"my brothers at opposite tables; like fire and water against each other, only a fool can't see the obvious ending. are we as ashes to wildwood? is life just a fire that can only consume us? is there no vision of love to bind us together? if they only knew the things that i know, if they only could see the things that i see." - John Denver 
 
 
 
 
 

in the morning of march ! march ! march forward !



 

later on in the evening of febraury 28th.

poots has been staring for computer screens all day long. she's staring into them, through them and around them. she's rearranging images, sending empty e-mails, ignoring others, and just taking up her space on this earth for now.

soon the next month will come.

poots gets paranoid in her older age. she never used to CARE what anyone else was thinking.
that was convenient to her and she didn't even mind the left alone that you probably think it left her.
she wasn't alone because she had herself, she always had herself. the only reason she doesn't still
is because she's become this mildly paranoid adult who is fragile by her personal standards and needs other people, weakened by the very society she didn't want to become a part of. so the state that she has become
is her demise. why did she become this way, we're still wondering. i suppose it's more convenient, more sociable,
pleases others. and then it sounds like she isn't pleasing herself, and the truth of the matter is that she's not quite sure she is. she's just above average at most of what she touches, perhaps a bit like suzanna, and doesn't really need anyone to tell her what she's good at. that's the problem.

yeah, she cares that she cares. she thinks she's happy to need people. but this middle-of-the-road existance,
as fortunate as it can be, is dull for her. the drive to work in the morning is more fulfilling as a daily activity, than
sitting in that office. watching the bustop people more character. interacting with the unknowns at dunkin' donuts,
and even maybe swearing at the morons she shares the road with. these things all more life giving than any corporate bull in a second. where there are unknowns, outside. where predictions fall short.

so thats all. a bored poot for a monday, snugglin's coming none too soon,
eating, playing winter, getting fatter,
that's all.
and those are some of the things that i don't like to admit. it sounds insulting,
and i don't like offending other people.
at least i don't think i do...



 
 
 
 
 
 

February 28                                                                       Human, gender-trapped

imagine having to go deep deep inside of yourself and admit things you didn't want to?
we're talking really deep here. deep inside of your soul, into darkness and dungeons that
you don't know are there. i wish i had the courage, but i think staying on the surface keeps
me sane too.

the issue these days seems to be the reverse.  as a child, we can get away with frivolous acts - it hurts me as i watch myself grow into a fully fledged adult. i declared  this at  17 when i wrote a short story called 'On Growing Up'
stating that i didn't ever want to be the one saying 'shhh' in church, though i knew i would. i decided that i was never going to grow up, and, in many ways, i have retained my youthful attitudes and outlook on life. it's just the creative spirit i miss. the juvenile bounciness, the feeling that my whole life is in front of me.

i loved every single second of this movie. from the lows to the lowers, the knowns and the
unkowns, woven between some of the most believable acting i have ever seen, brlliant
screenwriting, that is the kind of thing i want to be in the middle of.

cyndik speaks marvelously in her usual way about people like us who talk mostly about
ourselves find it utterly fascinating once we have grown up, to learn that there are people
who don't. i suppose that's a part of what writing here helps to do. shouting out these words
in a place where in theory the entire world could be reading...HEEELLLOOO  WWOORRLDD!
makes me feel like i am always talking about myself even though back at the office i listen
politely. to some. that is no deep dark secret. i suppose i feel less like a girl, interupted
than a human, caught in a gender.

spring is coming fasten your belts
 
 
 



February 25

FREEDAY!
my squinty eyes are puffy, left red-cheeked and oh shit, not another cold sore!
half my brain is telling me 'stay home poots' 'stay home'
the other half tells 'what will you do at home?' ' you have penty to do at work'
i'm groggy, squinty, weak, unfocused. webgrrls visions swirl thru my head
along with a busy day yesterday leaving me feeling fulfilled and BROKE again
dispite my windfall.we'll get to the end of this saving period and say 'we're going
to spend HOW MUCH in four weeks?' I don't THINK SO.

the plaid javamug beckons me from the bottom. a birthday gift from my periodontist,
and generally yes, when people have enough evergy, they actually like my company.

and i myself flee through a strange period of change, metamorphose.
the default is no longer SOCIALIZE as it was for ALL my life until just
recently. that is a sad realization for me. i like this place, i don't have all
the youthful energy i once did. i'm not sure about all of this, as i see it on
paper it looks too weird, i don't know this person. what has happened.
should i throw the  computers out the back window onto the nice expressway?
or do you simply hear age speaking?

this age speaking has emptied the javamug and pressed a few buttons to make
the soothing music come. it might not make the sky open up, but it lightes my
heart.i suppose one day humans will have extra fingers just to press all the buttons.

