WAKE up!!!!!!

the misguided right

2006-10-13T14:30:00.000-05:00

yep. misguided. a la bill o'reilly.
it all makes sense, somehow.
it's still misguided as ever ...
but now i get it.

this likely falls on deaf ears, but .... perhaps you oughta read this secret letter from the battlefield in iraq

inform yourselves! wake up!

don't get me wrong ... i ain't coming back here. but i couldn't resist one last attempt at opening your eyes to the reality of the world around you. you, who sit - wedged firmly - in that repressive fundamentalist box of yours. WAKE UP!

gone gone gone ... not returning

2006-09-30T01:48:00.000-05:00

originally uploaded by dvs

this blog is now defunct.
the veiled hostility ... the fear philosophy?
not for me.

there are a very few of you with i wish to remain connected.
you already know who you are, assuming you've checked your e-mail.

to this rest: sianara.

in case you wonder

2006-09-28T23:36:00.000-05:00

i'm not deleting this blog. or changing the url. i was awfully tempted to. but i changed my mind. that said, i don't feel a part of the network like i once did. i'm starting to feel judged for what i write and i find myself wondering if i should write this or that for fear of how some may react. this blog is supposed to be a place for me. to write what i need to. its therapeutic. but, there are some pretty conservative minds out there.

and i'm not so sure i feel safe or comfortable any more expressing myself here. and the things i need to vent are uglier than any of you likely care to know. we only ever want to hear the happy and glib stuff of life. few of us want to witness the suffering. and the dreadful decisions with which some struggle. its never black and white. but most of you who have not walked down those roads seem to think it is.

so, for what its worth i'm here. that raving and restless hyberbolic lunatic of a bitch is here.

oh, and one more thing. i've thought about it. a lot. and, now that i've seen the writing on the wall about this place, i don't think i personally had much to do with ardlair's sudden departure. i think its all that judgement i mentioned above. bullies!

the human rights of our enemies

2006-09-23T01:46:00.000-05:00

i did have an unwieldy looking
cut and paste post,
but ... i knew
i could do better than that.
and so, here 'tis.

artist is andrew ross, originally uploaded by pantufla

in 2004, on the UN international day for the victims of torture, dubya stated that "America stands against and will not tolerate torture." he further stated that "The United States also remains steadfastly committed to upholding the Geneva Conventions, which have been the bedrock of protection in armed conflict for more than 50 years."

ok. that's hilarious. a real load of steaming brown poop, considering what's in the CIA's bag of interrogation tricks. torture as an interrogation technique? yes, you will find the cold cell and water boarding among these so called acceptable techniques. interesting - since such interrogation techniques violate the geneva convention of which the president spoke so passionately in the above quotes.

originally uploaded by pantufla

so, in the wake of the absolute horror unveiled in abu ghraib and given dubya's attempts to undermine the geneva convention and challenge the habeas corpus principal, i - josephine public - face some serious realities. at the very least, a betrayal of truth - for, such abuses are beyond my imagination and comprehension, given my social, cultural and geographic setting. but, i must transcend that outrage and focus on the facts presented, on what's said and on what's not said. and most of all, on what it represents in terms of the political tide that's turning here.

originally uploaded by mike from zurich

it disturbs me. mostly because of my visionary way of looking at people and events. i see behaviours and actions as manifestations of an individual's motivations. motivations being rooted in values and human ethics. and, very telling of any society's values, is the conditions with which it's prepared to live. what do we think we can live with as a society? what does that tell us about the value we collectively attach to life? pride? power? humanity? THINK ON IT.

i don't see occurences in isolation. rather, as a culmination of circumstances, conditions, behaviours and actions. my present results from my past. my interaction can alter its course. my apathy and complacence leaves it unaltered. and so it is for world affairs. we look to dark lesions in human history with disdain and politically correct outrage. we tell ourselves we can't imagine what those german people were thinking, voting for a monster like hitler. really? i think it's quite simple, when you consider the social, political and cultural forces at work in german society at that time.

the horror of it all lies in its insidious nature. they did not vote hitler in based upon a platform of annihilating 6 million jewish people. they voted for him based on his fervor and passion to lift a weak, confused and floundering germany to a strong and proud germany. he spoke so passionately the comforting rhetoric the german public longed to hear, needed to hear. and once hooked into a belief tract, one sees what one wants to see and hears what one wants to hear. and of course, since its dawn as an institution, government has always carefully controlled the flow of information to its citizens, with a carefully crafted spin.

originally uploaded by sataniod

considering the atrocities in our modern information era that went unnoticed as they unfolded - such as bosnia, abu ghraib, etc - it does not seem hard for me to imagine that a majority of the german public remained blissfully unaware of the 'final solution.' and then, consider the social and cultural climate of the time: rigid and intolerant to any deviations - a setting in which hatred and bigotry flourish.

the horror sinks to our own level even further, doesn't it? for, don't a goodly portion of people out there believe that all the abu ghraib torture fell upon deserving victims? 'they're the enemy! they don't deserve human rights!' sound like a familiar rhetoric? sound like the sort of rhetoric that gives rise to hatred and bigotry? it does to me .... chillingly so, in fact. isn't that what underlies the american government's assertion that terrorist will not receive 'due process' under the law?

and so ... do you think america's enemies deserve human rights? think, for a moment, before you answer. recall that hitler perceived the jewish people as his enemy, and, more importantly, as an enemy of the germany nation. whether you or i or the public at large agree or disagree is really beside the point. perception governs the direction of one's action's. that's my point. which leads me to the conclusion that not much separates us, a 21st century society driven by fear, despair and rage, from that floundering and broken german society of 6 decades ago.

frightening, isn't it?

EDIT 28.9.06: comments' section edited ... i've grown up a little and removed the piquant tirade. read the new comment below. i'm learning a great deal about the american psyche here, just by virtue of your silence alone. interesting. how repressive and vengeful it seems from some angles.

if you're going to post a comment, make it related to the content of the post or i will delete. the objective here is to intelligently discuss the issue at hand - read post - not engage in some ideological shit throwing fest.

BTW: in case no one gets cynicism and mockery ... the 'cure for bigotry' image is clearly my attempt at both. its stark stupidity just struck me so much i laughed out loud when i saw it. maybe its that strange canadian sense of humor that not many of you get, i dunno.

do you know who rachel corries is?

2006-09-22T23:12:00.000-05:00

a 24 year old peace activist working in gaza to further the cause of the many suffering palestinans. the israelis killed her by crushing her with a bulldozer as she tried to save a palestinian familiy's home from demolition by the israeli army. FIND OUT more here and and here ... and ask yourself why a play based on emails which described her experience in gaza was cancelled in NYC on the 3rd anniversary of her death for fear of offending the israeli community!

her parents have only from the US government, an assertion that 'the report of the Israeli military investigation into Rachel's killing did not meet the standard of "thorough, credible, or transparent.' the US government has yet to conduct its own investigation into the death of its own civilian citizen at the hands of a foreign military. WHY?

find out more about her here: rachel corrie memorial site

what they think ... excerpts from a baghdad blog

2006-09-22T12:58:00.000-05:00

originally uploaded by hummingbird on crack

This is how it is to talk with most of the American administration's members, and most of the American Congress members. They are people who live only in their closed, limited world, who have no wish, or mental ability, to listen to the Other. They listen to the illusory, inner voice in their heads, insisting upon it, for years and years, until they are removed from their posts. And I don't know then whether their stupid, parrot-style mentality will change, or evolve into one that understands reality and responds to it. But what will be the point?
By then they would be outside of the decision-making zone….

originally uploaded by hummingbird on crack

I looked at that foolish man [dubya], and saw how stupid and conceited he is, how he [dubya] reads reality according to his mood, imagining he is playing the role of the savior hero, while we play the role of the weaklings who call to him for help. The truth is exactly the opposite; the American presence in Iraq brought upon us destruction, catastrophes, chaos and terrorism. And scheduling the withdrawal is the only thing that can make the Iraqis happy

originally uploaded by hummingbird on crack

No accounts were settled about stealing billions of dollars from the Iraqi treasury and public funds, which were supposed to be used for reconstructing Iraq.
There was no improvement for the citizen's services. Who cares about them? What are they worth?
Huh, huh, huh. (to laugh at a bitter joke, the Iraqi way)…..
The prices of fuels and food were raised, while the country sinks in high (and growing) unemployment levels, of about 50-70%...
Who cares?
No one cares about the Iraqis' souls, comfort, or food…
I do not know why the whole world turned against us, or abandoned us??
International interests?

originally uploaded by hummingbird on crack

Some gangs and militias appeared which none of the Iraqi Parties admit being responsible for. Dressed in black, attacking the Sunnies in Iraq. Meaning- a violence from the Shia'at's side in Iraq, against the Sunnies in Iraq, this time…. And a series started; of killing Sunnies, dislodging them from their houses and places of living, killing them according to their ID cards, and torturing them in a new trend called- the drill, as holes are made in the victim's body until he dies.
By God, this is a kind of literature not even saddam Hussein in his time knew of. There is also killing by cutting off heads and throwing them in the street, and the random shootings of people on the streets, or at their work locations. Death became so available and cheap, like trash, in Iraq….

so, this is freedom?

2006-09-21T17:08:00.000-05:00

i wonder what john lennon would think, don't you?

As the practice of rendition has shown, mistakes are indeed made and lives are ruined. Some in the US government have tried to justify rendition and "black sites" by saying they are a necessary means of capturing and holding the "worst of the worst", and that "renditions save lives", yet there is no legal or judicial mechanism to ensure that this is the case. The methodology is to grab first, sometimes on flimsy or non-existent evidence, and to ask questions later.

Without a transparent process, based on the international standards and customary rules that bind all states, the programme of rendition and secret detention is eroding the human security and rule of law it claims to protect. For all practical purposes, the USA has created a law-free zone, in which the human rights of certain individuals have simply been erased. [emphasis mine]

USA Below the radar: Secret flights to torture and ‘disappearance’

why they hate us - reasons 697 to 995

2006-09-21T14:18:00.000-05:00

WAKE up!

the abu ghraib files ... 279 fotos and 19 videos

WAKE up!

2006-09-20T00:34:00.000-05:00

image: rage against the machine

Come on!
Uggh!

Come on, although ya try to discredit
Ya still never edit
The needle, I'll thread it
Radically poetic
Standin' with the fury that they had in '66
And like E-Double I'm mad
Still knee-deep in the system's shit
Hoover, he was a body remover
I'll give ya a dose
But it'll never come close
To the rage built up inside of me
Fist in the air, in the land of hypocrisy

Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak, movements cease
When their heads are flown
'Cause all these punks
Got bullets in their heads
Departments of police, the judges, the feds
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
You know they went after King
When he spoke out on Vietnam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Yeah!
Yeah, back in this...
Wit' poetry, my mind I flex
Flip like Wilson, vocals never lackin' dat finesse
Whadda I got to, whadda I got to do to wake ya up
To shake ya up, to break the structure up
'Cause blood still flows in the gutter
I'm like takin' photos
Mad boy kicks open the shutter
Set the groove
Then stick and move like I was Cassius
Rep the stutter step
Then bomb a left upon the fascists
Yea, the several federal men
Who pulled schemes on the dream
And put it to an end
Ya better beware
Of retribution with mind war
20/20 visions and murals with metaphors
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
Ya know they murdered X
And tried to blame it on Islam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Uggh!
What was the price on his head?
What was the price on his head!

I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard, I think I heard a shot

'He may be a real contender for this position should he
abandon his supposed obediance to white liberal doctrine
of non-violence...and embrace black nationalism'
'Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to
pinpoint potential trouble-makers...And neutralize them,
neutralize them, neutralize them'

Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

How long? Not long, cause what you reap is what you sow

(a song by rage against the machine)

why do people NEED to believe in god?

2006-09-19T16:23:00.001-05:00

originally uploaded by pixelsnap

is it because
god makes it so much easier
to explain away so-called 'evil?'

or, is it because
god makes so much easier
to pass the BUCK?

or, is it because
god makes it so much easier
to accept exclusion and bigotry?

or is it because
god makes it so much easier
to remain in the comfort zone,
inside the box?

or is it because
humans are so weak
and feeble of spirit
that they cannot rely on themselves
to determine their own purpose in life?

just wondering out loud.

Originally uploaded by Baracute.

do you think i'm being antagonistic?
secularly absolute?
do you think i'm wrong?

well, i expect an affirmative response to those three questions.

this is just my velvet acid way
of telling y'all
to get your heads outta your asses
and realise that
there is another way of seeing the world.

opposition exists. ignore it. or inform yourself.

and realise this ....

we are all groping in the spiritual darkness on this earth

MORE of me me me!

2006-09-19T14:47:00.000-05:00

y'all can thank lupin for this shot ... 8^D

and, i think he took this one, too
he just snaps, snaps, snaps away!
i guess that's because i'm sooooooooo purdy!

are you puking yet?
or gagging, at least ?
*giggles*

i sorta like this one ... its very ME
taken by -- who d'ya think?
guess!

