new

I notice it's almost been a week since my last post and I can't help but feel guilty. I don't really have anything to write about - one of the toughest things to do is go about your day actively thinking about what you're going to post about later on. I remember trying to do that when I first started posting, but then what gets in the way is what always gets in the way: Life.

So Mag and I were hanging out yesterday and as we were sitting in bed eating McDonald's (world's sexiest date, I know), I was suddenly overcome with this story idea. I typically get these random flashes at the most inopportune times, usually when I don't have a pen or pencil to write these things down. I end up waking up the next day and not remembering what the heck I wanted to write about, just that it was fantastic, and I'm mad at myself because there goes a great story idea.

Luckily this time I had my cell phone with me so I paused to type it up, pretending to set my alarm clock or something so Mag wouldn't think I was ignoring her. (As if, Mag was too focused on her delicious, delicious fries to really care.) So here it goes:

The backdrop is a pretty spartan looking room around 9 AM when the sun starts peeking through the blinds, awakening a boy and a girl who have spent the night together after a drunken tryst. They sit up and both know it's bad, bad news - neither can remember each other's names and both are afflicted with splitting headaches. This is definitely going to be a morning of shame filled with extreme awkwardness because the boy just politely offered to buy her breakfast (least he can do) and she just as awkwardly accepted.

They don their crispy, smoke-infested clothes from the night before and do their best to refreshen themselves, making small talk along the way. The boy can't find a sock and the girl's mascara is really smudged but he can't work up the courage to tell her. They set out into the street (the light is much too bright), and make their way to the local diner where they will engorge on a greasy breakfast special made by Fat Cook Frank.

If this was a typical morning after, he would pay, she would thank him, they would exchange numbers in the event of a future booty call, and they would never speak again. They would probably also flash a cursory smile with a small hey as they pass each other in the hall - he on his way to his Advanced Topics in Agroecology class, she on her way to her Experimental Surgery seminar.

This is, however, not a typical morning after as you may have deduced. It is actually the story of how a boy and a girl come together in a very typical and unpleasant way, but leave with a magical relationship sprouting true love. It is the story of Tim and Tara.




You hooked? =)

experiment

So I just downloaded the Bats for Lashes album I never got around to downloading last year and I also got a Lookbook song I've been fiending on Youtube and all this indie is giving me that weird feeling where I feel like I need to create something amazing to exist in the same world as Natasha Khan and Grant Cutler. It's strange, my best works tend to be tied to the moments in my life where something shakes me on a sensory level. I might see something happen on the street, or I might smell a scent that blooms into a story in my head in a v. Proust-like way, or in this case I receive an auditory jolt so stimulating that it's like my imagination has taken Ritalin and cannot stop wandering. It happened when I first listened to Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton, My Brightest Diamond, and it's happening now.

I remember wandering the University Bookstore one afternoon last year when I hadn't much else to do and I somehow stumbled upon the Belle Lettres section. I remember this one author popped an LSD or two and had written an autobiography of a moment as he lapsed into hysterics. It reminds me of this study conducted by the government with patients on acid and their progressive drawings:



My mind is racing like panel six. What's sad though is that days from now, after this high from this beautiful music has worn off, I will do as panel nine decrees:

"I have nothing to say about this last drawing, it is bad and uninteresting, I want to go home now."

autobiografake

I have this driving ambition to write a novel. I've tried many a time and have failed miserably because my two areas I excel in are 1. short story and 2. bad poetry. The longer pieces I try to write tend to be several short stories and often a poem thrown in for good measure; a Franken-story if you will. I started a novel about a revolutionary whose neighbor was a blind piano prodigy and disapproved of his plans to overthrow the dictatorship. I have the beginnings of a screenplay about a man who steals shoes to earn a living. What I don't have is something tangible to go with, something that keeps rolling and doesn't end once the short story ends.

I was driving in the Sienna back home today listening to what I thought was CBC but was actually CKUA and it struck me that since I thought what was fact was actually fictional, why couldn't we blur the lines between fiction and fact? Y'all know I love pathology, and it got me rolling on the idea of spontaneous confabulation, the inability for individuals tending to have anterior limbic damage to be unable to detect error in their ongoing reality. They retrieve false memories and come up with ridiculous stories to fake their way through justifying their nonsensical thoughts, often with very erroneous and hilarious conclusions.

So that really stuck to me because I thought a good way to write a long story would be to make it autobiographical because life is long and it's full of details and character development and earth-shaking events and it would be an easy way to get the length part of it sorted out. The problem is that my life is largely quite boring. So I figured I could embellish a little bit and mix it up with fiction in the manner I always do. I mean in the manner I always write fiction, not in that I mix fiction into my life. At least I try not to.

