1.31.2005
Montreal
Walking into Erin and Janice’s. The first thing I say, before hello, “I need some gin.”
Buying 3 bottles of red wine and a pack of corono. Saying “we’ll take it easy tonight.”
Getting ready for The FUBAR guy’s corporate wear party. Janice wore red “can’t be denied.”
Went to the party. Got bored. Went to a bar. Went to another bar. The bouncer fought us about going in and I said “Can we go in now?” and he said, “Sure, be selfish, do what you want, think about yourselves.” “Ok, well, I have all these girls with me. Ladies!” and walking in.
Janice getting hip checked and saying a bunch of stuff. Getting corono off someone and then leaving the bar with a full bottle of corono. I see cops on the sidewalk and I wanna run over and give them a flyer for the burlesque show. I realize I have a beer in my hand and I say ”Oh, I have a beer in my hand” and throw it down. It makes a loud smash. The cops stare at us. Janice says, “You just wasted a beer.” Meaghan says, “CLAUDETTE! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DID THAT!” and we all giggle and nothing bad happens. Per usual.
We go back to the party. We dance. I bang on the bathroom door to try and get something that I want. They come out and say, “Go see the dj.” I say, “I don’t have any fucking money.”
Dirty dancing.
Getting looks from women.
Meaghan took off her top, as per usual.
“We are functional alcoholics.”
“Stop talking about boring ex boyfriend shit.”
Saturday night. Best burlesque show I’ve ever seen. Best moments. The erotic circus act, the dusty doll Celyn biting Melissa’s ankle, the poker cherries. Best fucking show.
“What’s Ali doing?” “Pooping.”
The guy coming up to me and saying, “I’m sorry I was such an asshole to you last night.” And I said, “You were an asshole? I don’t even remember you.” And he said, “Yeah, well, you were an asshole first.” “Ok.”
Going to the Drugstore bar, where they played shitty music. Andrew says something about fuck off and I say “Wanna make-out?”
Telling Celyn “I love you” about 9 times.
Talking about great bathroom sex with Janice in the bathroom.
Going back to Erin and Janice’s with a shitload of people. Talking about religion.
Kicking the two boys out at 8 am. Erin had a talk with them in her “best English” and they still didn’t understand.
Staying up til 12 the next day, “talking.”
6:00 PM
1.26.2005
I have an urge to shoot some sugar vodka. You do a shot of vodka and then you lick sugar off your hand. I could line them up and do one, two, three. Lick. Lick. Lick. Feel dizzy. Feel floppy. I used to pay the buck to get into the pool room and shoot sugar vodkas at the Birdland. I liked it best when the bikers, the punks, and the spatter of philosophy and art students hung out there. I liked the fat guys. The beginning was the best, feeling awkward, waiting until it became my place too. Then the baseballs gyrated through the front door and basically ruined everything, but it shut down soon after anyway.
Lately all I do… is think about your nose.
Danny used to sit behind me during our Ethics in Journalism class. I had long black hair, ratty VV cords and black, black eyes. I wore pigtails sometimes. He would pull them during class. Even though I basically ignored him when he first showed up in second year from Alberta, all cocky and sure of himself, by third year I had developed a little crush. Attention’ll do that for you.
One night we ended up at his apartment. It was hot. He pushed me up against the wall. He took off my jeans. Messed up my hair.
One night at Birdland he acted like an ass. I took him outside and told him off. I said, “I’m too open for your walls, so why don’t you just fuck off.”
He walked away. I walked away.
Two years later, while I was in Korea, throwing spatulas at my roommate, slamming bathroom doors. The things you do to deal with depression and isolation. He sent me a love letter. The letter was long. He mentioned the night at the Birdland and how he had spent the last two years thinking of what I said and how he realized I was right. He told me he loved me. He said, “You will always be welcome in my arms.” It was a sweet letter.
But, I really didn’t give a shit. Sometimes you realize something, something suspended or beautiful and at the time it was insigificant, or you just missed it and you don't know what you missed. You spend some time trying to find it. Sometimes you realize something and it’s just too late.
6:36 PM
1.25.2005
Your tanning booth ass?
-Ohmygawd Apriiiil, he’s driving me nuts!’
