there's nothing like
spending 12 some odd hours of travel sitting in cabs and airports and on airplanes until you finally get home to spend a round of several hours calling all the people you just left or left before you left to declare that you've actually gotten into your place safely (and that somehow your bags filled to busting point hadn't gotten lost along the way).

and on top of it all -- running into two of my professors at layover points along the way. major cosmic weirdness.

but at the heart of it all, it was a good holiday. and there's more to come. for which, i'll continue to look forward. even though, i'm feeling decidedly unwell at the moment.

here's what i wrote in a letter to my dearest friend (that i'll never actually send) in my new journal with a pollack like cover whilst a good-looking man in a cheap leather jacket sat decidedly too close to me and kept trying to read along with the pace of thoughts shooting out and through and in-between:
[note: all spelling and other errors are intentional or are the product of being way too tired and way too drunk from cocktailing at home after eating fuck-all all day]

i'm at the airport -- waiting for my flight home. i feel like, today, i've been travelling forever.
i'm on my second latte. the first -- iced -- in S. -- then a hot here in C. S's espresso stand was packed and the two women behind me where driving me crazy taling about the "dopio" and their amazement at what that means. when they ordered at the counter, the woman working the register didn't know either. i kept the information to myself. i ordered a latte here, there wasn't anyone else in line, from a very dark and handsome young man. when he gave me back my card he said have a nice new year then winked. i smiled and said you too. when i walked away -- he let out a squeal -- like a cat does when someone mistakenly steps on her tail. i turned around -- startled for a moment into the instinct -- he waved smartly and turned away. i smiled to myself, not entirely sure why, and left for my gate. i can still see him down the hallway -- behind the counter -- swilling coffee for endelss strangers. friendliness of this kind always leaves me feeling amazed.

a few minutes ago i saw a very tall woman carrying a battered white cello case. in less than an instant, i decided she was a famous musician and felt jealous when i saw that she was with her mate. these impulsive thoughts are strange -- aren't they? the way i create these stories about characters @ the airport w/o much thought or direction -- the hilarious part -- w/o reason. i imagine these are the reasons for which you love me. (ha).

selfishly, i reread my end of term paper while i was waiting for me flight in S. the A+. it made me feel good. even now.

one of my professors from the department who is also on the committee is also on my waiting for this same flight back home. it seems strange that from whereever we were both going, that we'd meet up here. i don't think she's seen me. either that -- or she's ignoring it -- like i am. i never know how to handle these things.

i always wish that given time and circumstance -- i'd find someone who might like to write me love letters. or any kind. maybe the long sprawling variety. i'm not sure why this feels like it might be important. maybe because words that haven't come out of the the throat are really the ones i know how to make -- that i better know how to deal with. maybe they're there already and i just don't know how to read them -- how to listen.

the shattered voice over the intercom is calling my flight. and my professor is making glances my way. more --

red wine and confidence

a good friend -- and i say that with the utmost importance -- told me a story once about the importance of white wine and its compatibility. and i believed her. because she's spoken to me the most of the kinds of truths that aren't a part of the whole realm of misunderstandings or unspoken spaces that some of us allow ourselves to occupy daily and nightly. and so tonight, on this night of leave takings, i drink glasses upon glasses of red wine to the legacy and the truth of her and all the friends that have stood by me on so many nights of letting go.

i'm off for a few weeks. and then i'll be busy with a friend visiting from far away places. making posts will be something that will come and go when there is time and adequate silence for the taking up of words to pen and paper. but i will miss the lives that go on out there without me -- to dvd, to jess, to stv, to mrtn -- wherever life is taking you, to t.c., to that digitalbutterfly and her boy, to my biscuit, and to the rest of you who bring me so much joy always.

i wish everyone a very joyous holiday, and i hope that you spend it well doing the things that bring you love and peace and joy -- and that, mostly, we understand what -- at the root of it all -- makes us the most happiest and that we start living for that feeling as much and as often as we can.

I'll miss you.

