- no you boys will never know -

...I want a goat.

These words, with subsequent explanation, was my mother's response to my inquiry as to what she wanted for Christmas.

To be specific, she wants to buy a goat for another person, sight unseen, so they can further their living; somewhere else - it doesn't matter to her where, so long as it goes. Somewhere.

I realized, upon logging in to the website she forwarded to me afterward, that the chicken/rooster combo was more in my price range, but raced through the pages - micromanagement loan here, llama there, emergency kit supply over there - of suggested gift ideas, eyes tearing at the (excellent) photography and the message behind it.

It makes my requests - among them an electric wok, Starbucks gift cards, and CDs - seem so banal; extraneous, unnecessary.

Worse yet, that my innate skepticism had me wondering "well, all fine and dandy, but what kind of overhead goes into this slick website and the heartstring-tugging awareness commercials?" (In fairness, definitely less than, say, your average iPod campaign, but.)

It raised a few questions about the ethics of giving, not least in knowing the effect of your gift - and whether it makes it to people in need. Odd that I'm more comfortable with the thought of giving a gift (a picture frame; a bath and body set; movie tickets) that may have been well-thought-out but never used.

They're definitely thoughts to mull on.

But for now, I'm off to buy a rooster.

.
♥ music of the moment: no you girls

- yes much younger than today -

morning reflection

lying beside you, I saw the future
in the curve of your shoulder -
and my words were lost
but just for a moment
only until I realized
they'd been redefined.



. . .


(just a thought)

- waiting and fading and floating away -

Mrrrrrrrr.

Mondays - cold Mondays - are hard days to face, sometimes.

Not much to report, despite just returning from taking a first bite of the lored Big Apple; maybe still a little overwhelmed from the trip.

I'll write something pretty and breathless about it in time. I will.

The city deserves it; deserves a long and thought-filled post with a "love letters" and a "stamp envy" tag. It was a big trip in a lot of ways; it was a wonderful trip in a lot of ways (even if my hands are still callused and blistered from lugging my luggage through the subways; ow, ow! ^_~ A good callback to the days of Japanland, that, and lugging the same through the Tokyo and Kyoto metro, albeit with very different company.)

Missing that Japanland, right about now - but I've discovered a place downtown that serves traditional matcha, and I've worn down/piqued M's curiosity enough to have him agree to go out for a Japanese meal, so at least a few of the aspects I miss will be soothed in the near future.

I also still owe my family at least a few dinners with traditional J-food. (Yikes!)

Recommendations?

But, in the meanwhile?

In the meanwhile, I just want to sleep.

Or possibly rant about voter apathy, but that's a different soapbox altogether. ^^



♥ music of the moment : panic switch

- run like a river; glow like a beacon fire -

I've been mulling on Inglourious Basterds since seeing it with M in the wee hours of Saturday evening.

It's the first movie in a long time that I've walked away from feeling mildly queasy, although in retrospect that could have been the green onion cakes that we snuck into the theatre, much to the likely olfactory dismay of our neighbours - they were grease personified, but delicious. (and definitely not the wisest thing to eat around 11 PM.)

Tarantino is Tarantino - he pushes buttons and envelopes with equal alacrity, and though my face might've been buried in M's shoulder for some of the more gratuitous scenes, at the root of it all I can say I liked the movie. But not without caveats.

The sets/settings were gorgeous, the costumes were great - I'm hunting down some of Diane Kruger's character's shoes at my next opportunity - the soundtrack fantastic (the Morricone, classic; the Bowie shivery and haunting and, like the scene it plays in, impossible to turn from.) Plus, Aldo Raine's accent induced giggles and it looked like Brad Pitt looked like he was having a great time in the role.

But I'm a story girl, and as the story goes - oh, it could've been stronger. I could have done without the scalpings, but keeping them as a plot point and graphic element proved an interesting (and knowing Tarantino, absolutely deliberate) counterpoint to the sniper film-within-the-film; we, as the audience, are observing an audience and their reaction to horrific violence, and judging them in that scene for their laughter and acceptance of the violence - but we too are viewers. We are witnesses, in our own way, to both the shootings and the scalpings. How we react to the movie(s) themselves is just as telling.



♥ music of the moment : young lions

- what if they like it and lock us in a cannery with your accordion -

So, mine is a new view - green and jagged skyline; buildings like the teeth of a saw or a key's blade againts the pastel glow of the sky.

New, and mine.

All seven-hundred-odd square feet of it, from the plants that need re-potting to the life still a third in boxes to the ideas for house-warming dancing around the back of my head to the looping car sirens drifting in from the window. Mine, and not entirely mine; spaces shared always give a little bit of themselves away, to be kept until everyone who is a part of them has returned. That's true of hearts, I'm finding, as much as it's true of spaces, and not just in the obvious ways.

It's curious to learn something isn't heartbreak so much as it is growing pains.

