Wir Jagen der Monotonie

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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...

dusk blossoms by Cynthia Yip


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

Misty

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.

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...

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

Footloose

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

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.

homecooked vegan celebration by cynthia yip on 04 february, 2006

Got A Moon Above Me

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

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

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

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.

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