Oh you.

Here we have Paco, Abe and I. Paco's on your left, he's from Mexico. Abe's on your right and is from Newfoundland. If you click on the image, you'll find more pictures of some people I've become acquainted with so far. Last night I went to a couple parties. Both of them were pretty subdued but they were with good people, so that turned things around.

Why is life so beautiful? ...Oh yeah, it's because I know you.

Fuck me.

Being sick away from home really proves your salt.

I've been sick twice (in the two months) since I got here, when I was sick maaaybe once every two years back in Saskatoon (and that'd usually be a piddly cold that was manageable). My friends here blame it on the pollution. Did you know there are no stars in the GTA? No stars. During the night the sky is gray because of the light reflecting off the smog. There isn't even a subdued flicker in the sky to remind me that they're still there. I don't know what to blame it on, but I'm tired of being sick. I just want to do my work. I just want to be here to be here, not toil in my bed with my assignments half finished.

"You're stealing my style."

"You're not introducing the characters. You never do. Your stories don't follow literary rules. It's unruly the way you write." His words were thrown carelessly at me, like a mad dog throws froth at dead air where the scent of long-gone prey settles. There was poignant truth to his words that I acknowledged and he noted with triumph.

"We're all justified in our choices," a passerby told her accompanier as they floated past with carefree debonair. I flipped a dime and the Bluenose glinted in leaf-fractured light. What was tails supposed to represent, again?

We exist on dissimilar planes.

While my hair was drying this morning I decided to take some pictures of my art to show you what I've been up to at Sheridan. This is a tiny portion of the work I've been doing. I just grabbed what was most available to me at the time. They're described by number.

1. In my 2D design class we were told to redesign a board game called Othello. Using the theme of reclamation we were supposed to solve the two dimensional problem non-objectively. What you see are the pieces I made. There are 64 of them all together. I made them out of sculpey and I'm painting them in gouache. The playing surface and box aren't in the image. These are just out on my desk until I finish them. Heh.

2. In 3D design our current assignment is to select a band and do cover art for their CD. I chose Sigur Ros' Agaetis Byrjun. The first image is a rough sketch of what'll be represented on the front cover, and the weird crouching flamingo guy will be in the bottom right of the back cover. Notice how the albatross lady has baby faces on her breasts? Yeah. I don't get it either.

3. Our first assignment in 3D design was to recreate a book cover for one of our favorite books. The only two I brought with me to Oakville were Pride and Prejudice and Watership Down. Obviously I redid Watership Down. Haha.

1.

2.



3.

I'm sorry the circumstances are difficult for you, dear.

The locust flew towards me. I submitted to its crinkling limbs as they folded over my upright shoulders. We flew to a dark place. I couldn't see. Beyond my dissolving hearing I could discern water in a plastic cup. I told myself over and over again that it was falling into the cup and filling it. I felt the locust shift beside me

(hard, hard exoskeleton abrasion)

and suddenly realized I didn't know if the water was falling to the floor or filling the glass. Was it half full, or was it emptying into the dark? This all-encompassing gloom, this obscurity that came with the locust I called friend and lover. I felt in the dark for a thorny appendage. I knew that the water was falling onto the floor because here it came, crippling my toes with cold as I held the hand of a barbed lover.

(He filled me with shade.)

I should get a flu shot this year.

Their crimes make it okay. Leaning into the sandpaper the seeds of prudence pop like bloody blisters and saturate the outstretched ligaments of a mortuary. Their soggy bones palpitate and the cave reverberates with sensation. One wish, one sign, and five resignations; three misgivings, two premonitions and sixty-five identical stamps bring a twitch of a smile to the longing on her face.

"How does it feel to be alone?"
"I'm not."
"How do you know?"
"There's more to it than that."
"What?"
"You don't need somebody. Somebody needs you."

YOU ARRIVED TOO EARLY.

Oh my God, you're so early - it's too late now! We'll never make it! We hardly started! You stole a moment to look at me. I paused to do the same.

WE'RE SO LATE DO YOU SMELL THE MINUTES BURNING ON THE STOVE?

They remark at our silence.

I love the way we writhe under the sheets of a thirteenth century rhythm. With our interlocking fingers we constrict the rhymes out of the tight throats of young men suffering from plague. I adore our capacity to be void of pleasure while pushing each other's mouths wider with our mechanical tongues. I know and I know you do too. We're exempt of intimacy while we fuck each other's brains out. The dirge blithely presses us together. We hardly speak. We hardly feel. We hardly know what it's like to be satisfied but we press and pull and sigh for theatrical effect.

We live in feigned recognition of a sensitive falsehood that will reunite us again. We are mere acquaintances.

Lips and lies and lamentation
Sneers and sighs of resignation
We're nowhere but we never were,

So it's okay – we're tempted to say but our lips only part for each other when they meet under the sheets of a thirteenth century rhythm. The young chamber men still sing when we meet because they see we lack compassion and empathy for one another. We breathe a disease into each other: the living essence of hypocrisy. You part your lips to sing an empty tune but cut yourself short before the sound scorches the air.

As long as we're mute I won't feel and you won't break my heart. So let's touch again. Leave the song. Leave the love somewhere else and let's make empty noise.