i just took a yuzi (yuzu in japanese) bath. as far as i understand it is made essentially from dried citrus. the tradition is apparently to take a yuzi bath on the day of the winter solstice.

i comes in a neat little pouch that you have to shake and immerse in water. it could easily be mistaken for a big tea bag and i had to ask s. if it was something that was meant to be eaten or not when i opened her package.

she also sent me the world's most delicious green tea (or, well, as far i know!). i'm already afraid to run out, but i'll share it with you if you are nice and decide to stop by for tea on a sunday afternoon.

lovely, my skin smells like winter solstice.

the newspaper my brother works for has increasingly become more concerned with trivial news than with actual topics that foster interesting and challenging debates. though, if you actually read it from a critical point of view, it sometimes gets interesting.

for the past 4 days, pages 1 to 3 have been dedicated to the murder of a 17 year old woman who was working the night shift in a depanneur. it was her first time working that shift apparently and she had dropped out of high school fairly recently.

who did it, why, where are the suspects hiding, what their parents are saying, etc.

columnists formulate questions such as: "should women be allowed to work alone at night in jobs that require contact with the public?"

i mean, that's kind of rhetorical isn't it? any question that starts with "should they..." sort of implies that the writer thinks they should probably not, no? does that mean we also ought to start questioning whether women should be allowed to work in professions that are considered more 'dangerous'. i mean, where do you draw the line really and where does that logic stop?

there are also been questions about the parenting skills of the young woman's mother. "what kind of mother lets her 17 year old daughter work the night shift in a depanneur?" gee, so much for empathy.

it is easy to sit in our respective living rooms and point fingers at different parts of the problem without questioning the inequities in the system that make 17 year old young women drop out of school. that requires her single-mother to grieve and be accused all at once. you never really tackle with the problem.

so... how about this. lets discuss the possible scenarios. why would a 17 year old take on that kind of job?

- fun. i'm quite doubtful.
- money, uh, minimum wage plus 1,00$ an hour.... let me think, uh, no!
- lack of better options? i think we're getting closer.

and this is where we - the easily entertained and distracted masses - come in. how can the alienated youth be convinced that they should care about their present and their future when quite a few of them are reminded, on a daily basis, of the triviality of their existence. why are we so often failing them, shying away from our role to help them become their own solutions, not just problem that pile up on the desk of an overworked school psychologist - that has to divide times between 5 to 7 schools to visit per week.

why do we, as a society, tend to invest more in infrastructure and in technology (brand new PCs!) than in stimulating school curriculum that reach out to kids with different learning styles.

why do engineers make 70 000 $ while teachers and day care workers - the true engineers of our future - sometimes have to work a second job during their first few years to make ends meet.

but, no, let's talk about the suspects. the number of times they stabbed her. the holes in the bullet proof door.

oh! did i forget to ask: what kind of mother would let her child work in a convenience store alone at night?


---

self assigned assignment of the week (i think i need more of those): carry my camera around with me.

i can't remember how many times i've said to myself lately, gosh i wish i could take a picture of that. first stop: the laundromat tonight. it should be a fun one.

i should be a bit more consistent with my quote book also. i feel sometimes like life is flying past me undocumented.

(we once did grow wild as apples)

i swear it must be 'get back in touch with your ex week' or something.

her current update: i apparently had to return the toaster-oven a couple of years ago.

she informed me that her current beau is curious about her 'past experiences'. i told her, with a sly smile, that some things are better left unexplored. it is sometimes wiser to entertain the mistery, you know? maybe we'll get to do coffee and crosswords puzzles again, but that's as much exploring as i can bear.

overall, though, i'm glad to know she is doing ok. i feel pretty balanced these days and i intend to keep things that way. balance.

the whole 'where is home' topic i think has been a preoccupation of mine lately. lately, probably meaning in the past few years.

i've noticed that i've grown quite rooted here, quite settled and comfortable. and there is definitely some good to that. on the other hand, though, there is a part of me that likes a good challenge, that does not necessarily want to grow these roots, to feel attached to these four walls around me and the silly habits you grow into you when you spend too much time in the same place. i like to be caught off guard, to feel displaced and i don't know how much of that i experience here really.

you know there are just so many things you take for granted when you are at 'home' (whether spiritually, emotionally and physically). i mean, the mere fact that you have a home is quite beautiful thing in itself, but it is so easy to forget that not everyone gets to experience that.

