this week i was amused by the police officers ordering americanos at my fancy coffee place. Fancy cops on coffee breaks. One of them was sad there was no chocolate in the banana bread. I may be stereotyping here but I just don't find americano drinking chocoholics very police-like. I require my police more hardcore.

also, why are cops always short? Really.

even though it's mostly announcements of activites and events (as opposed to non stop questions about buddhist vegetarians) I am amused that the lj #OTO community has far less wank than the #buddhists community. Seriously. I get there's some overlap there, but really. Again, stereotyping but I tend to think of Thelemites as being marginally more aggro than the Buddhists. Clearly my worldview is skewed.

all of this OTO/Thelemite reading though, man. It's running me through the wayback playback machine. Years ago I spent ages and ages on undernet #wicca (yes indeed i did), hanging out with the unsavories: satanists, thelemites, random left-hand pathers and a couple of complete nuts. I loved them all, and I miss them. I still think Thelema is the sexiest religion evar. Maybe I'll switch.

And! WFC memberships purchased for myself and lotusice which means we are halfway there! I can't believe it's only in a couple of months. Crazy.

In my head it's been "next year" for two years. Time. She is sneaky.

waking up to the iPod when one has built a 'sleepy' playlist is better than waking up to the Aganoize Remix of Suicide Commando's "Hellraiser". Although do not doubt that song has its place, kiddos.

There is a fine line when one is building a sleepy playlist - one does not want to put one BACK to sleep, but one does not want to get all stomp+aggro before 6am. We have rules. Unless one is still awake from the night before at 6am, in which case Hellraiser is wildly acceptable.

So far my playlist consists of Angels & Agony (a delightful istrumental from the delightful dutch), Rob Dougan's "Furious Angels" which should not work as a wakey/sleepy song, but does. The sweeping verion of "Forever" by Bruderschaft, Johnny Hollow and a Coldplay song. Might replace the coldplay, it doesn't quite fit.

since i listen to music for 35-40 minutes in the morning before rolling my wee body out of bed, I am clearly only half way into building the perfect play list.

also!

i have learned the internet has a different idea of what "Moderate safesearch" means when it comes to Michael Pitt.

good glory be, there's his bum again.

I have been all about the Sister Machine Gun lately.

so a video, for you.




bye bye!

did you know i am getting married?

in 2036?

This will be my second back-up husband, the first went and fell in mad love. This one, the second, we have determined The Universe has different plans for us, even though he is good and tries to lure me out of the house with promises that, for me, are the most perfect kind of promises. Or would be, if I were any good at speaking to strange people anywhere but at the bus stop, or in the 7-11.

Alas.

so we planned our wedding today over macaronis and banana cake. Considered Meatloaf to officiate, since he can perform wedding ceremonies and also perform that kind of general rock n' roll oft found at wedding reception dinner 'n dances. It seems like a good plan, save the part where Meatloaf is kind of an older guy, now, and 28 years is a long time, but we talked about sending out "save the date!" cards anyway.

I can not decide if we're amusing, or kind of sad and pathetic.

I like to think we're amusing. I have, however, demanded a meaningful sham wedding.

Because a girl has to have standards.

this morning, 7:15AM, number 1 bus:

a leprechaun is spied, standing on the corner, talking to a woman with dark brown hair.

later,
lotusice sent me this. cristalia you should probably go listen, I think?

and 3 hours later, I finally stopped listening to it on repeat.

(in the middle of that, cristalia also linked to Trent Reznor's Hair: A Retrospective (which I will link to for the one of you that will go look). Which cracked me up, and also caused me to go to a meditative happy place. I'll let you casually imagine which photo triggered -that-.)

and now,
tawanda.


and i can't
get up
from this wet
crimson bed
that you made for me.

(oh, the romance.)

i thought, perhaps, what i might do is try a Friday Update.

Firstly, there will be this. Joy Division, the documentary which I have not yet seen. I thought Control was a stunning bit of cinema and the lad that played Ian Curtis was unforgettable. The end of that film made me want to hang so tight onto everything I have ever loved, or might love, or could love if the moon was right and the stars were just

so.

--

when i was in cleveland, or somewhere, on my way to Cincinnati, i travelled by greyhound to meet the people who would later join me in the most delightful of recitals (Rasputina!). I found it strange and awful and odd that they swept the bus for bombs and weapons and also the people and I, in a way that is most certainly not unique but might be specifically canadian, found myself wondering of this place called america.

I'm stuck. I'm stuck on this fellow that murdered that young man in Manitoba. That beheaded him on the bus. I'm completely and utterly stuck and it is not every day the despair of humanity hits me in the head like a rock, but this did. It just makes me so very ill and so very, very sad.