And that's curious, though I can't be surprised at this sudden scrambling, grasping for the strings of the spiderweb I've spun as the world shifts around me (hearts, family, friendships, life) - I saw the changes coming, forever ago.

So, if you can, blame my mind and not my heart if we've lost touch, particularly if it's been recent; know I'm thinking of you.

(Yes. You.)

...although perhaps not at this exact second. ^_~


In any case, take care. ♥



♥ music of the moment: this is the dream of win and regine
.

- summer went straight through your tires -

...and because I'm me, cryptic and quirky all in one day!

Sometimes, the Internet makes me wish for really expensive cable. Why? Because Eurovision looks about fifty gazillion times more fun and over-the-top and ridiculous than American Idol. (Okay, from my half-seconds of watching - sure they can sing, and some of them can even perform, but it's all milquetoast compared to the levels of AWESOME apparently favored on the other side of the Atlantic.(...also, that link may not particularly be the safest thing for work or for the particularly sane.)

I can't help but think I'd spend half my time laughing uncontrollably and the other half with my Japan-patented headtilt in place, wondering what in the world was going on. And at least in this moment that sounds exactly like what television should be.

Speaking of Japan, this seems so Japanesque (and yet not) that the nostalgia, it hurts. Great song by Spoon, though. ♥

Also, when my coworker tells me that the world had thought to combine Katy Perry and polka, I really, really should have known to take him at his word. ^_~ And now it won't leave my head. Potentially ever. (While on the topic of camp, how have I never seen the original video before? Holy man, I'm undecided between being scared and mightily amused - she's one scary lady with her massive bows and ridiculous shorts (and bat-wielding bridesmaids, eep!) ...though I do kinda wish I could pull off her eyeliner, and the headbobbing wedding party is great.) Jury's out.


As am I.



♥ music of the moment: i'm not scared
.

- and the words retreat they're breathing histories -

So.

You know how some things, you say as easy as breathing and leave yourself breathless (save perhaps for a few choice and colourful epithets) in the aftermath?

Well.

Yeah.

♥ .

That's new.




♥ music of the moment: unfold

.

- we go out in stormy weather ; we rarely practice discern -

...San Francisco, I can write - you are a city on full burn; not embers but gold and flame and the flashing blinking colours of a rave.

Since I stepped in this cab I've been composing phrases in my head like I haven't in months: here is Mission and she is a stunning, dark-eyed stranger, but that could be the night and there are murals on the walls we pass - murals and tags, call it as you see it - and uptown mixes with downtown. East, south, turning north by west, and on one of your countless hills, the world is raiding the unknown from the trunk of an abandoned car.

But you name streets for butterflies and your highways resemble nothing so much as they do rollercoasters. You're a city with a whimsy and a deep knowing. Of what I couldn't say; wouldn't - not yet, though the horns sound staccato and the sirens call out around the edges of it. A city of earthquakes, though I'd forgotten that.

Six stories up now, I'm fine with not feeling any - not now. The air, the brick, the skyline on right angles is enough.



(verticality as an art form -
the buildings blend together
in a view without trees
and yet I am breathing)



♥ music of the moment: the way we get by
.

- run for the hills before they burn -

I... am tired.

Tired, but happy. It's been an amazing couple of weeks, an amazing weekend, a great run - lots of good times and special people (in fact, almost all of them; no wonder I'm tired!) - and yet you can almost see the "but" behind my words.

A hesitation - beyond the pyrotechnics and the plane tickets, there feels like there's a change coming. Probably a lot of them!

I wanted an earthquake.

And maybe this is my earthquake - the change in employment, in address (soon!), in heart-state - not least in finding this man who writes of balance and quotes lines of Casablanca (and Finding Nemo; balance, remember?) back at me as we dance around the social politics and out under the stars.

Awake and (if tired) definitely alive.

It's starting to feel like this ground isn't going to stop shifting anytime in the near future.

Now to see if I can shift along with it. Life and the people within it are changing - trusting, stressing, dancing, waiting, confiding - and their words and thoughts chip at my shell that I made to be bulletproof but left weak to compassion; to confidance.

It feels like the start of a movie, where the story can go any which way, and the actors aren't giving away anything to go on. I can live with this, but it makes me itch with curiosity.

With that said, into the labyrinth~!


Also.

LONDON. You get the best concerts ever. Damns, but this would have been fun to be a part of. ♥






♥ music of the moment: this river is wild

- with the thoughts she has caught by a thread -

Fingers to keyboard - go.

It's been a while.

It's not like I haven't thought about writing. I've wanted to - thought about what to say, both here and elsewhere; wanted to pick up my November novel and pull that story into something resembling a manuscript; wanted to write something 'mighty and sublime, left behind to conquer time' (heh; don't we all?) And there have been moments: bouncing ideas off of friends, reworking a lovestory/ghost-story to make it something readable. Publishable? Well. I've scribbled bits of poetry on coiled notebooks, splashing coffee and cilantro broth over half-cursive, half-printed asides in pink ink, but nothing that's stopped me cold. Not yet.