100 random thoughts for my 100th post!

2006-09-18T20:46:00.000-05:00

originally uploaded by leol30

the first 25 ...

what i wear ... or this ... or ... this
i'm spacially challenged and directionally illiterate
the war on drugs and the war on terror are both fabricated wars designed to carve public opinion and sway the balance of power
cities everywhere should institute car-free sundays to incite people to activity and reduce fossil fuel emissions
i sometimes wish i had a job where i could use my creativity
i don't like to be touched
i hate winnipeg
i'm glad i no longer have a car
i always wonder how much of the real human historical story we have missed out on, since history is typically written by the winners, who obliterate the losers from history's pages
why do parents think biology entitles them to any respect?
why do we think we need cell phones?
when does the predator become the prey?
our push botton society makes us impatient, indolent and imagination-less
my gateway into the world of blogging was wch, whose blog i stumbled upon quite accidentally - i just happened to be watching the scrolling 'recently updated' list.
it is where i found swiss ben, infini, and others, i'm sure
it's where i first encountered the very kewl k9 for the first time in a sort of antagonistic way
do you know what V-day is? why not?
have you read or seen this book or play? do it!
do you remember rotary dial telephones? television sets that only went up to channel 13? when most shows were broadcast in black and white?
is george dubya bush REALLY that stupid? or is it all an act?
don't you think this is an age of sanitization? do we hate reality so much that we pasteurisze it to meet our asthetic standards? did we all take the blue pill?
should we see suicide as an act of cowardice? or as an act of such despair as to override the primordial survival instinct?
what makes some people survivors and others victims?
if you had one phone call and five minutes before you were about to die, who would you call and what would you say?
scooby dooby doo, where are you?

originally uploaded by groc

the second quarter ...

why do we continue to accept 'because that's the way we've always done things,' as an excuse for the status quo?
i lost my passport ... and my ipod nano (4 FUCK's SAKE!!!)
ok. i didn't lose them ... i just forgot where i put 'em
i can't sleep when its dark outside ... (quite inconvenient really)
i think its some new ptsd thing ... *rolls eyes* ...
my stuffed moose where's leather and chains ... (really)
this underground lair is decorated thruout with stuffed animals - monkeys in the living room ... colourful snakes in the water closet ... and a stuffed pig that oinks in the kitchen
(yes, i guess i need help or somethin' ... lol)
i'm addicted to starbucks' mocha frappucinos
i know how to mix heroine and crack rock for shooting up
why do they give junkies really teeny tiny diabetic needles for shooting up?
aren't they worthy of getting the proper needles?
its not like if we don't give 'em the needle, they would stop ... so we are stupid NOT to give 'em the right stuff, yes?
do you know that there are likely traces of cocaine on every bill in your billfold?
for some reason, $5 bills are sorta popular for snorting ... why's that, i wonder?
do you know that there's really no good reason why marijuana is illegal.
really ...
and do you know that many famous smart people in history were morphine addicts?
like the dude who founded the john hopkins school of medicine, for instance ...
why the hell did any americans vote for dubya? was that the day they spiked the water supply with LSD?
i would look at that video tape of steven irwin, getting spiked in the heart with a stingray spine-barb, pulling it out and then dying.
hey! at least i'm honest. death humbles and amazes me.
i know its macabre to watch someone die ... to want to ... but, since i have watched so many people die its almost normal ...
does that sound really de-ranged?
well ... so what!

originally uploaded by duncan

the 3rd quarter ...

we always quip uncle sam is watchin' us. (you know? a la big brother ... that orwellian concept?), but ... don't ya think uncle osama watchin' us also?
is that new islamic assassination video game objectionable because its violent?
or is it objectionable because the aim of the game is to kill dubya?
now, considering the kind of film SHIT that the USA infects the world with each year, don't we think this conscienable objectioning is FUCKING HYPOCRISY???
one in three people DONT' WASH THEIR HANDS AFTER THEIR VISIT TO THE LOO
are you that one in three?
did you know, while i'm on my soap box (har har ... see velvet's gotta sense of humour after all), did you know that the single most important and effective action to stop the spread of INFLUENZA ... or any infectious disease ... is HANDWASHING?!
and no no no ... FORGET ABOUT THAT ALCOHOL BASED LOTION SHIT they try to seel you at walgreens, or wal-mart or shoppers drug mart.
that alcohol based lotion just discourages people from washing hands
it doesn't kill all the nasties like good ole fashioned soap and water does
oh yeah, and don't be gullable enuf to believe that so called 'antibacterial' soap is any better, either
its a fucking scam
did you know that this antibacterial OBSESSION is responsible for the development and rapid evolution of the SUPERBUGS?
you don't need that antibiotic for a fucking cold, you lug head!
you can get lorem ipsum text here
all those who are cruel to animals will be reincarnated in the next life as that which they abused/mistreated.
i like to think that, anyhow.
why are a few radical, extremist muslim wannabes expressing such hatred over something so stupid as a quote from some old german dude that lives in that fucking roman palace?
why does the media highlight all the inflammatory garbage and hide the real stuff of life in islam .. in the world?
are all you americans just gonna sit back and watch your government exploit 9/11 for political and personal gain?
ain't it strange ... how rumsfeld and macnamara look alike?
is that sort of like ... the devil can make himself appear in various forms?
did you know the dude who invented coca cola was a morphine-addicted pharmacist on the prowl for something to cure his addiction?
did you also know the original recipe contained cocaine?
did you know that cocaine smells like acetone ... and feels like acetone surging thru you nasal passages?

originally uploaded by claudecf

the final 25! (whew!)

i found my ipod nano ... yeaaaay!
see? it wasn't lost ... just mis-placed ... lol
i have a bookshelf in my kitchen, right next to the fridge
eccentric, perhaps?
i gave into the webcam thing ... finally ... yup.
i got an isight
do you remember when there were NO answering machines? no atms?
do you remember the days when you'd make a fone call and get a real live person on the other end ... WITHOUT the fucking voice mail hell?
IKEA rulz, baby!
one more reason to hate winnipeg -- no IKEA!
and no rapid transit system! can you believe that?
and do you know that there are people here ... FUCKING LOSERS ... who still don't recycle?
who the fuck are these people? and why are they sharing the planet if they can't fucking maintain it?
urgh ... its 7 degrees C here today ... for those of you who are not hip and kewl enuf to know metric ... i will just tell you that's effing cold. well, for this time of year it is.
i am starting to like this empty nester thing ... it could work for me and lupin
soon it will be time to hatch some sort of christmas ESCAPE plan
god damn it ... I HATE CHRISTMAS ... it sucks ... it turns people into fucking retarded imbiciles!
santa claus is a scum sucking freak ... why do we perpetuate such a stupid myth?
here's a challenge for you christmas-obsessed consumeristic shopoholics:
this year make christmas NON COMMERCIAL
c'mon ... I DARE YOU ... i bet you don't have the balls to ... especially those of you with kids
too bad ... coz that's what's turning this generation into a bunch of lazy, complacent, selfish and consumeristic pigs
when's the last time you had a buy nothing day?
do you make it a point to research (a little anyway) the companies whose products you buy?
get into the culture jamming thing.

yaaaahoooooo ...!
i'm FINALLY done
these 100 random thoughts
for this 100th post.

now its time for some R&R ...

-99-

2006-09-16T12:33:00.000-05:00

my 99th post ... in one spot!
here's a favourite foto-graf
to celebrate
number 99

image: craig morey

revisting CNN

2006-09-15T15:17:00.000-05:00

image: ghostbones, flickr creative commons

ok. see that? it's roxanne, AND velvet - yeah both of us - eating crow. yeah, crow. ok. so ... that guy who calls himself 'le petit loup' ... that wolf i absolutely love to pieces? yeah - him. he makes me watch CNN. ugh. and, well, its starting to grow on me. its not the ultra-biased slant i recall from approximately a year ago. i must say, i'm impressed. yeah - lupin and i - we are real losers. don't watch 'normal' telly. nope. don't watch house, or er, or scrubs, or desperate housewives, or whatever dribble the networks try to sell north americans. nope. news. documentaries. more news. more documentaries. my favourite thing to do is watch all three news networks - CNN, BBC, CBC - and then compare and related coverage to culture.

yes, clearly ... we need to get out more. HA HA HA. perhaps this is what empty-nesters do?

ok. so. i'm watching CNN on mute and listening to supertramp's restrospectacle. of course, i'm smokin' ... :D. anyway ... CNN airs some alleged tape of a suicide bombing as it happens. somewhere out in the desert. eerie. really. coz, y'know what? it really reminded me of listening to the old testament bible readings in church and hearing the story of how god asked abraham to sacrifice his son isaac, as a test to see if abraham was faithful enough to obey god. i remembered thinking, as a child, how barbaric. and that's what i think now. reflecting on this suicide bombing that my eyes saw, as my ears listened to the logical song. its really true, then. we are them. they are us. call it a different name. but, those are the facts. heck, even the pope stepped into the shit pile now!

HA HA. amusing. and,
so ... me thinks ... that ...
putting the future of the world
in the hands of
religion and
politico-religious leaders
is like getting your palm
read by a vampire.

image: ghostbones, flickr creative commons

happy bunny wisdom

2006-09-14T14:36:00.000-05:00

jim benton is the creator of happy bunny

what i do in the land of lost souls

2006-09-13T20:34:00.000-05:00

image: ghostbones, flickr creative commons

arthritis had crumpled and twisted her 75-year-old body like a potato chip. barely able to bear her own weight. very tenuously able to walk only the shortest of distances. right-sided heart failure manifested itself in her bloated limbs. she told me i looked like my mother, whom she remembered from french boarding school in the 1930s and 40s. i wondered what life would have turned out like if i'd had a mother like her.

she told me, not in those words, she felt life no longer held worth these days. she sobbed -- gutteral, primordial weeping. she wore an innate compulsion to apologize for herself, her feelings, her outburst. her trembling voice stammered and waivered through her sobs and tumbled out in some sort of fren-glish patois. i crouched on the floor at her feet. silent. listening. and, rubbing her arthritis knee with my hand, i felt obtuse in my powerlessness. and ... i felt her.

loneliness. abandon. desolate. fearful. self pity. and the grief that rains upon us as age looms ever larger. these things i felt in her. a child in calgary. another in san francisco. and a fit-and-healthy husband that left her, (stuck in the nursing home), to return to working the farm in saskachewan. and, oh dear blog, i heard the grief in her voice. grief for the woman she was, when a younger body allowed her to live fully and unrestricted.

image: foshie, flickr creative commons

now she grieves for herself. lost body. lost mobility. lost independence. lost place in her social network. and a mind intact. cruel. cruel fate, when age erodes the body to a grinding pain-filled halt, while leaving mentation unaffected. unaffected - to contemplate one's own slow demise? lost. she's lost. i'm lost. i have no answers, no words of wisdom, for her. i have nothing for her but love. and, blog, sometimes i fear that love does not suffice.

lost. lost souls. that is what i do - soothe the lost souls. that is what a nurse does.

crumbling grace & scoured petals

2006-09-12T04:17:00.000-05:00

image: ghostbones flickr creative commons

i awoke to the sensation of something slimy touching me. touching me. first my hand. this pulsing, hardened thing. pulsing and slimy. and then ... then other places. i felt that slimy pulsing hard thing rub against my tummy, my chest, and .... i have this image of the thing in my mouth. gagging. quietly gagging. and i carry this image of the thing in my head. and my body remembers that i saw the thing alot. alot. and my body remembers that it hurt. that it felt ugly. made me feel ugly. inside. and out. and flawed.

i remember you sitting on me once on the toilet. you would take it upon yourself to invade my privacy every chance you got and touch me. touch me. coz you couldn't keep your fucking hands off me. and your fucking dick in your pants and away from me. were you wearing pants? i don't remember seeing them. did you visit kay's room too? (before she died, she said you did things.) was that before or after your visits to my room? do you think mum bought that 'checking on the girls' excuse all along? or is that why you liked to stay up later than mum?

image: artist unknown

i know you spied on me ... lurked about ... (among other things) while i slept, or pretented to sleep. did you know? that sometimes i pretended? i know you did things. ugly things. things involving your penis. i remember having bladder infections. severely. all the time. i remember the way of our household. doting, touchy-feely, controlling father and emotionally absent mother. and, i remember what mother said to us girls: 'i don't love you or you' ... 'i'm gonna kill myself and it'll be all your fault' ... is this why? is this why she said those things? because she knew?

i remember your rules and control. of us, your girls. YOUR baubles ... existing solely for your pleasure. i remember how your forbade us from going to sleepovers. and from having any of our own. i remember the visits. flashes. bits. shards. and the way you owned me. invaded me. violated me. my body remembers. remembers the sensation of you, violating me. scouring my tender, frail flower. scouring my insides. imagine steel wool scouring an orchid. that's what it felt like. SCOUR. pieces of me flaked away with each thrust. you erased me ... eroded me. with your slimy sandpaper thing. with your sandpaper lust.

image: flickr creative commons

pieces of my heart flaked away.
to nothingness.
again. and again. and again.
my heart flaked away to nothingness.
painful. searing. desolate.
you reduced me to nothingness.

i hold no grudge. i feel no desire for revenge. but i have closed my heart to you. and i feel repulsed by your touch. and your desperate, silent pleas for mercy. i hold no grudge. i feel no desire for revenge. but i do not surrender forgiveness. and i never will. your grace grotesquely crumbles. and i feel pangs of sadness. for you. for me. for what could have been. if only. if only. and now? what do you expect? how dare you expect anything! that's what my bruised raven heart cries out, in the dark of night, when my body cannot sleep. you took a gentle dove in your hands. and you pressed. suffocated. choked the life from it. and your grace grotesquely crumbled.

and flakes ... of you ... of me ... fall, piercing, sinking. gashing at my sanity.

eviscerating my pysche.

me me me me me

2006-09-12T00:32:00.000-05:00

1970 - me and my mum - (doesn't mum look like she's coping well?)