--

the other day i purchased my "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster, in vintage red. I don't even really like red, so please, when you are in my home do not let the red loveseat surprise you and cause you to think otherwise. And please, when you are in my bathroom doing your particulars, do not let the 100% pure rouge of it cause you dismay.

and when you are eating at my kitchen table, do not let the red of my chairs shock you.

i don't really care for red. And yet in some way, I am kind of deeply in love with it right now.

--

I have never seen New Order, and I am not sure if the wanting to or the not wanting to would win out if ever there was a chance to see Bernard there, in all his wonder. Nevermind the breaking up, The Cure have been breaking up since 1983.

--

in case there was any doubt, i loved the NIN show. I loved my big chubby arm was on the jumbotron during Survivalism and I loved that he played Piggy. I'm sure it'd be almost impossible to finagle these days, but if there is a way to convince him to play Big Man With a Gun, tell me what it is. That'd be awesome.

--

are duvet covers out of style? I seriously tried to find a white one today and lo', the only one there was $238. Seriously for that kind of money it should to come with the Veeg. In his Master Chief shorts.

--

i need a plumber,
and to fry some tofu.

and to ride my bike
and to dance the leaky monkey

and find a way to manage
banana cake this coming week

and monday is a holiday

i am happy

to
report.

with someone from work who is doing overtime?
at 12:32am?

why yes i am. Crazy.


also, Trent Reznor can play my xylophone anytime.


that is all.

that is to say that I thought -last year- what with the double-dose of VNV Nation on my birthday was the epitome of awesome, but!

this year it would seem that Imperative Reaction (who I last saw with Combichrist and have seen 3x with VNV. So clearly they are shortly going to become The Band I See The Most. Someone must find that amusing, I know -I- do) is sending me the birthday gifties!

But! in a possible trick of the universe (meaning the world is a fickle place and government agencies like to thwart), :SITD: are opening. (I personally think it should be the other way around, but I don't make the laws) and!

:SITD:!!!


You may have won the battle
But you will lose the war
Silver bombs towards the sky
I am your fading star

where is your god now?
your god has left us here.

for reals I love me some :SITD:.

--

also, I wrote this morning:



runs straight line out, out, through the white-yellow bright and
Sirens.


it's the most I've written in months.

i thought you should know.

but the new Combichrist, Frost: Sent to destroy, is really kind of angry.

omg, i love this angsty nonsense. it's just so awesome+ridiculous. Oh, songs that mock the goths.

this week has been all full of eleven hour days. Of projects and more cross-country conference calls than even I could count.

that same migraine, I'm hoping, will finally be gone tomorrow. We'll see, now that the misery is (mostly) over.

it won't be like this always; it is just this now.

so it's 8pm and I am in the princess bed, where I ate leftover indian food and am drinking San Pellegrino from the bottle (less classy because it is a large, multi-person, bottle).

i'm exhausted. my brain is worn out. I almost fell asleep in a mostly warm car listening to depeche mode yesterday and would not much have minded to spend the night in some parking lot somewhere if it meant not having to leave.


i haven't watched tv in a week. I keep the lights off and the silence to a maximum. Too tired to be stimulated, I guess.

and yet, the most awesomely part of my day is at 6 or whenever I finally shut down, I put on the iPod as loud as I can let it and just

listen until thirteen wheel limo drops me off.

and watch, as all the trouble just goes away, away.

I really love my new job. But it's really, really hard. And I have to get used to the idea that a job that people expect you to complain about, doesn't have to be the one that you do.

so next week, no whining because people expect when things are hard, people bitch. I like things that are hard. I like being tired.

I like knowing what to do when the world is crashing.

Sometimes I like being in bed at 8pm reading Kathy Reichs and drinking fizzy water.

sometimes.

so, today.

was an awesome of days and so, people of the internet who i am ignoring in ways that are most impressive, I think that i shall tell you about it.


except it's hard to tell so. Instead. Smaff's favourite part was when the CostCo man asked if his wife's last name was Yip.

(um no. It might have been, were the engagement not broken off. Awkward! But, Sean the CostCo man was hilarious+awesome and we had been trying to determine - in the parking lot - if one of my newly appropriated corsets was, indeed, for that same aborted wedding. Weird.)

later,
when my migraine that I've had since yesterday morning was creating a vast wall of pain that I clearly could not climb,
I passed what I thought was an abandoned cart of much random crap in the Ikea.

well, in said cart was an item I needed. And since I could not actually see, at that point, more than a foot in front of my face (migraine is back in full force. Seriously, I am a good person. Sigh.), the logic centers completely misfired and it was not until MUCH MUCH later that it occured to me that I had probably actually ABSCONDED with someone's unpaid purchase.

