Fire Department Service - A Comparative Analysis

Twice now, once in 2001 and once just last weekend, I have had the chance to witness what happens when someone gives in to the temptation to hang something from the sprinkler in their apartment. (Oh, as an aside ... never do that.) Allow me to compare my experiences, point-by-point:

The Location:
2006 - nice newish apartment building on Main Street.
2001 - social housing on East Hastings; front door surrounded by drug dealers.

The Clumsy One/"Victim":
2006 - a new father & churchgoing man, preparing his family for the day's wholesome activities.
2001 - a drug addicted man on welfare.

The Time:
2006 - early Sunday morning.
2001 - a weekday afternoon.

The Details:
2006 - it was all over in less than two hours. I barely even rolled out of bed, and it was happening right next door! The building alarm was turned off after maybe half an hour and life returned to normal. The firemen were efficient and discreet.
2001 - the building alarm went off for hours on end, loud enough to bring a junkie back from Xanadu. All the tenants with any mobility at all cleared out. The water just kept running and running and running ... it was pouring down the halls and stairwells and pooling in the courtyard. It seemed the entire Fire Department was tramping through the building, tying up the elevator and the stairs. They were disrespectful to the building's residents, and barely respectful to the manager and security staff. No-one informed the tenants whether it was safe to stay in the building. I approached a fireman as he waited for the elevator, smiling, planning to ask him what was going on, but before I even opened my mouth, he jabbed his finger at me and screamed into my face, "DON'T! EVER! HANG! ANYTHING! FROM THE SPRINKLER!" (Did I mention that I lived three floors down and at the other end of the building from the guy who hung something from his sprinkler?) But what did I know, it was my first year in the Downtown Eastside, and I wasn't yet aware that just by being there, I was fair game for the venting of contempt from the mainstream. I just held up my hands in a warding-off pose and said "Whoa. Don't scream at me please." He turned his back and stalked away without another word.


In both cases, it took more than a week of these big blue hairdryers blowing round the clock to dry out the walls and floors.

Inspired by Funksteena; originally from Newageamazon.

"Here's how you play:

Make a music mix featuring one song from every year you've been alive.  Doesn't have to be a top ten single, but should be listed by Wikipedia as either being a top single in that year, or as having the album the song appeared on released that year.  Look at your life in music.  Or, you know, don't."

1973. Danny's Song - Anne Murray.  There was no escaping Anne Murray in Canada in the 70s.

1974. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/Yellow Submarine/Abbey Road.  My parents were of the age to have a few Beatles records lying around ... I honestly thought it was kid's music!  Especially George Harrison's compositions.

1975. Magic Man - Heart.  Yup, I have always been a metalhead.  I can remember chillin on the kitchen table in one of those baby chairs while mom cooked dinner, listening to this album and wondering what was so magic about the man anyway.

1976. Gordon Lightfoot - The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.  My dad liked to play his favourite songs for us kids when we were little.  And then we'd sing them full blast while bombing around the backroads of farm country.  That's how I learned about Three Dog Night, Jim Croce, Hank Williams, and of course this all-time Canuck classic.

1977. Riders on the Storm - The Doors.  Picture if you will an old wagon rut of a rural road, winding up a hill out in the arse end of farm country.  A blizzard is blowing and you can't see where the road ends and the fields begin.  The snowbanks are higher than my dad is tall.  We're driving along, slowly, my dad & I, when there's this loud thump and the car skids to a stop on a pile of wet snow.  Dad gets out to survey the damage ... rummages in the trunk for the shovel ... puts on the radio to keep me company, and sets to digging us out.  Guess what song comes on?  Yup.  Skeeeery!

1978. Too Much Heaven - The Bee Gees. Heard on the radio while securely strapped in, riding around in a car.

1979. Hot Butter - Popcorn.  Ditto - backseat memories.

1980. The Guess Who - These Eyes. I spent a lot of time in the backseats of
cars as a kid, listening to whatever my parents were into.  My dad had this mixtape of folk rock hits that we listened to in the car when he picked us up from mom's on his weekends & drove us back to the farm ... my sis & I got so into it that we insisted on hearing it over and over and over again ... until dad got tired of it and "lost" the tape.