-Whyeiii?
-He won’t even let me go watch a movie with my cousin! I wanted to say, you know what, you can just lick.my.aaaaasssssss!
-OhmyGawd!
-I know! Ohmygawd!
5:13 PM
1.23.2005
-Since you won't play hockey, do you want to come watch me play in the morning?
-Why so I can cheer you on from the bleachers, make you feel important and then fuck you in the locker room?
-Exactly.
-No.
-Wanna come to New York with me next weekend?
-If you're paying.
11:44 AM
1.19.2005
I don't know what it is about winter but I'm in a constant state of fucking boredom.
This is the most exciting thing to happen lately. My zipper on my jacket got stuck up around my lips and I had that ET hood on and I had to walk around like that and I struggled to get it off in the coffee shop and then I pulled it off and nearly ripped my earring out. Also the older Indian guy who runs the convienence store downstairs has a fucking crush on me. It's embarrassing. He always says "Hi pretty girl" and his face lights up. I don't know. Should I try to get free stuff?
1:28 PM
1.18.2005
I was ok until I heard about the blue flash.
“I hate you all!” and I stood by the dishwasher and blocked entry or death.
You can connect all the wires but it doesn’t mean it’ll work and you shouldn’t fuck with it. I don’t need any more dead cats in my life.
Most of the time I do hate you all. A misplaced friend for one. She said to another, “I worry about Claudette. She has angst.”
“Oh really,” I said and here comes a long drag on that fucking cigarette. “Well, I worry about her too. She sells crafts.”
People who think clichés are great revelations.
-When I knew him he was so full of life. But you know---and the spider web pause----This will only make you stronger.
I beat the phone into the TV. I beat the phone on the faux mantle. I beat the phone on the corner. I beat the phone on your grave.
7:35 PM
1.14.2005
Here’s my hate list.
-girls with dark hair who have that splotch of blonde on top. It looks like a bird shit on your head or someone broke an egg on top of you. Get rid of it. It’s especially gross when all of your friends have the same hair-do. God.
-people who buy fashion that I have. At least ask my permission.
-people who try to fuck with your head. Like when you’re nice and you’re introduced to them and they say, “I’ve already met you. Like 5 times.” Except they’re lying and they’re trying to make you feel stupid but it’s not working cause I’m more intelligent than you and I know who you are and why you said that.
-art people who sulk in corners.
-people who are afraid to get wild.
-people who don't think that making fun of sterotypes is funny. Ummm. That's why they're stereotypes.
-people who are all sassy on the internet but are wimps in real life.
-people who get mad at you when you’re drinking.
-people who get offended by the word retards.
-people who dare you to do something and then you do it and they get mad at you for doing it????????
-that crazy talker with the dreads that formed naturally.
-ex-lovers who say they miss you but they really just miss getting head.
-people who won’t drink with you and then you have to do it alone.
-people who won’t eat french fries or ask you if you bought the low-fat yogurt.
-stupid people
-anarchists
-crust punks who won’t shut up about their dogs and who are living on the streets but actually have rich parents who are nice and then when they get older they live with them.
-when the bed is too hot
-people who talk and talk and talk and the stories get boring or they repeat the same fucking stuff they just told you like last week and then when you talk their eyes shift around. It’s like WHAT THE FUCK!
2:07 PM
1.13.2005
That poem makes no fucking sense. I'll try to clarify. Think of it like this. What is a hologram? It's an illusion. It's a picture. The Hologram zebra represents idealistic sexual love. It's on your back, something you carry, a weight that holds you down. Idealism always holds you down. You gotta drop it. And when you drop it you can go looking for yourself or your missing ass; your other half.
1:27 PM
Forget the Hologram Zebra
Dead.
__Like the half cat on the dirt Margaree road
twisted fuck-up.
__eyes eaten dissolved
on someone's tongue.
____________(who would take the hind legs & the ass)
________I want to touch it. Yes I do.
________So I lean on my skinny legs
________non-existant
________freckles cause there's nothing cute in me
________cat looks like a damn Gogol
____________(who would hack a body in two)
___which Russian connected murder to love
________I carry my hologram zebra on my back
________(and sometimes tangled through
________my toes and laced in my
________razored hair)
_________so yeah, me and my zebra and my cadaver
_________down the mud past the
_________house,
whitewhitewhiteIwishIwouldIwould
bleed
to add some color.
