I am moving through the unfolding life in Montreal  — I love Montreal more than I have loved any place I have ever lived (even if I can’t catch a break (e.g., my iPhone was recently ripped out of my hands & stolen in broad daylight) / physically & personally it has been the most painful time of my life). Thank you. It is challenging & generous & painful & exciting & PEOPLE TAKE RISKS & DO SHIT. I am surrounded by people who I am giving all of myself to & it feels fucking fantastic.

Such a difference to the Toronto life (below) that I was addicted to but needed to go through to get to here.
Words flow in & out of my heart.

I am not panicked, instead I’m looking around waiting to be spotted. I have taken something from my own home, and I don’t want anyone to notice. The elusive ‘they’ always take note of my steps. The streets close in on me because the new year has parted the trees from covering me and instead i’m just as gray as the sidewalk and the salt on the cars. I start to run, but I can’t. My cough catches up to me and the cold air pounds the back of my throat. I make a sound! I musn’t. I’m on the run, I am trying to be elusive! What am I thinking? Anyone here can see me, anyone can notice my jacket and yell out my name. I don’t want anyone right now. I just want the loot to keep with me. Where the fuck am I even going? I start to get lost. On a plane? a train? on the metro to the other side of the city? I see some cats running by, one gets hit by a car. I look east and notice it just escaped. Can I? I feel like I’m in some Houellebecq novel. I think I hate him. Whatever! Just get me the fuck out of here before my possession ruins me and ruins itself.

— 3 jan 2007

“The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. I suppose that it begins or does not begin in the cradle.

Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.”
― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

It’s my birthday on Nov 16. So many birthdays moved through me, from the liveliest parties of 100+ friends, to house parties with broken furniture, to ending up in emergency finding out I am pregnant, to to last year’s self-imposed spent all alone (I didn’t even blog about it!).

2010 / 2009 / 2009 / 2008 / 2008 / 2007 / 2006 / 2005 / 2003 / 2001 / 2001

Because materialist fantasies once a year are totally A OK (& so are gifts^^):

Yse

Oracle Ring

Tarot earrings

Tentacle Earrings

Nomad necklace.

A Flickr Pro Account because mine is expiring and that would mean by thousands of photos would be gone.

From the NonsenseNYC art event email list:

NOTE: There are so many ways to help in the wake of the storm. We’ve collected several that require your actual labor — not your donations or your clicks. The most important thing to understanding what’s going on is to actually go to the areas that need attention. People who need help will not always ask for it, or be able to ask for it. This is a do-it-yourself guide: call or internet if you can, but ultimately just go. Also, we’re running regular event listings below the volunteer opportunities, not because we’re trying to pretend that everything is fine — like certain fucking marathons — but because after you’ve spent the day washing out muck water or running up stairs, dancing feels double good.

* Red Hook: Volunteers needed today at to cook food and coordinate aid. 767 Hicks Street, Brooklyn. Come anytime from 10a-10p and bring something to share. Contact: Paulie Anne Duke: paulieanneduke]at]gmail.com. Also: Norton Records needs helps. This is an indoor job, pulling records out of wet boxes, etc. If anyone has a vehicle of any sort to assist in getting wet boxes from the Red Hook warehouse to HQ in Prospect Heights, please call. No reception in Red Hook. Email is best bet at nortonrec]at]aol.com. Billy’s cell 917 671 7185 and the office landline 718 789 4438. Don’t leave a message. We are working from 11a until 11p every day.

* Coney Island: Coney Island USA’s flooded building needs help. They’re looking for people with dehumidifiers, fans, squeegees, mops, mop buckets, household heavy duty rubber gloves, respirators, paper towels, cleaning cloths, brooms, bleach, disinfectant. They’ll be accepting donations from noon-6p Friday and Saturday. They also need people to help with the clean up. Coney Island USA, 1208 Surf Avenue, corner of West 12th Street, Brooklyn. @ConeyIslandFun

* The Rockaways: Help the clean up effort in Rockaway, where houses were completely devastated by Sandy. Contact: Zack Tucker: 201 320 0226. Today: Veggie Island, 95-19 Rockaway Beach Boulevard, Queens, near Beach 96th Street. Clean and serve food. Contact: Bobby at 718 772 3803. House of Yes is also taking volunteers and supplies: boringincorporated [at] gmail.com

* Williamsburg: Donate blood. 10,000 pints of blood were lost in NYC as a result of cancelled blood drives. Donate blood on Saturday at the Williamsburg Church, 231 Ainslie Street, off the Graham stop on the L train from 10a-4p.

* Lower East Side: Rosie Mendez’s office is doing a check-on-neighborhoods bridged today from 9a-5p. 237 1st Avenue, at 14th Street. Also: The Henry Street Settlement has received an 18-wheeler of meals and donations. They need vehicles, bikes, and humans to help distribute: 265 Henry Street. Also: Some volunteers are going to set up an aid station at ABC No Rio (food and a portable generator for people to charge cell phones) today starting at 10a. 156 Rivington Street between Clinton and Suffolk. Also: GOLES needs help: 169 Avenue B, between 10th and 11th streets, goles.org.