i wonder, sometimes what makes us want to create those homes. what are the necessary conditions for them to exist. what i would, personally, need to feel at home. i also wonder if one can grow too comfortable to be up for a challenge.

i'm afraid sometimes that i'm getting a bit too close to that. then just feel like doing something bold and outrageous. stuff a bag full of music, letters and photograph, fly half-way across the world and re-route. re-root.

ok. i need focus.

i think i've just realized that i've failed partially at one of my objectives with this blog: creating a space for ideas to be challenged. so here is my attempt at creating an enlighting exchange.

question: where is home? (or, also, what does it mean to you?)

you are allowed to interpret that question whichever way you want. the only thing i do not want to hear is the sentence most often printed on doormats that are probably made in china: home is where the heart is. although, i have to agree that that's a valid point, what i'm seeking here is where can your heart be? what makes it want to settle there?

(fine layer of white outside my window. muffled sounds of cars. warm cup in hand.)

i remember making hot cocoa for you once on a day much like today. mixing in more or less precisely the powdery cocoa with solid blocks of chocolate. you asked me for the recipe as you tasted it and i told you it was a secret. you seemed surprised, i think, until i explained that i'd rather make it for you any day than copy down a grocery list of the things you needed to buy. i'd rather hear your voice at the other end of the line years later recalling a cold afternoon in this northen land, than see you pull out an old wrinkled sheet with a few ingredients messily jotted down by a hand whose lines you can no longer recall.

(it's been a long time, i'll need to edit this, um, a milion times.)

There is something incredibly inspiring about seeing people wait in line to fulfill their democratic duty. Though I've spent the last little while complaining about our lack of choice, really, I think this whole campaign has fueled interesting discussions. Not so much in the media as between friends and colleagues, but that's definitely something to be thankful for.

Waiting in line, earlier, watching some elderly man direct voters to the appropriate line I felt like we were all taking part in something quite powerful, something bigger than our individual selves. Everyone was there because they knew they held some power, if only just that of marking an X on predefined categories of hopes and aspirations for our collective futures.

And, as much as I wished we had different - and definitely - more direct ways to be involved in local and global politics, I am thankful to have this opportunity to express some form of political expression. I hope, though, that the next time around a multitude of silenced voices will get to be heard.



p.s.: S.,speaking of silenced voices, Nasu-Chan wanted to vote for my conservative neighbor but I convinced him otherwise. He voted Green, I think, fiscally conservative but socially progressive. Nounou, on the other hand, sided with the NDP. (Gosh, you must think I'm dork , but I couldn't resist ;)

i could write a lot of things, but none as important as this.

1) go vote tomorrow.
2) vote according to your conscience, values, principles... not according to some strategy that the media and polls have fooled you into thinking was rational.

thank you.

----

p.s. if you think voting does not change anything, because you've been alienated by pretty every party's platform, canceling your vote is also valid choice. as is eating your ballot - though you might have a few problems with the authorities after that, depending which section of your ballot you choose to eat.

oh oh! i just found out that this girl i've had the pleasure to work with for the past few years is running as a candidate in my mother's hometown... where the conservatives have a good chance to win. she's the 20-something year old manitoban running against a bunch of seasoned white men... go cleo!

this is brilliant (of course i always seem to say this)

---

Alix Olson -- 8 x 10

i pass a sign on the post that says: stuff monkey lost and i can picture some sad face as she twists with empty arms. and i understand cause i remember the day you followed me home and in a fit of innocence i took you in. you were a passionate skeptic with a dimpled smile, you framed yourself so well, you were a perfect 8 x 10.

and now i am alphabetizing my correspondence, for some reason, and i’m guessing it’s just meaning keeping track of who i’ve been. and in one of my piles you’ve suddenly just popped up ... and it says you’re crying « uncle » but i was never out to pin you down. but I’m sputtering, i’m stuttering, yours words still blush me for a moment now. so i stick you in the back of my stacks, right where i follow your face. in a brown box scribbled, scrawled in black : things to fix some day. wrapped in a tissue paper in the attic of my mind. you and me were like a bad home movie where the whites are sour green. and the family hovers over some buttered popcorn to fill in the details of each scene. and the tape stocked in my brain sticks together and it feels so small and undignified of me to try and remember you. jogging in circles around the gas pump in september, racing back to the car. giddy and spent. kissing. kissing hard in front of the skinny full service attendant frowning. and your arms are an August full of fire wood, a wild flower tucked like a cigarette behind your ear. you're some boy-girl fifties moviestar, in my feature now appearing, or weeping on my collarbone and pounding on my chest, my half-broken heroine, my restless 8 x 10.