_______the hologram zebra don't look like a popsicle
No way.
_______(why don't dead cats bleed and who took the back part)
It must have been that measled family Nova
did it once before. yup.
took a whole half of its (opps) body round and
round flesh and fur
squished.
I dropped that stupid hologram zebra
(by mistake?) I can look behind me
and see it winking in the what? the sun?
______I have a leash, a brown and leather one, worn
through with neglect and I've hooked it around
the weightless flesh neck of Gogol.
______We're going for a walk.
______un-huh
______me and snowball looking for something
don't know but that hologram zebra
_____better not catch up.
1:11 PM
1.11.2005
I was like 8 or 9 and I found a tabby on the side of the highway in Margaree. The second part of his body was missing. And he was stiff like your 13 year old boner. The last frozen death meow. I didn’t need his eyes to know what kind of terror took half his body. Or what kind of plucking took his eyes.
I wrote a poem when I was 21. It was called ‘Forget the Hologram Zebra.’ I used to read the Zebra romance novels my mother had lying all over the house. Fiery women fucking strong men. Strong men ripping tight bodices. I liked it. It spoke to me. On the corner of every novel you could find a hologram, laser lights made a picture of sex out of swirls. Licking necks. Whatever. Every picture was the same, with different hairstyles. What exactly is objective reality?
In this poem I put the dead cat on a leash and we go searching for his missing ass. His other half.
It’s a poem about love.
6:29 PM
In about 3 and 1/2 weeks I will be unemployed. I can't afford to live in this city without a job. I really don't know how to deal with this.
I know someone who is pitching a documentary about doctors he knows who are going into the rebel zone in Sri Lanka to help tsunami people. This is what I want to do. I would go in a second. I have the guts to be there. I don't know if I have the guts to convince other people I should be there.
Last night my friend shut off the movie and told me I was being inconsiderate and he made me dinner and I should take one second to help him with the key situation. I walked around for a bit to get away from feeling like a shithead. I have been behaving like a shithead.
I lost my earring. Maybe it slipped off in the corridor or the elevator where there's always tension. Even when the lights are dim.
Yesterday I asked someone at work how her vacation went. She's looking forward to her 3 weeks in New Mexico.
"Wow," I said. "Well, that must make everything ummm," and I pointed to my head. Yes, I pointed to my head cause mine bothers me so much. "happy up there."
1:29 PM
1.10.2005
It’s not sadness that breaks you. It is empty hope, dissolved illusions, and sticky disappointment. I have been here before. I’ve cried at a man’s foot and I have begged for forgiveness and I have begged for love. I have even screamed for love. I woke up next to him one morning, like all other mornings. But inside it was quiet. I no longer loved him the way I had loved him when I went to sleep.
1:20 PM
1.08.2005
I love the physical mark of emotional hurt.
I want to say to you:
"Give me bruises."
1:00 AM
1.05.2005
Color TV
Dresses
11:18 AM
1.04.2005
1:26 PM
1.03.2005
I had this boyfriend once. He was the love of my life. The love of my life liked fucking strippers. Not really strippers. More like topless shooter girls. Ones named Paula. Then when you shoot back, cause that’s all you know how to do. Shit goes down. The love of my life taught me that sex is just sex. Even when it feels really right. Don’t love two people at once cause everyone will think something is wrong with you and then the love of your life will stick himself with the right amount of morphine and die in a parking garage, and two 12 year olds will find him and the love of your life probably smelled like piss and shit. The other love of your life will find a nice girl who teaches art therapy to retarded kids. He’ll never talk to you again even though he once asked you to marry him. He’ll decide you can’t be trusted, even though you were just afraid and trust doesn’t bother. Cause by then you were really tired and the love of your life set out his hand for that girl in the commons, he helped her stand but he didn’t help you and he had always helped you and you wondered why you loved the love of your life. So you made out with someone else.
I’m not sure what the love of my life taught me about love.