1981. J. Geils Band - Centerfold.  My sister & I used to shake our cans to this one ... thought we were so grown up.

1982. Culture Club - Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? I remember seeing the video, and then the album cover in the store, and wondering if Boy George was really a boy.

1983. INXS - Original Sin.  My aunt (she's only 10 years older than me) made a stack of mixtapes, and some of her selections are still my favourite songs.  Then she grew out of New Wave music and gave all the tapes to me!

1984. Sunglasses At Night - Corey Hart.  Again, there was no escaping it.  The government required all girls to have a crush on Corey Hart in the 80s ... it was a CRTC regulation.  CanCon triumphs!




1985. Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill. Of course I was the only kid my age who liked this song & video ... I was way ahead of my time :)

1986. Rock Me Amadeus - Falco. When I discovered that there's more to be explored in the world besides American pop culture and CanCon subsidized pop.

1987. Duran Duran - The Chauffeur.  I had a very rich fantasy life when I was 14-15 (and beyond).  I used to imagine that I was European royalty but was raised in obscurity in Canada, only to become a legendary rock star, reclaim my heritage and take over the world.  I  picked out all the most melodramatic pop songs I knew and arranged them into my dream discography, mixed it all onto cassettes, and even designed a live show.  The Chauffeur was my closing number.  It's just as well not all fantasies come true, isn't it viewers?

1988. S-Express - Theme from S-Express.  This was big the year I went on a highschool exchange to France.

1989. Jane's Addiction - Stop!

1990. Harry Connick, Jr - Recipe For Love. My mom was thrilled that, for a brief moment in time, we liked the same musician ... and he wore a suit!  That didn't last long.  We listened to this cd while driving from Toronto to Boca.

1991. Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana.  'Nuf said.

1992. Ministry - N.W.O. Back in the 90s my mom's car had a big-ass engine and a wicked sound system.  I always had my copy of Psalm 69 with me when I was driving by myself.  I preferred to roll at a steady 30kph over the posted speed limit.

1993. Metallica - One.

1994. Reel 2 Real - I Like To Move It.  I worked in a nightclub 5 nights a week for six months ... they played this every single night.  Also Whigfield's Saturday Night, and Swamp Thing by The Grid.

1995. The Lady of Shallott - Loreena McKennitt.  The Tennyson poem set to music.  Loreena KcKennitt has my dream life.  

1996. I was into traditional Celtic music around this time.

1997. I Couldn't Get High - The Fugs. Great party song!

1998. Goin' Out West - Tom Waits.  Thinking about going out west.

1999. San Andreas Fault - Natalie Merchant.  This was the year I moved west.

Go west
Paradise is there
You'll have all that you can eat
Of milk & honey over there
You'll be the brightest star
The world has ever seen
Sun-baked slender heroine
Of film & magazine

Your pale blue eyes
Strawberry hair
Lips so sweet
Skin so fair
Your future bright
Beyond compare
It's rags to riches
Over there

2000. I'm Not Angry - Elvis Costello.  I was really f'in angry.

2001. Radiohead - Kid A. When I first started getting hopelessly hooked on the Interwebz, I used to sit up all night with this on my headphones, followed by Tool's Lateralus, and then back to Kid A, & so on, & so on...

2002. America Is Waiting - Brian Eno/David Byrne. Around this time I was hanging around a lot with some artist friends, and we loved to get together & yak about art, politics & philosophy.  One of them liked to get drunk (a lot) and declaim on learned topics like the works of James Joyce and Salvador Dali ... once, he lectured us on his interpretation of My Life In the Bush of Ghosts ... really smart guy!  Then they moved back to Toronto - quitters!

