I spend a whole day taking feeble stabs at various surfaces with a multitude of implements in the hope of prodding forth something beautiful, and all I had to do was hop on the ol’ interwebs and follow my usual course. Here is what I picked up at the Chemical Factory today (with thanks):
I love children. Though I think this is the first time I’ve stated it so boldly, I hope to have a child some day.
But come on, people.
A store is a place wherein the items displayed are for sale.
It is not okay to let your children (or dogs or what have you) chew on products you do not intend to purchase when inside a store.
I can’t sell a masticated box to someone for its full price. Which means that your gummy little wunderkind is literally eating my money.
If it can’t keep shit out of its mouth, give it something you’ve already purchased to gnaw on.
And, for the love of whatever god(s) you believe in, keep it strapped into that contraption you’re lugging it around in or I’ll start handing out muzzles at the door.
I clean up good.
It has been a really long time since I have written more than a few sentences of prose. I wonder if I’ve lost the skill that seemed to be so much a part of who I was throughout school.
It’s enough to make me want to write book reports for high school students who would rather spend their time doing teenager things. I want my efforts to be graded. I want a reason to make an effort, really. I know I shouldn’t need one, and that I have plenty. I want arbitrarily sanctioned judgment, gold stars and report cards and the whole thing.
Today is full instead of data entry and bored customers.
That was a quick dip into the Pool of Despair. I almost los…What? You missed it? Oh. I guess you had to be there. Actually, it’s better that you weren’t. Suffice it to say that scar tissue really does seem to be tougher than the gentler facets of my existence. I’m alright and I’m okay. For now, the rage perches like a nervous bird in my duodenum and I want to look at things again.
What the hell is this?
You said, “It’s art, just fuckin’ mirror it.”
Where did we go wrong?
If not here, where do we belong?
In a shot of sun off an airplane far above her?
In the glint of the foot-burnished manhole cover?
In a light, a sign of one kind or another?
In the gleaming eye of a fighter or a lover?Sitting here at the Horton’s,
so you know this is important.
If not here, then where?
If not now then when?
When a feather’s an immovable force?
When the stampede’s an obstacle course?
When Ancient Train has hit Ol’ Transient Horse?
When we’re a Vancouver divorce?Now that we’ve hammered the last spike
and we’ve punched the railroad through,
thought there’d be more to say
thought there’d be more to do.
I love your paintings-don’t take your colors away.
I’ve grown more fearful of them every day.
Swimming up their dark rivers to discover your source,
a source of strange and unrequited remorse.
And I found the end of the world, of course,
but it’s not the end of the world, of course.
It’s just a Vancouver divorce.
It’s just a Vancouver divorce.~Gordon Downie, of Tragically Hip fame. Vancouver Divorce, from his 2001 album Coke Machine Glow.
I’m not dead inside!