*poots looks around her virtual world for some cash*

so constant change is the 'ordre du jour' and you can never know it unless you're
looking for it. we're struggling together, he and i, i can't tell you how real is our
plight, how strong our fight, how tall we stand united, without tears of love.
the beautiful lyrics from the button-pushing machine may soothe,
but the truthful reality that is what he and i endure day in and day out
is described not by a spinning digital image but by treasures and castles
that no man can find words for.
indeed.

*poots turns off the heat-making machine by pressing the button*

So, whatever happened to levers? What about cranks? and dials?
 


i'm feeling distincly march-like
 
 

February 22 chantal thibodeau's birthday

i'm staring at eight-thousand dollars that doesn't mean much to me today. eight-thousand six-hundred and seventy-one dollars. not really but in another way. the man in the cat-detector van said that if i phone, someone
will be pleased to help me but on the week-end, no one answers the phone and they don't even have an answering
machine. isn't that odd, the bank will give me cash but the phone doesn't have an answering machine. so now my
eight-thousand seventy dolllars is stuck right where it is. poopy bum. who has the time to deal with money.

i'm purposely being a gym-bum these days. spoiling myself, getting fat. of course i'm not fat, but whatever.
there are little peaks of other things giving me highs these days, the mere prospect that march and april are
coming soon, deciding that work is ok and settling in, change, moving ideas, change, summer coming,
somehow the house became clean, our love is glowing these days, we drove around the other night in our
future hood, reminiscing, dreaming of those summer nights barbaqueing on the balconies, these are the
dreams we have and share mostly. it's not far from here but maybe we will chronicle this move, perhaps
our last for a while. or at least that's the idea. it's not our fault we moved to california. we're glad we did
and we're even going back to visit at the end of the year. that's going to be odd, very odd. back into the
dream, piercing it with a travel-stick, was it real?

7:23 am now waiting for the man in the cat-detector van to get to work so i can call him and find out if
i've missed the boat on my eight-thousand dollars. harumph. so i'll keep on writing.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


February what's the date 21

I'm not standard.
Today I insulted my boss's wife.
When I was 16, I ransacked my own room on a school trip and I didn't even know why.
I know why now. I have to leave out the really good stuff here unfortunately. Er well, I choose to.

My partner quit today. big exciting offer at a very odd company. what's up when you're
not really envious of 'MIS Director' ? i'm very happy for him.

And now for the exhaltingly absurdly boring stuff. the house is clean again, praise to PMS!

Really, there's alot on my mind but I just can't stop chewing. I didn't plan for the dryer to
be so loud in my ears when I offered to dry the stuff. I'm missing Ally McBeal on purpose.
I just decided to digest dinner instead. How many clicks before that song is quieter?
There. much better. I want to hear the CPU whiz.

We will get used to these laptops on the dining room table. I'm already getting to the ease
of the keyboard, the compactness of the location of all the necessary keys and also the
fact that it's much easier to rest my hands.

Like I said, I'm digesting. Ending this day in the same pace I began it, sitting in front of the
same green screen. It's nine-thirty in the northern hemisphere, and as the metaBolism begins
in my belly, little poots begins to get sleepy...
 