2003. ESG - Step Off

2004. Oh - Sleater Kinney.

2005. Fuck the Pain Away - Peaches.

2006. Feuer Frei! - Rammstein. I couldn't get enough Rammstein for a while there.  This particular song I have in a folder titled "Wakey Wakey" on my mp3 player ... I put it on if I get tired in the afternoon :D

2007. Alala - CSS.  Wheeeeeeee!

Angry Punk Air Guitar

So I get on this bus and head to the back, and this punk with a scowl on his face is taking up a lotta space with his mad-at-the-world sprawl. I'm sure he would have totally ignored me, except that as I was squeezing my way past his knee, clinging to the bar over his head, my strapless dress took a bit of a southward journey, and out pops ... everything. I think fast, and place my purse over the exposed area, hitting Angry Punk in the head as I do so.

Apparently, I have now confirmed his belief that the world hates him. He aggressively plays air guitar and drums on the window while I take my seat behind him. I can't resist squeezing off a few shots, not even being very discreet about it, because he is so studiously ignoring me that I figure he won't respond even to ... my flashing him, for example. And he doesn't.

After a few stops, Crossed Legs Dude in the black suit gets off, and Angry Punk takes that seat, perhaps to escape from Crazy Purse-Swinging Lady. He throws his knapsack roughly into the seat beside him, and continues to take up much space until the bus comes to the Catholic school. A herd of girls in short kilts climb on.

Upon seeing the short kilts, Angry Punk has an attack of civic spirit, and moves his knapsack to the floor. I marvel at him; after all, he has had a chance to take a close look at my thirty-something "business" and disdained it; but now he makes nice for a bunch of fourteen year old schoolgirls, as if he stands a chance in hell ...? Will I ever understand men?

The fourteen year olds turn out to be wiser than their years, and steer clear of Angry Punk. One of them even remains standing rather than sit next to him. They place their young male friend between themselves and the scowling Angry Punk. After a few minutes of this disrespect, Angry Punk picks his knapsack up off the floor and slams it back into the seat beside him. He turns up his music and resumes playing air guitar, secure in the knowledge that everyone hates his guts.

The city rolls on.

{original post, Sept 06}

Is it nothing to you?
When one day trucks and
Cattlecars
May load beneath those words
And take away all the
Survivors of residential schools
Rape camps (families)
The drunks, the tards and the tweakers
And all the children who can never go home again?

And all because some would rather
Their real estate appreciate in value
Than their children appreciate the value
Of a human life.
Did they think,
When they negotiated their mortgages,
That with a little effort
They could have this neighbourhood
Cleansed
Before their children reached their teens?
Quite the ballsy gamble,
Considering that this has been
Skid Row
Since before there was a Vancouver.
But if they play their cards right,
I'm sure the kids will understand
That there were billions
To be made if only
Those others
Could be made to disappear.

Me, I actually know my neighbours.
I know their names, and I
Respect their privacy.
I attend their funerals.
I listen to their friends left behind
As they cry out their grief
For years.
I can introduce you to a hundred
People
Who saved themselves (with help)
From a gruesome death on the streets
And nothing makes me happier
Than to look into their eyes
Without contempt
And say,
"I'm so glad that you are here
Alive
Writing poetry
Working
And sharing what you have learned.
I am so glad you are here
To remind us
That no-one is nothing."
It's so real,
I don't even need to take a picture.

There was a naked man hanging from a window of the Lotus Hotel on Easter Sunday. The cops shut down the corner and a crowd was gathering by the time my bus came by. They stopped us at the corner and everyone rushed to the windows to have a laugh at the twitching person.

There's always at least one person sniggering on a bus ride through the DTES (my neighbourhood). I get a sinking feeling when I hear them. On Sunday there were at least twenty sniggerers. I had to get off the bus because it was either that or start lecturing them all about dignity and the sanctity of Life and so on. I got off the bus and walked. I didn't want to see him fall; I didn't want to see him land; I didn't want to see whatever foolishness the VPD would try to get him down. I didn't want to see the news vans show up, take their pictures from a safe distance and then tell the nation they know shit about the DTES. I was on the other side of Pender when the naked man jumped, aiming for the hydro pole. He ended up dangling by the waist on the black cables.
They got him down with a ladder truck.

