slut?

walking down the street late one night near dalhousie university with a girl friend a car full of boys drove by, obviously drunk and unaccustomed to anyone darker than a paper bag one of the boys leaned out of the car window and yelled,
"SLUT!!!"

now a more sensitive person could have interpreted the situation in several different ways:

- this was a sexist comment from a drunken chauvinistic pig
- this was racially motivated verbal attack from a drunken chauvinistic pig of a bigot
- this was a case of mistaken identity and there is some short brownish slut in halifax that has in someway bruised his boyish pride

i, on the other hand, was flattered a drunken idiot could actually tell that i was a girl.

considering how many times i have been mistaken for a boy
-in broad daylight
-by sober people
-in close range

it made my entire day.

Where have all the black people gone?

I look down streets and alleys,
and behind every closed door.
They aren't in any restaurants
can't find them in the stores.

I strain my ears to hear them
I strain my eyes to search,
but i don't see my brotha
their skin's all white as birch.

I know they must exist somewhere,
I can hear their pounding beats.
The rhythms of the motherland,
I hear hip-hop in the streets.

If only i could find someone to ask them where to go.
where can i find a negro - someone darker than the snow?

what happened to the nigga-men that paved these city streets?
were they erased from history by bigots dressed in sheets?

Did they sail off to Africa? Did the tall ships take them back?
cause of all the folks I've seen today not a single one was black.

when to my left i hear it,
a soft and lonesome cry.
it's not to me she's talking,
but i hear her question "why?"

"why after centuries have passed,
why after all these years,
why when i walk through my hometown
do people stop and leer?"

I see her in the corner
but somethings no quite right.
it seems as if she might be black,
but her skin is awfully white.

what happened to you sista?
was it the plague or pox
that washed out your chestnut skin and straightened out your locks?

"what happened to me sista?
are you as dumb as they?
nothing happened to me sista,
i was born this way.

what makes your skin so chocolate
is the same that makes mine light.
God put this colour on me
and He thinks i look alright.

If you're lookin' for some coloured folk
get your head out of the ground,
your so blinded by a colour scheme
you can't see what's all around.

what exactly are you looking for?
a place where you fit in?
a person's worth is in the heart
not painted on their skin.

people come in different shades,
red, white, yellow, black and brown
when we stop lookin' at colour
only then can love abound."

I search through all the faces
my quest now seems absurd.
Was this the voice of reason
or the voice of God I heard?

I still wonder where the black folk are
'cause I know they must be here.
How can a race of people just up and disappear?

But it doesn't really matter if I can't find my kin,
why pledge allegiance to a group based on the colour of one's skin

where're you from?

since my people came here many years have gone and come
but when i walk through my home town people ask me where i'm from.
"Canada" i answer is where i'm born and raised
But ignorance is what these fools will carry to their graves.

'But really man, where are you from?
what strange foods do you eat?'
'Your face, it doesn't look like mine.
What language do you speak?'

i enunciate and say it slow, "i am Canadian".
But they can never understand so they just smile and grin.
They ask me in another way, "Where were your parents born?"
But the only answer i can give brings ridicule and scorn.
'my family is Canadian' i firmly answer back.
"That can't be true you foolish girl, your skin is clearly black."

So i turn the tables on them, I ask them where they're from.
"Newfoundland," they tell me "tried and true Canadians".
I ask them of their parents,
"Newfie bloodlines through and through".
Their voices proud as if to say, "i'm more Canadian than you".

They think their family's history surpasses that of mine,
but Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949.
"My family came on tall TALL ships, sales blowing in the wind
stolen, bruised and bloodied for the colour of their skin."
Their blue eyes lock they share a smile I"ve seen many times before
They think i should be humble downcast eyes upon the floor.

Cause no matter what i tell them, there's nothing i can say,
To them i'm just a visitor who'll go "home" someday.
There is no use in fighting. Why bother to implore?
so i take my pride and chocolate skin and calmly leave the store.

"how sweet," they say behind my back,
"she wants to be like us."
"we're open minded people,
let her sit where she wants on the bus."
___________________

this is in no way meant to insult or otherwise "pick on" newfies. it just so happen that they were the last province to join confederation.

waxing poetic

I have no questions left to ask
no answers have i heard.
i flip the pages blindly
but i'm looking for a Word

No direction and no calling,
i sit still and wait.
in search of signs from heaven
for You must know my fate.

The world around is silent
so i close my eyes and pray
i hear no quiet voice,
will i ever find my way?

Though patience must be practiced
doubt is lurking in my mind,
what am i chasing after?
will i reach the finish line?

Still no answers to my questions.
i'm still sitting in the cold.
the world around still silent,
the future still untold.

