Wednesday, December 24, 2008
handwrit
There is no welcome home so warm
As being greeted with a package
With your name on it, handwritten.
A great white heap of toughened paper,
or maybe brown,
Stamped and sealed
Signed and delivered and signed for.
Seeing my name in handwriting excites me.
The days of notes passed in class are over.
“Do you like Amanda? Tick yes, no or maybe.”
The long letters girls exchange during summers. Confessions of love and pain and apologies Where teardrops fall and indigo blooms on the page-long gone.
My childhood penpals all found me on Facebook.
Now penned mention of my name is limited
To post-it notes and the backs of old envelopes
“Amanda! Drank your juice, will replace later!”
Messages that could refer to any Amanda
Who ever lived and breathed, anywhere.
Here’s my name and address on a package
From a foreign country
Crossed seas and borders and currency exchanges
Sniffed by dogs, weighed, inspected
First class airmail
And letting me know I must be in the right place.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
foliage and tokens
We found an unusual leaf one day on the side walk, and I picked it up. it looked like a yellow fan with a split in the middle of perhaps the tail of an equally unusual bird, and you told me the following day that you had described it to your mom over the phone and she was pretty sure it was from the ginkgo tree. I still have it in my scrapbook at home, glowing golden against a red page and I'm not sure where but I saw the word 'gingko' today and thought about it.
I read a little about the ginkgo tree tonight. Interesting stuff. would you believe it is actually the only remaining genus in it's family which is not extinct and is known as a 'living fossil'?
Also, four ginkgo trees were among the very few living things to survive Hiroshima in 1945, and they are still alive today.
This tree has got stories. And I'm glad I have one of it myself.
Thank you André Michaux for bringing the ginkgo tree from China to North America and into my hand.
And so, I was walking home in the snow today thinking about that sunny day and that sunny leaf and had this flashing image of us, for one instant, sitting under a ginkgo tree in the sun counting each others freckles.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Not okay.
I am not Sarah Palin's biggest fan. Her policies are not supportive of women, their equality or their freedom of choice. In fact, it's pretty fair to say I think she is the worst.
But more than I hate Sarah Palin, I hate the sexist treatment she has received during her vice presidential run. I'm not about to document all the sexist commentaries on the wannabe V.P. since she joined the campaign trail, as there are plenty of blogs out there already doing a great job of that. I just want to mention what I witnessed on election night '08.
I spent Tuesday night at the Bloor Cinema, an old movie theatre in Toronto which was screening CNN's coverage of the election as well as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Indecision '08. The queue stretched down the block and far around the corner, hundreds of people wanting to congregate to watch history happen. The vast majority of the crowd were of course, Obama supporters, with a small number of McCain fans up on the balcony, and we took turns cheering when our respective hope-fulls won over a state. This election has been a pretty passionate affair, so I admit I was a little impressed that no insults were hurled at McCain supporters, or vice versa, even in good nature. But halfway through the night, during a commercial break we were told we were about to get a special treat. A woman in a red coat, high heels and a wig takes to the stage, and begins a short and rather tame burlesque performance, that involves her stripping down to a corset and then transforming into Sarah Palin, skirt suit, specs and all. The crowd cheers. I'm quiet.
Twenty minutes later, we have another novel intermission. It's time for the Sarah Palin look-a-like contest. Apparently, the website encouraged attendees to dress up. The winning contestant was given Hustler's new 'Who's Nailin' Paylin?' DVD, a pornographic tribute to the governer herself. You know, I'm all for political parodies but I'm starting to see one very clear pattern here and I don't like it.
Around 10pm, polls close and it's announced, Barack Obama will be the next president of the USA. The whole theatre leaps up, clapping and cheering and celebrating. I'm pretty moved myself, it's a historic moment, and my faith in American politics and the American people is briefly restored. So a little while later, McCain delivers his speech and as soon as Palin appears on screen some guy in the back yells out "WHORE!" met by a lot of laughter from the crowd.
Wow.
You know, Palin is an awful vice presidential candidate. She does not have near enough experience, she doesn't support sex education in schools even when her own daughter's pregnancy should be enough to teach her abstinence-only approaches do not work, she has made rape victims pay for their own rape kits.. I get it! She's a horrible person! She should be the subject of as much criticism and lampooning as the next underqualified candidate! But ridiculing her based on not only her gender, but also because of her conventional attractiveness, her sexuality? The burlesque dancing impersonater, the porno, and of course the branding of 'WHORE' on a woman who is simply doing her job...not neccessarily a good job, but her job nonetheless.
It really disheartens me.
I mean reallly, whore? A married woman with children who doesn't particularly exhibit any tendencies for promiscuous sex... it's not like she doesn't provide a lot of fodder for insults. I'm all for calling her out on her ignorance, her stupidity, her lack of compassion...
I guess when it comes down to it, when you want to put a woman down, why criticize her for anything legit when the easiest way to defame a woman is to imply she likes to have sex. Because that's so dirty and bad remember? [Here I shall refer you to my previous post on the word Slut..)
Clearly, Palin is not the first woman to be subject to so much gender based abuse. Senator Clinton recived immense sexist coverage, perhaps more negatively so. [Not that I deem sexist commentary of Palin more positive or acceptable just because it at times appeared more "flattering".] While Palin was championed as the hot soccer mom, Clinton was mocked for not being hot enough. Apart from the day she wore that scandalous shirt..