and i guess our station's changed, our volume's faded and all i know is that we left different than we came into this. these lifetimes chose the ones who will educate us and i guess that's how is always is. that's how it always is.

i pass a sign on the post that says: stuff monkey lost and i can picture some sad face as she twists with empty arms. and i understand 'cause i remember the day you followed me home.

i think i suffer from a superhero complex. fortunately, i am reminded every now and then that i am only human.

it is something that i find both shocking & necessary.

silly notes. we're all allowed silly notes, right?

yesterday, at the gym, i ran into this guy i had a crush on in high school. ieeeek! funny thing is that my radar might not have been as off as i thought it was because both of us turned out to be queer kids. so, there i was focusing on not falling off the threadmill when he walked up to me and started chatting. suddenly, the oppressive testoterone gym atmosphere dropped down one level when i realized that most of the guys there all seemed to know each other... and looked all so queer as well! i was just waiting for them to break out and sign YMCA!

---

i saw mr. c. for the last time yesterday. he was my monday mornings for the past months at work. both dreaded and cheerful. he was about my height, though easily three times my size. you could easily see him working as a santa claus in a mall, he had the physique and the facial hair for it, though he'd probably have to drop the (sometimes racist) jokes. he has been assigned, however, to work as a security guard. he's a bit rough around the edges, but i knew that deep down he was a good person. and he knew that i knew that, so we somehow respected each other in that way.

he borrowed a pen early in our session and then put it in his shirt pocket. this amused me for a moment and i said nothing. later on, before he left, i asked him to fill out a form and lent him my pen which he also pocketed without really meaning too. he left without returning them which was probably the funniest grand finale he could have offered me. i wish i could see his face when he realizes that he stole two of our pens! (which is even funnier when you consider his line of work)

---

yesterday, on my way to my dad's i saw this girl on the subway platform across from me holding a box of mini-wheats in her arms, pressed against her winter coat. she looked normal and all, quite attrative actually, probably in her mid-twenties... which made you think that she really just felt like having a snack on her way to a late night class and did not bother to pack things neatly in a ziploc-bag.

it reminded me of a friend from psych who would go out, in the middle of winter, in her pj's pants, to get milk at the corner store. ' if you think i'm going to change just because i'm getting milk,' she'd say. i thought that was one of the most charming things, that she felt like a her lounging-around-in-my-pj's -time on saturdays was more important than the social convention of looking 'normal' to the depanneur guy.

Ordinary Days (Bei Dao)

Lock secrets in a drawer
write notes in my favorite book
put a letter in the mailbox and stand silent awhile
gazing after passersby in the wind, worry about nothing
eyes caught by a shop window's neon flash
insert a coin into a pay phone
bum a cigarette from an old man fishing under a bridge
from a river steamer a vast empty foghorn
stare at myself in a dim full-lenght mirror
in the smoke of a cinema entrance
as window curtains muffle noisy sea of stars
open some faded photos and letters under the lamplight


---

(sometimes i wonder if the man knows me. conspiration theory: he must be spying.)

tiny bit of chinese wisdom.

while we've been socialized to see thinking mostly as a cerebral process - or at least to express it that way through language - the chinese have a very different take on the origin of thoughts :

我心里想 (Wo xin li xiang.) in my heart, i think.

these days, i find myself wanting to think more in my heart than in my head. re-establishing the severed connection between heart and mind. head in clouds, heart in hand.

---

word of the day : au·then·tic·i·ty

"The quality or condition of being authentic, trustworthy, or genuine.

Synonyms : genuineness, realness, truthfulness, validity. See true."