As i stand to leave and join the rest lost within the crowd...
i see our blurred reflection in a puddle on the ground.

foresight is blind

this week in herstory:

i lost all the dignity i had struggled so hard to preserve in quebec.

no matter how good one's intentions are,
when one is so small
and with such little will power
there is not much one can do but to join a nunnery...

and to stay as far as hell away from the states as possible.

for all their roads are bad roads,

none of which lead to redemption

on limits

i am no longer stressing out of my mind.
feel free to bother me as you will.

but don't expect a christmas present.


**all aforementioned offers of friendliness and chummy comradorary are dependent on a continued baseline level of stress inducing events.
all potential and suggested get-togethers are subject to the laws and statutes of the land and are subject to change without further/future/any notice.
all offers are conditional and are only valid until january
cause after that it all starts again and i have a feeling i'm gonna be even more crotchety than i was before.

the mints are on the house.

dear people who are bothering me,

i have exams and papers out the wazoo and i would appreciate it if you left me alone.

if you haven't noticed, i am "off limits 'til decemeber" and "too busy for you".
i am not being coy.
i am serious.
i'd advise you to get off my back.
i am very small, alors there is not enough room on it for all of you.

if you "geesh" me one more time i WILL put milk in your tea.
that is not a threat.


i will post when i am good and ready.
i will send you pictures when i have the time.
i cannot go to the movies.
i will only have coffee with you if bring it to me in the library.
DON'T EVEN ASK ME ABOUT CLUBBING.

friendly salutations are always welcome but if you keep nagging me i will hurt you.

thank you to everyone who has not bothered me in this time of stress.

however, if you are:
either in france or korea;
somewhere other than right here, or;
in need of some serious help
i will make time to talk to you if you need me
-just as long as you do not mention blogging, because then i will be forced to kill you too.

thank you for your time. have a nice day. please take a mint on your way out.

the. end.

finger painting [midnight thoughts.]

i'm feeling like an etch- a -sketch
the way your fingers move me.
twirling, spinning
twisted inside.

look at me. what do you see?
is it me you love
or something that you've made?
we've created something new.

pushing, pulling all the right buttons
you know how to turn me
on.

forever marked by the touch of your hands
until i am shaken
by your callous disregard
then everything is erased
forgotten
until you touch me again
gentle hands
drawing on me
drawing me in.

it's a new day - meet me at the boat house

august 2006

tired and unable to move after my oceanic adventure i while away the morning lying in bed dreaming of soft hands and blue tinted lips, but like every other day in vancity this day brings excitement and thrills.

meet me at the boat house.

plunging into the frigid waters of the pacific i flail frantically trying to grap hold of the tether, but the frozen waters have short circuited my inner wiring-
no longer communicating with my brain i do not have the muscle control to pull myself onto the raft. Finally with my last ounce of energy and three sisterly hands i am half dragged onto my unsteady perch.

whipping behind the speed boat i fake compliance. there is no way i am going to willingly put my body into these galacial waters again.

"put your legs in the water!"
"i have short legs ya' know" i holler back holding on for dear life as the raft is jerked to and fro-
skidding behind the boat i feel like a man possessed, clinging to the frail edge of my crumbling sanity.

deliberately pulled into the wake of the boat i am airborne.
exhilarated i am in flight.
a short lived metamorphosis i soar not on eagles wings but like frisson l'écureuil before it crashes dans un buisson.

i swim to the dock forgetting that i cannot feel my legs, nor my arms for that matter. i am so cold my skin has turned bright red;
but it doesn't matter, for a brief moment i feel alive.

Post post - our secret rendez-vous

August 26 2006

Here i am on the sunshine coast in BC.
it is more than just sublime.
my family and i are staying in the 14 room "guest house" on the Rolston estate - a stone's throw away from their mansion it is a beautiful retreat in the middle of an already wonderful vaction.
i have spent the past few days strolling, canoeing, playing with purple starfish and basking in the quiet sanctuary of both nature and man made luxuries.

having spent the afternoon on a tour of Pender harbour i had emptied my mind of all things urbane.
tonight as i floated down the pacific in my pink kayak drifting ever deeper into the gloaming i stared into the depths enchanted by the school of jellyfish gracefully dancing through the darkening waters.
counting the stars i was roused from quiet reflection by something extraordinary which had surfaced in the water beside me.
watching me intently it came ever closer, bobbing in and out of the frigid waters until it was within arms reach.

dumbstruck and amazed, hours later i am still marvelling at my fortune. How lucky am i to have shared the waters with such a beautiful and graceful creation.


i marvel at Your awesomeness.

How the French will inherit the earth...or at least Canada

Being the astute and slightly less than genius person that i am, during my time spent in the C dot (Chicoutimi) i have unearthed a fiendishly brilliant plan devised by les Quebecois to take over the world. that's right Pinky, after centuries of subjugation the French have developed a plan that would make Bouchard spin in his grave!1

Brilliant in it's simplicity Anglos are powerless to stop it.


