Radial Symmetry

My street is very strange tonight.

Sitting at the archipelago, I could hear a live band that sounded like Arcade Fire. Now, I assumed that the Arcade Fire was neither practicing on my street nor playing a show at the fairly small cafe at the end of my street. Gone are those days, which I actually remember reasonably well.

So I went out to inspect who exactly was playing where.

When I poked my head out, there were flashing lights and yellow tape. Did someone faint because of the syncopated rhythms and the heartfelt whoa-oh-ohs? I moseyed on down the street to find out.

When I got to the corner, there were about 10 fire vehicles and 5 cop cars blocking the block. Hazmat and Decon, mostly.

It may say something that my first thought was "They have a deconstruction van?"

Ponder that for an entertaining moment.

I tried to puzzle it out a bit. Seemed to involve the fast food chain on the corner. Though might have been something at the gas station. Not an accident: no one hurt, no yelling, no dented metal, broken glass, no pale faces or blood on the road.

On my way back home I stopped at the open window of a white city-owned pickup. There was a very shiny bald man in there watching the band across the street.

"So, uh. Hi? Excuse me?"

He turned his head to look at me. Cocked an eyebrow.

"Um, what's all this?" I jerked a thumb back over my shoulder.

"When I got here an hour ago, they said there was a corrosive package at the Pizza Pizza."

His lips twitched. My lips twitched. I wrapped my arms around my waist to keep in the giggles.

"Hazmat? At the Pizza Pizza?"

"Yep."

Maybe he was pinching his thigh to keep his in.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd tell you I was happy. The only explanation I can think of for the number of strangers who smiled at me yesterday is that they were smiling back.

It's fall, though not technically, but that's what my skin is telling me. Fall is my favourite season. I love its hues and crisp air.

Last night d.jack and I took in the Astronaut Love Triangle at Milan's art opening. There was beer and flirting. There were pretty pictures and BLEEDING GUMS.

Which you will only understand if you were there to appreciate the genius that is ALT.

Now I'm waiting for my mom, it's her birthday today. I'm taking her out for a fancy dinner. We'll maybe go to yoga tomorrow. Go shopping for new interview clothes. Eat peaches and corn, bought on the side of the road.

Well, yesterday day was about as bad as I thought it would be. But the date was about as nice as I thought it would be, which is saying something. I was a little flat, a little quiet, but I'd given d.jack good warning, so didn't worry too much about having to be fun and just enjoyed my wine and his hands.*

And someone left me a present in my mailbox yesterday. That was very nice, whoever you are, and you are so far not any of the people I would have expected. The flowers were pretty and also much appreciated.

Today was a hard day too. As it turns out, the day after receiving a layoff notice is less fun that the day you actually receive it, because your small organization starts shifting gears entirely, and it is discombobulating, to say the least. Depending on how fast the government machine grinds, we may or may not get laid off.

If there is an election, the layoff a surety. I find myself in the awkward position of wanting the Conservatives to stay in power. This will hopefully be the last time I ever say that.

Tonight, I'm finding myself a little frayed; feeling thin; a little frustrated, too, like I should be able to handle a week of social activity and some not huge work stress better than this, like I wish I had a stronger constitution.

But meh, we are who we are, right? And right now, what I are is hauling my carcass to bed.

*Listed in reverse order of enjoyment.

It's true, I'm still around. I think this is the longest I've gone without posting for possibly ever. And considering the past week and the next couple of days ahead of me, I should probably be sleeping.

See, this year, Pride has coincided with the end of a funding contract at work. Which means I'm working long hours to bust out the deliverables, and hosting stuff and picking up PAs and working bars and drinking drinks and practising to take my clothes off in front of 200 people and actually taking my clothes off in front of 200 people. And going on dates, because I actually prefer to take my clothes off in front of one person.

So. Not much in the tank tonight. I'll take a bath, take a nap, drink some coffee, pick up a dj, set up a PA, have some fun, tear down the PA, get some sleep, maybe do an interview, march around a bit, listen to some music, and then type on the deliverables for the rest of the weekend.

The contract ends Monday, which is the same day that I'm getting a layoff notice. It's not hugely likely to go through, but it does give one pause.