2006 - me, doing what i do best :^D

2005 - me and my son

2005 - me, self portrait

2006, me and the wolf (self-portrait)

11/9/01 ... a post about 9/11

2006-09-11T00:39:00.000-05:00

ON THAT DAY
i recall vividly the moment i heard about the crash. 08:10 - it was a wednesday morning - we were driving under a bridge, on the perimeter highway - lupin driving me home after a 12 hour nite shift (my 2nd nite - my 2nd 12 hr shift in as many days). i did not sleep that day. we stared at the telly screen, dumbfounded. a colleague at work worried that his mother - who lived and worked in NYC - did not survive the crash. he had no news of his mother for a few days. each of those days we worked together, the anguish swirled in him. things turned out ok for that family ... but i remember the anguish of those early days.

image: flickr creative commons

ABOUT THAT DAY
for me, the anguish of that day swells, with each passing year. with each passing year, life tumbles past us, the way leaves glide upon gentle breezes. and moments pass. moments from which death has banished those dearly departed. they say time heals all wounds, but with time, the wound gapes ever wider.it feels as though, i think, with each year that passes, the dearly departed shrink further and further from our grasp. from our mind's grasp.

when do we forget the sound of their voice? the way touching them made us feel? when do their images start to fade in our minds? and ... we ask the question ... why? for eternity -- WHY? each joyful moment, forever after, has a bittersweet taste. can joy without our dearly departed truly feel like joy? or does it feel plastic and contrived? like, sort of surreal. for us - survivors left behind - a tomorrow exists. can we live with that?

AFTER THAT DAY
stunning photographs captured horrorific moments - remember these?

and the OUTRAGE

they caused?

and how soon ... we didn't see them anymore?

SANITIZING?
do you ever ask yourself, why? why the desperate urge to sanitize these deaths? considering the extremely graphic and disturbing images seen at the liberation of the concetration camps after WW2, why did these pictures trigger such outrage? 11/9 IS. irrevocably. do we want to remember it? or are we going to have dinner with that big white elephant on the dining room table? i, for one, don't care to dine with the big white elephant. been there, done that. i choose to live in brutal reality. death = life. the value of life lies in the eternity of death. (does that sound sort of too surreal, maybe?)

i had the wonderful privilege of seeing the north american premiere of this movie: the falling man. it traces the origin of the photo, from the photographer thru to the journalists who sought to identify the 'falling man.' but, more interesting that this, the movie speaks to the whole denial of death, despite the massive loss of life on 11/9.

its true - for the most part, we only wanted to see images of the rescue workers sifting thru the rubble. we desperately wanted to turn our heads away from the terror and ugliness and such a death. why? are not those who made a choice and resolved to plummet to their death ... are not those people victims just the same as those who did not make that choice? do we honour their memory by denying the way they died? i think not.

i ask myself. what would i do? what would you do? would you make a phone call? who would you call? what would you say? what would course thru my mind moments before such a horrific death? we cannot begin to imagine having to make such a choice. death by fire or death by sudden deceleration? no escape. only escape to death. so -- what of the falling man photo? when i look at it, i am stunned by the stark contrasts that converge there: the bright sun and a solitary, free falling figure, almost perfectly aligned with the vertical axis of the tower. and then reality - a person, falling to his death. and death, DEATH.

that feeling you have? that uncomfortable feeling?
its called humility
... because ...
death is a most humbling experience.

what do you see in the falling man photo?

what do you see, in all this?

the eroticism of flowers

2006-09-09T01:50:00.000-05:00

image: black iris by georgia o'keeffe (1925)

i have this passion for flowers. flowers - such finely sculpted botanical entities. so sensual, exotic, and exquisite. so colourful, flamboyant, and filled with delicate strength. but -- my passion extends only to flowers with a visible throat. flower throat: the tiny and delicate cavern that's set into its heart - where all the petals converge. therein lies the beauty of a flower - its undulating curves - its many unspoiled and mysterious gorges, so smoothly velvet. does its beauty also lie in its symbol as a creative force of nature? examine closely the work of georgia o'keeffe. burgeoning with sexual imagery.

image: jack in the pulpit IV by georgia o'keeffe (1930)

i have catheterized many women. and just as many men. what i noticed? that, just like no two flower petals look alike, so it is with women -- they differ in their blossoms. oh so slightly, only. in the most minuscule, infinitesimal way. the female flower seems, to me, a most finely carved flesh sculpture. still ... when i look at the image of jack in the pulpit, undeniably, i know what i see. i'm sure, dear reader, you see it too.

image: red canna, by georgia o'keeffe (1923 )

whenever i used to doodle flowers in my notebooks during high school physics classes, i always found roses' throats the finest and most scintillating pieces to doodle. i never considered why. perhaps its that all those curves, gorges and finely carved petal edges create the deepest beauty any eyes could behold. and that those petals, which look so frail and weak, exist solely to bring the sweetest fruit to bear. i have this image burned into my head: a succulent fruit emerging from a flower whose petals are splitting and wilting.

metamorphosis, sensuality, and desire.
that's what my soul thinks of
when my eyes see a flower

what do you see in a flower?

+~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~+

because of the beta-blogger crap
anyone who does not have a beta-blog yet
will have to post anon.
so, do it already!
just please have the BALLS
to identify yourself
in your comment,
is all i ask :D.

also ... you may want to select
and copy your comments b4 pushing the
publish comment button ... just in case

the bondage of a black dove (for ardlair)

2006-09-04T01:33:00.000-05:00

dearest ardlair -
wherever you may lurk,
know that
you inspired this post.
i hope i did not chase you away
with this sentiment.
but, i won't apologize for writing this
... or thinking this ...
or feeling this.
come back to us soon.

image: flickr creative commons

that stupid little photon box sailed into braveheart just as william wallace lay on that wooden block, crying "FREEDOM!" and then? and then, kindred one, i thought of you. a soul so far away, and yet so very close. i know not your name, the colour of your eyes, or even what you look like. still, it matters not, for i know the colour of your soul - and i have gazed into that tiniest part of your psyche which you have laid bare, here.

do you know, dearest, that you glow inside me this night? sublime images flash in my head, and through my heart. images and dreams. dreams and fantasies. i would give a great deal to see the look on your face, dearest, when these words tell you that i awoke with the taste of you on my lips, and on my tongue, and with sweet thoughts of you, glistening in those infinitesimal beads of sweat that trickled along my breast bone.

and so, my kindred beauty, i have freed a black dove from its bondage: unsealed some more dark truth, and unfurled a little more of my damaged, raven heart. it speaks in tongues, my bruised raven heart, tongues that i do not understand. understanding -- perhaps it's an illusion? or PERHAPS --- perhaps the illusion lies in that veil of mystique which you wear like a tight sheath? or, in the crisp chill of your tender aloofness?

image: flickr creative commons

does the enigma persevere, dearest?
or the illusion?
though so very far from you,
i feel you, my sweet
-- a most delicious, enigmatic and kindred spirit --
i feel you
i dream of you

that's all. i just wanted you to know.

-THE END-

effing blogger

2006-08-31T13:35:00.000-05:00

yeah ... effing blogger booted ME outta me own blog!! some fucking upgrade this bullshit is, man! oh well ... whatever ... so, yeah - i hadda make this blog thing un-private again, just so i could see it. UGH. i really got nothing to say here, these days.

well, i do - but not anything anyone wants to hear.

its like this: if i speak up about politics/foreign policy, i'll just sound like some sort of anti-semetic, i'm sure. i know how we all like labelling people. so ... i'll keep those opinions to me-self. the bush-bashing chorale of despair is starting to sound REALLY stale to me ... like - its not gonna change (the guy's a fucking nut bar ... we just gotta live with it, i guess until the americans vote some other creep into the white house who'll also lie, cheat and fuck the world up some more). also - the we-hate-evil-islam chorus is getting really quite tiresome.
and the whole god-fearing complacent, absolutist fucking lark ... THAT PISSES ME OFF THE MOST!

i wanna know why all y'all, who believe in 'god' as absolute, think you got the market cornered on spirituality. how do you know? how do i know? how the HELL does any of us know? and ... i sure as hell ain't gonna seek 'salvation' for my soul from some fucking pedophile that calls himself a 'priest' ... or 'father' ... (fucking hell - one 'dad' in my life is surely enuf, ain't it?) i'd like all you self-righteous smug types out there to go and look after all those unwanted children ... the ones that never should have entered this world ... the ones who's mothers had no access to abortion/birth control. and while you're at it, how 'bout stopping by and checking out all those dudes with huntington's chorea disease. yeah ... y'now - those dudes (young men, mostly - my age many of them) who COULD benefit from STEM CELL RESEARCH if blasted christianity would get outta the way of our society's technological progress.

before you drop your jaws ... or drop an acid bomb comment on this page, tell me ... have you ever looked after the unwanted? the forgotten and grotesque cast-aways of humanity? yes, virginia, there is a goodly many portion of humanity, cast aside like spoiled fruit. do have any clue about these? about their existence? likely not. because ... its good 'nuff y'all think, to just wear your prettiest dress and make sure the whole FUCKING neighbourhood sees ya when you go to church on Sunday.

yeah yeah. i'm pissed off at a world of hypocrits, liars and thieves. why not? as that song said ... 'its my party and i'll cry if i want to ...' so deal with it! i'm not gonna cloak my anger, hostility and rage in a nice party dress so y'all will feel more comfy here. nah ... there ain't no fluffy stuff, or rosey words here ... just me, in the raw. yes -- raw, BUT ... always true! truth, i find hard to come by, since most humans are lying sacks of fecal waste matter.

i'm still partially of the mindset that this whole blogging thing is a pile of crap, basically. but ... well, its a good way to unload. and contemplating the whole living and dying thing. and how it all seems so damned random. RANDOM. the moment of impact flashes through my head constantly ... and thoughts of how it all coulda turned out a lot worse for me.

image credit: ROXI G, 2006 (taken at the manitoba arts council building)

i've decided that i will not be a good citizen of the blogosphere any more. well, because, there is really no blogosphere and there never was -- its all an optical illusion we've conjured up to fill a pathetic gap. the only friend one really ever has is oneself. and that, dear reader (lol i seriously doubt i have any of those left at this point: i've likely scared you all off by now) is the unfortunate truth. so .. i guess what i'm saying ... is ... don't expect a comment on your blog from me unless you have made one here. i reciprocate ... no longer will i waste time initiating or extending the olive branch. no one really wants an olive branch ... they just want what they want. ok ... it sounds a little harsh -- but you get my drift, no doubt. and if you don't -- well then i hope you're not operating that computer without supervision.

in sum ... i'm plain sick and tired of trying to maintain ties with individuals who seem so disinterested they take eons to return emails/comments .. or worse yet ... never return them at all. i've decided i'm still here doing this fucking blogging thing because it suits me .. not because of the illusion of any connectedness about which i deluded myself. DELUSION. any sense of connectedness - its a god-damned delusion! plain and simple. so ... like me ... don't like me ... comment ... don't comment ... whatever. its all the same to me. just know that i will no longer initiate. only reciprocate. my time is far too precious to be spent chasing aliases that have no interest being caught.

if anyone is still reading at this point ... i just wanna add one more thing. seriously, i'm asking - people with a serious appreciation for poetry to read my stuff and provide an honest opinion. i'll provide the link if anyone wants it. and ... lol ... if no one wants it ... well then - fuck you all, its your loss.

and .... that's all i got to say about that.

maybe this is my last post here

2006-08-28T12:58:00.000-05:00

i'm told that this feeling i have - the one i get whenever i get into a car that tells me i'm gonna die - i'm told it subsides in time. argh - ok. but, transit tom's still my preferred method of transportation. i've decided i'd only ever drive again if someone would die if i did not. otherwise -- no chance i'll ever sit in the driver's seat again. ever.

