April 13, 2005
Britney's bustin out all over
In the midst of financial freak-outs, because I am not a resident of Ontario and therefore may not qualify for govmt loans. Anyway, I think this may be big news, though only time will tell. I am currently finishing the novel I’ve been writing for a year and a half, and very pleased with the results. I’m thinking ahead to my next project, which will probably turn into my graduate thesis. I’m excited. I know the characters already. It’s going to be a little bit of 1980s Whitby suburbia, Cold War Mania, expatriate family life in the Middle East, the Revolution in Iran. It’s going to involve a ton of research and I think I am going to make something really incredible.
We said good bye to Julie tonight. Her bag weighs an absolute ton, and watching her pack was a scary glimpse into our immediate future. We must send another couple of boxed home tomorrow. How does the stuff gather? It’s our weekend again, and in view of our imminent poverty, we’ve elected to stay in town this weekend. The usual karaoke, lunch out, hang about routine. We might go to the garden at Himeji Castle, which we haven’t seen yet.
And on with the big news, though I sure you know by now. Britney is pregnant! Has Kevin Federline not heard of birth control? That man has been impregnating women at a crazy rate of late. In less idiotic news, Alice Munro is one of Time’s Most influential people. There is a Northrop Frye Lit Festival in Moncton this month. The man who is regrettingly behind the famous necropheliac duck, on being Donald, which is the name of Charles Kennedy’s baby son. Ee-na!- a summer music festival guide. A very short excerpt from my beloved Douglas Coupland’s new book on Terry Fox. And a sensible perspective on the Japanese textbook debate.
April 12, 2005
They say our love won't pay the rent
Realizing just how poor we’re going to be, as I enter Graduate School and my husband waits for his landed immigrant status. What a way to start our marriage. It’s going to be an incredibly crazy couple of years. And beyond that too, I’m sure.
Andrea Dworkin has died. “In a world where teenage girls believe that breast implants will make them happy and where rape convictions are down to a record low of 5.6% of reported rapes; in a public culture which has been relentlessly pornographised, in an academic environment which has allowed postmodernism to remove all politics from feminism, we will miss Andrea Dworkin”- from The Guardian. Her ideas are not easy to stomach, but they get important dialogues started, no matter where they lead. In other feminist news, an attack on Title IX.
April 9, 2005
Pink Poo in the Press
On the inequality of parenthood. It was an interesting story, but a bit silly and it’s tiresome to continually read the tragic plights of women the likes of whom can actually afford nannies and au pairs. I’ve never been one to knock the upper-middle class, but all the same. Also, when you marry a massively-driven-career-monster, you can’t really be surprised when he opts out of household chores. Disappointed, yes but what were you expecting? I did love the woman in this story who has gladly accepted full responsibility for household matters while her husband works, and has given up most of her life to do so. Her child is three! Call her in ten years and see if she’s still so content, even with her daytime home help.
In more women-sans-choice news, Hillary Rodham Clinton goes to war to fight the troglodytes for the Morning-After Pill’s availability. May she filibuster vigilently.
Fantastic! An interview with Margot Kidder. She describes Pierre Trudeau as a “great lover” and George Bush as “a monkey”.
George Elliott Clarke reviews Red Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Canadian Women Poets.
On the fantastic Takashi Murakami art show in New York. This article focuses particularly on Chinatsu Ban’s Central Park exhibit, VWX Yellow Elephant Underwear/ HIJ Kiddy Elephant Underwear, which as an elephant-lover I’m obsessed with. Today at work we had a conversation on how the pink pile of elephant poo, spotted with hearts, was very cute, and then we realised we’d been in Japan too long.
April 9, 2005
Listlessness
Stuart is justifiably often irritated by my obsessive list-making, and so I retired my book of lists this past weekend so we could spend time relaxedly. It was not an unenjoyable experiment, but yet I felt somewhat at a loss. Listless, you might even say. Do you feel listless when you are listless? I’d never thought about it before. We looked it up in the dictionary, and found that that meaning” lacking energy or disinclined to exert effort” comes from root “liste” meaning “to desire” in Middle English. However “list” as in “a series of things in an order” comes from the French “liste” which presumably means something different. It is sad that I do not have lingual authority for my neuroses.