So, dear Ikea person. I hope you remembered to go back and grab a Ribba frame. I do apologize and promptly bought + devoured a crapload of ibuprofin in order to head off any other completely moronic incidents. It cracks me up, I'm sorry.

and then,
post rockband and a dinner of Backyard BBQ potato chips (which were, I should say, also: Lunch!), we headed out to see Wanted (which I loved for I love some shootin'), and lo', one of the people who had bought tickets suddenly couldn't go and just handed them to us and said "tickets! free!" Now i think you can return them if the movie hasn't started, but she hadn't done that, yet, and so, lo', free movies.

which was kind of awesome and i think proves i did not harm so much of my karma by my previous Ikea abscond.

and yanno, other amusing things because adventures with the Smenn are always, always highly amusing.

i should also say that i finally bought the new Fixmer/McCarthy and I think "Banging Down Your Door" is my new fave of the day:

when you're at home
behind
closed doors.

when you're alone
with nothing but
fear
banging down your door.

i will come for you
after the storm
i will come for you
won't be alone

if your heart opens up
once more

i'll make it my own
by your side when
fear's
banging down your door.


See, it's pretty. To a crazy synth beat.


it's a strange cd. Guitars. There's guitars in my ebm. Crazy, who do they think they are, Apotygma Berzerk? Anyway, I still love it, for Douglas can do no wrong.

gods my head.

sheesh.

the moving of friends often results in the appropriation
of things.

i have, or have almost, appropriated a barbeque, some canned goods (including 2 cans of expired Years Ago pineapples, clearly not a go-to-ingredient in the PP household), purchased a lawnmower for a discount price, and been gifted two custom chinese silk corsets (one that was built for me, another built for someone with bigger boobs than I have, but padding! we can make it work), resulting in the realization that a girl who owns five corsets should go somewhere where such things are appreciated.

i considered the borg, since the jeans are no longer the go-to dressing item of choice, but in a world where the boss gives me the 'no pink hair' hint, the corsets might be right out.

regardless i get my hair done this week and i will convince the hairstylist the navy is the way to go. Come heck or grey roots.

so, no, not back to blogging. Have Zero Desire, actually. Thought about moving to Twitter for a while but! I actually think twitter is kind of lame, I mean, really, are you interesting enough to tell me randoms throughout the day?

my twitter would be: drank my deVille latte. Went to meeting. Went to meeting. Went to meeting.

seriously, interesting? no. I'm not sure if anyone is interesting enough for twitter.

that being said, I still considered it. For at least fifteen minutes, which is the longest consider I've given it since I first heard about it, lo' all those months ago.

but no.

off to coffee.
then
meeting.

so my peermentorboss, hereby known as the Peem-B, gave me a little coach yesterday, advising that, in an effort to maintain a professional, managerial air,

i should probably stop using the phrase: "Crack sandwiches".

okay do you SERIOUSLY know how hard that is?

for reals.

but then this morning the President of my Division, who is one of the top Women In Business in Canda and an all around super awesome+lovely+superstar woman, stepped into our morning meeting, looked at me and said "Where's all the colour in your hair gone?"

while looking rather disappointed.

so, this is what New Job has taught me:

1. crack sandwiches: Bad
2. blue hair: Good

I can live with that.

last night I wanted to read something comforting before bed. So I grabbed a Taschen book on Louis I. Kahn.

Maybe it's the pictures, or maybe it's not. Maybe it's just that I need to look at my favourite building in the whole entire world (that i have never seen, yet, in person, and I have seen some very, very famous buildings in my time, peoples of the intertubes), because it reminds me that anything is possible.

I haven't been feeling that way lately. The Unicorn Warlord posted about trying to make journals truthful without being tooo overly personal. I have no idea how to do that without f-locking everything to my crucial dozen, so I just stopped posting for a while.

you may have noticed.

and i'm not sure i'm up to posting now, again, either.

But anyway, I used to post all the time, now and then, about the Salk Institute of Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. And I want to post about it now, but I am, as sometimes happens, at a complete loss as to what to say about it.

Just look, you may not have seen it before:



but it makes me think of Burroughs, too. Didn't he say, in Naked Lunch or something that might be close to that, that nothing is true, and everything is permitted?

the Salk makes me feel that way, too. Like jumping, diving off, being gone!gone!

i think sometimes about standing on that great concrete runway and staring off into the sea.

one day,
one day.

or, the post in which your heroine repeats herself with new, added information.

so - you may recall, or not (sometimes I forget that which is posted vs. that which is not) my lament of good coffee in this city.