As it is, it seems like I may have the opportunity to report on writing that does catch my breath (or equally fails to.) A friend wants me to join her book-reviewing blogcrew, and I'm considering it. It'd be a great experience - to be part of a team instead of a purely independent blogger, to adhere to deadlines (aha), to reach a wider audience? Sounds pretty cool! We'll see where it goes.

In the meanwhile, my feet are taking me to a new job and on a couple of road trips - first to Calgary (old friends and new loves; brunches and koalas and cupcakes and wanderings and breweries and a probable first stab at Halo - apparently, I've been missing out on something there? We'll see.)

Then next Monday hits - new work - writing work - translating legislative acts into layman-speak and hoping to all listening deities that I get it right. I'm nervous, certainly, but think it's going to be an incredible change.

...I will miss the pythons. Even Thor. I will miss the odd, wonderful randomness that seemed to transpire around the zoo. I don't think I'll ever turn a corner and find myself toe to toe (flipper?) with a sea lion at my new job. Nor will I see an elephant out for her afternoon constitutional. Or cradle a snake with one arm, and craft supplies in the other, whilst singing along to the national anthem in French. I'll have to get used to what's deemed "regular" hours - this may be the biggest change - but it's time for a change and for what it's worth, I'm ready.

And then, once I've found my feet, it's off to San Francisco in May, to pay too much for streetcars and find Mission and Haight; to eat real seafood once again (it's not really-real once it's crossed over mountains.) To hang out at one of Sean Connery's old pseudo-haunts and send resultant pictures to my old Japanese class who learned English idioms by watching "The Rock" - would I kid you, on this point? ^_~

It's going to be, and it has been a couple of crazy, happy, awesome, strange, challenging, and exciting months. Spring is here, says the extra hours of sunlight; says the crocus spikes with their tenacious purple and white flowers; says the fact that all the snowshoe hares in town are finally dressing down... and I'm happy to see it.

I hope you're well. Starry nights, and cheers! ♥



♥ music of the moment : her morning elegance

- smiled and said 'yes i think we've met before' -

Valentine's Day is always such an interesting time of year.

...I'll reserve comment on the fact that so far, three boyfriends (!) have broken up with me around this festive occasion (what; flowers aren't that expensive! ^_~) but on a positive note, this latest one might just take my hand in friendship, now; one benefit concert, one symphony, and possibly one cd release party tonight later, and... there are no sparks but there's warmth, again. Of course it amused me, meeting his parents for the first time whilst wrapped in half-light and lace at the benefit.

"So, this is the girlfriend you never met," he told them.

(Eloquent, my ex-guy? Well, sometimes. But I liked his parents; his mom with her intelligent eyes and his dad with his smiles and James Dean tie. So it wasn't a wash, though I could have wished for a slightly higher neckline on my shirt of choice that day.)

I dreamt of ex-lovers and never-lovers, last night; those who danced on the periphery and those who have danced on, taking sands from the Valley of Doom and bass solos and books of poetry with them. I dreamt of walking long distances through a world that kept changing; of rickety boardwalks over lagoons haunted by carnivorous fish, of the winding road past a mountain retreat that I love, of a half-abandoned not-quite Tokyo Disneyland, where I followed a friend and never quite seemed to catch up. Pirate ships and carnival rides and people who live half the world away, quite literally. I'm not sure what my head was trying to tell me, but I think it was hinting at peace. As I woke, I was struck with the desire to reach out; to see how they were, where they were, if the stories they were weaving were any closer to finding an ending.

Maybe I will.

But not today.

Today is for lovers, and (oddly, strangely, for once in my life) love's not what I'm seeking.


♥ music of the moment : your ex-lover is dead

- it's not a slow dance this modern romance -

I miss the tiny earthquakes.

There's something wrong with that sentence, something not entirely sane. But the earthquakes in Japan - the little ones, at least - were effective reminders of mortality as much as they were conversation fodder: did you feel it too?; where were you?; let's dance, we're alive.

This minus-thirty coldsnap is less poetic though prettier - the sparkle of hoarfrost on the dying birch outside my window puts to shame any of the pots of glitter languishing unused at the back of my cosmetic drawer. Cold is reactionary. The cold season is one of reaching for blankets, for the arms of friends and paramours to steady stutter-steps on ice-slicked sidewalks, is telling stories and drinking mugs of summer steeped in linen sachets to bring feeling back. But earthquakes are revolutionary - they shook the ground, they shook me awake; awake, and alive.

(Halfway to hibernation, I need that jolt now more than ever.)


♥ music of the moment: into the dark (...and I want that piano-thing. XD)
.