April 8, 2005
Hanami Afternoon
The freakin weekend has passed all too quickly. Yesterday we went to Kobe Harborland and met my friend Katch for lunch. We went to this fabulous restaurant with an all-you-can eat bread buffet. We actually weren’t sure if it was all-you-can-eat, but we treated it as such. This is what happens when you set foreigners loose at a bread buffet. It was comically embarrassing when they had to bring another plate, as all our bread couldn’t possibly fit on the three we’d been allotted. We each had an exquisite lunch. I am deeply going to miss Japanese lunch sets- they’re phenomenal. We did prikura and then said good bye to Katch and walked for ages to Motomachi to supplement my soup habit, and then farther to Sannomiya to get the train home. I was exhausted by then. A backpack full of soup will do that to you. Last night we hit karaoke and it was great. Stuart was very supportive, and duetted with me to “Almost Paradise- Love Theme From Footloose” and “Always” by Atlantic Starr. In cooler tunes, Hush by Kula Shakur was fantastic. This morning, Stuart went to the gym and I stayed home, presumably to make good use of my time but instead I fell into yet another of my infamous and socially embarrassing scrapes, though I don’t want to talk about it. I spent the morning neither writing, working out or cleaning my apartment, but rather clutching my head with idiot angst. We left the house around 1:00 but had to come home after one as it was so warm, and I hate wearing jeans when it’s hot outside. It was cotton capris and a sleeveless top, and sandals. Welcome to summer. We went up to the castle and the blossoms were out in full force, absolutely beautiful. We sat on a bamboo mat under the trees, drank and blissed. I played a little guitar and it was truly lovely. Baskin Robbins and more prikura after that. Needless to say, this weekend was an exercise in pleasure.
April 8, 2005
Another poem
For the April Guardian Poetry Workshop.
Henry Pulling’s Dahlias
I’d left my dahlias, unwatered, to die.
Called away on a whim by a not-maiden Aunt.
Rare spontaneity for a banking man such as I.
She had to keep running, though I wasn’t sure why.
Brighton, Paris, Madrid, then Istanbul we went.
I’d left my dahlias, unwatered, to die.
My Aunt was a smuggler but I didn’t pry.
I left her to her vices though I thought that I shant.
Rare spontaneity for a banking man such as I.
On the Orient Express, something stuck in my eye.
Living on pot and chocolate felt too delinquent.
I’d left my dahlias, unwatered, to die
But the man I’d been before her, I was forced to decry.
I followed her to Paraguay, as was her want.
Rare spontaneity for a banking man such as I.
Too much of my life spent bored, awkward and shy.
Now I’m embroiled in torridness but I dare not recant.
I’d left my dahlias, unwatered, to die.
Rare spontaneity for a banking man such as I.
April 7, 2005
Poetic Interlude
I wish my enemies were Russians
for the privilege of your naiveté
they played you like an instrument
set against that Europe
your Russia was a love story;
the thinking man’s erotic fantasy.
You wrote odes to odes on lunacy
but even the polarity was illusion
shifty spies confused the confusion.
That war was all in your head;
endless scenes of winter
intrigue. Your house with
picture windows and a fallout shelter;
mutually assured destruction.
Your history was the cinematic stuff
of fiction. The enemies were Russians
with beady eyes and edgy names.
Your symbols were comic book
red menaces and red phones,
iron curtains and star wars.
April 6, 2005
Just red
Graham Greene, Travels With My Aunt was excellent. I love Graham Greene. His books end so magnificently. This book is quite different from his others, as it’s quite whimsical, but has the same measured brilliance. Then Hiroshima by John Hersey. I think after visiting Hiroshima, the experience of reading a book about it is a bit paled, but still an important book that underlines the unnecessary agony of war. There is no excuse for such horror, no matter how great your intentions. And then The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time, which I’ve been putting off reading due to my illogical problem with adults reading hyped childrens books. Illogical indeed. This book was incredible with the most convincing narrative voice I’ve read in a long time and a gripping story I stayed up half the night obsessed with.