 
 

"Me, that's all I have to give
What you get is what you see
No second guesses, No pretending,
With you all I ever have to be
is me."
Aimee Mayo/Marv Green

 
 
 
 

February 16, 2000

blizzarding again in this wintery city
february dumps
it's troubles on us
in a silent blanket of clean, white, snow
it's piled on every cranny, every nook
the doorknob notwithstanding
wiping the city scape's slate clear
muffling any chance of echo,
padding this world with a peaceful cone of silence
as we walked from one video store to another.

the last of this big-time spenders bills are paid
february rich-month turned into fridge soup
but cooking is good for my soul as well as my pocketbook
merely sitting, waiting, watching now,
never feeling helpless just lazy
as i metamorphose into someone who no longer
has the energy to save the world,
into an adult about to purchase her first stocks,
who lines up on the planet with the rest;
worst or best of them,
choosing the least-green tomatoes and the q-tips on sale
making efforts to smile at the lady cause it brightens her day
watching herself watching
watching herself
watching.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

february 14    Monday                     Boots braves the Blizzard.

 
he smashed her thumb, after numerous threats. she put a bandaid on it and told
us she hurt it cooking. my heart began to race.  the small cottage got smaller.
most of the friends  scattered. the room metamorphosed into  a large church
the next thing i knew, i was alone with a procession and a coffin going up the steps and ominous music. i tried to make her out in the procession, but only the shadows of my mind will ever know for sure.
i scrambled for my things, hoping they would not notice me. into the cottage
bedroom - were they his shorts? i wasn't sure. i left them. when i returned,
my little pile of underwears and stuff was gone. who took it? the girl who was
about to rollar blade to the coast? thank God, my purse was still there. Keys?
intact. out the side door, into a beautiful sunny day. the car was running when
i got to it. i almost hit a man as i pulled out (that's because i near-hit an injured
girl at the airport yesterday with the luggage), and started driving away. i think
i was going south but i wasn't sure. my mother was enjoying the ride as we
passed some nice fields and a honey farm. i had not remembered passing a
large honey bee placard on the way, so i began to get nervous. all of a sudden
we were driving on grass, and my mother got nervous. where is the road she
shouted? i veered to remain on the narrow dirt path that was left for a road.
we drove up a bluff, and a the very top we could see the water at then end
of the path. nice road, lady. the alarm clock sounded a beeeep beeeep instead
of the usual music.

nice valentine's dream, poots.
that's what you get for spending two hours in an airport scrutinizing
every person you see. good thing you seldom remember them.
 

have i ever told you about dunkin donutisms?
one day, when i was about seventeen, out of the blue,
it dawned on me that Dunkin' Donut was actually a play on words.
'dunking donuts'. doh! then several weeks/months later, something
else dawned on me, another lightbulb went off. something very obvious,
Too obvious, in fact. and so, now, when i all of a sudden have a not-so
brilliant realization or understanding of something that i had simply overlooked
because it was too obvious, i call it a dunkin donutism.
some of the people who move out of the city and into the nice clean white suburbs
like it there BECAUSE it's nice and clean. some of them are actually HAPPY to
leave the 'smelly' (and i quote) city. oh well it must be my problem, if i have a
problem with it. (tongue so far into cheek it's stuck)

so there you have it. a little psycho morning in a blizzard. the kind of blizzard
that half the hallway will simply ignore by staying home. the kind of blizard
that just says 'only you, you Canadians, will come outside now'. drifts of light
snow off the commercial building behind me, the one that sits directly on the
service road to the freeway. only the freeway is sunken, not dunkin, into the
landscape of the city about four blocks high. some people simply call it 'the trench'.
even the silly birds are still flying around. i wonder what they are eating on the
decarie. last night we ate lebanese food on the decarie. after we went to work
on the decarie. alt F S.

so valenites day is postponed as Boots goes to class. and tomorrow is his exam.
he's being a serious virgo about all of this and i'm happy to see it for a cancer.
dueling laptops in the dining room, now the speakers join us as we listen to
Hungarian radio, or Los Angeles wherever we feel at any moment. cold coffee bits taste really really sugary and i just can't get that small, deformed girl out of my mind's eye. since they were waiting for someone at the airport in a blizard, why didn't they have anything on their legs?

the blurry leaves my eyes now and the swirling snow starts to look more serious.
more seriously like i am actually going out there. 7.30 so i've plenty of time to get used to the idea.

 not my fault i had a psycho dream.



 
 
 
 

FEBRUARY 12 2000 Saturday           sometimes all i have are questions.
 

the evils are embodied in murder, deceipt, corruption, greed, betrayals.
they are the end manifestations (i remember learnng that word
in "Freudian Perspectives 101"lol) of  the collective consciousness of evil.
we recognize them, we call them 'society', corporations, any excuse to
blame them on a non-faced body. but good, what of the goods?