I drink SBux but I am not a fool; I know it is mediocre at best. Unfortunately it is mediocre -everywhere- coffee, and generally, does not suffer from inconsistencies from store to store. Small ones, perhaps. But not wild, hand waiving crazy ones.

well, imagine my surprise, when, on the way to work, I stopped in at deVille, a new coffee place downtown, and had a latte that not ONLY had coffee art (seriously, if you can do art, you can generally pull an espresso) but served me the single best latte I have had in this town (the one from Phil and Sebastian not withstanding, that was delightful, but the deVille! With its Black Cat Intelligentsia espresso? Hallelujah, I say.

and then, I learned that this is not the only new coffee house to grace this fine city. Indeed, Kawa has finally opened (there is a small town in Alberta known for two things: ice cream and coffee. But small towns are too far away on my morning commute, so this is v. exciting), and then! Oh LO THEN! I learned (I live under a rock, apparently) that Caffe Artigiano opened a location here.

seriously. I need to get out more. deVille is the only one convenient to me on any workday. But if you think I will let many more days go by without trying an espresso from the company that produces the best baristas in Canada, you are quite mistaken.

and it's not even that coffee is a big deal. But bad coffee ruins lives and ends marriages.

I swear to the big head.

or wordle.

do you read Go Fug Yourself?

I realize it's probably not enlightening, but I kind of think those girls are hilarious.

and today, they fugged Agyness Deyn, new supermodel of the land, with this:


I'm sure I'm supposed to be impressed by Agyness Deyn's punky I-care-about-wanting-you-to-think-I-don't-care style, but seriously, unless she is ten minutes away from time-traveling into 1987 and being told she looks good wearing Eric Stoltz's future, she might want to let it go.

the picture doesn't matter. A link doesn't matter.

the fact is-

it was 1987 and she was being told she looks good wearing Eric Stoltz's future.

oh my cheese and stars, just thinking about Duncan and what his girlfriend looks like without skin, and yanno, Watts only caring about two things and she can't even do that right now.

oh, John Hughes. Some Kind of Wonderful is the movie I would have made, too.

i miss you.

i think it happened a year and a bit ago. my relationship with this blog changed. or maybe it was longer ago than that but my memory for things that have passed is not one of great remembrance.

i stopped posting as much, about anything interesting, when i started to feel that i wasn't moving forward anymore.

stopped when i just started feeling like i'd hit my point. Not that plateau, but the end-point. The great stop. When my writing stopped getting better, when people started to say no; when what was once good enough stopped being acceptable.

it was a weird point to hit. it's a weird point to be at. i didn't want to keep posting about being stuck. being miserable. being awful.

being three years ago when everyone i know is four years hence.

it's a strange spot. alone in a great sea. it feels like that sometimes. I write and delete. I put hours and hours of work into the last bit of RMG and no matter how much time I spent, my brain just won't, couldn't, isn't, doesn't come up with the answers i need it to.

i'm not sure where the block is. I can see Ellis, Underground. I can see her in my head, all the things she has to, will go through to find the truth of Vafi, and I can't get there. My brain is stuck.

i'm bored with it. angry with it.

mad
at
it

and completely unsure of how to fix it. Staring at the page doesn't help. Reading doesn't help. Giving myself permission to screw around on the internet and play sixty million hours of Resident Evil.

doesn't work.

seriously. And since I'm just so not into public whining, I ran out of things to post about. To talk about.

so what, three hundred and sixty five days of song lyrics. Sure, they're as important to me as breathing, but unless you really know their relevance, their importance, won't come through.

i keep thinking of just letting the lj go. Whatever, right? Keep thinking it's time for another hobby. Now that my new job awaits, perhaps it could be ironing.

i do not know how people master ironing.

i don't know how people get through most things.

i don't see the other side of this.

but i'm trying.


small things are big
huge things are small
tiny acts have huge effects
everything counts
nothing´s lost

yes, my pretties. I have been carrying around my ginourmous umbrella for so many days now that i have conceeded:

and am changing my name to Mary Poppins.


were it not for earl grey, cream and vanilla syrup i would surely be morose, but there is nothing quite like the healing power of bergamot on an otherwise wet and dreary day.

i opened up Ellis yesterday. Read a smidge and then ran off to play with faeries and moonlight.

one is much easier than the other, it would seem.


and i would rather
see you cold
than live

without me