NOURRIR ET VAINCRE: un bref résumé par TOAC le incomparable


step 1: lure the unsuspecting anglos to quaint little back water towns under the guise of a linguistic olive branch. then while their minds are preoccupied with trying to conjugate the endless list of french verbs STRIKE. not with guns and missles. no that is much too anglo.

the French will kill you with food my friend.

step 2: they start small. Nothing new there, it's an age old trick that even Hitler used. start with something insignificant and no one will notice. you won't even know what hit you 2 . le Quebecois have this down to an art.

juste viande et potate s'il vous plait

meat and potatoes? the french are gonna take over the world with meat and potatoes?!

ouais!
meat, potatoes... and beer, but that's another blog

TOAC shut yo mouth. c'est impossible! you can't take over a country, let alone the world with meat and potatoes!

sure you can.
just look at the southern united states. they've stuffed their people so full of meat and potates that they couldn't waddle away fast enough to save their inflated behinds.
Admittedly, one serving of potatoes and meat-smoked or otherwise- won't kill you, but this is where the brilliance lies. with a simple "do you want some more" they have established the footing for their devious plan.

step 3: after a few servings of souper they'll plop a slab of gâteau in front of you that is so big you won't see them winding up to make the next blow.

step 4: Lethargic and standing at the precipice of obesity you won't be fast enough to avoid the vole au vont, they'll most certainly throw at you next. and not just one, but two, two vol au vont. HA HA HA!3

step 5: As you stumble out of the smoke and meat (or smoked meat) filled trenches waving your white flag of surrender4, they will give you germ de blé as a healthy peace offering.
but don't fall for it people. the germ de blé is the final step in their fiendish scheme;
one spoon full of germ de blé will blow the seat off your pants and take all that beer soaked meat with it.


so there you have it folks, though it is a deceptively simple plan, it is without question the way the french will take over the world; by blowing up one colon at a time.

tricksty buggers

FIN


1.i know Bouchard isn't dead yet but it's only a matter of time before Harper has him killed
2. mainly because you won't be able to understand when they tell you le nom de plat.
3.for you unfamilliar with vol-au-vont, it's little pieces of meat (of any persuasion) in a cream sauce poured on top of a cute flaky pastry. think flaky meat grenade of death.
4. which you'll most certainly do, trust me, i was there for 5 weeks

Comment dit-on " Hung Over"?

is this the land of Kubla Khan, where magic dwells, and love is spawned?
to find this land of love and lust you need not drugs or pixie dust.
your heart it marks the pass of time
it swells with passion, joy and wine.

the beat that drives you marches on
there is no rest; there is no dawn.
yet still you smile and laugh and play
you smirk at what the neighbours say.

the nights are long,
the air is heady
intoxified your mind is weary.
one day, a month, it's all the same
you'll lose yourself; forget your name.

a phantom voice, from days of yore
beckons from behind closed doors.
lost between the maze of walls
you feel it's story; hear it's call.

you'll stand upon the mountain top
and wait for all the world to stop.
your body reels your mind is weaving
cause come the dawn you know you're leaving.

leaving this whole world behind
to join the rest trapped in real time.
but i'm not sad, i've no regrets
there is none other like Québec.

----------------
i'm a little behind on my blogging, i went to Quebec city a few weeks ago, here are my impressions.
btw, i was not drunk. the title of this entry will make more sense after i write my next blog.

out of range

i'm gonna be in the big QC this weekend checking things out. won't be able to reply to emails or post anything for a while so ya'll will just have to find some way to survive without me. i'll let you know the gritty details when i get back.

salut!

has anyone noticed...?

that's a bit of a misleading title because everyone i've talked to here has noticed this interesting phenomenon.

why is it easier to understand the busted franglish of the anglo students yet très difficile to comprend le français of someone who is purely franco?

it's not that the franco's don't speak clearly,
they will enunciate and speak v..e..r..y ...sl..ow...ly- très lentment- because you are a stupid anglo.

No. that's not true.

they won't talk to you like you're stupid because you're an anglo...
they might stare at you as you walk through the town, but they wont talk to you like you're stupid.
it's far easier for them to just roll their eyes, plaster on a condescending smile and speak to you in english...besides, this way it takes less time.

(prepare yourselves for a random tangent)

prêt...
set...
go!

is it just me or are anglos the most linguistically lazy people on earth?
okay that's not entirely true. we've done a great job of spreading English around the world 1.

but seriously, why is it that everywhere you go people can speak mulitiple languages, even if it's rudimentary, except for in the Anglo West?

we're so monolingual...
it's terribly pathetic.

you'd think we'd get tired of people rolling their eyes at us,
but i guess we're too busy trying to keep our heads big heads and inflated egos from getting stuck in doorways to notice.

