NaNoWriMo: Day 2

Words written: 284

Yay, I started! Mostly I feel like I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know much about my characters, but they’re there. I guess this is the thing about my writing: I have to know the characters before getting to the writing. That’s why creative non-fiction is so much easier for me to write because I know myself, and I know those I include in my stories (even if I don’t, it’s okay because it’s still from my perspective).

Anyway, there it goes. According to NaNoWriMo, at this rate, I will be finished my story in October 2014, haha.

Recyclepedia

This is one of the most useful little things I’ve used — and it’s based in BC (nothing is ever based in BC).

If you’re looking where you can recycle anything from plastics (#1-7), to paint, to furniture, to clothing (new or used), you gotta use the Recyclepedia. Use the scroll down menus to find what you’re looking to recycle and where you live, and recyclepedia will offer a list of places around the area where the item can be recycled. Super awesome and easy!

What’s more, you can download the app to your phone and throw stuff out on the go! (in case, you know, you have a random sofa you no longer use and carry around all the time)

http://rcbc.bc.ca/recyclepedia

Y4Y Reading and Fundraiser

Time for some shameless self-promotion!

I’ve been organizing a reading/fundraiser for Covenant House for the past month, and we have a date!  The Y4Y: Youth For Youth Reading and Fundraiser will be happening on Saturday March 2nd at the Rhizome Cafe (317 East Broadway) in Vancouver.  The night starts at 7:00pm and I’ve planned for it to end at around 9:00 but the folks at the Rhizome have let me know that there’s no rush to wrap up the night, and most likely, we’ll have some time after the reading to chat and have some fun.

There will also be a book raffle during intermission, with the books written and donated by the Creative Writing faculty, and the proceeds thanking Rhizome for letting us use their lovely place.  I have the books with me right now and let me tell you, I want to keep them.  I’d come to the event just for the raffle!

The kitchen will also be open before, during, and after the event, so come and enjoy some delicious food and drinks while you hear the Undergrads from the Creative Writing program read their stuff!

Hope to see you all there!

Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/events/409429542485355/?fref=ts

Goodbye, Ridge Theatre

I will always remember you.

Bus rant

I normally don’t rant about daily annoyances, but I feel I must do it today.

Okay.  Lots of people don’t know how to open the doors to get off the buses in Vancouver.  It also doesn’t help that there are many minorities and immigrants in this city, but the only instructions labeled on the doors are in English.  As the bus stopped, an older man wanted was waiting by the doors.  He touched the doors, as one is supposed to do to open them, but the bus driver hadn’t unlocked the doors (the lights at the doors weren’t on).  He pushed and pushed and hit the doors, yelling, “Get off!  Get off!”  A lady sitting nearby (I couldn’t actually see her from where I was sitting but heard her voice) simply advised him, “Push!”, as if it was the obvious thing to do.  Except of course, it didn’t matter how much he pushed the door (which he was already doing anyway)– the bus driver hadn’t unlocked the doors.

What bothered me about this was not the older man, but the woman, who wasn’t helping the situation.  There are some people in this city who think they know how the transit system works, or in this case, how to get off the bus, but they don’t.  In the words of George Carlin, “some people seem intelligent… but wait.  They’re just full of shit!”  And anyway, to open the door, you don’t need to push at all.  You don’t even need to touch the doors.  It’s activated by sensors.

I shouted to the bus driver, “Backdoor”, what has now become a sort of unofficial way of saying, “Hey, driver.  Could you open the door for me?”  The lights came on and the man got off.  Crisis over?

At the next stop, the same thing, oddly enough, happened again.  Another older man wanted to get out.  Doors were locked.  He shouted, “Get off, get off!” too (is this becoming the new “Backdoor!”?).  Unhelpful woman told him to “Push”, which he was already doing.  Bus driver unlocked the doors.  Sensor sensed him there.  They opened.

I wanted to go up to the woman and educate her on how to actually get off the bus, which does not include pushing the door or really, using any force.  But then I had to get off the bus, and lo and behold, I didn’t even have to touch the doors.

Half-life

Here’s one of the three new poems I read at last night’s thrilLITERATE reading.  The video of my reading it is at the bottom.

Half-life

When they say a heart breaks,
they speak as if it breaks once:

a glass,

floating in slow motion,

pulled down by the fingers of gravity.

Shards scatter,

run away on little feet, like repellent magnets.
And as the last screams die,
so begins the gluing back of parts.

But my heart is a half-life heart:

decaying and dividing again, and again.
It folds onto itself, like a supernova.

At every corner, lurks a ghost or demon,
snickering to themselves,
ready with daggers to slit the rubble upon glance.

