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People are strange
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2063
People are strange when you're a stranger
Faces look ugly when you're alone
The Doors
And so I miss my bus last night, just miss it but I'm in luck, the boys, they want to go for a drink. It's Stampede. And so I catch a ride downtown, go for a drink with them at King Henry VIII on Stephen Ave. Mall because they don't want to wait in line to go anyplace better and I don't care, I'm sweaty and still dressed for work and all I really want to do is to go home and shower and go to bed.
Now I don't smoke. Or only cigarettes, which is probably the worst of the vices. But the boys, they smoke, and the smoke pools in the back seat of the car where I'm sat and by the time we're parked downtown I'm already pretty fucked up.
At the bar I drink my drink, quickly, it's filled with other people who didn't want to wait and get into better bars, all looking about as happy as we are. I finish my drink and then go to catch the connecting bus home.
And I'm pretty fucked up, whatever they were smoking it was pretty good if I can be fucked up after sitting in the back seat of the car for 10 minutes and drinking a single beer. And I don't feel nauseous, which is a good thing as I seem to recall it being the reason I never pursued that particular vice. So I wait at the bus stop and notice the people, all the people, they're looking at me, they know how fucked up I am and I see a group of chinese tourists coming down the street in these sheer raincoats, you can see their bras and knickers beneath, and I turn away because I don't want to stare, to seem like I'm all fucked up and they pass and it's a group of blobby young teenagers, not the chinese tourists I thought they were, and I realize that I'm pretty fucked up.
But I'm concentrating on waiting for the bus, ignoring the many staring people around me....
The bus comes and I get on and find a seat and I have to concentrate now, concentrate on the stop I have to get off at, I could imagine very easily missing it, riding the bus all night until the driver kicks me off, and I just want to get home...
The regulars, the bus has regulars, depending on the hour you board it, they're all there. And I'm in the midst of life, in tune with it all, not apart or above as usually I am but right there in the midst of it all and I tune their conversations in and out, move my concentration about the bus and capture the snippets of their conversation....
...and I realize that they're all pretty fucked up as well. I had never noticed before, had overheard but not paid attention, thought them boring, irrelevant, whatever, but tonight, tonight I realize, tonight I'm on their page, I understand just how fucked up everyone really is.
A huge house
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1891
A day of constant napping.
Up at 6:00 AM, flea market, home by 9:00 AM. Nap until 12:00. Up and wait for boy to arrive, by 1:00 I'm suspicious that he's not coming...Call, no answer, another nap.
Now I've moved again, and I'm in a large wood paneled room, a small window above a sink. It's dark, but somehow architecturally perfect, the slope of the ceiling, everything. G (the owner of the restaurant G) is here, for some reason he's given me a ride...
And I find a slip of paper taped up, listing another property for rent, I'm curious, it's got a strange symbol, squares, beneath it and I'm trying to decipher it but key upon the slip is the statement that "price is no object" and I wander the house looking for someone to talk to this about, is it true and if so maybe I can afford it....
G is still there, he's brought his daughter and she's watching a tiny TV, G is lifting weights, he's all pumped up like Arnold Schwarzenegger, he's watching me and I remember that I haven't told him I'm leaving....
Now I find the owner of the house, the one I'm renting it off of, he's drinking in front of a computer and he tells me it's true, money's no object and they'll buy all the major appliances for whoever takes the property off their hands, all new, ...in the next room is an obviously gay guy working an old - 1980's old - yellow screened giant computer, he's getting some fax or transmission from "Outlook", the gay magazine in Calgary, and I'm asking him if there isn't anything a bit more modern, admiring the retro look of it, and G is joking that he must be gay and he says that yes, yes he is and G is dumbstruck, doesn't know what to say, and the gay guy is turning to me, his face is all black and blue and I ask him what happened and he explained that it was some little brawl at Stampede...
Now I'm wandering around the house, I've already moved in and my furniture, belongings are in piles everywhere, and everywhere I wander I discover more rooms, the kitchen, maybe 50 feet long and lined with shelves, a 10" ceiling, now there's another room I didn't see beside it, another 50" of shelves and 10" ceiling, painted a 50's lime green, enough to put everything I own in, and I'm overjoyed at the prospect of sorting this shit out...
G is now talking to me, telling me I should reconsider moving, it's too expensive (and it isn't at all) and the owner is an alcoholic (? so ? what do I care..) and the other guy is gay (and what does that matter?) and as I walk through the house, discovering new rooms and vistas all the time, it begins to fill with friends...theater friends, young attractive people whispering behind my back about the housewarming gifts they forgot to bring me...
There's a giant living room, balcony, it overlooks the river valley, beside it another room, as well giant, overlooking the river, the house, this house, it's huge and unending and it's filling with friends that I don't know and G has disappeared and I'm thinking that there's no way I'm going to go on vacation, this house, it's perfect, I'm going to stay here and party with my newly discovered friends for the next 3 weeks...
Roman Hoard - April 2010
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Found
- Hits: 1865
Hot days, quiet nights
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2044
The Stampede has begun to take it's toll, cancellations, slow lunches, evenings.
It would be a relief were it not for the heat. There's air conditioning, but it doesn't help much, at all, it's stand around in a vest and tie and feel your life blood ebbing away.
There's the making of notes, the other staff find me mysterious as I hack away in my journal, elaborating upon brief flashes of inspiration, cutting down inspiration as it ripens and is ready to harvest, there's a lot of catching up to be done...
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