5:39 PM
1.02.2005
I'm sad today. I'll miss you. All of you.
xo
6:26 PM
Montreal
Walking into Erin and Janice’s. The first thing I say, before hello, “I need some gin.”
Buying 3 bottles of red wine and a pack of corono. Saying “we’ll take it easy tonight.”
Getting ready for The FUBAR guy’s corporate wear party. Janice wore red “can’t be denied.”
Went to the party. Got bored. Went to a bar. Went to another bar. The bouncer fought us about going in and I said “Can we go in now?” and he said, “Sure, be selfish, do what you want, think about yourselves.” “Ok, well, I have all these girls with me. Ladies!” and walking in.
Janice getting hip checked and saying a bunch of stuff. Getting corono off someone and then leaving the bar with a full bottle of corono. I see cops on the sidewalk and I wanna run over and give them a flyer for the burlesque show. I realize I have a beer in my hand and I say ”Oh, I have a beer in my hand” and throw it down. It makes a loud smash. The cops stare at us. Janice says, “You just wasted a beer.” Meaghan says, “CLAUDETTE! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DID THAT!” and we all giggle and nothing bad happens. Per usual.
We go back to the party. We dance. I bang on the bathroom door to try and get something that I want. They come out and say, “Go see the dj.” I say, “I don’t have any fucking money.”
Dirty dancing.
Getting looks from women.
Meaghan took off her top, as per usual.
“We are functional alcoholics.”
“Stop talking about boring ex boyfriend shit.”
Saturday night. Best burlesque show I’ve ever seen. Best moments. The erotic circus act, the dusty doll Celyn biting Melissa’s ankle, the poker cherries. Best fucking show.
“What’s Ali doing?” “Pooping.”
The guy coming up to me and saying, “I’m sorry I was such an asshole to you last night.” And I said, “You were an asshole? I don’t even remember you.” And he said, “Yeah, well, you were an asshole first.” “Ok.”
Going to the Drugstore bar, where they played shitty music. Andrew says something about fuck off and I say “Wanna make-out?”
Telling Celyn “I love you” about 9 times.
Talking about great bathroom sex with Janice in the bathroom.
Going back to Erin and Janice’s with a shitload of people. Talking about religion.
Kicking the two boys out at 8 am. Erin had a talk with them in her “best English” and they still didn’t understand.
Staying up til 12 the next day, “talking.”
6:00 PM
1.26.2005
I have an urge to shoot some sugar vodka. You do a shot of vodka and then you lick sugar off your hand. I could line them up and do one, two, three. Lick. Lick. Lick. Feel dizzy. Feel floppy. I used to pay the buck to get into the pool room and shoot sugar vodkas at the Birdland. I liked it best when the bikers, the punks, and the spatter of philosophy and art students hung out there. I liked the fat guys. The beginning was the best, feeling awkward, waiting until it became my place too. Then the baseballs gyrated through the front door and basically ruined everything, but it shut down soon after anyway.
Lately all I do… is think about your nose.
Danny used to sit behind me during our Ethics in Journalism class. I had long black hair, ratty VV cords and black, black eyes. I wore pigtails sometimes. He would pull them during class. Even though I basically ignored him when he first showed up in second year from Alberta, all cocky and sure of himself, by third year I had developed a little crush. Attention’ll do that for you.
One night we ended up at his apartment. It was hot. He pushed me up against the wall. He took off my jeans. Messed up my hair.
One night at Birdland he acted like an ass. I took him outside and told him off. I said, “I’m too open for your walls, so why don’t you just fuck off.”
He walked away. I walked away.
Two years later, while I was in Korea, throwing spatulas at my roommate, slamming bathroom doors. The things you do to deal with depression and isolation. He sent me a love letter. The letter was long. He mentioned the night at the Birdland and how he had spent the last two years thinking of what I said and how he realized I was right. He told me he loved me. He said, “You will always be welcome in my arms.” It was a sweet letter.
But, I really didn’t give a shit. Sometimes you realize something, something suspended or beautiful and at the time it was insigificant, or you just missed it and you don't know what you missed. You spend some time trying to find it. Sometimes you realize something and it’s just too late.
6:36 PM
1.25.2005
Your tanning booth ass?
-Ohmygawd Apriiiil, he’s driving me nuts!’