See true.
See through.

wow. just got a CD back that i lent to mil, maybe 3 years ago or so. i'm totally getting flashbacks. back in 2000: pigeon hole, ember swift, lisa gamble, tara martin, parkside jones, hejira, izz cox, catherine kidd, chery pyn dunn, heather mcleod, annabelle chvostek, emily s. downing, the funky ass folk babes, jake brown, victorious and invinsible, buffy bonanza, d'bi young, alex boutros and karla sundstrom, and probably dozens of other small bands and local spoken word acts.

they've graduated and moved on. some teach now, other work in coffee shops, a lot of them have left this town and ventured somewhere else when all the good little in bars / cafes closed one after another. very few seem to live off the brilliant performance they were putting out on a weekly basis for a fiver just a few years back.

so, this is my humble ode to these defunct bands and now basement artists. i still pull out your old demo tapes from boxes every now and then and swear that this was the stuff.

reflection in the aftermath of watching 2046:

does the good guy really always win in the end?

i'm not asking from a personal level, or mostly not, but more out of the examples i see around. i guess the only answer i can ever come up with is 'umm, maybe.'

conversation with s. about "doing what's right" and the whole issue of 'what is right for someone can be wrong for someone else so how do you even go about making a choice about what you want/need/ought to do?'

s.: whats important is that you did what you thought was "right"
j.: yes, but, you know, how many people care more about the intention than about the end result?
j.: very few, no?
s.: yes yes. very much.
s. : mind you, im kind of getting religious here, but i do believe whats important is how you live your life, not what you achieve.

words of wisdom... is all i have to say.

(that and, probably, i'm sorry to quote you in my blog, but i thought it needed to be shared!)

confession: sometimes i'm a bit strange. i don't want to admit to myself that i want to watch the election candidate's debate, so i'm sitting in my room fussing with the guitar with the TV on - almost inaudible but not quite - in the living room. my current take on politics: i don't believe in it, but i also kind of do. i care, but i wish i did not.

------

my chinese neighbour got his canadian citizenship a couple of weeks ago. he came back home one night after having sworn in front of a picture of the queen that he would be faithful to this country. he passed an exam, sang oh canada, shook a couple of hands and became a canadian. when he came back his wife asked him if he could sing the chinese national anthem for her.

he sang the first two lines (qing lai, qing lai...!) and realized he could no longer remember the rest.

now, though, he wants to join the PQ and hopes one day to run for them. of course, considering he's learnt quite a bit of his french by watching the late night debates of the provincial government on TV, he probably has what it takes and is used to that kind of circus.

------

speaking of circus

the quote of the day goes to gilles duceppe, leader of bloc quebecois, during the english debate.

"when mr. martin is talking about a democratic deficit, i find it quite surprising, because quite frankly i think *he* is a democratic deficit."

thanks for the amusement gilles. you're funny, sometimes, but you still won't get my vote.
please tell me that my accent is not as bad as his is.

i've just watched the first hour of 2046, essentially the sequel of In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar Wai. it's quite brilliant. there is something about the colors and the camera angles that absolutely fascinates me in both of these movies. the soundtrack is absolutely haunting, too. of course, it's in mandarin, cantonese and japanese, so one more reason to like, yes?

two interesting quotes stolen off the first few minutes:

"Before, when people had a secret that they didn't want to tell, they'd climb a mountain, find a tree and carve a hole in it. They'd then whisper the secret in the hole and cover it with mud. That way, nobody else would discover it. I've once fell in love with someone and then she wasn't there. I never knew if she liked me or not. Maybe it was a secret that she didn't want to tell."

"Her boyfriend was a drummer in a jazz band. She really like him and compared him to a bird that would never land. (...) She had spent years looking for a legless bird."

i was a bit disgruntled while reading the newspaper this morning. the sad state of canadian politics. the lack of any alternative option, really, that is viable and not xenophobic. but, this, amused me to no end edible ballot society. it's a group of random lunatics who encourage citizens of most western 'democracies' to eat their ballots as a way to protest this precise lack of choice. apparently, though, there are laws preventing this, a fact that also amuses me to no end.