Every time Shakira’s voice sounds out like a siren’s,
it easily undoes the sutures until I’m a leaky roof.
O cada vez oigo la lengua, pierdo la mia
y las palabras solia hablar, amargo en mi boca.

Walking in hallways becomes an inkblot test:

How many faces look like his?
Why must you turn and walk to a corner, gasping for oxygen at the sight of a stranger?

When I see a red sweater in the crowd,
or an imposter with the same wig,
the effect is the same:

following the earthquake, it’s all aftershocks–
from the epicentre of my chest, trembling me,
knocking me down time and time again when I’ve barely risen to my flesh-ripped knees.

I can never see the aquarium the same way without drowning a little.
Looking at a husky rewards me with enduring another paper-cut.

Can you blame me for always drinking from the half-empty cup?

You would rather be with someone halfway around the world,
giving you filtered, sour placebos by the teaspoons,
than I, fully here,
I, pouring out the purest of me in gallons,
I, whose tears dot the page like bullet holes,
I, who has pored over the pages of our histories,
devising stratagems and formulae from words,
mixing compounds and chemicals, needs and wants.
I, who have been a scientist,
not just searching for the cure to my half-life heart,
but to earn yours back.
I, losing the bold experiment to cold fact,
that you no longer desire dusty, expired goods,
while my heart continues to tick away.

I wish I could take back half the times I said, “I love you”,
so the other half shone brighter in your eyes and ears.

When they say a heart breaks,
they speak as if it breaks once.

Remember when I joked that you had no heart?

Well, the joke’s on me.

thrilLITERATE poetry reading

Hello, everyone!  I will be reading some poetry at the last thrilLITERATE event later this month.  Here are some details below:

The thrilLITERATE Reading Series has showcased some of Vancouver’s most acclaimed queer and allied authors to raise funds for the women’s literacy program at WISH, a drop-in centre for female survival sex workers in the Downtown Eastside. After nearly five years, organizer and host Amber Dawn is saddened, but ready to retire this community literary event, BUT NOT WITHOUT A FINAL FAREWELL!
Friday February 24 and Saturday 25! Two nights of poetry, storytelling and celebrating literacy as a basic human right!

Friday February 24 Readers include: Elizabeth Bachinsky, Afuwa Granger, Shana Myara, Donna Dykeman, Aaron Chan, Cathleen With, Antonette Rea and Tony Correia,

Saturday February 25 Readers include: Tash Wolfe, Larissa Lai, Terra Poirier, Sonnet L’Abbe, Crystal Sikma, Sigal Samuel and Amber Dawn

Rhizome Cafe, 317 E Broadway

Sliding Scale $5 – $20. 100% of the door goes to the WISH Learning and Literacy Program. Doors 7 pm. Show 7:30, both nights.

Hope to see you guys there!

Anybody want to fund my next short film project?

I have some really good ideas for some blog posts but I always get to posting something at around 11pm when it doesn’t give me much time to really flesh out the idea, read it over at least once, and make it seem brilliant.  I should try and get my posts done earlier, eh?

In other news, does anyone reading this want to give me money to help me make my next short film?  I have two pet projects I hold fairly close to my heart that I want to take ample time to film and make sure it is utterly… well, brilliant.  They’re almost the same idea except told in different ways: the first is about a young man who meets a man claiming to be him from the future, who has come back in time to warn him about meeting a guy he will eventually fall in love with which would end badly.  This one would be easier to make even though it is a few pages less in length but only 3 locations.

The other script is more artistically and experimentally presented.  It’s about the same young man who is told, through images and scenes, that he will have to make a choice between love but ruin afterwards, or missing out on love but possibly never knowing it — a take on “it is better to have loved than to have never loved at all.”

I know I could try and make both of these without budgets but I actually have a couple actors in mind and am convinced that they would only do something like this if they got paid, not to mention everyone else helping out with the film.  I haven’t made a film with any sort of budget so it would be a good learning experience (not to mention, yay!  Money!).

Unfortunately, a lot of funding sources that I have looked at (Canada Council for the Arts, BC Film) require applicants to not be a full-time/undergrad student, of which I am, and I haven’t the slightest idea of how to find a producer who might be able to help (maybe craigslist…?  Kidding!).  If only I had richer friends… kidding!  Well, sort of.

So if anyone does indeed want to help out a lowly filmmaker realize a project or two that he has great belief in (which is rare for him) or know of a producer with some money lying around, send him an email and you will make one usually unlucky boy feel actually lucky: evil_ice_dragon@hotmail.com.

Article (part 2)

“Jeez, hurry up, Jeremy!  What were you doing?  Daydreaming?”  I looked at her and then at my books.