You Don't Have To Fuck People Over To Survive
Posted by: axa13.

Image by Seth Tobocman - Colorized by AXA - 1995

My camera is fixed!

My mom gave me a Ricoh XR 35mm camera when I was 15, which must have been a serious sacrifice for her as she was a single mom and self-employed. I took the camera to France on a student exchange the same year, took 100's of fabulous pictures and fell totally in love with my camera. Unfortunately, I also was clumsy enough to kick it down the stairs of a tour bus and onto the pavement, and it never worked quite right after that. I still used it a few times, but the pictures became more and more fuzzy... Finally I stashed the camera in the back of my closet (not knowing where to take it to have it repaired, and not having the money to pay for it) and got in the habit of buying disposable cameras when I went on trips.

But now, at long last, I have ponied up the dough and had my beloved 35mm returned to its former glory! For the past two weeks it has been my constant companion, and yesterday I had my first 4 rolls of film developed. Some of the shots turned out quite nicely, but others not so nice. I'll have to relearn the skill of taking kickass pictures - a labour of love. An expensive one too. Just as well I don't smoke, or I wouldn't be able to afford half the things that make life wonderful...

Below is the first photo taken with my Ricoh XR in 5+- years: "Icecubes in a cup of tea."

The Nine Levels of Dante's Hell - Shapeshifter's Version

Snotty teenagers
Circle I Limbo

Corporate wage-slaves
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

Gordon Campbell
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

Ignorant suburbanites
Circle IV Rolling Weights

Arrogant snobs
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

Lousy porn-fed lovers
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

Conservative blowhards
Circle VII Burning Sands

The Bush Administration
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

Pedophiles
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

Small Person Versus Big Truck

Ladies and gentlemen, it has been a traumatic couple of days. On Tuesday morning I learned of the death of a friend, Willy, a painter and volunteer educator who I met at Carnegie 2 years ago. She was 64, but a vital, energetic and healthy 64. The last thing I expected was for her to pass on suddenly of natural causes; I rather expected to have many more years to get to know her. I met her two daughters and two young grandsons Thursday while we were planning the memorial at Carnegie. The two boys were way too young to lose their grandma; it's not fair. I am 30 and I still have both my grandmas.

I was walking from home to the Carnegie for the memorial, and a block from my building I saw a giant truck in the intersection, a shiny black film equipment truck, and it was surrounded by a crowd of onlookers. I assumed there was a shoot going on, but then as I got closer, I saw that someone else had lost their grandma: there was a body under the truck. Ambulance workers were laying a sheet over a tiny Chinese woman. Her feet were sticking out awkwardly, their soles pointing right at me.

I spent the rest of the day praying for my grandmas: that when the time comes, they both have peaceful deaths in their sleep like Willy, and not scary traumatic ones like the poor Chinese grandma.

It's been raining an awful lot lately. On Friday night at 1 AM there was a thunderstorm.

Theosaurus, or, When Science Was Cool

Here's what I have learned:
Scientists are overspecialized.
Rave in the key of tanktop,
Walk and talk in thinkstep,
The vessel on the edge of fission.
Wind tunnels are another example.
Invite Byron over for midlife crisis.

Disjointed spare memories,
Chaotic structures and strangely
Familiar places of work and study,
Strings vibrate painfully and whine,
Squelch and suck along the line.
Sea wind blows it all to Chilliwack,
But it creeps out of the valleys by night,
Marauding, more sour than ink.

Here's what I have learned:
Volcanoes created the atmospheres
Of Earth and Venus,
And comets carry the genetic material
Of galaxies.
My next book I will dedicate to you.
Thanks for whispering,
"Did you see it too?"
A cool, torpid, inert, organic
Reptilian evolutionary drive;
My goodness, but that age was electric,
Sparking corpses alive!