John Denver said:

What one man can do is dream
What one man can do is love
What one man can do is change the world
and make if whole again
Here you see what one man can do"
and i look around and wonder, Where are the GOODS? In what large format do we attribute the common good?
when i walk down the street, how does the GOOD manifest itself?
the smile of a child, helping that woman cross the street?
waving to the neighbours across the street as we all watch in fascination as our
own GOOD clears the snow for us? Waiting for a friends' phone call ?
attending dinner for a seventy year old Aunt?
i don't know. none of those are goods to me, only shoulds.
where is the larger picture of good? When you read the newspaper what are the signs? after you're done with the horoscope and your stock options,
where's the headline that affirms us all we're good? Of course it's not there.
We're supposed to know it, inherently. And we do.
remind yourself of that once in a while.
remind yourself.
cause when John wrote those lyrics,  he meant them.
i just know he did.
 
 
 

 
 
H crossed the seas without knowing the opposite shore; He cleared the brush even though no one knew what was beyond the clearing. Together, he planned hunting expeditions with no guarantee of finding the beast.
she knew if there was food in the pot. She knew that if she fed the child it would grow strong. She watched, as her care and dedication grew into a home. She stood proud as her sons eventually left for the unknown and her daughters remained behind to tend to the known, the charted. What the men didn't know but found.

I sitin this place after having done my lessons;
drew up the score, fought the physics, mastered math,
and i watch the men as they graph and plan,
watching and wondering what is my next lesson.
 
 

success. personal goals. if you have them now then there ain't much left.that is my success. feeling like i've reached my goals but are still waiting for them to happen. if i've reached them then there is no where to go. seems to be a similar  theme running all over the place today. already today. memorize your favorite Poem. more like HAVE a favorite poem. dream the dreams you only dreamed. give money to the ones who don't have it without asking questions. they didn't ask where you got yours. and you very well may have gotten it from keeping a seat warm.

imagine if i didn't think. imagine if i read the paper and believed it. imagine if i was completely satisfied with what i have, that it were all i want to achieve. imagine if what i was doing about it was writing it out on a green page for all the world to see. imagine if i bared my soul when soul baring wasn't the point.
imagine if i had a soul to bare.

i won't compare myself to Fanny Brice. that might seem pretentious. but i see through her with the same vision that i feel my dreams. i know how it feels to want to shout to the world I'M THE BEST and if that does not come across here *gulp* then [bite lip]
i'm a pretty good actress, too.

 
 

 
"People
People Who Need People
Are the Luckiest People
In the World"
"My mind's made up
by the way that I feel"
 
 
i listen to Alanis' view of the world
and if you see things that way
then that's probably what will happen to you.
don't ask me which came first.
blame it all on life sneaking up on you,
call it Ironic, what you want
but those defeatest attitudes
blaming life make me pick up a pen
in mittens on the freeway in a blizard
to scribble these words on the dashboard
because blaming bad shit on life being that way just makes a little pool of blood in my chest begin to boil, just a bit.
 
 

now does that sound like a depressed person?
of cours not! what's depressing is arriving at work
to see all the selfish people parked, miles apart
because they can't see the lines under the snow
anymore. now that's depressing.

dinner

 
no one  is listening so say what is brilliant, what slides of your toungue sublime yet impossible to understand...
those around you have more adult-like things to say while you sit in your Ally McBeal world lapping up your own midlife crisis to the tune of sexual favours and having no umbrella...
my weight, like gravity, pulls me grounded. something about who i am tells me that i understand something, better than anyone. who will listen if it's only me that cares, and who will sing my song together with me while everyone listens.