So okay, I know it's been done before. There are plenty of fake autobiographies, it's all very Million Little Pieces. But the idea here is that I don't put it off as something that isn't what it is. It will be plain that it is part autobiography and part fakery (first sentence: This is a story that's true, but not true.?), and the fun part is that the reader gets to tease apart what's reality and what's not all for themselves. It will be fun because it will rest entirely on my prowess in verisimilitude, and only I will know what's real and what's hoax. It's like a mystery with an unknown ending, the funnest kind - think mystique like what's in the suitcase in Ronin or what did Bill Murray say at the end of Lost in Translation? Some parts will be serious, but really not, some parts whimsical...but really not...or is it?

It's an idea I could run with. Potentially. We'll see.

sigh

The world falls apart, slowly but surely. I know it's really lame, emo and cliché to blog about how depressed you are, but it's a little hard not to be down. I cursed PT today and really reflected hard about why the heck I was in this program. It took every ounce of will I had in my tired, tired body to come to school for 8 AM this morning. Why should I be up till 2 AM working on a 20% project that's due in the next day when it is supposed to be an "in-class assignment"? I stormed out of anatomy lab today because I knew nothing, picked up a soy caramel macchiato and felt a little bit better.

On another note, the CBC Literary Awards deadline is coming up, and I still have nothing left to submit. Last year I put through a short story about an obese girl with a ventromedial hypothalamic lesion but didn't make the short list. I was hoping to enter something this year but nothing I write is within the 2000-2500 word range...more like the 100-200 word range. I mean first prize is $6000, and that money could be going towards my wedding...

I wish I had more time.
This really sucks.

At least the good thing about being down is that you resort to the habits that pick you up. I did a project last year on music and motor control (sensorimotor integration) but one thing I read about a lot in the literature was sensoriaffective integration, that is that music is able to easily influence your emotional centers. Whether or not there is an auditory cortex connection with the amygdala and other limbic structures matters not (there are...) - it's the phenotype that I really care about on a day-to-day basis, because the moment you get sad you look for a pick me up.

When I feel stupid I listen to Regina Spektor and Sarah Slean. When I feel cool I listen to Cool Calm Pete, Lupe Fiasco, and The Cool Kids. When I feel hipster I listen to Emily Haines, Metric, Kate Havenevik, Priscilla Ahn. When I feel old school I always listen to Nas' Illmatic. When I study I listen to Imogen Heap. Today, I listened to Radiohead and Metallica because I was angry and needed motivation to not be down.

So in the words of James Hetfield:

These days drift on
Inside a fog
It's thick and suffocating

His sinking life
Outside it's hell
Inside, intoxicating

He's run aground
Like his life
Water much too shallow

Slipping fast
Down with his ship
Fading in the shadows

-Metallica(The Unforgiven III)

Glenfiddich

Edit: Just realized I forgot to include a visual depiction of how I thought this scene would look. Scroll to the bottom and watch the dance scene loosely based off of 500 Days of Summer.

Daniel walks into Ernie's and sidles up to the bar. He looks around and the place is relatively empty, a product of a Thursday afternoon in downtown Cleveland. The sun was stifling so the one fan rapidly circling overhead is nice, a windy reprieve that makes Cleveland seem like Chicago.

Danielle isn't here yet, so Daniel glances at his watch. He's early - not my much, but early. He catches Ernie's eye through the window pane looking into the office behind the bar, and Ernie nods a nod that says I'll be out in five. Nobody in this city is in a hurry, not Ernie nor Daniel nor Danielle.

He sits on the bar stool and throws a cursory glance around for anything interesting. The jukebox in the corner is blaring The Smiths, but only because a recent movie has made them the most popular download on iTunes. Two guys in fitted collared shirts are playing pool loudly with their third friend watching from those high chairs that only inhabit pool halls. "Sink it Ed!" their seated friend shouts. Ed lines up his shot and with a fluid arm movement sends the cue call careening into the corner pocket. Ed mutters in shame, digs the white sphere from the leather mesh that caught it, and hands the ball over to the opposition.

Two tables down two women gossip about the new mail room boy John, who apparently was caught by Derrick in accounting making out with Sophie from marketing! No way! Uh huh, I KNOW, and he's married and she's married! OH MY GOWSH. Do the families know? Ad nauseum, avec nausées.

Daniel dips his hand into the wicker basket with the peanuts and grabs a handful. He pops some into his mouth and crunches - it doesn't taste right but when do peanuts ever taste right at a bar, where people don't wash their hands after going logging? It tastes dry, really dry, but he musters up the saliva necessary and swallows. Something rakes the side of his esophagus as it goes down, so he puts the rest of it back into the wicker basket, and just at that time Ernie walks out from his cave in the back, dons his apron, looks at Daniel curiously and sputters, "Why are you eating the potpourri?"

Daniel has no answer. He glances down at the basket and realizes it is indeed potpourri.