I'd always hoped to be more well traveled than this. I would particularly like to see Kenya, Jamaica and Russia, as well as several planets visited in Star Trek, and to know Canada and Europe like the back of my hand. Wish me luck.



create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide

Theatrical Events I Have Attended in the Past 2 Months:

Feb. 5 - "Practicing Democracy," using theatre to make law.
Feb. 14 - "The Madwoman of Chaillot" at Studio 58, directed by our fearless community play director.
Feb. 18 - "The Glass Menagerie" in a tiny theatre in a church basement.
Mar. 7 - "The Vagina Monologues" at the WISE.
Mar. 18 - "The Three-Penny Opera," a big production at the 70,000 seat QE Theatre, complete with microphones.
Mar. 21 - "Practicing Democracy" for the second time. It was closing night and in a different venue, super crowded, lots of familiar faces.
Tomorrow - "Rehearsal For Murder" out in New West, starring Grant.
Saturday - "Equus," starring Jimmy.
Sometime next month - "Pal Joey," starring that cute actor who flirted with us at Studio 58.

How To Make Chinese Tea

(This process I learned a few days ago from the saleslady at Ten Lee Tea and Ginseng.)
First, take freshly boiled water and pour a little into a clay teapot (or cup if you don't have a complete tea set.) Swish it around to warm up the pot, then pour it out. Next, take the loose tea leaves and put a scoop into the teapot, cover the opening and shake. "The heat and moisture brings out the flavour," said the saleslady. Sniff. Mmmm! Then, pour hot water into the pot, wait only a few seconds, and pour the tea out into a bowl or the sink. Don't drink the first brew! It's too strong. Then, make sure the water is freshly boiled, fill the teapot again, wait a few seconds, and pour the tea through a strainer into your cup. Enjoy! (You can re-use the leaves too!)

The tea I bought was Pu-Erh, which they say is good for the stomach, lowering cholesterol and losing weight. The tea you most often get served in restaurants is Kuan Yin, and it has different health benefits, but is just as delicious and not as strong as Pu-Erh. It seems worth it to get an expensive variety of whatever tea, because the flavour is not bitter, but if you pay a chunk of money (I paid $18 for my box of tea, but you can pay as much as $50!) you'll want to brew it properly so you get your money's worth.

Now that I have revealed my utter nerdiness to the populace in general, I think I'll go spend the afternoon at the library. But wait! I'm not that much of a geek! Last night, I played my first ever game of air hockey and kicked butt!

Mystical Me

I am not a Hindu, and I don't even know much about it, but this morning I had a vivid dream that I was flying around with Vishnu and other figures from Hindu religion.
I dreamed that Vishnu and his family rescued me and my friend from an evil professional Vegas gambler. The Gods and Goddesses swooped down on the evil guy's luxury sports car and made it fly to London, England, shooting golden rays at the pursuing bad guys. The bad guys shot back at us with purple rays, and after an epic battle the Gods and Goddesses finally won.
After the victory, the Hindu dieties flew home to their golden palace, made entirely of soft yellow gold and towering into the sky. The palace was disguised as a luxury London hotel, so the humans didn't know it was there. The Gods and Goddesses each had their own apartments, and they all settled in to some serious relaxation to recover their strength. There was much recreation, games, picnics and sex. Lots and lots of sex. Specifically, Krishna and Radha got down a few times, because Radha decided she wanted to have a baby.
Vishnu, to regain his powers, ate huge chunks of the golden towers, and once he was full, he went off on his own on a voyage of exploration. One day on his trip, he saw in the distance the atomic bombs fall on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the nuclear testing in Nevada, and he was horrified. The glowing radiation made him sick to his stomach. He flew home to his family in the golden palace and tearfully told him that a horrific deed had been done and the world was in danger, and they all flew up into space to see. Even Radha went, although she was very pregnant by then. They flew over thousands of miles and straight up into the sky, and finally they could all see the glow of the flattened cities, and hear the screams of the millions of ghosts.
Radha began to feel sick, so she reurned to the palace by herself while the Gods and Goddesses continued on. Beams of purple fire began to come blasting out of the wreckage, hitting one of the Goddesses and killing her. Her son and his friend flew off with her body, crying. The rest of the Gods and Goddesses sent down sprays of golden rain onto the blown-apart earth to comfort the people.