what's even scarier than thinking i'm going to die whenever i leave the house is the fact that my dad - 70 years old - is truly and seriously a moving menace. stop signs are just places where you pause, not stop, the car. and shoulder checks are optional. oh yeah - and so is looking out for oncoming traffic when you're turning left. ACKK! i really think there it should be MANDATORY to re-test everyone over the age of 70 years! honestly.

now i'm not really sure how to proceed here. either way i'm gonna come outta this one with shit on my face - i'm the bad person if i take steps to get his license revoked (i really really should investigate how this gets done) and i cannot live with myself if i say nothing and allow him to kill someone - my mother or someone else. ahhh - aging parents. so much fun - NOT. how is it that cognitive deterioration and short term memory loss just seem to creep up ... i'm convinced its those people that are unsociable hermit types that suffer from cognitive deterioration of aging first. y'know - its like anything else - ya use it or ya lose it!

i think that lupin and i shall go hiking in the forest and just not return when it feels like we have reached 'that time' in our lives. why is it that we humans can't just look death straight in the eye and walk into it? preserving life at all cost ... its soooo short-sighted and pointless and selfish.

ok. so what've i been up to lately? weeeeeelll ... i've tired tired tired tired of wasting keystrokes in this here place ... and so went in search of a place where people interact ... found a new (poetry) hangout here and that's where i have spent alot of time lately - writing .... writing ... writing. and receiving lots of feedback. feedback - yeah! imagine that - some place that's interactive - the way this place used to be, before it became a place where people stroke their fragile egos.

its a long shot, but i will see if i can get published - that's my next project.

also ...i'm reading some Edgar Allen Poe, Pablo Neruda, and also reading Lady Chatterly's Lover - (how can a man, writing in the early 1900s, be so right re: his take on men and sex ... ? its remarkable). oh! and ... i found someone - a wonderful artist - to immortalize my late afghan hound in a painting. the piece in the link is acrylic and watercolor on watercolor paper soaked in tea. artist's name is laura pelick. i absolutely ADORE her work. more of her stuff here ... check it - she sells prints of her stuff.

i have not been around here much because i really had nothing to say. i have been toying with the idea of making a post on medical marijuana - or maybe reefer madness - its brewing right now. but y'know what? i really think before i expend all that time and energy, i oughta find a place to post it where people will actually appreciate such a post. sadly, i fear its not here.

anyway ... lately i'm not in the mood for reality. the news is basically ridiculous lies ... and the liars that get the most airtime are fucking stupid. so, i am not wasting my time on those god-damned idiots that are running the world into the ground. so ... i don't really wanna talk politics or religion or anything else really really reality-based. WHY BOTHER? it solves nothing. absolutely nothing. it seems almost narcissistic - like just spouting one's mouth off to hear oneself speak.

the only thing that has really stayed with me of all the recent news - is Stephen Lewis being interviewed about AIDS - that women are the group now most afflicted by AIDS, worldwide, now the women of africa ... are dying ... and no one gives a flying FUCK. well, i guess they got no oil so the west figures to hell with them, eh?

oh ... and then there's new orleans ... are the americans all too busy playing soldier to realize that this city is just as vulnerable as it was a year ago when it got levelled? why do i have to watch a canadian network to see a documentary about katrina and its aftermath a year later? er ... could it be because all the american networks are playing war games or have their heads so far stuck up osama bin laden's ass hole?

i really really think that humans are the single greatest menace to this world and universe. we will be the destruction of ourselves yet. what a great legacy to leave our children -- whom, by the way, we absolutely SUCK at rearing. but ... that ... is a topic for a post that may never get written. honestly - this all feels like a silly time wasting exercise. i guess i come back, hoping for a connection. BUT THAT HAS EVAPORATED. and i don't know why.

so ... i don't know if i'll come back here. HONESTLY. i mean, what's the point? if this is a conversation with myself, then i can find another avenue for such. i really used to treasure this place for the connection it gave me ... but it appears that was merely an illusion. a mirage. there is no connectedness. and there never was. only one-ness. cuz ... in the end ... that is all that each of us has - 'number one' -- ourself. no one else.

we kid ourselves that connectedness to other humans exists ... ain't that the greatest psychic illusion out there?

i have the bubonic plague ...

2006-08-19T19:16:00.000-05:00

ok ... not really.
but -
just testing ...
if anyone reads this
mindles dribble
i don't think
anyone does anymore
maybe i have the
bubonic plague?

that must be it ...

inertia

2006-08-18T19:28:00.000-05:00

i made a list
checked it twice
got myself a plan
and could not leave here

submerged myself
in poetry
and more poetry
and produced

whittled
carved
altered
re-aligned

still inert though
shock -
a thick veil
of oppressive dread

head-on

2006-08-17T02:54:00.000-05:00

i envision standing in front of lupin, snipping my driver's license in two right before his watchful gaze. that's what i thought after it happened, standing there, spaced out, watching the other driver sink into a melt down. i hate driving at the best of times. really. but it's a ticket to convenience -- of sorts. the car ... any car ... its a blasted money pit. and ... well ... its just a pile of metal in the grand scheme of things. and ... er ... my sister did not live to tell about her head on collision. and that ... that's trippy!

so ... the airbags work folks. and that shit they put inside them? its fucking foul. it smokes, and its not healthy to breath in - seriously. and ... well ... my brand new tom petty CD is stuck in the car stereo because they had to cut the battery cable to get the horn to stop bleating. so ... while the other driver is having a melt down and the fire paramedic dudes are trying to get the two cars untangled and out of the middle of this busy downtown intersection ... so what is velvet doing? ugh ... why are people in the throes of shock so ... spaced out and completely out of reality? velvet's busy obsessing on her stuck tom petty CD ... and on how the heck she can get to wal-mart without a car to get that coffee bean grinder she wanted to get this evening.

i'm guessing that's part of the reason they detained me at the scene for like 90 minutes. because i really was not fit to be walking away unsupervised. seriously. i cannot tell you, though, how horrific the anxiety that rained on me when i sat in the back of the cop cruiser while the constable took my accident report. i had no idea police cars have no inside door panels. there ain't no way out, folks! and the windows have that metal mesh stuff on them. claustrophobic velvet really had to do some serious self talk to prevent a total panic attack from ensuing.

ok. so likely we don't got a car. ok. highly over-rated. and now ... i hate driving even more that before. it really would suck if i had to buy another CD, though. and ... well ... i never did get that coffee bean grinder yet! smiles to anyone who reads this. leave me a paw print or somethin'!

a few things

2006-08-16T19:06:00.000-05:00

1. HEAD ON collision. FUCK. i'm positive the car is totalled. FUCK.

well, it was just a bloody money pit anyhow. ok. so ... now i'm gonna pretend like this neck and chest pain are figments of my imagination. just shreds of aftershock my body has yet to purge. and that wrist and shoulder pain -- its nothing. i'll ignore the fact that the old operative scar on my wrist (an old carpal tunnel release surgery from 10 yrs ago) hurts. its nothing. ITS NOTHING VELVET. there. i feel better. really. the real hurting will occur in my bank account. FUCK.

ain't life grand?

2. did anyone else out there see the 'blogger beta' link on their dashboard's sidebar?

the new version of blogger is currently being rolled out but only to certain people - only those with a link on their dashboard can switch at present. lots of improvements, but it flipped the counter on my profile to "0" ... wtf?! well, by the time everyone else gets to beta maybe i will be ahead of the game, lol.

3. a rhetorical question - mostly to myself. is this blogging thing really worth it?

i mean, really? i'm starting to think its an awfully huge time consumption for little or no gain. i didn't always think that. at one time, i really treasured the connection i felt here. life evolves, i suppose. and now this feels like a frivolous time waster. i wonder ... the jury's out on that one, i think. seriously ... i'm contemplating it ... concentrating more effort and energy on writing for publication, as opposed to writing for frivolity. i think -- it feels like it to me -- i have a gift for writing. time for me to step up to the plate and use it, hone it, let it grow.

4. another rhetorical one - does a nurse really hafta work in a hospital?

the answer i've given myself -- NO. despite the BS and mythology about nurses promoted by the popular media ... nursing goes beyond the profusely bleeding wounds, the sick bowels and the weak heart pumps. i don't need to step right into the disease carnage to feel like a worthy nurse. don't even hafta wield sharp objects and stick them into people's veins. nursing ... its a job. not a vocation. not a life sentence. its the way i pay myself thru life. its not my life. there's one for the books - MY JOB IS NOT MY LIFE.

ethereal embrace

2006-08-14T14:57:00.000-05:00

here

feedback, please

2006-08-10T11:21:00.000-05:00

if you visit this blog
i'd be interested
in your feedback
with respect to
the previous 2 or 3 posts

many thx to anyone who does share their thoughts.

17 and 39

2006-08-10T11:15:00.000-05:00

[the following is a poem about an affair i had with a married man at the age of 17. he had stalked me - at a distance for months prior to actually pursuing me -- meeting me. he lied about his age -- shaved 5 years off his true age -- still it made him old enough to be my father. a father. i guess that's what i looked to this man for -- fathering. its a shameful thing. yet, another ugly blemish on my past. but --- its all behind me. and angst, sorrow -- these create the best artistic works. and so ... here it is.]

"hello, my pet," he called from the far room.
her heart jumped to her throat.
he always surprised her like this.
she never knew when
he would show up at her door.

in his absence -- the long periods of time
he would just drop out of her existence --
days. weeks. months at a time ...
she grew languid. limp.
lifeless and cut-off. passive.
a tormented, hungry soul ...
aching ... aching.
and -- paralyzed of will
to extract herself nonetheless.

and so it went.
undulating -- passion, sorrow, shame.
oppressive: her longing for him.
it caught her --
the energy of their union.
forbidden union.
it caught her and ravaged her ...
the same way a leg hole trap
ravages a wolf's unsuspecting leg.
her young, tender soul
could not escape its grip.

at times, she felt as though
a faerie for his amusement --
he: a middle-aged, worn man,
suspending her in front of his gaze,
holding her daintily by the wings,
watching her writh, struggle
and then surrender sweetly - wilting
under the weight of his
desperate, empty lust ...
he loved to slowly crush her spirit ...
feel it disintegrate into his own.

she -- an enchanting, beguiling creature
a young, virginal female spirit
perched on a cusp that sits
like a delicate, stilettoed spire
between girlhood and womanhood

shame. and unrelenting sorrow
lurked there, like slivers, embedded
into the deepest corners of her heart
her shame - secret and dark -
melted into the soothing warmth
of his voice, and
the gentle strength
she felt in his fingertips

she-an innocent, unripened green shoot
with angular boyish curves
and a child's flat and meager bosom -
she loved him ...
loved him to the point
of pain

reality -- it showered her heart
like acid poured onto living flesh --
a reality that she and he
would have NO future
still ... her heart loved his
with a florid devotion
naive ... sublime ... divine
17 and 39

lady with the lamp

2006-08-09T14:18:00.000-05:00

[there is an old poem, dating back to the crimean war, that writes about florence nightingale - mother of the nursing profession - as 'lady with the lamp,' link here. it provides the patient's perspective of a nurse. what follows is my own 'lady with the lamp' -- an ode to all those whom i have nursed ... and all those who have ever been hospitalized ... these amazing spirits that teach me something new and precious each and every day i work ... these amazing humans that keep me in this profession]

lady with the lamp
am i --
like florence nightingale --
the original mother of mercy

sailing thru the night
skulking from room to room,
witness to unspoken pain,
silent moans in the darkness

fluttering among the dying
the newly born, and
a sea of sick bowels
it is i, lady with the lamp,

who stroke your brow,
hold your hand
while a feverish waking nightmare
threatens to swallow you whole

it is i, lady with the lamp,
who soothes you with the sound
of my calm and gentle voice
and my needle -- sweet morpheus

and, in the tiny precious moments
that seem as endless and painful as eternity
i, lady with the lamp,
feel complete awe at the entity of 'You'

i, lady with the lamp,
receive your tangible gifts --
sweet and bountiful --
given with touching grace

no greater gift could i savour
than knowing your comfort, peace, dignity
remain intact - unbruised -
after your battle with the illness demon

how privileged am i
for i have walked into your heart
and seen you there
raw, unformed, unfiltered

truly, you are
most amazing --
of body mind spirit
a mysterious wonder

do you know?
that you have given me,
lady with the lamp,
more than i could ever give you?

new poetry --

2006-08-09T10:49:00.000-05:00

here ... its some new stuff i just wrote, mixed in with some (my best) old stuff. if you're wondering about my love life, it's all here - the whole wild story. if there are any literary buffs out there ... i am trying to decide which direction this story should take. any ideas? i have this feeling that, where i 've left it, is not the end.

broken arrows

2006-08-05T21:05:00.000-05:00

i saw you today. the anger, the outrage -- it's all crumbled away. i can't explain it really. except to say that, in the grand scheme of things, none of that stuff really matters. so very long ago. a lifetime ago. a different time. different place. and the distance. between us. and the choice. its mine to make.