"What'll it be, comrade?"
"Whiskey and water."

Ernie reaches to the shelf for the Glenfiddich, then pulls out a Collins glass. Daniel glances at his watch while Ernie concocts - the female is twelve minutes late. He sighs, figures she got stuck in the non-existent traffic, maybe witnessed a car accident and is currently giving violent cardiopulmonary resuscitation to a toddler, is trying to convince a man jumping off a building not to do it - or all three. She probably has momentous errands to run; the busy businesswoman of today.

The scotch appears - clear and copper. Daniel leans forward and the light catches the liquid amber. He holds the glass, which is too big and not fit for drinking whisky, but will do anyways. A swirl. A sniff. A sip. Mouthfeel. Finish. Take it slow, nothing but patience and calmness when dealing with something as complicated as a single malt scotch whisky.

He glances at his watch and she's twenty minutes late. Another one please. He looks again and she's half an hour late. One more of the same. An hour goes by and the glasses pile up. Finish. Sniff. Mouthfeel. Swirl. Sip. Gulp, whatever it's a free country. Less water, more scotch please.

"Been stood up?" Ernie asks, smiling while he cleans a glass, pours another for Dan.
"Nope," says Daniel, "I'm in no hurry. There's nothing but time."

He takes off his watch, throws it in the potpourri.



Skip to 0.25s for the Bank Scene

the stupid philosophy

On October 14 and 16 of 2003, CBC Radio ran a piece of mine on their CBC Alberta Anthology segment, a tribute to budding writers in the Alberta region. I submitted a short piece about teenage angst, self condemnation, and amotivational syndrome, which was supposed to be a page torn out from my black book of emo. The guys at CBC decided to go ad libitum with it and instead turned it into the psychotic tales of a schizotypal kook. It was a total 180 from my intended and original expression, but I guess reading is all about how you interpret it and it's interesting to see my piece get spun around.

See how you like it:

the ring

I'm writing a new piece - or at least I started a new piece - that looks promising. I tend to write these great starts to stories that I end up leaving because I forget where I was going with it, then finish them like years later, literally. I usually write pieces that end up with a really sick and twisted ending that is either tragic or just plain disturbing, so we'll see how this one ends up - whether it ends up being like a stereotypical mo-esque story or whether it'll be feel-good through and through. So the premise to the story is a ring:

"The moment Alan awoke, he had a pretty good feeling that it was going to be a long day. Dana was asleep in the other room behind a securely locked door – the product of a very Catholic upbringing – but he didn’t mind because, well, if all went well, they’d be having as much of the nasty as they could possibly handle in less than a year if today went okay. You see, Alan had been planning for today to be the day that he would propose to Dana on the top of Wayward Falls, the very end of their splendid nature expedition he had planned for her because he knew she liked camping. What’s funny is that she didn’t like bugs, or the sound of the woods, or sleeping on the ground, so every night they drove into town and holed up in Miss Aimsgrove’s Bed & Breakfast.

So that was the plan: Wake Dana up early (or she’d sleep in till three), eat breakfast, pack their things into the car and head out for Wayward Falls, propose, then drive four hours home to their pleasant little two-person townhouse. Simple enough, except…

…Alan lost the ring.

He knew this because last night he had put it in his jacket pocket (the inside breast one) for safekeeping (he felt safer if it was on him rather than stashed somewhere), and yet when they returned home last night around 1 AM he couldn’t find it. Yesterday was Day 4 of their expedition and they had been getting tired, so all they did was roam around town and catch a movie and have some dinner so it had to be somewhere in town at least, somewhere it could have risen out of its crevice and tumbled out. It had to be somewhere he was doing a handstand, or a cartwheel, or were on a roller coaster doing a loop-de-loop, or maybe on a tour bus that rolled over swerving to avoid ducks crossing the street – essentially anywhere you would find yourself upside down. How could a box laden with several heavy diamonds tumble out of an inside pocket four and a half inches deep?

Alan sighed, enjoying the last of the early morning warmth emanating from his covers, then rather violently kicked them off and got up. His mind blanked suddenly – orthostatic hypotension – then as he regained his wits, he stumbled silently to the bathroom and shut the door, careful not to cause too much of a commotion as to wake his soon-to-be-wife. He took a quick pee and washed his hands, then reached for his toothbrush, squirted some paste on it and worked his teeth into a foamy lather. He wanted to make the face of a crazy, rabid person foaming at the mouth, but then he realized he was using the toothbrush with the pink handle, which clearly was not his. He thought for a second, shrugged, then finished up.