Now, until I read the newspaper this morning, I thought this was just a fascinating dream, but now I know that today is the festival of Holi in India.

Coincidence? I don't believe in coincidences.

The Crazy Child

In the distant past there was a moment in which I was 100% crazy child. At that time my eyeballs were still full of floating clumps and twists of cells, and I would sit and watch them fall out of the blue sky inside my head.

I was excited by the idea of volcanoes, about which I had just learned, but of which there were none for thousands of miles around. I drew a picture, making sure to include the giant boulder that had plugged the vent flying up into the air on a wave of fire. There was something scary, not about the picture, but about me for drawing it - maybe I already suspected that good girls don't have visions of mountains exploding.

When I was 100% crazy child, there were spirits in my room at night. Giant cats and rodential crawling things snuffled along the floor investigating laundry, toys and the evil shadow standing in the corner. I could feel them tugging on my blankets and settling their weight on my body. No sound would come out when I would try to shout "Mom!" and Mom wouldn't have known what to say to the creatures anyway. Dad might.

Mom and Dad hated getting out of bed as much as I did. Once Mom brought home a strange looking ceramic bowl and, strangely, left it on the plank floor in the bedroom. I asked, "Why is there a bowl in the bedroom?" She said, "In the olden days, before there were toilets, people used to go to the bathroom in these." Oh! The crazy child thought that was pretty silly, but in the middle of the dark, cold farmhouse night, where a ghostly billy goat haunted the stairs, the silly flowered ceramic bowl looked like a better bet than the long trek to the bathroom. Ha ha ha. "But you said it was a kind of toilet!" I cried in the morning.

Oh you crazy child, where have you gone?

Hello and Welcome

Leona Shapeshifter is my name and this is my first blog, comin' atcha from historic Chinatown. I will be transferring over some content from my wildly unpopular and inconvenient website, but for the meantime, Goddess is in the details, and here is what I did today:

I walked to the place where I volunteer. It was pouring, had been pouring all night (and I know because I didn’t sleep a wink). They guy on the sidewalk in front of me had the heels of his shoes reinforced with masking tape.

Somehow most Fridays (not all) I manage to get up in time to do my weekly volunteer stint teaching English vocabulary to a group who gratefully bring me 2 cups of coffee, a muffin, and sometimes even Chinese pastries on a tray. My newest student J. bows deeply every time he picks up the meaning of a sentence. This morning's words: chemotherapy; aggressive leukemia; blood chemistry; electoral riding; media swarm.

Thankfully, today after class I found 2 hungry friends to give the BBQ pork buns to. G. had just come off opening night in his first starring role in a stage play, and he looked strained around the eyes. Apparently, his current director hasn't taken all the necessary steps to keep his actors from looking foolish on stage. There is a veteran actor in the cast who had to step in and save the scene twice. And S. was making up a resume for an audition for some local history tourist spectacular. The season approaches. Bring on the cruise ships!

The sun came out around lunchtime. There was a circle of people out in the alley near Main and Hastings, between Carnegie and the Health Contact Centre, and what were they doing? Why, praying, of course. Judging by their "Jesus is Lord" t-shirts, they were from the Revival Centre, and in the middle of the circle was a goateed young white man pumping his arms and preaching. Preaching to residential school survivors? Maybe. I didn't check. That's all I'm gonna say; I didn’t go any nearer.

The evening's activity: Practicing Democracy. I was just locking my door when the phone rang. Thinking it was R. was calling to offer me a ride to the event, I rushed back in and answered. It was L. who lives across the strait in Victoria. "Hey, how are ya?" I said. "Pretty good," she said. "Where are ya?" I asked. "Downstairs!" she said. That saved me from having to cut short the call. Instead I invited her to Practicing Democracy. She said, "I was gonna invite you to that!" So I went down to the street and off we went.