still - i look at you. and see myself, sort of. i remember the countless times you got abruptly roused from your sleep in the wee hours of morning to attend to yours truly in the throes of a violent gastric outlet obstruction attack. i remember the cummulative hours spent, on the cold tile floor of the bathroom, heading resting on the toilet seat. with you talking to me ... your deep gentle voice keeping me grounded in reality.

i have a choice. k9 was right when he said not to let all the bad stuff destroy me. i have a choice. and ... i choose to move on. away from that dark blemish. i choose to seek out the rotting berry, and toss it out before it contaminates all else around it. i have seen and experienced too much to allow myself to slip into complacency over life. i must seize things as they come. and once the dragon is slayed ... then i move on and thru. and that i can do now.

you know something? my body does not act our nearly as much with disease and chronic pain, since i have chosen to move on. since i have chosen myself. since i have chosen to channel my anger and outrage constructively. i know you will not change. you both, so set in your ways. rooted ... into your spot in the ground. but for me.

life is change. and so it goes.

addicted

2006-08-03T19:22:00.000-05:00

that's me.
plain and simple.
no doubt about it.
on the moment
of waking i think of
my sweet morpheus -
a substance upon which
i have an
unshakable dependence.

that's me ...
dashing into work
at the last minute
because i JUST had to have
one more hoot.

that's me ...
in a moment of
abject weekness
snorting that
white stuff
in the washroom
at work.

twisted -- ?
what addiction
drives one to do.
desperate?
what ... what ... what
possesses me?
a savage beast?

insatiable
inconsolable
wild
masochistic
a little sadistic, even
that's my savage beast

high

2006-08-03T15:23:00.000-05:00

the sweet skunky odour rises from her work surface. lingering. hanging gently in the air - an earthy smell. potent. undeniably distinct. and she smiled to herself. she sat on her makeshift bed - a foam mat topped with a featherbed, the whole thing wrapped together with a faux lambskin. her back facing the giant blowing fan. she felt it - rolled it with her fingertips and across the scissor's blades cutting. cutting. tiny budlets pulverized. cutting. and finally - a pile of fine dust. green with rusty flakes. the high starts when you just buy the drug. every junkie knows this. and also, the sinking anxiety that descends when you're smoking your last joint. anxiety. sweet.

its what makes the highs so intensely pleasurable.

[originally written april, 2006 while i was hiding out in my mum's spare bedroom]

stress will kill you?

2006-08-01T23:58:00.000-05:00

we've all heard that expression, right?
well its true.
stress will kill you
and scientific evidence exists
to prove this claim
and to question the science
behind the following claim

"smoking causes cancer."

in his book when the body says no, (click title for link to amazon.com) gabor mate (pronounced mat-eh) walks readers through the biochemistry behind the mind-body connection. fascinating stuff? anyone with a uterus will tell you that stress can toss the body's delicate hormonal balance off kilter. so, then ... take this one step further. a guy - british thoracic surgeon who calls himself Kissen - did take this further. he noticed, via his clinical practice, an intimate connection between emotionally repressive personality patterns and incidence of lung cancer. and then, a longitudinal study, conducted on a stable population in europe over a 10 year period, confirmed Kissen's insights.

essentially, it all boils down to this:

smoking no more causes cancer than being thrown into deep water causes drowning ... a combination of factors is necessary to cause drowning. fatal as immersion in deep water can be to the unprotected non-swimmer, for someone who swims well or is equipped with a life jacket, it poses little risk. it is the same with lung cancer. (p. 85)

so. what am i saying?

repression of emotion, particularly anger, is the single greatest risk factor for death, esp, but not only, d/t cancer (emotional repression potentiates the effects of smoke and other carcinongens within the body)
psychological influences create physiological changes in the body which contribute to the onset of malignant disease (science and clinical practice tell us that, at every level, a mind-body connection exisits)
individual internal perceptions bear as much influence as external threats in development of disease , esp. cancer, in our bodies

lets expand no. 2, shall we?

thru the HYPOTHALAMUS-PITUITARY-ADRENAL nexus (a pathway of glands in our bodies that govern metobolism and general bodily function), both physical and psychological stress influence our physiology -- ie stress activates the HPA nexus, sending our delicate hormonal balance out of its equilibrium
unmet emotional needs -- ie uncertanty, lack of control, lack of information -- strongly activate the HPA nexus
consummatory behaviour (behaviour which removes the danger or relieves the tension cause by it), and restoring sense of control, each result in immediate supression of HPA activity
emotional stress impairs the body's built-in DNA and cellular repair mechanisms (i)habitual emotional repression leaves a person in a state of chronic stress, (ii)creating an unnatural biochemical environment in the body; (iii)the perpetually high levels of steroid hormones (we secrete hormones when we are stressed out) can interfere with normal programmed cell death
depression ("a mental state in which repression of anger dominates emotional functioning") potentiates the inhibitory effect of smoke on the natural killer cells (ie it compromises our body's ability to fight off disease)
disease is not a simple result of some external attack, but develops in hosts in whom the internal environment has become disordered
the human endocrime system is an important mediator between the psyche and the tumor (a) a person's emotional personality pattern plays a role in either facilitating tumor promotion or dampening or accentuating the impact of environmental stressors (b) tumors are hormonally dependent, arising in organs that interact hormonally
social subordination activates the HPA
the stresses that create the problems with self nurture are also the ones that predispose to disease
for most cancers there is no identifed carcinogen. it is the internal environment that plays the major role in deciding whether the malignancy will flourish or be eliminated.
key to fighting cancer is not just prevention and/or control of its spread ... but understanding under what conditions existing dormant tumor deposits become malignant
inability to express emotion, particularly anger, has shown up as the most consistently idenified risk factor for cancer in various studies

link to the book's website here, in case you're interested. simply put, this message in all this? that we can influence our health status simply by means of our response to life. our ability to process what we encounter. to stick to our convictions. to set our own limits. constructively express our own emotions. our friend ben writes: "life is change. life is energy. life is your chance to create yourself and your world as you wish them to be." i think that's what gabor mate means, too, thru his writings and work. we CAN make a difference. it sounds almost too simple, doesn't it?

i just hAFta ask .... REVISED

2006-07-31T17:34:00.000-05:00

is condi under the influence of some powerful hallucinogen? is the entire current US administration?
can someone tell me how, exactly, 36 children posed a security threat to israel? and wtf was israel thinking ... killing them????
what is with this hate fest we got goin' on here? does insulting your opponent, calling them stupid or evil, make you feel like your penis is three sizes bigger, or what?!!! am i the only one that is SICK and TIRED of reading this drIBble?
wtf was israel thinking, bombing a UN observer post?
how does an airport and an electrical power plant pose a security threat to israel?
how many lebanese are worth 2 israeli soldiers?
why is it terrorism when saddam attacks kuwait, but its 'self defence' when israel attacks lebanon?
what the hell have those jokers (that call them selves world leaders) been doing these past several years? why-the-f*ck is osama bin laden STILL at large?
what is israel hiding? why won't it let the UN partake in its investigation of the outpost bombing? is it so they won't have witnesses when they whitewash it and make it go away?
if one or more of those UN observers had been american, would the wording of the UN resolution been stronger?
will dubya, blair, and anyone who thinks these apes are 'handling the situation' ... will these people EVER get their heads OUTTA their asses?
why are there such different presentations and level of detail provided in the news casts, depending on whether i watch CNN, CBC or BBC?
can someone tell me why a herbicide resistant canola seed that is sterile poses a contamination risk to the food chain? has there ever been a documented case of illness or death?

i know ... i know ...
many of these questions
are unpopular ...
and you may not
even think they are
the right questions
to ask
but ...
i just hafta ask
them anyway

happy heart?

2006-07-30T13:09:00.000-05:00

a wolf and velvet

2006-07-28T05:38:00.000-05:00

beautiful, smiling wolf

velvet acid - self portrait

how do you make velvet acid?

2006-07-26T17:29:00.000-05:00

How to make velvet acid

Ingredients:

5 parts compassion

5 parts daffodil

3 parts fury

Method:
Blend at a low speed for 30 seconds. Stand back and let the sparks settle. handle with caution!

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com

mental decongestant?

2006-07-25T15:07:00.000-05:00

ever get that feeling?
like ...
a stuffy brain?
when i get
a stuffy nose
i run to
dristan nasal spray
WTF do i do
to treat
a stuffy brain?

pay me my money down ...

2006-07-25T03:00:00.000-05:00

i just LOVE this tune and, so HAD to share it with y'all!

Upload music at Bolt.

van gogh?

2006-07-23T08:48:00.000-05:00

some fotos
of a bronze sculpture
that currently sits
in downtown edmonton ....

a view of the left ...

... and of the right

cool, huh? well i thought so.
it really captures his ... his torment.
and the mutilation he committed
against himself.
you really wouldn't know
something is grotesquely wrong
with this van gogh
unless you glimpsed
the right side of him,
would you?

kandahar, saskachewan? (no kidding)

2006-07-22T07:46:00.000-05:00

yes ... kandahar.
and yes, in saskatchewan.
hmmm.
never heard of it, have you?

its a little town
along the yellowhead highway
that takes travellers to edmonton.
so ... here we are.
driving along in our z24.
cruisin the prairie highway.

thinking hard about
someone we recently lost.
a dear someone.
our dog. an afghan hound.
and .... hmmm.

out of nowhere
comes this tiny green sign.
at the side of the road.
KANDAHAR. it says.

and i am convinced
that was a message from blazer.
a visit from his spirit.
to comfort us.
i felt it.

and the sign?
it made me smile.

raising our children ...?

2006-07-20T11:48:00.000-05:00

just got back from visiting my oldest and dearest girlfriend in alberta. she is a divorced, single mother of three kids: 15, 12 and 9 years old. her kids' father has little involvement in their upbringing. it was interesting for lupin and me to see how someone else raises their kids. very interesting indeed. it made me wonder ...

should children growing up learn proper manner?
should we really still be spanking our children to force their compliance?
when does a spanking stop and a beating begin?
and what of the way it makes a child feel?
does not this, in and of itself, make it wrong?

i remember being spanked
at 2 years old
with a wooden ruler
because i peed my pants.
my dad was angry.
and so i got spanked.
i never forgot
the way it made me feel --
ego crushed.

is that how we want to be remembered by our kids?
and what of setting limits?
is it not compassionate and necessary to teach them how to function in society?
should a 9 year old boy still be sleeping with his mother?
or screaming from the bed the second he awakes 'mom i'm hungry!'
really? should he?

i'm not the mum of the century,
but my boy can function in society --
you know,
has manners,
and self-sufficient independence.
he would never dream
of showing off to visitors
how well he can fart or belch ...
that IS rude, isn't it?

it's so easy to collect children - you know, a they are sort of status symbol - but how sad that few of us realize how very difficuly it is to raise them properly. it is so much easier to give in and let them have their way. how sad for those kids. how sad for the parents, too. that they have so little regard for their task as parents.

i would just like to add that the value of fathers is SOOOOOO under-rated. a child needs its father. especially a boy. to all you fathers out there ... know that you absolutely do make a difference in the lives of your children. you are NOT just the banker or the sperm donor. those babies ... ? they look up to you for so much more.

photo is of our son, taken in 2003.

what is religion?

2006-07-13T18:44:00.000-05:00

can we define it?

here's what the oxford dictionary, 9th edition, says about religion.

1 the belief in a superhuman controlling power, esp. in a personal god or gods entitled to obedience and worship. 2 the expression of this in worship. 3 a particular system of faith and worship. 4 life under monastic vows (the way of religion). 5 a thing that one is devoted to (football is their religion) (p 1161)

so? does this definition capture the essence of religion? of what it means to the devout, the doubters, and the atheists? religion affects us all deeply. even those of us who choose to regard it as a mere construct to facilitate social survival.

you know that, more than three decades after my initial indoctrination, i still have a running ticker tape of the apostles' creed in my head? how these things got drilled into our heads as kids! what i really didn't get, though, was being told i had to stay hungry and thirsty going to church so i could be 'pure' to receive holy communion.

does a 5 or 6 year old kid get that? and why should god care if i drank a glass of juice 20 minutes before mass started? does that really make me bad? too impure to receive god? a disobedient little one? (just so you know ... i am not making this up). and yet, i had to go hungry or thirsty because that's what god wanted. anyway, that's what i remember about god. about religion. as a kid. the feeling that we are never good enough. for god. and never will be. the notion that suffering has some sort of redeeming, cleansing function.

ok.
i digress.
back on track.
religion - how to define it?
well, depending on your perspective,
there are 3 possibilities.