-Whyeiii?
-He won’t even let me go watch a movie with my cousin! I wanted to say, you know what, you can just lick.my.aaaaasssssss!
-OhmyGawd!
-I know! Ohmygawd!
5:13 PM
1.23.2005
-Since you won't play hockey, do you want to come watch me play in the morning?
-Why so I can cheer you on from the bleachers, make you feel important and then fuck you in the locker room?
-Exactly.
-No.
-Wanna come to New York with me next weekend?
-If you're paying.
11:44 AM
1.19.2005
I don't know what it is about winter but I'm in a constant state of fucking boredom.
This is the most exciting thing to happen lately. My zipper on my jacket got stuck up around my lips and I had that ET hood on and I had to walk around like that and I struggled to get it off in the coffee shop and then I pulled it off and nearly ripped my earring out. Also the older Indian guy who runs the convienence store downstairs has a fucking crush on me. It's embarrassing. He always says "Hi pretty girl" and his face lights up. I don't know. Should I try to get free stuff?
1:28 PM
1.18.2005
I was ok until I heard about the blue flash.
“I hate you all!” and I stood by the dishwasher and blocked entry or death.
You can connect all the wires but it doesn’t mean it’ll work and you shouldn’t fuck with it. I don’t need any more dead cats in my life.
Most of the time I do hate you all. A misplaced friend for one. She said to another, “I worry about Claudette. She has angst.”
“Oh really,” I said and here comes a long drag on that fucking cigarette. “Well, I worry about her too. She sells crafts.”
People who think clichés are great revelations.
-When I knew him he was so full of life. But you know---and the spider web pause----This will only make you stronger.
I beat the phone into the TV. I beat the phone on the faux mantle. I beat the phone on the corner. I beat the phone on your grave.
7:35 PM
1.14.2005
Here’s my hate list.
-girls with dark hair who have that splotch of blonde on top. It looks like a bird shit on your head or someone broke an egg on top of you. Get rid of it. It’s especially gross when all of your friends have the same hair-do. God.
-people who buy fashion that I have. At least ask my permission.
-people who try to fuck with your head. Like when you’re nice and you’re introduced to them and they say, “I’ve already met you. Like 5 times.” Except they’re lying and they’re trying to make you feel stupid but it’s not working cause I’m more intelligent than you and I know who you are and why you said that.
-art people who sulk in corners.
-people who are afraid to get wild.
-people who don't think that making fun of sterotypes is funny. Ummm. That's why they're stereotypes.
-people who are all sassy on the internet but are wimps in real life.
-people who get mad at you when you’re drinking.
-people who get offended by the word retards.
-people who dare you to do something and then you do it and they get mad at you for doing it????????
-that crazy talker with the dreads that formed naturally.
-ex-lovers who say they miss you but they really just miss getting head.
-people who won’t drink with you and then you have to do it alone.
-people who won’t eat french fries or ask you if you bought the low-fat yogurt.
-stupid people
-anarchists
-crust punks who won’t shut up about their dogs and who are living on the streets but actually have rich parents who are nice and then when they get older they live with them.
-when the bed is too hot
-people who talk and talk and talk and the stories get boring or they repeat the same fucking stuff they just told you like last week and then when you talk their eyes shift around. It’s like WHAT THE FUCK!
2:07 PM
1.13.2005
That poem makes no fucking sense. I'll try to clarify. Think of it like this. What is a hologram? It's an illusion. It's a picture. The Hologram zebra represents idealistic sexual love. It's on your back, something you carry, a weight that holds you down. Idealism always holds you down. You gotta drop it. And when you drop it you can go looking for yourself or your missing ass; your other half.
1:27 PM
Forget the Hologram Zebra
Dead.
__Like the half cat on the dirt Margaree road
twisted fuck-up.
__eyes eaten dissolved
on someone's tongue.
____________(who would take the hind legs & the ass)
________I want to touch it. Yes I do.
________So I lean on my skinny legs
________non-existant
________freckles cause there's nothing cute in me
________cat looks like a damn Gogol
____________(who would hack a body in two)
___which Russian connected murder to love
________I carry my hologram zebra on my back
________(and sometimes tangled through
________my toes and laced in my
________razored hair)
_________so yeah, me and my zebra and my cadaver
_________down the mud past the
_________house,
whitewhitewhiteIwishIwouldIwould
bleed
to add some color.
