August 23, 2005
loué jusqu’au mois d’août
yesterday i dreamed that chomi’s tail was on fire so i had to throw a bucket of water on her! and she started purring the moment i tucked a towel around her. it was quite unrealistic but so nice.
it seems like years have passed since i last wrote. time has warped like thin ribbons splitting in two, then in four then in eight… now august 23. i just went down the street for a quick haircut and i asked, please act fast, it’s unbearable, and they said, 3 minutes or it’s free! 3 minutes – tops. i got kind of a buzzcut, but only the lower back and not my 15$’s worth.
i can’t really piece two sentences together, i have been so joyful, so relaxed these days… completely work-free. i quitted my job last month and somehow managed to secure a bimonthly paycheck for the next few months. the reason is my ex-workplace was filthy and my coworkers afflicted with dementia, which proved harmful to me. blessed or what! i plan to spend the next six months writing, perfectly constructed shopping lists, travel fare comparisons, notes for my boyfriend’s lunchbox… living with you is like being at the biodôme’s butterfly garden, i smile all the time, my insomnia is cured
other dream coming true, next weekend all my family will be reunited in the backyard, brother included! he’s flying over from BC to attend a billy idol concert with his best friend, and to see us, how much we have changed or not in the last years. so i got a haircut, with plenty of time left to rummage the garbage and gather a few presents.
Posted by nathalie at 4:15 PM | Comments (3)
October 5, 2004
emporte-moi, frégate
Came to work this morning to a water disater; a single night of freezing temperatures and woosh, the roof caves in. I shrugged and whispered the usual into my coffee cup, “Carry me far, far away! Here the office slime is made of our weeping!” But as I grabbed a few reports and started heading to the downstairs café, a voice rose in the corridor… “Now now, rats won’t leave the boat that easy… everyone, back to their place. Business as usual.” Umph.
The sweeping, vacuuming and weird gargling noises add an unusual touch to my regular activities, a not so inappropriate soundscape considering how closely personality tests data collection resembles Dungeons & Dragons character creation, except much more sinister.
To resume, not to tire you out – outside it’s cold and sunny, I feel happy and silly, and will soon be flying over the Mississippi!
Posted by nathalie at 10:36 AM | TrackBack
June 20, 2004
we’ve gone on holidays by mistake
Sometimes I need and love the cacophony of street festivals. It makes the quiet walk home even more delicious. The little white fence all across St-Laurent boulevard is showing the way out to cars, and welcoming pedestrians with cups of warm beer, mango on a stick, a slap on the back. Speakers hung in the trees make the squirrels run in retreat, they assemble on top of the Fringe booth where they can be sure to find plenty of nuts. We follow the chalk marks on the pavement, and worlds surimpose as I meet my friend Paddy. “I heard you got a Gamecube! Can I get your N64 then?” “Of course you can”, I answer, “but I already lent it to Penny the mouse! Just go and get it from her, ok?” Digging through the pavement with my golden shovel, I find a beach, and deeper still, a river of warm beer flowing through.
We reach for the pie tossing booth. Calvin Johnson is sitting there, selling mixtapes. Everyone wants to throw pies at him, because moments earlier he was on stage, stuttering his way through an awful one-hour monologue about how wrapping oneself in a carpet is more punk that using a sleeping bag, etc. I liked it, but the crowd kept booing, they wanted the snoopy dance, the cream pie toss. A teenager walked up to the stage and raised his hand, Calvin interrupted the show. “Yes? Do you have a question?” “Yes,” said the kid. “I came to the show because I loved the Beat Happening tape that my friend gave me, years ago. I listened to it over and over. But I’ve just been made aware that it was actually a Syd Barret tape.” Calvin nodded. “mm mmm.”
A group of Peruvian musicians have started making a racket in the street, they spin and clap and the crowd converges towards them. We are looking at the mixtapes, and Calvin looks up at me, tilting his head on his side and avoiding the upcoming cream pie tossed at him. “Hi,” he says, “What’s your name? Would you like a mixtape?” I say “No, thank you. Would you like a Coke?” He says no, thank you. We waved goodbye, best friends forever.
Later on I end up in bed, dreaming of mango-eating contests. I awake at dawn and play a little Nintendo, the movement of the sea rises and fall inside my head and stomach, but I finally feel better and go back to sleep.
Saturday night, we got ambushed in the crowd during the Brazilian parade, and managed to escape through a back alley. Rivers of warm beer are still flowing. We reach the riverside in time for the fireworks; tonight is Spain, a pyrotechnical display for peace. It’s loud and smoky and smells wonderful, wish Tam was there. There are horses idly standing by the gates, we chat a little with them. “What are you doing for the solstice?” “I am taking it slow. As well you should.”
I love quiet sundays home. Newspaper day, a sit-around day. I bought my dad a chocolate fish for father’s day, but he is off fishing. It is a solid piece of chocolate, and I think if I just nibble its underside he might believe it was actually an empty chocolate creation..? I’ll see what I can do.
Posted by nathalie at 12:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 8, 2004
le grand soulagement
During lunchbreak today, I found myself yet again conducting interviews with wandering 9 years old. “It’s for my weblog”, I said, raising my empty hands for them to see. They bolted left and right on their skateboards, 30, 60, 90 degrees. “Now what do you want to know?” I stood there for a moment, listening to the sound of wheels, boards and knees skimming the pavement. “There,” said one kid, as he wiped off little rocks from a scab. “Now stop writing poems about me.”
I went back in to sit at my desk, and I felt like a whimsy kid, or a parroquet, muttering between my teeth, can I be listened to for a moment? Can I be listened to for a moment? Someone has to reach the right conclusion here. Someone has to reach the right conclusion here. This is not worth a damn. This is not worth a damn. You don’t listen. etc.
But here I am at the end of the day, watching the birds soar in wavelike motions, the blinding play of sunlight mirrored on the buildings, the fetching young men carrying cases of beers, the godgiven right of jaywalking, and always this slight, sweet heartache, chocolate this and chocolate that, the 4-day weekend, right. now.