1. religion as a social construct

a manifestation of some psychological or moral pathology?
a pernicious and deliberate falsehood, spread and encouraged by rulers and clerics in their own interests, in an effort exercise control over others?
seeing religions as marginally useful constructs which encode instructions or habits useful for survival in a society
seeing religion as 'the opium of the masses'

2. religion as progressing toward a higher truth

reflections of an essential truth?
seeing religious truth as relative, due to its varied cultural application and/or expression
seeing prophets as messengers of god -- individuals given to extraordinary spiritual insight during periods of social decay and acting as purveyors of balance and social survival.
seeing religion as evolving over time in a thesis-antithesis-synthesis-great awakening paradigm

3. religion as absolute truth

the exclusivist view
one belief system ... one holy book ... one supreme being
seeing all things and individuals incongruent with the one belief system as ignorant, devious, false, misguided
a sort of arrogant view of truth ("our view is the RIGHT view, all others are wrong")
providing an unwavering perspective that requires individuals to conform to its truth

so....? where do you fit in? before you answer, though ... consider this: it's clear, isn't it -- that intimate connection between your philosophical view of truth and your chosen religious view?
whatever religious perspective you weave into your cultural matrix speaks to your larger view of truth, the universe, humanity, and how we got here.

regardless which point of the star you are coming from ...
its profound stuff, ain't it?

remembering sunny days

2006-07-13T17:39:00.000-05:00

shaggy angel

2006-07-13T08:59:00.000-05:00

the pain of loss, so acutely felt
reminds us,
like a hunger pang,
of the missing entity

a gaping void
and ...
similar to a hunger pang
i feel so tempted
at the thought
of filling up
to dissolve it

but alas
this hunger pang
it must, like an infection,
travel its way thru my body
and my being
there are no shortcuts
to dispelling grieving feelings.

thank you to all of you for thinking of us during this time.

a special ear scratch to k9 for being there ...

is there anyone out there
that would entertain the notion
of painting a portrait of my shaggy angel?
if so, please email me ...
we can work something out ...

canine spirit

2006-07-11T14:13:00.000-05:00

a lovely poem about the canine spirit ... link is here, at my wordpress site.

hurts like a bitch

2006-07-11T07:35:00.000-05:00

i just wanna cry. first time in many years walking thru the door, knowing blazer is not there to greet me with a tail wag, kisses and snuggles. i have lost my best friend. a dear, sweet spirit. its so empty. and empty. i can really not stand it. does the pain ever go away? i really, really cannot stand to feel this pain.

a day of lasts, a day of firsts

2006-07-10T15:14:00.000-05:00

today, at 14:51 central time dragonfly lawrence of arabia drew his last breath.

our day began early, when i made the phone call that sealed our beloved's fate. we set a time. and from that moment on, every breath, every thought moved us to his death. the last time we ever gave him a treat of wet food in a dish. the last time we poured kibble into his bowl. the last time i poured filtered water into his dish (yes, filtered). the last time he laid on lupin's futon bed, all sprawled out like he owned the place. the last time we left the house with him. his last free run along the northwest bank of the red river. i will go to that spot now and see him there, at the edge of the low rocky cliff, nose in the wind and a wide canine smile. i will remember my hound like that.

on the floor in that special room at the vet's, he would not lay down. independent minded as ever, he stood while the vet injected the drugs that would put him to sleep. we slowly and gently lowered him onto his side when the drugs quickly took effect. i drew my fingers along every whisp of apricot coloured hair, along every curve of his body, felt between his toes for the very last time, and the delicate boney bumps on the insides of his knees. i pressed my face into his soft, gund-like fur. and i sobbed. a howling sort of sob. stabbing. aching. this feeling of sorrow, and it cut thru the room.

and there's more. however i am empty of inspiration. i cannot write anymore right now. but, i just wanted you all to know. its done.

(ps - i have posted this on the wordpress site as well)

lego world cup?

2006-07-08T00:28:00.000-05:00

manual or automatic?

2006-07-07T20:33:00.000-05:00

just curious.
y'know, just sittin' here.
thinking 'bout entirely trivial stuff.
like ...

do you prefer a car with a manual or an automatic transmission?

meh, i drive a manual.
and i loooooove it.
whenever i drive my dad's car,
which is an automatic,
i get confused.
it seems too easy.
and not as much in my control
as i would like.
and ... um ... well,
i thinks that an automatic
is a lazy man's car.

just sayin' ....

oh yeah ... and i gotta plug the new place.

untitled

2006-07-07T00:40:00.000-05:00

"gripped by a sudden craving to please him. she wanted to please him. she smiled demurely. he gently tugged the scarf from her grip. and they both watched it slink away from her fingers in billowing movement.

he wrapped the scarf around her head twice, gently tugging on its end as he fastened it. no reflexive panic this time. soothing blindness - she could see only..."

TO READ THE REST YOU GOTTA VISIT the new place: velvet acid 8

have you visited the new blog?

2006-07-05T12:20:00.000-05:00

here is the link

too funny!

2006-07-02T18:20:00.000-05:00

whaddaya think?

2006-06-30T02:04:00.000-05:00

inspired by our friend wch, i am trying wordpress again. this blog contains all the posts of my three blogger blogs. you will notice 2 blogs gone from the blogger profile. all those posts are contained in the new blog. check it out. then tell me what u think. i like blogger. i will continue posting in this here blog ... but ... i will be posting to the new wordpress also, and so ... who know?

forgetfulness?

2006-06-29T20:35:00.000-05:00

from: yahoo

stupid day out

2006-06-29T19:56:00.000-05:00

a word to that cyclist that nearly t-boned me today. hey asshole, did u know that stop signs also apply to cyclists? that's u, you knob! well, what do i care? i'm in a car, enclosed by a tonne of steel. you, on the other hand, are not. if you wanna broken pelvis, i guess that's your business. how much fun do you think it would be to have to ask the nurse (lol ... that would be me!) to help you take a shit by bringing u the bedpan because u can't walk? and all because you are an imbecil. i can hardly wait.

monolith?

2006-06-28T23:25:00.000-05:00

sorry, but i think its f*cking ugly

photo credit: yahoo public domain

its summmmmmer!

2006-06-24T22:43:00.000-05:00

photo credit: dmushrush, flickr creative commons

diet coke + mentos = explosion?

2006-06-14T16:12:00.000-05:00

from: eepybird

very busy

2006-06-12T21:56:00.000-05:00

little neighbour

2006-06-08T03:17:00.000-05:00

taken may 2004 from my apartment balcony in vancouver. this little critter used to come around lots when the homicidal neighbour cat wasn't around ...

photo credit: velvet acid tongue 2004

velvet is in, boys ...

2006-06-07T02:59:00.000-05:00

photo credit: acefrenzy, flickr creative commons

velvet curls

2006-06-05T19:54:00.000-05:00

i'm under all those curls ... somewhere!

Photo credit: velvet acid tongue, 2004

tales from the front line

2006-06-04T18:44:00.000-05:00

(written in january, 2006 for a previous blog)
the obit said you died peacefully at the hospital … a fucking lie … a real fucking LIE … and i should know - i watched you die. it haunts me still, your death. Filled with pieces of undigested food, mixed with old blood, vomit, bile, and scented with shit - i recall it as most violent, certainly not peaceful.

v-i-o-l-e-n-t. that’s how i categorize this story in my head. no weapons of any kind. no alteractions. no gunshot. no stabbing. merely violent death by cancer. what else do you call it when the paramedic is ‘bagging’ the patient (i.e. using a bag-valve-mask to artificially respirate the patient) and coffee ground, bloody and shit-scented vomit shoots out of the one-way valve? we were trying to breath for you and all we ended up doing is ‘pumping’ the fluid out of your lungs. you died before we could ever displace all that bloody, shit-vomit from your lungs with good ole oxygen.

you died with no loved ones around. no one to hold your hand. alone. is that how you envision it? with two nurses and two paramedics farting into thunder, trying save your life. the whole thing - undignified. grotesque. desperate.

the doctor, comfortably sleeping in his small town bed when i called to inform him of your sudden demise, snorted at the thought of leaving his nice warm bed to carry out his duty to his patient. and all he could say, when he did finally arrive to sign the death certificate, etc. etc., is stupidly remark how i should have taken my gloves off before entering the nursing station …

i recall the thick, sickly thud of the vomit hitting the tv cabinet beside the bed as it rapidly shot out of the one-way valve. i recall the gutteral wretching sound, orginating from the depths of your gut, and the force of the projectile vomit as it shot out of your mouth like a high-powered missile. i recall the frantic desperation that descended on all of us in the room as we saw you slip toward death.

i recall the lightening speed with which we erased all traces of the truth from the room - the tell tale linen, the resuscitation equipment, the splattering on the cabinet, floor and you, yourself. it haunts me. haunt. haunt. i did not know you. but i cried for you, we cried for you. did you hear us?

Anais Nin

2006-05-31T20:52:00.000-05:00

"and the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

"she lives without pattern, without continuity. as soon as one seeks to coordinate june, she is lost."

"i do not like to be just one anais, whole, contained. as soon as someone defines me. i do as june does; i seek escape from the confinements of definition."

"i speak of relief, perhaps when i write; but it is also an engraving of pain, a tatooing of myself."

"we are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them."

"life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. this is a kind of death."

"i looked with chameleon eyes upon the changing face of the world, looked with anonymous vision upon my uncompleted self."

paralyzed ...

2006-05-29T11:04:00.000-05:00

my soul feels paralyzed. flashbacks. fragments and shards of memories long discarded by a frightened little girl. truly only flashes. memory images ... like a dream. they float above my consciousness like a mirage. they dissolve whenever i try to describe them using words. fumes. that's all i have left myself with. emotional fumes. sort of noxious ... like the smell of a rotting, yet still live, wound.

i started to remember something. something awful. something my child self hid so well. not exactly sure how. one of those blinding flashes of elucidation. only, possibily the kind i could live without? odd little details. seemingly innocuous at first. just little bits. that's what i started with.

and so, i decided to play memory lego with these pieces. why? why? i ask myself that question now. as i started to build these pieces onto themselves they formed some sort of towering, forboding mass. a dark structure brooding quietly in the darkest shadow. that's what i have built. that's what i have unearthed. how could a man do that to his daughter? how? how?

i can't just cover it up now and move along. though that's desperately what i'd like to do - run like fucking hell from this memory. its like that movie the matrix. take the red pill or take the blue pill. well i have somehow taken the red pill. its devastating to see that all the things i believed about my childhood and my parents are figments of confabulation. a construct to promote survival.

a construct. parts of my reality - a construct? elucidating. in much the same way as the sun's bright light. the type of bright sunlight that threatens to burn my retinas when i stare directly into it. burning elucidation. the feeling of cold ugliness rises in my chest. its ... its ... a deep feeling of unworthiness. unloveable-ness, to be completely honest. its black and cold and fiery all at once. its tendrils stroke me, pierce me, and stab my tender, pulsing spirit all at once.

let's impeach the president

2006-05-26T05:12:00.000-05:00

Let's impeach the president for lying
And leading our country into war
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the door

He¹s the man who hired all the criminals
The White House shadows who hide behind closed doors
And bend the facts to fit with their new stories
Of why we have to send our men to war

Let¹s impeach the president for spying
On citizens inside their own homes
Breaking every law in the country
By tapping our computers and telephones

What if Al Qaeda blew up the levees
Would New Orleans have been safer that way
Sheltered by our government¹s protection
Or was someone just not home that day?

Let's impeach the president
For hijacking our religion and using it to get elected
Dividing our country into colors
And still leaving black people neglected

Thank god he¹s racking down on steroids
Since he sold his old baseball team
There's lot of people looking at big trouble
But of course the president is clean

Thank God

from the new disc by neil young -- living with war

pulling it all together

2006-05-25T11:34:00.000-05:00

you may have noticed a few blogs have gone missing. well, lol, they haven't gone missing, really. they just bit the dust. velvet just felt like consolidating all those blogs into one soupy blog. so, all the posts from the other blogs are still there (except for a few insignificant, extraneous posts i deleted) ... comments may not be though, i think they got dissolved into cyberspace-dom ...

ok. so i'm trying to blog a little more cohesively - you know? put everything in one place. the stress level is starting to creep up again. i now remember why i left home at 17 ... YIKES! living with the parents is enuf to make me pull my hair out!! (oops, well it made me sort of tumble off the wagon ... just a teensy bit ... but i will get back on soon enuf ...).

i am overwhelmed with this desperate throbbing urge to escape. escape ... to my own space. i can feel myself unravelling as the stress level builds - like that loose thread on a piece of clothing. and then i feel the old patterns manifest themselves in responses. dissociative. so dissociative. i realize i have this almost pathological fear of getting swallowed up. its like the borg: 'you will be assimilated, resistance is futile.' WHAT IF I DON'T WANT TO BE ASSIMILATED!!! ?? this two becomes one stuff - you know the stuff of coupledom? its crap. I AM ONE ALREADY. i wanna stay that way ... (except for gestating, of course).

anyway ... the light of elucidation is less blinding these days and i am really enjoying the scenery that long seemed hidden in the murky fog of living with closed eyes. its such a trip. wow ... is all i can say.

words of wisdom from maya angelou

2006-05-24T11:25:00.000-05:00

"I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow."
"I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights."
"I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life."
"I've learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as "making a life."
"I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance."
"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back."
"I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision."
"I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one."
"I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone.
"People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back."
"I've learned that I still have a lot to learn."
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

i received this in an email today ... thought i would share it all with you on my mother's 75th birthday (wow - 75 ... ).

happy birthday, mum.

hey, dawg --- you're awesome!