_______the hologram zebra don't look like a popsicle
No way.
_______(why don't dead cats bleed and who took the back part)
It must have been that measled family Nova
did it once before. yup.
took a whole half of its (opps) body round and
round flesh and fur
squished.
I dropped that stupid hologram zebra
(by mistake?) I can look behind me
and see it winking in the what? the sun?
______I have a leash, a brown and leather one, worn
through with neglect and I've hooked it around
the weightless flesh neck of Gogol.
______We're going for a walk.
______un-huh
______me and snowball looking for something
don't know but that hologram zebra
_____better not catch up.
1:11 PM
1.11.2005
I was like 8 or 9 and I found a tabby on the side of the highway in Margaree. The second part of his body was missing. And he was stiff like your 13 year old boner. The last frozen death meow. I didn’t need his eyes to know what kind of terror took half his body. Or what kind of plucking took his eyes.
I wrote a poem when I was 21. It was called ‘Forget the Hologram Zebra.’ I used to read the Zebra romance novels my mother had lying all over the house. Fiery women fucking strong men. Strong men ripping tight bodices. I liked it. It spoke to me. On the corner of every novel you could find a hologram, laser lights made a picture of sex out of swirls. Licking necks. Whatever. Every picture was the same, with different hairstyles. What exactly is objective reality?
In this poem I put the dead cat on a leash and we go searching for his missing ass. His other half.
It’s a poem about love.
6:29 PM
In about 3 and 1/2 weeks I will be unemployed. I can't afford to live in this city without a job. I really don't know how to deal with this.
I know someone who is pitching a documentary about doctors he knows who are going into the rebel zone in Sri Lanka to help tsunami people. This is what I want to do. I would go in a second. I have the guts to be there. I don't know if I have the guts to convince other people I should be there.
Last night my friend shut off the movie and told me I was being inconsiderate and he made me dinner and I should take one second to help him with the key situation. I walked around for a bit to get away from feeling like a shithead. I have been behaving like a shithead.
I lost my earring. Maybe it slipped off in the corridor or the elevator where there's always tension. Even when the lights are dim.
Yesterday I asked someone at work how her vacation went. She's looking forward to her 3 weeks in New Mexico.
"Wow," I said. "Well, that must make everything ummm," and I pointed to my head. Yes, I pointed to my head cause mine bothers me so much. "happy up there."
1:29 PM
1.10.2005
It’s not sadness that breaks you. It is empty hope, dissolved illusions, and sticky disappointment. I have been here before. I’ve cried at a man’s foot and I have begged for forgiveness and I have begged for love. I have even screamed for love. I woke up next to him one morning, like all other mornings. But inside it was quiet. I no longer loved him the way I had loved him when I went to sleep.
1:20 PM
1.08.2005
I love the physical mark of emotional hurt.
I want to say to you:
"Give me bruises."
1:00 AM
1.05.2005
Color TV
Dresses
11:18 AM
1.04.2005
1:26 PM
1.03.2005
I had this boyfriend once. He was the love of my life. The love of my life liked fucking strippers. Not really strippers. More like topless shooter girls. Ones named Paula. Then when you shoot back, cause that’s all you know how to do. Shit goes down. The love of my life taught me that sex is just sex. Even when it feels really right. Don’t love two people at once cause everyone will think something is wrong with you and then the love of your life will stick himself with the right amount of morphine and die in a parking garage, and two 12 year olds will find him and the love of your life probably smelled like piss and shit. The other love of your life will find a nice girl who teaches art therapy to retarded kids. He’ll never talk to you again even though he once asked you to marry him. He’ll decide you can’t be trusted, even though you were just afraid and trust doesn’t bother. Cause by then you were really tired and the love of your life set out his hand for that girl in the commons, he helped her stand but he didn’t help you and he had always helped you and you wondered why you loved the love of your life. So you made out with someone else.
I’m not sure what the love of my life taught me about love.
5:39 PM
1.02.2005
I'm sad today. I'll miss you. All of you.
xo
6:26 PM