Alan then went to look for his lucky jeans, found them, and donned them. He rummaged through his baggage for his lucky shirt, put it on, and went to the bathroom to look at himself. His hair was a mess, but this was an important moment and he had better get out and look for that ring. If Dana slept in till two (conservative estimate, she’d probably sleep in till around three or four judging by the snores seeping into his room), he had about four hours to find that ring, get back, throw himself back in the covers and pretend he was sleeping until Dana woke up, plodded in in her panicky way when she oversleeps, and yells at him to “get your shit together and toss it in the car!” while she snaps on the bathroom radio that’s playing Metallica’s Cyanide, throws up devil horns, jumps into the shower, and gets “ready for Wayward Falls WOO!”

She is awesome on so many levels."


That should be enough to pique your curiosity I hope. In the meantime, try out Metric's Gold Gun Girls track off of their new Fantasies album.

cocoon

The conversation takes a turn for the worse when she pulls out a cigarette package. With thin, long white fingers that remind me more of twigs than digits, she extricates a cancer stick and leaves it on the table as she ruffles through her oversized purse for a lighter or a matchbook. I sense that I'm frowning, but the corners of my mouth turn up when the wind picks up and white cylinder rolls. She doesn't notice (I'm now having trouble feigning that I don't see this), and it tumbles, over and over upon itself, teetering at the edge. I am summoning all my years of unused telepathy to push it over the lip of the table, but it rests there stubbornly, as if held by invisible strings. She finds an ugly green Bic lighter and the moment dissolves.

She's saying something about camel spiders in the Gobi desert, but I'm just paying attention to the burning, the billowing smoke rising from the extension of breath. My mind wanders; I'm wondering what it would be like if I ever smoked anything. I think she's mumbling something about how camel spiders are said to hunt in packs and take down camels by jumping on them and ferociously tearing their flesh off, but this is just a myth. I think the only smoking I've done is second-hand to disgruntled New York cab drivers and my old piano teacher whose upright doubled as an ashtray.

I nod, pretending to be interested, when her phone rings. She looks at me apologetically and rolls her eyes meaning it's work then answers the phone. I can hear the yammering of her neurotic friend Julie having some sort of meltdown that will invariably tear her away from me and my lunch date. Of course, she pushes off, then looks me in the eye apologetically and says, "I have to go." I understand, I think, and say yes go ahead don't worry about me, go on i'll get the bill. She catches a cab and is off before I can lay a tenner down for the two coffees between us.

I stand there a second by the table and look at my phone. I'm not due into work for another twenty minutes, which is only two blocks away and twelve stories up. The wind picks up again and I inhale the putrid scent of combusted materials, and I turn my head and look at that she's still sitting there smoking that cigarette looking nonchalant. She's not doing anything else, not reading a magazine or a book or sipping on a skinny latte no foam half caf at 170 degrees. She's just hogging valuable space being of no use to mankind, cutting a good twenty to thirty minutes off her lifespan.

I start walking away, because every part of me tells me that I don't care, but then by some wayward reversal of polarity, I find myself sitting in the chair across from her. She looks surprised, as if I have dropped from the sky with a parachute, but then again most people look surprised when a stranger plops themselves down in front of them at a coffee shop. She says can I help you and I nod. I compose myself, then ask her:

Where did you learn to smoke?

This is the point where somebody will either think you're A. crazy or B. they will humor you. Luckily, I had the fortune of dealing with the latter variety, and so she laughs, sits back and launches into this tale of how my mother and father showered me with gifts and a beautiful lifestyle but you know we're never satisfied with what we have we always want what we don't have and of course I became the rebel of the family and drank OE with the boys and slept with girls and one day Veronica smuggled a packet of Lucky strikes and we skipped class and climbed the roof of Parker elementary and spent all day learning how to smoke these without coughing or throwing up and today I still smoke Lucky Brand and I just learned today that I have lung cancer from my doctor and I'm so stressed but what else is there to do now but just enjoy life and have a smoke? Fascinating material that makes absolutely no sense.

She smiles, winks, blows smoke in my face doing her Chloë Vilette best.

"You know," she says, "Behind the smoke, and behind these mirrors, you do realize it's just you lying to yourself?"

I don't understand. "What is your name?" I ask.

She laughs, and it's not a beautiful laugh but a mocking one, a sour one, as if a worm has crawled up into the rotten apple core of my heart and is chuckling at my misfortunes. She puts the cigarette down and picks up her bag and gets up and walks away, leaving me sitting there across from an empty chair. Separated by a cigarette.

I look at the time. I should be getting to work.

Instead, I pick up the cigarette, which has a pink lipstick smear on the side, and put it to my mouth.

emily

In a fleeting moment of creative clarity, I managed to finally finish a piece I've been working on for almost 6 years. I started "Emily" in 2003 (to put that in perspective, I was 16 then), and finished it this morning in about 15 minutes. The direction I had taken initially was turned entirely on its head, but you can read it for yourself:

edit

At my own discretion, I decided to limit this post to just my facebook page. You can sign in there if you want to read it.