Practicing Democracy is more of a process than a play. It came out of weeks of workshops with 30 residents of the Downtown Eastside where the story was created from their experiences and acted out in a harrowing 25-minute play about the escalating violence of poverty. Half the actors were amateurs. Then, the revelation: the play was performed a second time, David Diamond (the "Director and joker," the wild card, the host and facilitator) hovering at the edge of the action urging the audience to intervene in the scary events that we now knew were about to happen. His eyes were like pointed sticks, gazing into the audience as if to say, "You look uncomfortable. You don't like this situation? But you see it every day! So get up here and redirect it."

L. was the first to jump in. She yelled "Stop!" then went up to the stage and attempted to change the course of events. Other audience members followed after her. Sleep in the heated underground parking, not the dumpster. Find a shelter, not an asshole junkie. How are you gonna stop that cop from shaking down that hooker? Did you know a blowjob is only worth $5 to a john who knows you have a habit to feed? Five dollars, can you imagine, web surfers? That's Canadian money.

This kind of interactive theatre/policy making event has never been tried in North America before. It was invented in Brasil by Augusto Boal and he called it Theatre of the Oppressed. It's all about increasing safety in our lives which already face the reality of hunger, homelessness, desperation. We already know how the desperate handle their day-to-day lives: they make deals, negotiating with other desperate people for food, warmth, drugs, love, mercy. We also know how the Newtzis (thank you Jello Biafra for the term) approach desperation: better you than me.

How do tender hearted souls like myself deal with desperation? We put ourselves at unforseen risk because we lack the tactical training to intervene in catastrophes without getting clobbered or stuck in the ribs. When you can act out your ideals without ending up in hospital and see what happens next with the people you are dealing with, then you can start to learn how to change situations for the better.

What have I learned? That I am too tired to finish this post tonight. I must attempt to get some sleep so I can get up and shine in writing group tomorrow. I think I'm gonna like this blogging thing.

Hand-made local media from the heart of Vancouver: it's the Carnegie Newsletter.
Click Current Issue on the sidebar to see scanned pages.

I wish I had never been young.
When I am grown I'll lie about my age.
I've always been old,
I've always been sage.

I awoke one night standing in a wood,
Never been young, old as the world.
Always known the word for "vacuum,"
Never broken a bone.

I wish I had never been young,
Never been red-haired,
Never posed for those pictures,
Never put my hand up in class.

Shadows of pines danced not for me
And I've never screamed from thunder.
If only I hadn't faced the wall all those nights,
Never strained from the fingers of nightmares.

I call on a full'grown guardian angel.
Help me to fall off horses,
Sneak out at night,
Stop without brakes,
And float on mere water.

Don't steal Get your own
Relax that's just your shadow.

Pounce Don't miss it
Growling, growling in the trees.
That's my black leopard belly up there.

Wear its skin Take its life
Stalk the streets,
Prepared to unsheathe and pounce.

Obey traffic signals,
Your only guides.
Scratch, scratch at the pavement.
Import your food.

A girl,
Black leopard belly.
She may dance She may purr
She may drop black tar,
Smile sweet, charm defend,
With defences big enough
To cover 2 people.

You are no help to the living,
And an insult to the dead.

Nothing I do is new.
Only departures and ETAs vary.
I may embark in 5 minutes and do what you did yesterday.
But I'll still end up where you are.
The backdrop is magnificent.
We'll look fine before it.
The sun will set through our picture window
And it will have meaning.
We'll discuss it then die,
Particles filtering down through the Earth.

I have journeyed far,
And rotted in many places
Before reaching this western extremity.
Tomorrow, I'll depart again.

I am not tender or gentle.
On Saint Valentine's Day I kick at the sky.
I must think of my own safety
Because this world is dangerous,
And everyone in it
Is not to be trusted.
And neither am I.
I don't even feed my cats on time.