.

And my arm is poofy and slightly numb from the ordeal it went through yesterday afternoon, under the orders of my inner sadist. Stacie-Rae was not kind when she stopped abruptly, only to say "oops"; the all-consuming feeling of piercing pain suddenly yielded to the stronger feeling of alarming distressful fright. However, over the speakers, Julian Casablancas and his posh band serenaded me with Last Night during the last pricks, to my surprise. Also a source of surprising delight and comfort was Son, as he fumbled to try to hold my hand.

And from the wasteland of CDs that is my room, i resurrected the burnt Strokes album and popped it into my stereo, while i rubbed polysporin into my fresh wound. I need to forgive myself.

2004-12-06T03:33:00.000-07:00

analog cityscape by cynthia yip

Porridge in the Morning, Subterranean at Night

2004-12-06T02:54:00.000-07:00

Downtown early Sunday morning, at 8:30 am with the fresh falling snow and a wicked cold chill, Calgary looked so alone and abandoned. Like in the movies. The buildings were ominously tall and frosted, billowing smoke into the grey sky. The streets were empty, the snow barely cleared so we left tracks as we drove. Everything was closed. Everything was grey.

Except my dear sister's karate lesson in the dark of Chinatown. Since nothing was open, in a sleepy haze recovering from the cold, i watched the class of dress whites moving in unison, grunting "ooo-sh" as they released stances and kicks, while listening to the Stars over my large headphones. This was a surreal experience. Especially as i fell in and out of consciousness.

Turn Off the Sad Bastard Music

2004-12-05T02:04:00.000-07:00

Let's get some rockin' shit to chase the mean reds away. Blast some Black Keys or some Phoenix, so i can get on up and dance away this resounding "no" that has shaken me up. If only i could dance.

i wish i could share the optimism of Spongebob Squarepants. Despite being kicked down, rejected, humiliated, ridiculed, reduced to tears, despised, and taken advantage of, the little yellow porous sponge is at cheerful peace with himself. Alas, i am not Spongebob, so i become dreadfully moronic in response to my failures, my inadequacies, my bad habits all coming back despite working so hard with other vices, and my sick father with an IV hooked up to him. What the fuck am i doing?

A Bottle of Soda

2004-12-03T00:03:00.000-07:00

If i looked under the cap and dug my keys around the edges to pop the flimsy grey plastic message out, it would read "CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE A FUCKING LOSER".

We Regret to Inform You

2004-12-01T23:36:00.000-07:00

i know.

Good luck in the future. Just not with us.