* Chinatown: A strong community effort is happening over at CAAAV, a Chinatown-based community organizing group located at 46 Hester Street, between Essex and Ludlow. They are looking for volunteers. 212 473 6485

* Citywide: The Red Cross needs volunteers who are able to lift 50 pounds and are comfortable working in stressful situations. Contact: staffing (at) nyredcross.org. Also: New York City Public Advocate’s Office needs volunteers. Sign up here to help: bit.ly/nycpaohelp

* More hands-on ways to help:

bit.ly/SandyNonsense

interoccupy.net/occupysandy/

#SandyCleanUp
#SandyVolunteer
#SandyHelp
#SandyAid

*Mitsu posted this on his blog & reminded me why I love the NonsenseNYC email list. I know for some a donation or click is all they can do (because of health issues, location, and so on), but if you’re there, on the ground floor, go help. Nothing beats human hands if you are able to work them. RTs on Twitter mean shit to those most in need. Also: If you’re ever planning to be in NYC, I urge you to not just sign up, but donate to NonsenseNYC too.

Apice means apex in Portugese. I want to learn Portugese and experience it. I want to become a Lusophone. My love affair with Portugal is new, with so much room to grow and discover.

apex:
(noun) the top or highest part of something, esp. one forming a point
(verb) reach a high point or climax

Last week I was reading texts for my doctoral exam that are a foreign language to me, even though they are all in English. Then, unexpectedly, a few days later I was on a plane on my way to Warsaw to finish some familial business that started many years ago. I stayed with my uncle in his large IKEA-laden two story apartment in Kabaty, one of the new neighbourhoods of Warsaw. His three children were away at camp, so it was just him, his wife and I. I watched them move through the house. I watched them moving together but never in the same direction, always holding onto their own space. She wasn’t there often, as she was always in a haste going to “work”, and only stopping by for moments at a time. They are trapped, creating jails for each other while always laying the blame on the other. I talked to them both separately. I wanted to talk to them for years.

How long do you hold onto something for the sake of it? How long can you keep going? When do couples become immobile? You both produce the space you traverse with every move (which is one of the most impressive components of being in love and being with someone but also a harbinger of much pain). There’s no going back, there’s only going over. Once you’ve made those decisions, you can’t take them back, they have been actualized and are part of the narrative. Is that how you become immobile? You don’t want to walk over the same trajectory that holds all those experiences you regret, you wish never happened, you resent yourself or the other for bringing into the relationship? Do you become immobile because you cannot make a move without pain? And then, what? You gain mobility of the organs through affairs? How many lips must come across yours to ostensibly make you forget about the intensity of the love that used to be between both of you – the apex. There’s no denying the life changing, mountain moving desire you both had for each other – the gaze penetrating every body part at every moment. But what happens when the mountains were moved and you found a way to move that was not the same as theirs, and simultaneously, they didn’t notice you didn’t follow them on the path they took either. Then you both turn around and see each other so small in the distance, unable to make out the details.

Except by now you’ve learned to lie to each other so well that each of you believe the lies and keep on moving while immobilized, creating vast friction. By now, you probably don’t even realize that the movements of your lips are lies, and you just take them as the way things are. 

 MUSIC: Ive Mendes ; Apice MP3 & Ive Mendes ; Be With Me Tonight MP3

The summer has started in Montréal, at least for me. I came back from Europe last week, and the unrelenting European rain chased me back to the city, but the rain needs to nourish us all before the sun can have its way. I accept their moves. This morning I woke up, happy to have a mom that loves me, and that has never even yelled at me before. She’s had it tough, really tough, tougher than I can ever write about in a public space. I guess all moms have it tough in one way or another. I mean, just the thought of opening up your body to support a living human being inside you doesn’t cease to amaze me. The act of holding onto a life other than your own, and then splitting your body open to let it out into the world is just… WOW! RIGHT?! I hope I can have a child or two or three someday and then maybe my children can love me and depend on me, then grow up, take me for granted and make me feel useless, until they grow a bit more and need me again. <3

So anyway… I grabbed my mobile as soon as I opened my eyes, still in bed cuddling with my cats, gushing, “YOU’RE MY MOM! MY MOM! I AM YOURS!” She laughed, and calmed me with her zen-like voice, the one she uses when she’s teaching pilates or IMT (integrated movement therapy).

Then, I noticed that it was FaltyDL’s birthday today, and he shared with the world, a beautiful track, just the type of track you hope to come across on a sunny sunday mother’s day. Listen to it, I promise, you’ll keep it on repeat. It kept me company all morning until I rode my bike across town to Parc Lafontaine where we suntanned and talked about being grad students and how lame and counter-productive the notion of “publish or perish” is, but how much it guides so many young academics, us included. Most certainly, I’d rather talk about all things great, like the rose of Gertrude Stein.

I took photos of myself to remember the first day of summer. Happy Cat.

*the title quote is from a short story by Miranda July.