---

coffee with c. this afternoon. i seriously don't remember the last time i went for coffee with someone without having a precise topic on the agenda. definitely before s. left. i've known c. for years and have had many interesting discussions on the sidelines of a basketball court but we've never exactly hung out. last time, though, we promised each other we'd get together over the christmas holidays.

she says the most random things:

- "i have this line in my head, be careful not to fall asleep on a plane because you never know where you will wake up. i'm not too sure what i should do with it."
- "it is odd, you know, going around with only a thin layer of rubber separating you from the rest of the world."

streetkid turned punk-circus-chick turned granola dyke turned 34-year-old reading dante and inventing names for her one woman band.

i don't know whether we'll ever do this again, but, it was fascinating in a very odd way. i'm not exactly sure i understand where she comes from or even most of what she says, but i still like to hear it.

i am convinced that some of the best poems were probably written in a laundromat.

while fetching my laundry earlier, this man walked in wearing sweat pants, galoshes and a worn out winter coat. i was alone up til then, feeling almost uneasy about it. he was just using the pay phone, not doing laundry or anything, and proceeded to tell the other person on the line just that. "i'm calling you from a public pay phone, because i don't have the phone where i live. how's the snow over there? here it's been pretty crazy. they hardly pick up the snow and no one dares leaving their parking spot because they are afraid of finding their spot taken when they come back. but that's because i live downtown."

he went on and i stopped listening, caught up in a reflection about how i had never actually seen myself as living downtown. i mean, sure this is not exactly the countryside and our location is somewhat central, but it is also amazingly calm. gosh, i've even slept outside a few nights on the garage roof behind my apartment when it got too hot inside during the summer and i swear you could hear crickets throughout the night.

there is something extremely interesting about hearing other people's views on places that are so familiar to you. i remember seeing my friend emmanuelle's startled expression the first time she took the bus over here. i had never even imagined that she might not know how to ring the bell to signal that she needed to get off at the next stop.

and maybe that's why children come up with the most fascinating reflections on just about anything, because everything is new to them.

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musical musing of the day : veda hille - the path of a body

dissonant vocals. impenetrable lyrics. wisdom & eloquence. all rolled into one.

i am such a beggar now
i sleep out under my own bridge
if my wealth's in what i give away
then he's a wealthy man today
i dance in rags of sheerest sheer
out on the edge of you're not here

oh precious heart you think you're lost
look down look down and find your feet
the next step is the path you're on
just don't confuse the light and heat

how can you be my destiny
when you've been here from the start
how can you be my ending
when you're already in my heart
are you the many or the one
will i know before i'm done

dinner with mom. she always has fantastic stories, though sometimes she is the story herself... but that's another, umm, story.

my mother's great-aunt was named, not without a hint of foresight, jeanne d'arc - joan of arc. now, every family has its black sheep and joan is, amongst my grandmother's siblings, most definitely it. she ran away with some guy her parents did not approve of and married young. henri-louis, her love. they had several children, most of their sons and daugthers have done time in jail for all kinds of petty crime. it has often been said that if she paid as much attention to her children as she did to her husband, her kids would have probably turned out alright. but, really, who are we to speculate?

anyhow, latest gossip in the life of late joan of arc is that she now lives in one of those lovely retirement home with henri-louis. my grandparents live in the same home and they see each other every now and then... although my grandmother says she does her best to avoid spending too much time with her sister!

joan came by on new year's, though, and proceed to inform my mother that she thought that henri-louis was cheating on her. the poor chap is 90 years old and can barely walk, but she swears he ventures out of the apartment late at night to go spend the night with other residents. i told him: "you are worse than guy cloutier," she said. (cultural insight: guy cloutier - a well known producer in quebec - has been accused, under great scrutiny from the media, of abusing two kids he was responsible for.)

her next plan: to put cornstarch on the floor by the doorway to make sure she catches his footprints as he is leaving their love nest in the middle of the night.

the woman truly does have visions.

8.45 -- my colleagues, those who are coming in today, are outside smoking and talking about their NYE party.

i've been slaving at the computer for a good 20 minutes already.

work-related resolution of the year : be a bit less of a keener.

allez, on recommence.

3.45 -- edit

my boss just came downstairs and offered me a beer. i turned down the offer. everyone upstairs is drinking apparently.

edited work-related resolution: be a bit less of a keener and/or start drinking on the job. teehee!

musical musing of the day : pamela means

definitely worth checking out. try playing a few of her sound clips!

yesterday, e. and a. sitting at the kitchen table recovering from a late new year's eve party. i was trying to brilliantly argue that the original aim of education, of schooling, was according to the greeks to form knowledgeable citizens and that we've somehow turned that into training and molding technicials. one could also argue disinformed and uncritical technicians.

e., the 19 year old cegep kid, better known to be able to quote just any part of the 17 seasons of the simpsons, said : "and, in that case, a technical problem eventually becomes a technical problem." i mean, really, how does this girl manage to floor me everytime ?