I don't dream of the day a woman becomes the president of the USA. I support people based on their policies, not their race or the gender. But I do dream of a day when a woman can run in a presidential election and be respected as much as any man in the same campaign. When she is not judged for being too attractive or not attractive enough, when the media is not cracking lame between-anchor jokes about how her speeches sound like 'nagging' and her laugh is more of a 'cackle'. When she is neither commenly referred to as a VPILF or the idea of having sex with her is the punchline. When she is insulted, hell, even ridiculed based on her politics, her character and her skeletons in the closet rather than her gender, body and sexuality. Because that is what distinguishes good political satire from tired, cheap shots..
Monday, November 3, 2008
fall
I went to Trinity Bellwoods park today for the first time in a long time. Well, a couple of weeks ago I walked through it with Felix and a couple of weeks before that I was there with Christie on Nuit Blanche but this was the first time since September maybe that I had gone there alone and sat with a book... Except after half a page I closed my book, because those words would be there tonight and tomorrow and the next day, and the park was so alive at this moment in a way it never would be again. The air was chill and yet sitting in the sun's path was warm enough to make me shed my cardigan. It's the time of the season when the ground is covered in leaves, but the trees are still far from bare, resulting in both a carpet and curtains of ambers, crimsons, golds, and bronze. And with the texture of the leaves around, I felt like I were sitting in the midst of a thick oil painting.
So much to see and hear and smile at. Two parents were taking pictures of their one year old son in a bright jumpsuit, staggering through the leaves on his newfound feet. The mom snapped a picture as the dad tossed a whole armful of gathered leaves on the infant like a snowfall.
Squirrels were playing tag in the trees around me, stopping quick and darting after one another, everytime they leapt from one tree to the next another dozen leaves would drift slowly to the ground.
A woman jogs past, turning to keep her eye on her huge English shephard dog, who unusually is black and white giving the impression of a mid sized panda bear galloping behind her.
A couple walk past slowly, and seemingly out of nowhere the guy stops the girl, pushes her hair back and kisses her so passionately it made me jealous.
Another guy coasts passed on a skateboard, being drawn by two dogs on leashes that may as well be reigns as he holds one in each hand.
Three little boys run around in front of me and play wrestle and yell and shriek, and for some reason I can't help but think about how in ten years time they're going to be skipping classes and getting high and some girl will be in love with one of them and how adorable she would think it were if she got to see him now with his bowl haircut and mittens.
Then I lay back against the picnic bench and looked at the sky through the leaves above and relived some nice moments of my own from the past few weeks. It's honestly one of my favourite things to do, just sitting and reliving moments in my head. I shivered and noticed that the earth had moved and I was no longer sitting in the sun's way so I wrapped up and left. Time in the park is good for the soul, and I need to make time for it more often.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
sooner or later
According to my laptop it is 22:23
According to my alarm clock it is 10:33
According to my ipod it is 5:23
According to my phone, and the rest of Toronto, it is 18:23.
According to my empty underwear drawer it is time to do laundry.
According to the fading light and my disappearing silhouette on the wall opposite the window it is time to draw the chinese silk over my window and switch to electric light.
According to my amber reflection I don't want to do this just yet.
According to my goosebumps it is time I got dressed.
According to the cracks in the translucent green plastic it is time for a new toy.
According to these split ends it is time for a haircut.
According to my bestilled beating heart it is time for something new.
According to this impending visit it is time I buy new sheets.
According to this track it is time for the breakdown.
23:21
11:31
6:21
19:21
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Story, bud?
First page.
This is your life and here is your pen. Where do you want to set it? You need an antagonist. You need character development. You need conflict resolution.
What if I want to be my own antagonist?
What if I want the character development to be the conflict resolution?
What if I want to begin with the epilogue and conclude with the setting?
I want to make it one of those 'choose your own adventure' books I loved when I was nine.
I might throw a couple pop-up illustrations in for good measure. Dirty ones.
Perhaps a 'where's wally' style puzzle for chapter 7:finding myself.
You should buy my book. You can put your laptop on it when using it in bed to prevent overheating. [I am doing this now with the Bust Guide to the New Girl Order.]
You could use it as a tray for painting your nails, as Laura and I did last week with her large, hardcover copy of Tattoos and Piercing:an anthology [or something like that.]
As a tool for hitting on boys [ah Kerouac] or you could actually read it [Susan Faludi's Backlash at the moment.]
In my acknowledgements I will thank my junior infants teacher Ms.Scully for teaching me how to write and my sixth class teacher Ms.Clarke for telling me I was good at it and my Leaving Certificate teacher Mr.Chesser for telling me I was wasting my talent and my first year professor, the most recent and the only one whose name I cannot remember for giving me a round of applause and that A+ before I dropped English.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Juice
When you crave juice but the large carton in the fridge shakes empty, do not give up hope. There in the crisper looms a large box of madarins, reach in through the netted plastic veil, lift out one of these orange planets, and admire for a moment its perfect shape and colour, the phenotype of all phenotypes. Only then should you dig your thumbnail under its crust and peel away tectonic plate by plate, letting the acid sting the skin under your nail. Therein lies the pith, clinging to and dulling the glow of the flesh, like mist at sunrise. These cobwebs must be swept away. Gently tug and the vines will detach from the fruit like the world's borders being drawn up and out of an atlas. It is a delicate task, removing the clinging veins without ripping through the organ's flesh, but worth it for a smoother treat with less residual chewing. Orange you glad you did?
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