a big right-hand stretch and the urge to pee. Mr. Netfutures has a thing or two to say, yet the only way to cause change is to believe it he says. OK then let's all really believe
that we all have red hair. Eventually our locks will turn a golden reddish hue of auburn, i'm sure of it.  change implies change . even those of us who want to, resist as if it were the last crumb on the planet. even those of us who are beginning to hate constantly staring into these machines, upright or round, find ourselves looking even deeper into them for the answers. they call to us, mirroring us in such a delicate
way that we can't help but watch. we are fascinated with ourselves so much. so much so that we believe that we see ourselves changing. or then again, maybe i just don't want
to change. maybe i think that if it really were left up to me, i really could fix it all and would. in fact, i would teach them all love. i would show them strength. i would bring them in
from the cold and ... maybe i really am just too good for this world.  sometimes i begin to believe it. but remember, like Mrs. Partridge said when Danny's hampsters went forth and multiplied out of control, "Danny, you can't spread your love this many ways" those words are imprinted into my mind. didn't make sense to me then, still don't, but
look at me now. sitting around loving myself and a select few others... i've become one of them; netarati, conservative.
and then we throw ourselves into the winds of change.
 
 


"go in through the narrow gate because the gate to hell is wide
and the road that leads to it is easy and there are many who
travel it. but the gate to life is narrow and the way that leads
to it is hard and there are few people who find it." Mathew 7:13

 
i'm reading about AngelinaJolie and even if she ends up screwed up
i'm envying her freedom of creative spirit and mind. i was raised with
love, unending love, (not to insinuate that she was not)  but along with it
was given as well a structure to follow. a rough edge of a mould that i
was expected to fill (and did, usually). rough, because i mean rough.
i never expected to be expected to cook a man dinner (although it
was perhaps unsaid) or to believe in some kind of God, but now look
at me. i fit into many, if not every single one of the guidelines that i was
exposed to on a regular basis.
often, i feel like i'm climbing the walls of these structures. i climb because
i need to know what's on the other side. what would it be like to leave
these constraints? i reach and i climb and my feet leave the ground but
i fall back to solid earth before my entire weight lifts over the fence, and
i'm half relieved when i land on the ground because it's solid earth and it's
soft and i understand and it tastes good and i recognize it and i feel safe here.
i imagine her life to be somewhat less structured and will less direction
and especially little past. i may be wrong and viewing her this way may
yet be only an extension of my inability to understand what's on the other
side. she may be very driven as i am, to see what it is like to live my life
or she may be just a little hanging over the wall like me.
 


bumblings tcdc.com around my mind
when i was born women were still more women
when movies, barely colour as we know it,
barely kissing as we know it,
saw us as beautiful - and what's the shame in that.
when we have the time, radio noises annoy
intelligent ones should do
are we as ashes to wildwood?
sitting around watching time, watching the girls go by,
what is the difference between now and then?
somehow now knows more and sees less.
entire days in front of us- we stare ahead
entire years behind us - thankful we can count them

staring ahead into spaces
i tread on a line between
wine and
 
 

 

 
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three enpty glasses, and
another empty bottle...

thru blurry burning lids the white mug gets close enough to my lips and tips a few aerated mils of nectar into my mouth. what day is it.

why does evil often appear to reign?
that's easy, evil is agressive, good is passive.
it all started when i suggested that Jack and the rest of the boys on the island were probably very hungry, and hunger can drive people to do strange things. we weren't meant to be hungry us humans. we don't do hunger well. food puts alot of things right.

chocolatey java warms my very soul while the xmas decorations remain piled up in this room. there's a monitor on the floor from the dead PC and oops! right over there, behind me, is the cadaver itself. he and i are learning to see things as heaps of plastic instead of living breathing entities ... but it's not easy to turn away from over-anthromorphizing. we like it.

and now this thing is on it's last legs.  i reset the factory defaults, we'll see what effect that can't have. this thing has a persona; it's the saviour for now.

and that's it, more about me me me.
half the java has now opened my eyes,
the brain blanket of the night is gone,
the first major stretch of this feline
signals another day. 7:22 am in canada
in a moment in history where an acadian
girl turned woman tells her story...
just thursday, i think.
 
 
 
 


swirling dunken thoughts while irish music plays
why think about who reads what is here
while remembering nights we danced
and he asks what's the point?
the crystals on the window are thinner now
 

and about the parking.
it looks like humans do not have an innate drive to optimize. silly me.

when the snow comes
i feel the thoughts inkstamped to my brain and leaving only me to make the decision unstamp them chase them or write them down like wafts of baking bread disappearing under my nostrils too soon elusive but dangling under my mind's eye