--imogen

things that happen during the final week

yesterday, on the way to university, i saw a brown plastic trash can -- on its side -- frozen to the middle of the street.

yesterday, whilst taking a final exam, a very large dog popped his head into the room and stared at us long enough for it seem freaky.

wish lists: on a day like this one

silk pajamas

into his answering machine: 12:50pm

in the space that exists between
because--
there isn’t much room
people are too various
i am too various
--i’m not that kind of woman

between here and there. a loss fell in. my translation of the world. skewed suddenly. as if i’d forgotten all the letters of the alphabet -- or the way to make those letters into sounds. the cold wind in my ears like the last secret anyone who ever loved me might have breathed into a kind of reality that makes it all spin on the right axis.

whatever usually mutes the loud sun against the slick icy asphalt.

there’s an evil blue turtle loose in my apartment

that isn’t a metaphor
for anything

i miss you

my hair is all tied up in knots

9th stage of delirium:
stare blankly at computer for hours
only making words into small semblances of sense during short written exchanges with friends
eat peanut butter straight from the jar on crunchy pretzels
without feeling hungry
think about sex [a lot]




[that's decidedly one too many posts, now, that mention my hair]

"i've no idea what's wrong with me -- i'm sorry"

but i do know
my hair
even now
is not blue
enough

it’s crazy the things that graduate school can do to your sense of possibility

somehow, between 7 am and approximately 9 pm today, aside from the time i worked today, i managed to read a 318 page novel that needed to be consumed before late afternoon tomorrow. even now, i’m not sure how that’s possible. and i was able to finish a different project that received very high marks today, as well. so, i’m having a few glasses of red as a celebratory measure and feeling triumphant, if only momentarily. there’s another project to be finished that’s already nagging at the edges of my mind. begging me to work out some kind of philosophic stance that couldn’t probably be achieved in a lifetime. but I’ll leave that for tomorrow.

for now it’s just going to be me, this feeling of accomplishment, the cold wind blowing the snow against the window, and the remnants of this bottle of wine.

breaking promises, like that brick through the plate glass window

i promised myself that i wouldn't:
send any email messages
make any posts or
blog comments
after being this-early-drunk

damn. damn it all to hell. ; )
[apologies, all around.]

it's been awhile since i've had a night like this one. and it feels good. right down to my crazy socks, hidden right beneath these boots that i'm wearing without the intention of walking away, anywhere.

best quotation of the day: by me, regarding my christmas lights

i think those bitches are in sync right now

best conversation overheard in the hallway: my apartment building, just now

woman standing facing her open apartment door
woman: you're going with me to get chopsticks
man's voice: why?
woman: get your fucking shoes on.
man's voice: we've got forks.
woman: you're going with me to get some fucking chopsticks.
man's voice: aww, fuckinghell.

if you're confused about whether or not you like poetry,
if you're confused about the ways in which words can take those beautiful petulant things in our lives that we often forget how to bend into the fantastic,
if you've forgotten what a love letter might sound like if you didn't find words so clumsy for translating thoughts,
then read this out loud
and celebrate every word
like a love dance
up through the throat
across the tongue
brush against those lips--

"This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
it attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yeilding of day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day."
--Walt Whitman, from "I Sing the Body Electric"

best first line song lyrics

"suppose i accidentally got my shit together"
--mc 900 foot jesus, "if i only had a brain"

usually in the mornings
i've been having these recurring, and strange, dreamy sexual fantasies about this woman i know
strange only because i’ve only rarely held women up to some kind of sexual objectification
rather than acts of consumption
or mutual senses of gratification
but often when i become fascinated by any person
gender regardless
i want to fill out his/her self completely
and that could be all this is
not a crush or something to be developed more lucidly in the mind
[i’ve not usually enjoyed kissing other women]
perhaps even putting it down into words
offers the thoughts as more raw and unflattering
than intention ever meant to be

last night
i celebrated the silly dance
of putting up holiday decorations
mostly, lights
i like looking at them this time of year
and i won't be around for the actual holiday
but the idea struck me
as i was fighting with long strings of wire and bulb
the moment would have been much nicer
had i been sharing a bottle of wine
with someone who would have held the other end of the line
help me tear off pieces of tape
and place the ornaments -- just right

the fire inside: do you remember it well?

stv made a post about birthday parties and being a kid
and it made me think that i don't remember any of mine
had
or attended
there's something there vaguely -- maybe grade 3 or 4
some sleep-over nonsense
i remember thinking it was ridiculous the way young girls behaved
and how loud they all were
i remember feeling relieved to be home, where i talked to my mom
for a very long time about the color the trees were turning on the corner
down the street from our house
she let me borrow our camera, later
gave me permission to walk the half block alone
there's still an album with a few pages
scattered pictures of that tree
the faded square images--caught in my mind--still feel like calmness and solitude
like a cool strong hand on that empty space
just at the base of the neck