Masha, right on cue

I was in this exact same spot the last time Masha randomly knocked on my door.

She was drunk the first time we met. She sort of stumbled in, looking for the piano. It wasn't in the safe anymore, she explained. I guess she had gotten used to coming by and playing it there. I'm not really sure how she knew it had ended up in my room. Lucky guess, I guess. Then she kind of just barged in. I was sitting on the couch, reading Interpreter of Maladies and trying to decipher Shukumar in a bid to make sense of my own turmoil. She apologized for the random visit and went straight for the piano. She started playing and was quite good for someone who kept on insisting she wasn't. She asked if I could accompany her on the drums. I agreed, even though I really couldn't. It was awkward. But we ended up jamming for half an hour regardless. She ended up coming back at least once more that night - apologizing both on the way in and on the way out. She promised she'd be back in about three months.

Tonight was about three months, give or take. And I was on that same couch. Except this time I had no clues to decipher; no characters to read up on. Just broken text messages. And emptiness. And Masha walked in after poking her head into the small cat flap I had added especially for Angel. She apologized again and walked straight to the piano. She insisted I looked too young to be a building owner. Wasted, she made sure to remind me not to 'rape her' or anything. I laughed and agreed. Luckily I didn't have to play drums this time. I just listened to her play, watching her fingers stretched delicately over the keys. She played a song she felt could pass for a complete song and spoke of lyrics she was too shy to sing.

When she was done we spoke about songs that made her cry and others that made her want to run. We spoke about life and loving too much and the pitfall of complete happiness - at least as far as her own creative process was concerned. There was something to be said about turmoil, I said, only half believing my words. She asked me to tell her the most important thing I had learned in life. I said it was that things are never as sure as they may seem; that learning to accept that was the only way to live.

She agreed, asked me for my name again and thanked me for the talk. Told me she'd probably see me again in about three months.

I wondered how long she might knock next time before realizing I wouldn't be there to open the door.

there ain't no END quite like it

I always get these crazy feelings when I finish a really good book. And it seems all the books have been really good lately. This time, it was a wave of goosebumps that started in my arms and shot through my entire body as I got through the dying pages of It. Goosebumps and shivers. And why not? I feel like I can just tell when an author has poured every last piece of himself into a novel. One thousand eighty nine pages of his darkest fears and deepest desires. The plot itself is almost meaningless at this point. You're simply all in because you know he's all in. And much like the story, I felt like I was revisiting a part of my own childhood by re-reading this book. Reading it as an adult for what seemed like the first time. (Ah, memory. You never fail me) And there was one line about how it is also good to be grownup and able to consider the mystery of childhood on the very last page that sent a chill that felt like a tear drop from somewhere way, way deep inside me.

just another ordinary day

i woke up late. and tired. maybe a little too much socializing in the last couple of days. too much drinking. too much food. too much strange conversation and awkward silence to swallow all at once. what doesn't kill you, they say. so with a fresh breeze and nothing better to do, i got lost in and old Steven King classic. stop thinking about deranged men answering ads to have other men eat them alive and focus instead on a nightmarish clown obsessed with storm drains and floating bodies and colourful balloons. i'm praying the movie won't ruin this re-read for me. so far so good. i look up and Pepe is walking toward the house with something unmistakable dangling from his mouth. the fourth gift in the last week or so and i knew he was going to deposit it inside the house under the table. except the mouse was alive and Amy wasn't quick enough to close the patio door. he scurried, slightly punctured, from room to room as i tried to shut as many doors as possible. i finally caught him in the mop pale and then wiped off the tiny blood stain on my modem. i let him out in the dug up lot just up the alley, figuring he might live to end up right back under my table. i never finished my beer and went to pick up some red snapper with Stef. he told me i should stuff some fresh basil down his throat. for flavour. i never realized fish had teeth. his dead eye watched me from the cutting board and i felt compelled to touch it. Amy slapped me on the back in a horrible reflex. we laughed. i sat down to write this and the music went off for the first time in three weeks.

help me miss you

i`m starting to miss a lot of things.

i miss writing music. i miss having Jules crack me up. i miss going to see a show and feeling like we`re all in it together. i miss the butterflies. i miss the struggle. i miss sharing amazing moments with perfect strangers. i miss being an open book. i miss those late-night conversations and the cigarettes that go with them. i miss the magic and the morning afters.

i miss going through life with only a single thought in my head. and seeing the sparkle in my own eyes.

forward, back through time.

If blogs are supposed to be so current, than why is it often more interesting to read what someone you follow was writing two or three years ago? Back before you even knew they existed.
Maybe I just want to figure out why people become who they are.
Maybe the past is just more innocent.
I wonder what this blog might read like in two or three or five years - should it ever make it that far.
More importantly, I wonder what any of these early posts might read like in two or three years to someone who will have just stumbled upon this blog then.

If you are reading this from the future, I'd love to hear from you. Someday.

tunnel vision

every time i take the metro i can't help but look for rats. rats on the tracks. i'm not even sure i've ever seen one in the Montreal metro system - maybe once, in one of the dingier blue line stations.

i've always had a strange fascination with those tunnels. i think it has something to do with Stephen King but i can't say why exactly. i used to picture just calmly walking right past the dotted orange line and casually jumping into the tracks. i would walk between the electrified tracks and avoid all the small puddles. just to be safe. but there was always the question of whether or not i'd have enough time to jump aside when the train came speeding by. probably easier just to take the stairs after the head of the train and walk along the wall. i mean, that's exactly what we would all have to do if the power suddenly cut out between stops.

but it was the strange interview with the pudgy graffiti kid from the anonymous forum that really did me in. sitting right there in Press Cafe with a smug bullshitters grin, he swore to me that his partner in crime had actually ducked under the metro to save his life after it had caught him off guard during one of their late-night tunnel runs. i wanted to believe him so badly, but i couldn't bring myself to print that blatant exaggeration on my J School feature writing assignment. still, the lie did little to curb my enthusiasm. you know that strange feeling you get when you're in a high-speed vehicle and you try to focus in on something that is flying past your eyes? i'm sure Einstein could relate. anyway, that was me for the bettter part of a semester, eyes pressed against the windows scanning for graffiti on those grimy walls. trying to zero in on those small perpendicular alcoves that would flash by ever now and then. imagining who got to explore them - or at the very least, clean them. and just where they led.

probably to nothing more than just more rats.