…about much today; spent the day in some dystopic fog. On the plus side, no cars dying on any major streets, no nails–finger or toe– flying off to seek their own unwarped vision, nothing at all really happening, but then maybe the fog is the nothing happening. I watched a movie tonight: Nothing. I tried get another from the library, but am unable, even after I was able to pay my hefty fine today. (I have the natural ability to always be late returning books to the RPL). The movie is not available for request. So, I went in search for something external (somehow that seems like a contradiction) on the net to validate my paused state. Art installations sometimes give me reason to pause. Is it possible to pause an already paused state?

Perhaps there is something contagious or even mythic in boredom, or maybe life is meant to be like this: simply satirical.

Seriously. Strange shit is happening to my body this winter. What does this mean? Do you know how many home remedies I know to cure (and I use that word loosely) eczema? Or dry, brittle nails? But how about toenails that suddenly go missing in the bath? Or what does that say about the water? I decided I needed to write something for it/about it and quickly too, before anything else falls off. (Sorry, it’s still rather–raw).

Annals of the body’s slow decay

1. My skin alters mistakenly
some caged thing tears–
raw hands peel me
in unprocessed patches.

2. Some older bird is dying to rise.

3.

4. Each handful of surface
textures, empty spaces
plumbed between the index
forefinger, little finger, muddled
patterns as someone else’s blue.

5. My feet fail to notice me.

6. Tonight, Mars is falling
redness, inhabits a side
my foot, the left
little toe, and another
small circling planet
marks the right foot.

7.

8.

9. A toenail, the smallest
wing hunches in preparation
soft pulses in sheep’s wool.
The long feathered wait
breathes its own
uncertain moment.

10. The setting is the mind
the right frame–
support that slips in flight
slides from the hold
of the toe, maliciously free.

If you squint closely you can make out me on the right in the top picture. These two pictures are the view from inside the quinzee.

…of Brenda Schmidt’s post I’m feeling nostalgic and saddened to know that this year at colony there may be no opportunity to build a quinzee. Every year Dave Carpenter oversees the building of one by those colonists who wish to partake–and usually everyone does their bit, ferreting snow like lost weasels, but I don’t think Dave is joining us this year at the colony. Last year I remember the weather was unseasonably warm, but that didn’t stop us from building a big pile of snow. I shovelled one afternoon, fighting an ice-cube of creative energy, and fighting with the orange tabby cat who kept throwing herself in the snow at my feet. The cat, if I remember correctly, or at least what my memory of the event allows me to remember, I shovelled up with the snow before tossing it onto the ever increasing pile. The cat seemed to like it. I don’t have any pictures of the outside on disc or on the computer, but I have these few from the inside. I must make one confession though, I’m the claustro-ferret, so actually going into the abyss was liberating, until everyone else wanted in–then I left.

And for the record–or for anyone reading this within the next 24 hours or so–I never saw the word of the day (it says hermitage) until after I posted–this is an after post-edit-post. (Do-do-do-do-do-do-do (that’s the theme music from some old show that gives you goosebumps, or at least it’s supposed to)).

…while working might not be a good thing, but then again maybe it is. I like video formatting, but ultimately, I only listen. Here is Li-Young Lee at Berkeley’s lunch series. “All speech”, he says, “is done with the dying breath.”

The randomness of any particular event should be liberating. Especially if it randomly occurs shortly after thinking about something random occuring. (If that makes sense). I’m thinking about Einstein and his dislike of quantum–theory/mechanics/physics and the choice of random events in our lives. Mostly, I think this ties in with my randomly dying car, the random lapses of time I’ve lost this week, or even the random way I found the article. The randomness of entangled living these days leads me to wonder about my own thinking, about what’s real, or, at least what’s real to me. If it’s random is it real? If it’s real how can it be random? This quote from the article struck me as curious: “science was about the results of experiments, not ultimate reality”. Are they trying to convince me it’s otherwise? I wonder how long science will search for their own random reality?

… and their meaning have left me stranded in front of the computer screen furiously reading the ebook of Dick Hebdige’s Subculture: The Meaning of Style. I was also stranded earlier (in the slush and fog) on Albert St. (a major street in the city) in the turning lane (the left turning lane I must add) when my car died for no apparant reason other than it could. Fortunately, my car is light, a standard, and easy to move, so I was able to roll it out of the way quickly enough. I was also only a block from work. Perhaps my car is a part of the plastic sub-counterculture and began it’s silent rebellion in the only way it knew how: self-destruction.

…to write the lyrical picture I wish sometimes I could simply capture it as effectively as Diane Arbus: here and here.

in January must be symbolic. Nature doesn’t feel like driving anymore? I myself feel like I can only move in left turns until left becomes circuitous. Or maybe they are right turns in the first place and the spin misplaced leaves me realising left? Realising or believing? One and the same?

It was raining on the internet tonight too, one site after another dropping down my screen. Maybe you know about this, (and if you do, you will understand my sunbeam on a rainy January eve), but I’m bouncing off the snow with each downward scroll, thrilled to find such reading.

…today’s counterculture is plastic. Plastic-style theatre seating in smallish classrooms. Perhaps this choice of seating arrangement can be easily explained by the choice of film in the first class of Contemporary Film: Easy Rider. (Not).