“Yes.”

When I got home, I had to immediately go to my room.  My parents told me that I ihad to finish my homeowkr before dinner, and if I didn’t, I had to finish after.  But this time, I just lay on my bed and thought about Sean.  God, how much I loved that boy, even from the first time I ever saw him (oh yeah, I’m gay if you haven’t already noticed).  Yet, no one would ever know how much he meant to me — well, except Chelsea.  She knew about me already.  I was relieved she was okay with it and wanted to come out to everyone.  Nevertheless, there was just no way.  My parents would kick me out, my school would hate me, and not to mention Sean might hate me!  I glanced around my room and thought about how boring my life was.  Something needed to happen!  I knew just what to do.

The next week, when issues of Teenink were distributed throughout our schooo, I waited anxiously at everyone’s reaction.  I looked for and found Chelsea.

“Have you read my new article?” I jumped up and down like a 12-year old schoolgirl.

“No, but I will now.”  She grabbed an issue her from locker and found the correct page.  I gave her a few minutes to read my article.  When she finished, she gave me a hug, which was surprising to say the least.

“I’m so proud of you, Jeremy.”  I took a breath and let it out.

“So am I.”

That scene right there was actually the only good thing to happen to me that day.  The rest of the student body all stared at me and uttered hate words to me, though most of them I didn’t even know.  Somebody spray-painted my locked with the word “fag”.  Hmm… perhaps coming out was not such a good idea after all.

I returned home after getting beaten up, robbed, and yelled at with hate words.  I expeccted some opposition but like this.  My nose bled as I walked into my house.  Immedialy, my dad asked me what happened.

“Oh nothing.  Just got the crap beat out of me!”  My mother, who was in the next room, came, took one look at me, and ran for the first-aid kit.  I sat down on the couch in the living room.  I asked my dad if he loved me.

“Yes, of course I do.  What happened?”  At that moment, my mom came downstairs and started cleaning me up.  I asked her the same question, and she replied the same.  They both stared at me strangely, but concerningly.  I took out a copy of Teenik and showed them my article.

After they read it, they looked at one another.  Again, I asked the same question.

“Do you love me?”  I was surprised how well they kept their anger in control.  My parents got up.  My mother started crying while my father answered.

“I think you know the answer.”  I couldn’t tell if he did or didn’t by the tone of his voice.

“So yes?”  My voice came out weak.  Without answering, my father lead my mom out of the room.

In the bathroom, I was so angry and depressed at the same time.  My parents didn’t understand.  I could hear them saying how they didn’t want me around.  My dad said something like kicking me out.  The phone began to ring.  My parents ignored it, and I did too.  I took out a razor from the cabinet and cried.

Eventually, the answering machine picked up.

“Jeremy?  Are you there?  Well, I guess not.  I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry for what you’re going through.  What I’m actually getting at is… I really like you.  I want to get to know you better… well, I hope you’re alright.  Oh!  And about what you said about me in the article… I love you, too.”

Click.  Sean hung up after I slashed myself.

[That’s the end of the story.  Typing this up, there are a lot of corrections I want to make but I decided to leave it in the original form.  Maybe I’ll edit this for later.  Oh, and I got 5 out of 6 on it.  :)]

One More Day

I often tell people that “Empty” was the first song I wrote, but that’s not actually true.  Back in the 10th Grade, instead of listening to Mr. O’Connor drone on about Social Studies and his propaganda (more on that a different day), I wrote this poem that somehow turned into a song in my mind. Sure, the lyrics are terrible and the melody of which I have long forgotten was probably equally terrible.  But hey.  Without this, I may not have ever been able to take a look at this later and thought, “Huh.  So this is kinda really bad.  Let’s write something good for a change… like about depression!”

One More Day

The morning brings to me,
Something I don’t know.
Singing in the streets,
Is what I have to show.

Why is life so hard
with everything I do?
Nothing seems to start
but your face will get me through
‘Cuz I know that…

CHORUS

I need to be free,
I need you with me.
When I’m goin’ crazy
and my mind is hazy, yeah
I need my own ways
Don’t care what you say.
Just help me get through one more day.

Dreamin’ of your face,
Thinking of your smile.
Staring into space,
Thouts just seem to pile.

Words can’t express,
how much I like you.
This problem’s such a mess
but I know you’ll get me through.
‘Cuz it seems like…

Repeat chorus

And it feels like this is never gonna work out,
on the inside, this is making me scream and shout.
Trying to forget you, but there is no doubt.
Now I cannot lie,
My love will only grow.
I can’t deny

[I think there’s a line more but the paper’s ripped at the bottom.  Which may be a good thing.]