One was good. Two is better.

Photo booth outtakes

The man's mouth is missing

The eye of the woman is on the side of the man's face 

The eyebrow of the man is where the eye should be

The nose of the woman is where the ear is 

One face is turned sideways and the other upside down 

The frame is filled with two turned backs

A lone and empty shoe sits in the centre.  

Beans

The woman presents the man with a lawyer's letter. The letter says this is how it's going to be. Deep inside the house. In the bottom of the house heavy boxes of books sigh under their own weight. And creak as the pages try to turn as the stories inside them try to get free. From the top of the built in bookshelves one book after another throws itself on the floor in despair saying what have we done. While an open notebook begins scribbling inside its own pages to document the breakdown of the union.

The man presents the woman with a handwritten letter that says this is not how it's going to be. I'll make it be the way I want it to be. 

Outside there is the sound of something creaking beyond the window or a crying. Inside the bed it is a good time to stop breathing to try to tell if the noise is really coming from outside the window or from inside your own body. From your mouth or from your nose. 

On the second floor many cats begin running back and forth chasing shadows and the feet or the imaginary feet of the man and the woman. Where they stand facing off and then pacing, off, back and forth on the linoleum, the puke colored linoleum etched with seven and eleven years of circle walking, trying to determine how to put this everything to its own miserable end. 

Halifax (this is old) (very old) (found in drafts. publish everything in drafts)

The streets are so familiar so far, the exact feel of home, where my parents live home. Cool and pleasant weather. Small town vibes abounding.

I buy bananas, peanut butter, yogurt, bread and beer. To burrow out a little space for me where I'm staying on a cute little street. 

Attractive haligonians wear their hair in little pony tails at the back. With tattoos and cut offs. And sparse facial hair. Adorable, adorable. 

The security guard at the liquor store asks for my ID then asks if I'm here for school blushing the whole time. And stepping back. 

There are Hospitals

There are hospitals

They want to take your blood right away when you are in the waiting room. They ask you to sit in a chair at the reception and start to unwind the rubber band thing to put around your arm and then you realize what is happening and say "no, I faint." "I need to lie down for needles," and this seems very whiny and inconvenient to you while you are saying it. But they take you to this little room off the main room and you walk past people with broken noses who are in handcuffs on gurneys with policemen and women around them, to get there.

If they're taking your blood maybe you have a disease. Have you given someone a disease? If you have they will have good reason to dislike you even more reason than they may have had before.

The nurse asks "don't you have a family doctor?" "Then what exactly is the emergency?"

The second nurse is so nice and you end up talking about your life in great detail, and your feelings and moods and every little thing. The way your jaw hurts to move it. You haven't been eating but when you leave you walk as far up university as you can to buy a soda and a double chocolate doughnut. The cab driver asks where you were educated. Where you are from. And the drive is very pleasant. You always say you've had a good day. Even on a day where there are hospitals you've had a good day. A bad day needs to be a very truly terrible one.

Thursday Beers

I'm sitting with my computer. I never use this thing. I can see why the PC is on its way down and out. I use my phone, phone, phone forever and always and my PC is like a book that I don't open but I set on the floor, set drinks on, set my feet on.

My little big dog is sleeping on the carpet, and I pay 20 dollars a day plus HST for this luxury, the luxury of having a dog who sleeps when I come home from work. She is a sleeping giant and I don't want to move or talk or stir because I don't want to wake her and ruin everything.

So much has happened since last August when I last visited this space.

It is summer again and I'm in a very different place in many ways, except geographically. I'm in the same place geographically- more or less.

This coming week I'm on vacation and I'm not visiting the arctic or anything at all this year, except going to the water, whatever water I can find and be close to. And I'm going group camping, and I will try not to be messy or make a mess of this situation.

I listen to two or three episodes of This American Life a day at the moment. It's painting swatches on my brain. I'm an evangelist for it.

My summer book is going to be the new David Rakoff.

I bought a new car so I'm getting a roommate.

I'm getting a roommate.

Iqaluit

I climb down the hill from the house
The land here always leaves you walking sideways and towards some
Body
Of water.

It's a bit treacherous
It is green and it is squishy
And there are many purple flowers
And arctic cotton
Broken up by Red and desert like rocks.
It's quite easy to slide and lose your footing on descent.

We walk along a little gravel pathway at the bottom
My borrowed sled dog and I
And she picks up bones and drops them
Scattered and bleached white
Powdery and light like chalk
A hip bone
A jaw
Part of an ankle

You spend a lot of time looking at your feet out here
And it's easy to forget.
Where you've been and where you are going

I'm a bit wary
Even with the dog. By myself looking for polar bears. It's unlikely
It's very very unlikely. But they have been spotted not so very far away.
And there are icebergs in the bay
In August. Stranger things have happened. Global warming.
Leads to polar bear warnings.

Climbing back up to the top again
Is when and where things get truly difficult
Heart pounding and breathing through the mouth
The south is soft and the south leaves me very soft
My body unable to work the way it should do

While here I am climbing
And I am trying to climb a little bit higher every day.

Sunday

That moment when you finally rediscover/find your favorite dress
Missing all these weeks
In the pile of discards
Clothing and bedding
On your left side
The bed side that no one is using
Anymore

Hat moment whb you finally rediciver/fond tour favirite dress
Missing all those wrrks
In the pile of discards
Coorhing and bedding
On your lty side
The bed side that no one Is ising
Antmore