2006-05-16T19:19:00.000-05:00

thanx to K9 for this ...

"one part daffodil and one part cold fury. mix well. stand back."

my mother's day wish

2006-05-14T16:11:00.000-05:00

happy mother's day to all mothers out there. you are the cornerstones, you know? i did not get a hallmark, or flowers, or some corny earrings. i got something far more beautiful, something sweet as the drops from a honeycomb - a letter of love, written from the heart. its so special i wanted to share it with all of you.

On this *th mother’s day of ours,
it is with sincere gratitude that I wish you

a very happy Mother’s Day

Although just a wish, wishes being as ephemeral as a courtship promise of the moon
or the dream in a lottery ticket, the gratitude in this wish
is as profound as the sincerity that ruled our relationship

When I needed a dependable partner, you were there for me
when our boys needed a Mother, you were there for them
when our hounds needed a shepherd, you were the steward of their cause

These life altering achievements beacon your inner strength like a structure’s keystone

In your life quest for self actualization, you can rely on yourself for you have the warmth of comfort,
the heart of a home and the resilience of stone

You are the key; unlock your life and live long and prosper

Happy Mother’s Day

interesting?

2006-05-10T22:37:00.000-05:00

wandering scribe ... not sure what to make of this. not a bad read, though the hard ass part of me just says, 'cry me a river.' really. sorry if you think this is heartless, but its a free country and that's my fucking opinion, ok? so fucking deal with it!!!

i work hard to the point of insanity for my income. it hurts my mind, body and soul sometimes. but i love what i do ... i was made for it, it gives me purpose. i am sick and tired of having so many around me expect something for nothing. gawd ... its insulting and downright offensive!

i appreciate that people fall on hard times ... i also know that EVERYONE has a sad story. no one has the market cornered on suffering or a shitty life. so, telling people you are homeless and living in your car, blogging at the library and pursuing a book deal ... and then fucking asking them for paypal donations ... i think ... what a scam ... call me a cynic, call me vitriolic ... but if you bothered to read my profile you will see that it's all there.

ok ... whew! glad i got that one off my chest ... i feel better now ...

yeaaaay ... cheque's in the mail ...

2006-05-10T20:04:00.000-05:00

along with my application for nursing licensure in the state of tennessee!! i sent it via express-post so it will get there sometime next week (lol otherwise i may still be waiting by the turn of the century ... ;^) ...) so now i wait until they receive the application and 'qualify' me to write the NCLEX and then i fork out some more money and fill out some more paper (oh those poor trees ... ) and pay some more inflated postal rates to expedite my NCLEX application to PA. whew! i will get there ... really i will ... and when i do - the taste of it all will be soo very sweet.

progress ... despite all the steaming brown piles of shit stacking up around me ... there is progress. yeehaaa!!

culturally de-void?

2006-05-09T15:23:00.000-05:00

sad ... truly sad at my recent visit to a bookstore. actually i couldn't believe it. i was walking around the store, looking for roots. when i didn't see it on the shelf, i wondered if maybe i didn't see it because i looked in the wrong place - i thought alex haley wrote the book ... but when i didn't see it on the shelves, i wondered if maybe i thought wrong.

so i went to ask the clerk. she could not have been more than 23 and she looked at me like i had a horn growing outta my head when i asked her if she could tell me who authored roots. lol - i suspect she thought it was a book on plants or something ... so, of course, she had no clue of roots. had never heard of it ... can any of u believe this? i'm sure she could have told me a whole bunch of shit about sophie kinsella, or the da vinci code. sad, though, she could not tell me anything about a book that depicts undisputed fact - the darkest corner of humanity ... (i gotta tell you - to me slavery seems darker, more tragic than our favourite tragedy, the holocaust.)

what does this say about us? the store clerks don't know about a most important book of the 20th century and said book is not even on the shelves for sale ... am i the only one worried about this? disgusted by this? i truly hope not. and i truly think all the hot air we blow out when we say bullshit like 'never again' ... 'we must never forget' ... its such a steaming brown load of crap ...

history repeats itself ... and we still stupidly read the history that is written by the 'winners' of humanity ... how truly discouraging and sad this makes me feel.

spread the love ...

2006-05-09T03:08:00.000-05:00

click here

10 days and 10 nights ...

2006-05-08T03:25:00.000-05:00

that's how long since i left. i haven't left entirely, i suppose - for i still go there frequently. where do i reside? well, for now i reside inside myself. i sleep in the spare room of my mum's place, and a few of my things dot the room that had become the great book depository before i crashed mum's gate. the bulk of my belongs remain in some damp, cold storage locker 3 km from here. and shreds and shard of my life ... they still reside at that other place, along with the man and co-pilot whose life grew into my own. and the dog ... 10 years old ... the last remaining dependent. pieces of me ... tender, blazing shrapnel ... lie in waiting. in waiting for what? for me to shine my shrill and shrieking light on them. waiting for me to rescue them. to rediscover them - you know - the way one discovers a cherished possession thought lost and gone forever?

this solitude - well its not really a solitude but it sort of is - this rediscovery ... it leaves me awe-filled daily. i listen to myself, to my body. it tells me things. i suppose it has tried to tell me these things all along - but i was submerged and could not hear. or perhaps i heard, but did not truly listen. what have i learned? my body - every cell in my body - wants to grow and nourish and deliver a new life. without a doubt. i love. i'm amazed ... but i love. i - who thought myself a shell enclosing a shrivelled and blackened heart - i have the capacity for enormous, voracious love.

this ... discovery. i see now that i have secretly (secret in the sense of unbeknownst to me) searched for what's missing. comfort, habit, the enduring ... i had sunk so much into all of these ...to the point of submergence. this life ... it sort of swallowed me - like Jonah, swallowed by the great whale. assimilated - i think i got assimilated. where do i begin and where does this life begin? this life ... its just circumstance ... its not me - not my essence. what a simple thought. and a truly startling revelation.

so ... velvet continues her journey ... her expedition ... into herself. i feel like some sort of wreckless and bold explorer. dear readers, who the fuck knows what velvet will discover next!

the way it should be?

2006-05-07T19:24:00.000-05:00

Photo: Craig Morey, morey studio

submerged

2006-05-06T02:30:00.000-05:00

I am lost ... submerged in the murky seas of longing, desire and nostalgia. How to a find my way out of this wreckage? Can I reach the surface before I suffocate? Can the boat be rebuilt? Did we ever really have a boat?

I wonder how long i felt that way. How long you felt that way. Looking back, i can't say, for certain. The feeling - it welled up inside me like an angry, infected welt. It seem benign, at first. An inocuous blemish of sad longing staining the soul. Only, it didn't dissipate or shrink. And by the time I realized how tender that barren and isolated part of my soul felt the wheels had long begun to turn. The wheels of circumstance that drove me away.

I honestly thought i had lost all capacity to feel or give love. And I certainly did not believe I had it in me to fall in love. In all honesty, I felt like that old, rusted out BBQ - the one that sits forlorn and weathered by the elements - devoid of fuel. I wondered about myself - particularly the who and what.

We started out with 2 sons. The second one we never really had, so losing him seemed to end the bitter loss of every day spent with him, of every important developmental landmark missed and of the shameful realization that he could not love us in return. The first one, he grew up. Isn't that what they're supposed to do? Grow up and leave us? Spread their wings and find their own way? Of course, it is. But nonetheless, their departure creates a gaping hole. A defining role, a major purpose, a bridge, if you will, to the other entity of this marriage - you - GONE.

Is that when the restless and sad longing seeded inside me? Or was it there all along, kept satiated by the intense demands of motherhood, and that perfect suburban life I had carved myself in the little bubble called my life? I dunno. Does it matter? Maybe I may never really know. I just know that I had this intense desire to run ... get out ... get away. What did I run from? Nothing appeared wrong with my life or with you. Nothing I could put my finger on. Yet I had this incredible need to disengage.

Its almost as though I felt submerged in water. I had to come up for air. And then? And then? I dunno. That all depends on if I even make it to the surface before suffocating.

Submerged.

evocative ...

2006-05-06T01:07:00.000-05:00

don't u think?
this photograph gets me in some twisted way.
it strokes that cruel and dark corner of my heart and soul.
a most brilliant piece of art ...

Photo: gunther blum, wasteland

i'm a monkey ...

2006-05-04T22:54:00.000-05:00

thanx to K9 for inspiring this post ...

No task is too great for the clever Monkeys. They master most anything. They have extremely charming manners that draw others. Monkeys solve difficult problems with ease.They are quick-witted,innovative, and they have total and intense belief in themselves. No one delights in their own accomplishments like the Monkeys. Enjoying themselves immensely, they try anything at least once! Monkeys are intellectual and their memory is phenomenal. They recall the smallest details of everything they have seen,read, and heard. They must depend on that memory since they have an otherwise untidy mind. Monkeys are wizards with money. They are original, shrewd, and when they need to, they can fool anyone.There are a hundred and one fantastic schemes they want to try, and you can bet they make some of them work. Even when they take you in, it is hard to be angry with them, or begrudge them anything. They don't care what opinions others have of them. They know they are lucky, and they also know they have the ability to change things when convenience calls. Monkeys are virtually unsinkable! When the odds are stacked against them, Monkeys know when to quit. Their timing is superb, and they will wait to try another time. If you try to trick Monkeys, they will probably catch you. They never make a move without a plan. They are great strategists. They can spot an opportunity in any form. They never miss a trick!

Monkeys are hard workers once they have a piece of the action. The bigger the piece, the better they do. Monkeys like to travel, and they want to do it first class.They need a certain amount of excitement in their lives.

Since Monkeys get what they want without too much trouble, they may not care about all their conquests. They lose interest quickly and must learn to finish what they start and take care of what they have. People always flock around Monkeys,but Monkeys don't trust very much. They know a select group of friends that they choose carefully. Money is a must for Monkeys, and they usually have it, or will be in the process of getting it.They know nothing is permanent. They improve and try to do better, and often amaze even themselves. Monkeys like facts and they hateto waste time. Always remember, Monkeys don't care if you approve of them or not, and if not careful, you will be eating right out of their hands! They are the ultimate diplomats and slip in and out of difficulties with ease.

(taken from: rainfall)

shreds

2006-04-30T21:46:00.000-05:00

shreds ...

that's how it all turned out ... shreds. how, exactly, did this happen? i mean, it feels like i woke up and found my life like this ... shreds. WTF??? where, i wonder, was i when it all fell to shreds? drowning ... ? perhaps. drowning in a sea of identity thru others. velvet, mother. velvet, wife. velvet, existing only in relation to the others in her life. velvet, brutally wounded by the bayonettes called anger, grief, parenting. parenting ... we all want it. that's because we have no idea how horribly difficult, isolating and painful it really is ... and because we don't count on getting a child that's defective ... unable to fit the mold we so desperately want it to fit ... unable to even love its parents.

shreds. each and every day. the defective child ... the one the parents grieve, despite his physical presence. each day a new feeling of loss superimposed on top of the old feelings of loss. each day, the violent slap of unrequited love ... the painful desperation of knowing i love and do not receive any in return. shreds ... each parent, consumed in grief, anger, desperation. grief, with no closure. never closure. only a dull aching and a feeling of failure. FAILURE.

consumed. this thing ... consumed us. or ... we allowed ourselves to be consumed. does it matter now? we are empty nesters ... empty being the key word. we are left in the nest ... feeling empty, they have emptied us out ... the children of this marriage. what remains? two empty shells ... formerly known as ourselves. who are we? who am i? who is he? what are we doing here? besides brooding, brooding, and spewing unhappiness. when does love become habit ...? when does need become habit? habit ... an action one engages in without consideration. is that what we have become?

how does one extract oneself from the tangles of grief, anger, isolation, guilt, emptiness? can there be salvation? can there be redemption ...? i mean, redemption for the relationship ...? does anything remain to be redeemed? does whatever remains WANT to be redeemed? that, dear readers, is quite the question. isn't it?

left the uncomfortable zone

2006-04-28T01:41:00.000-05:00

as in leaving the (un)comfortable zone ... as in all my doubts regarding the right course action had left me. what do i feel? not sadness, not anger, just ... just ... immense relief. like, i can exhale now.

recovery

2006-04-26T04:06:00.000-05:00

i read in a recent news item, shimon peres quoted as saying israelis have not yet recovered from the holocaust. ok. at the risk of being labelled ... i will ask what others may be afraid to ... WTF??? one wonders ... really, really wonders ... when does the world get to hear about the OTHER holocausts that have taken place since WWII? or are we just supposed to keep whining about something that happened over 60 years ago at the expense of everyone else?

the irony is ... for a people that are heard saying 'never again' ... they sure seem so guilty of breaking that vow. just sayin' is all. (don't lynch me, ok? last time i checked it was a free country and so ... this is what i think. so deal with it!) and ... well, i guess we're not supposed to think of bosnia ... rwanda ... all those places where mass genocide has occured.

it really is true ... the more things change the more they stay the same. how sad. how truly sad. i think our children are hearing the phrase 'never again' ... but these seem hollow words ... with no actions to back them up.

the word hypocrit comes to mind ...

beauty and joy

2006-04-25T16:29:00.000-05:00

i was inspired by Infini ... aka Contessa ... to share this picture (taken in 1991), which captures the beauty and joy of my life ... if i accomplish nothing else in this life ... at least i have accomplished this:

such bullshit!