FIN

1. it's like herpes at band camp. encephalitis eat your heart out.

je réfléchis

The problem with this program is:

when you just want to be alone and sulk you have no where to find refuge without looking like a loner/anti-social.

man i could use my room (in toronto) right now.

don't kid yourselves family, i'm not homesick.

i just want to lock myself in my bedroom, lie on my bed and listen to some english music. is that too much to ask?

i have a feeling the answer is ouais.

i know my current antisocial behaviour isn't gonna help my mood but sue me if i don't want to smile right now.

Why ABBA sucks in both official languages

My first week in Quèbec has drawn to a close and everyone is dying to know what i've been doing in the land where froggies play.

learning and a lot of walking.

The most important thing i've learned - aside from the fact that the weather in Chicoutimi is almost as random as irregular verbs...and that ABBA will always suck- is that the Quebecois are much friendlier than the Torontois...at least in Chicoutimi.

Maybe it's the smalltown mentality, but everyone has a bonjour and a kind word (that you may or may not understand) for you over here. Even as i've been writing this a squirrel came over to get a closer look 1 .


The second thing i've learned is when you sing a song in a language you're not fluent in it sounds like garbled foolishness 2 .

Thirdly, it's easy to make friends when you have something in common 3 .

Fourthly, ( i swear this is the last thing...unless i come up with something else) living in a small town isn't as bad as you'd think...at least for the first week and if all your activities and social outings are planned for you.

Fifthly, (sorry) don't tell anyone you're allergic to nuts and food colouring; they won't let you eat anything good.

FIN

i mean it this time.

1.MAN! even the wildlife in Quèbec is nice, unlike our neighbourhood rabbit that will eat your plants, give you cut eye and even a swift kick for good measure.

2.the eldest son in my host family likes to "sing" english songs so i know this for a fact.

3.like not being able to communicate with anyone else.

and now a word from our sponsors

salut!

je suis ici a Chicoutimi et mon dieu je ne parle pas le bon français.

but don`t worry mes petits mignons as each day passes my spoken french gets better and better.

when i first arrived i could hardly speak in english let alone french, (i blame this on sleep deprivation and a desperate need for a shower). all could say was: ''quand je suis très fatigue je ne comprend pas le français.'' (when i`m very tired i can`t understand french...or at least i think that's what it means).
this of course was not true, i understood most of what they were saying i was just too brain dead to formulate any real sentences of my own.
oh wait, i also said ''comment?'' (what?) a lot.

but this morning was a whole other story.
i had an hour long conversation with my host mother about les chinois, because as you all know i am the reigning authority on all things chinois. it was awesome, my housemate had no idea what we were talking about. it`s a beautiful thing when you can hold a proper conversation with someone .

now you must be wondering how a person can go from ''wha?'' to discussing the one child policy in two days. i accredit it to one of two things..or both...the first probably affected the other...but i digress.
it was probably my host mom`s eldest son Martin that got my mind dans le french mode. the first night the boy drilled me with 20 questions while his brother Oliver tried to talk over him about tennis...what they were asking me i still have no idea but being constantly barraged by young Martin is enough to get anyone`s mind going. the boy talks so fast it's like trying to talk to a flock of 15 year old girls à la meme temp.

now if only i could figure out how to use this universal keyboard.
BLAST!

a rhyme for me - Jan 31/06

How have I missed Thee? Let me count the ways

I've missed thee for thy unruly hair,
I've missed thee for thy wonderous stare
I've missed thee for thy laughable demeanour,
I've missed thee because thou art such a keener.
written by: CSM Davis
in fifteen seconds on msn msgr

okay...so it's not E. Barrett-Browning, but before you criticize, could you do better in fifteen seconds? if you think you can, consider this a challenge. submit a fifteen second poem if you've got the balls. besides, have you ever seen such an inspired use of the keener?
Never in your life!!!

regardless, this is a wonderful excuse to practice my html and it was written with love so you can just skip to the next blog or suck it up. personally, i'd rather you suck it up.

things i have learned - Jan 28/06

in no particular order:

2)signing Michael Moore's name to a critique of conservative/republican politics will guarantee that any self-indulgent piece of literary crap will spread faster than herpes 2 at band camp.

3)never lick a frozen chicken...nothing good can come of it

1)if you invite a small african man over to dinner he will only want to eat zebra meat.

sincerely yours,
Michael Moore

copyright(imagine a copyright sign) toac.

not so conservative afterall - Jan 27/06

props to Harper.

all left -wing Canadians breathed a collective sigh of relief this week as the new prime minister told the American Foreign Minister to suck it and stop trying to run our country. despite my many misgivings about the potential threat to our sovereignty under conservative rule, i'm glad to see that they are at least slightly relcuctant to get into bed with our neighbours to the south...at least on the first date