2006-04-23T21:25:00.000-05:00

ok. so ... several retired generals are calling for rumsfeld's ass ... hmmmm - telling, isn't it? don't really think anything more needs to be said ... here is where you can read the story, in full.

here's another sickening tidbit ...

"The Pentagon has also found a novel way of recovering some of the $240 billion it has spent to fight its losing war in Iraq: charge soldiers for gear destroyed in battle. First Lieutenant William 'Eddie' Rebrook IV, a 25-year old West Virginian, found out about this new military income stream the hard way. He was riding in the turret of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle last year when it was hit by a roadside bomb. Rebrook's right arm was wounded and he was picked up by a Black Hawk helicopter and taken to a combat hospital in Baghdad. When he returned his gear in early this year, prior to heading home, he was ordered to pay nearly $700 for the equipment that was destroyed in the attack, including $570 for the Kevlar vest he had been wearing. Not really knowing what to do, Rebrook borrowed the money from his pals in the First Cavalry Division and paid the US Army." (Graydon Carter, "Editor's Letter" in Vanity Fair: April 2006, pp. 69-70)

and ... apparently members of the CIA get fired for leaking classified information. read about it here so, why don't those 'leakers' in the White House get fired? is this yet another example of the goddamned double standard at work here? likely ...

ok. so Osama has put out a new tape. unfortunately, a lot of what he says in this latest tape makes sense ... too bad he thinks the way to solve this issue is with bombs and using planes as weapons of mass destruction ... there must be some other way?

FOR FUCK'S SAKE! isn't there anything good going on in the world?

a little piece of heaven

2006-04-16T03:57:00.000-05:00

room 1025

2006-04-16T03:17:00.000-05:00

november. ottawa. oh ... so many years ago. i remember the room number - 1025. i will never forget. you did not want me to meet you, there, so many years ago. but i didn't listen. i insisted - followed you there. and you acquiesced. how could you refuse me? you never could refuse me. i knew your weakness --me. when i arrived, at the door of 1025, you answered, wearing all black. you had the monday night football on the tele. and that smile painted on your face. desire - it oozed from your pores.

i felt ... wow ... exhilarated. was this really happening? i had waited so long to spend the night with you ... and at times never believed it would happen. and then - there it was. it felt good. like a dream. and we enjoyed each other. forgot about the reality - the unchanged reality that waited for us at home. and we ate together, walked together, talked together, slept together. i got so hot under the covers i had to go out on the balcony -- melting snow you called it. that was our joke after that. i believed i loved you -- i always wonder if you ever loved me.

i still carry in my heart your leaving. it was friday morning. you had to go to hull, you said. it was early. you got ready in silence -- gathered your things. i felt invisible, like i wasn't there. you had already started to shut me out. i laid there, under the covers. despair, like an occlusive heaviness, sat in my throat. i could not move, or barely speak. did you know? could u feel how i felt? and then you left the room. just left - took a cursory glance around the room, smiled a phoney smile and left.

do you know how cheap and used i felt? i cannot even tell you. but i was so young, so tender. and so vulnerable. and you left me. it hurt. and ... about 15 years later ... i can still recall the stinging in my heart as though it were fresh. each time i think of you. i feel that dark feeling in my heart when i think of you ... leaving me. leaving room 1025. 1025. the leaving room.

northern belle

2006-04-15T19:56:00.000-05:00

i have finally figured it out. all this time i thought i had an attitude problem. nah ...! that's not it at all. my problem is i'm really a southern belle. i was just born in the fucking prairie nowhere land of canada.

ahhh - canada. land of mediocrity. where we are happy to be mediocre. think about it. what are we good at? being passive and lame. canada ... a place whose reputation precedes itself. really. its true. in more ways than i care to explain.

so. that's it. i've had it. i'm tired of donating 45 % of my income to taxes for ... for ... for ... what??? hmmmm ... i'm not sure, really. not sure at all.

at the window ...

2006-04-15T16:21:00.000-05:00

i could not have slept very long ... the clock said 0359 just before i drifted off, and when i awoke dawn had not yet descended. i did not think to look at the clock. i did not feel fully conscious. i found myself in that sleep purgatory - that place that affords me awareness, with virtually no capability of moving my body. nonetheless, i am positive this was not a dream - no ... this felt very real, indeed.

she appeared there, at the window. again. i could not see her facial features in the darkness. she appeared by my window, located right by my front door - a shadowy figure, a sillouette. i'm sure it was the same woman i had seen a few days before. her energy ... it felt the same. desperate, longing, needy. she did not speak though ... just wildly gestured.

i still can't, for the life of me, figure out what she was trying to communicate to me. she waved a piece of cloth ... a t-shirt, or towel, perhaps? i dunno. she waved it wildly ... it flapped in the light spring breeze. the sky behind her ... starry and deep dark velvet. the air ... still and silent. she danced around on the landing outside my window and front door, wildly waving this piece of cloth. she would not go away. i could not see the expression on her face. i did not really need to. the whole thing ... i found way too trippy. and ... not at all in a good way.

i tried to speak ... no words. i cannot speak when in sleep purgatory. not even to scream for help. and so ... i must find some other way to get her to go away, leave me in peace. i could not move my legs. i could, however, lift my arm ... with so much effort. i had no idea my arm could feel so heavy. and ... i had no idea it could require so much concentration to flip somebody the bird. you know, give them the finger. but ... i did. she saw me ... saw the sign. and she left.

but, she did not leave before taking my peace of mind (something that has always been fragile at best since childhood) and any notion i had that i am safe in my own home. so ... shall we take the blue pill? or the red pill? it's like that, isn't it? we all float around our lives, clinging to the illusions of safety and peace of mind ... its a FUCKING RUSE, folks. safety? peace of mind? who, among us, has these? no one, i dare say. like the animals in the jungle ... that's us.

but ... human's are worse, because they derive pleasure at inflicting unpleasantries on their fellow humans. that, in my opinion, makes us lower that the lowest life form.

note: this story is NOT a work of fiction ... just so you know

nothing is what it seems ...

2006-04-14T17:37:00.000-05:00

things i am thankful for

2006-04-13T18:08:00.000-05:00

i am not dying;
nor is anyone i hold in any kind of esteem or affection;
i have a son, and
as far as i am aware:
he is still alive,
has not been kidnapped by anyone,
and has not been sacrificed to some misguided military cause;
i have use of my arms and legs,
i can breath without mechanical assistance,
i can swallow food,
i can control my bodily functions,
i can wipe my ass without help
i am not bleeding from any bodily oriface

that is all i can think of ...

open heart

2006-04-12T17:49:00.000-05:00

a movie. it was on the movie central - this evening. it is based on a true story: this story. it is what nursing is like here. sick ... fucked up. its why i'm leaving this country. though, i must admit ... i have my doubts whether it will be any different anywhere else.

yet, another nail in the coffin, where my esteem of the human race is concerned.

manchurian candidate ...

2006-04-11T16:21:00.000-05:00

the remake, not the original. i just saw this movie. very good, i thought. why do i like this movie? well, because i think its a very accurate portrayal of how selfish, vile, and destructive humans are. it seems the way of the world, doesn't it? just use, abuse, walk all over others ... to achieve your end. who gives a flying fuck how many you take out along the way.

after all, every war has casualties, doesn't it?

and that, folks, is exactly why the only individual i will ever really trust is my dog.

HUMANS ARE HIGHLY OVER-RATED.

i want to write

2006-04-10T13:53:00.000-05:00

something ... but all the anger, vitriole, rage have turned everything into stone. vitriolic ... i quite like that word. think sulfuric acid ... that's me. corrosive - that describes it, in a word. why am i angry? oh, FUCK! why not? being happy, trusting and all fucking care bear about life - that's such a load of shit. who are we kidding, anyhow?

i will just be my wonderfully corrosive self. (btw if you don't like it, then fuck you) and that way, i keep everyone at bay. its so much safer that way. you know, people only wanna know you when things are sun shiny ... not when the storm clouds are overhead. suits me just fine, actually. people are just out for what they can get. so, i say - fuck 'em.

i am just looking for an excuse ... hah! i don't really need one ... i feel quite hateful sitting here by myself, actually. and ... you're all full of shit if you're sitting there, thinking all that 'new age' crap -- it does feel quite liberating ... quite good. at least i'm honest enuf to admit it.

FUCK THE WORLD AND EVERYONE IN IT.

i think that should be my new mantra.

a spike thru the skull

2006-04-10T01:22:00.000-05:00

I have heard, in the past several days, so much fucking BULLSHIT about the seal hunt. I feel the need to put my two cents' worth on the table.

first, i will say you all need to get your facts straight. here is where you will find a worthy news source providing the TRUE facts surrounding the seal hunt. DON'T BOTHER COMMENTING TO THIS POST UNLESS YOU HAVE INFORMED YOURSELF ON THE ISSUE! Reading wires on Yahoo News or reading that crap that IFAW puts out IS NOT INFORMING YOURSELF anymore than reading the National Inquirer is! get your fucking facts straight before shooting your mouthes off! clearly, you don't know what you're talking about - and, frankly it PISSES me off!

i just want to point out that all those photos of the white coats, shown in relations to the seal hunt are quite misleading. the killing of white furs happens to be illegal, and has been since 1987. pehaps if you actually made an effort to learn about this you would sound more informed and intelligent.

and, while we are on the topic of killing young animals, perhaps you did not know that those veal cutlets you love so much are actually young cattle. did you know that these are cattle that have been deprived of grass all their young lives, kept in the dark, and fed a diet of milk powder? likely not ... you all sound like the type that thinks veal comes from your grocer's freezer! well, hun - think again! are you hooked now? you wanna learn more?

as for the 'carnage' of it all. how hypocrtical. have you been to a slaughter house? do you know how they slaughter all that steak, bacon, ham and veal cutlet? well here's a lesson for you meat lovers out there who think the seal hunt is carnage.

pigs are electrically shocked on their heads and cattle are stunned by a blow to the head with a bolt gun, the throat is slit, and they get hung up by their hind legs to bleed out. the blood that they bleed out is used to make sausage! and i will spare you the details of how pigs get their canine teeth, their tails and their testicles cut off - without any anesthetic - even before they get to the slaughter house! think about this next time you enjoy your bacon and eggs, will you?

and this is routine animal husbandry and meat processing - ROUTINE!

so - think about that, all you outraged animal lovers ... next time you bite into that juicy steak or burger. We are no better that the seal hunters and that's that f*cking truth!

Oh yeah ... and before you worry about what Stephen Harper is smoking you may want to be worried about why the jack ass who is running your country thinks he can leak classified information to bolster support for his illegal war!

i saw your mother today

2006-04-08T17:16:00.000-05:00

edwin. a crushed soul. crushed ... and shattered. and the shards cut deep. oh, edwin, such sorrow oozes from each of her pores. and still, she asks how i'm doing. when i touch her hand -- it stings. it stings me, edwin ... you know the stinging when you touch your eye after chopping onions? like that. her pain engulfs me. there's so much of it. it fills this place, this store where you got shot in the head over $47.

i now know why i have felt such fear of entering the store. the energy of your death, the crushing grief your parents feel, at missing you. i feel it. every molecule, every drop of sorrow and grief. my heart, my soul ... they remember this pain, this suffering. plucked away, edwin - this feeling, it's the feeling of 'plucked away.' the most beautiful, well-rooted and healthy feather ... plucked away. your parents, they witnessed what no parent should have to -- watching their own son die violently at the hands of another human. and they continue to live and work in that very place you lost your life.

Edwin ... can you breath some gentle comfort into the heart of your mother ... and shine some soft hope onto your father's anguished soul?

leaky lewis?

2006-04-07T18:21:00.000-05:00

soo ... now the white house is trying to convince the world that the president declassified the information, as opposed to leaking classified information (or authorizing said leakage) ...? FUCK! come one dubya ...! how stupid do you think we are anyway ...?

why can't you just admit that you had no fucking legal reason to go to war ... but you were sooo desperate to play soldier ... that you just made up a reason! now that we have discovered who is really responsible for leaking classified information ... now will you live up to your promise? what was that again, you said you would do to those information leakers? ... hmmmm we can only hope that was not just another one of your bullshit stories, dubya.