Monday will be a sucky day on top of a moderately sucky weekend on top of a very fun but very tiring week. Luckily, there was already anyway a d.jack date in the plan for that night, so when I get stressed out about all this, I picture myself at the Imperial, eating green things and drinking beer and laughing.

It's a little closer to NIMBY-ism than I'm comfortable with.

Here's my quandary.

In some ways, my street is very quiet. Because of traffic calming we, well, we only have a very few calm bits of traffic. Because the traffic calming is big planters full of leafy trees and bushy bushes, the street feels like a very private place.

What this has meant up to a few months ago is that a lot of kids play on the street most nights. That you feel screened in safe once you walk into the green. That a lot of neighbours and other people wander up our street.

The House Across the Street has never been great. The landlord, particularly, is an asshole. Most times he shows up, he yells at or hits his tenants. Gossip tells me he's currently trying to shunt someone out in a way that contravenes the Residential Tenancies Act. The rent is super cheap, so many of the people who have lived there for the past 4 years I've been here are hard on their luck. There's generally been a lot of drinking, which occasionally would lead to an argument or some leering. Kind of unpleasant, but generally pain in the ass material.

Though if someone had come off the front porch and followed me up the road, I might re-phrase that.

Something happened a few months ago to poison the pretty stable dynamic that was happening over there. I'm not quite sure what it was. The drunkenness seems to have increased both in duration and quantity; seems like there's a pretty heavy duty crack dealer in there now, whereas before the dealing was on the QT. Lots of people coming and going. Enough people regularly hanging out there that it's taken me weeks to even partially figure out who actually lives in the house. The occasional groups of white guys in their early 20s who are either in a gang or, worse, wish they were, hanging out on the planters in front of my house, smoking various smokable things. Lots of people hanging out in the backyard of the place.

Which would be fine except that they're often loud enough that I can hear them. In my bedroom. Across the street. I can also hear the people who come to buy crack at 3 am walking down the street talking loudly. Sometimes through closed windows and earplugs. And the cops who come in the middle of the night because someone inside the house has called something in. They wake me up too.

I think what's putting me, what's putting anyone within eye- or earshot of the HAS, over the edge is that the loudness regularly shifts into aggression. Seems like there's one or two main instigators. Heavy heavy drinkers. This past weekend, the tall skinny man on the first floor punched a woman in the face, and then, when I was inside getting my phone to call the cops, he kicked her hard in the stomach.

I have become the sort of person who calls the cops on people. There is no way to tell you how much I resent that man and the people who drink there and get high there and beat each other up on the street for turning me into that person.

Now, any good therapist would tell me that they can't make me that sort of person, but what the fuck do I do? What is my neighbour supposed to do when he looks down the street and sees three guys pushing yet another woman around? Do I wait until the stupidly drunk guy who is in a gang, or worse, looks like he wants to be in one, and is yelling motherfucker, that's my beer and pushing someone off the front porch, do I wait until he pulls out a weapon and really hurts someone? Do I make a bet that the guy wielding the metal post won't actually bash in the head of the man with the long stick?

Honestly, if you have better suggestions of how to deal with this as it's happening, I'm all ears.

Because maybe we're overreacting, us neighbours. In both cases where women were getting pushed around, they didn't want to press charges. Of course they didn't. We're bringing the police into a situation with people who probably list "cops" as the last category of people that they want to see. Or would trust.

And with fucking good reason.

But I can't do it. I can't not call.

The drug dealing only bothers me because it brings a lot of people onto a really quiet street who don't care that it's a really quiet street. Crack houses belong on busy streets. I lived across from a couple on Preston, but I only knew that through street gossip and then careful watching. But they never disturbed me,* so what did I care? The drinking I don't like at all because it's being done in big groups of mostly men who seem to have someone with an unstable and vicious temper as their ringleader. Drinking makes people really fucking emotionally unpredictable in a way that it seems crack doesn't.

Besides the constant fighting that has me jumping every time there's a loud noise, what is stressing me out in all of this is that I am reminded of just how incredibly privileged I am. For 15 years I have have chosen run with people who critique, and are critical of, the reigning power structure. I have wanted badly to disown, or at least ignore, the parts of me that fall on the powered side of any continuum.

And yet, and yet. I have the privilege not only of current money but of class behind me. It is my expectation - no, it is a ingrained belief that I have the right to live on a street whose quiet is not broken by other people's despair and addiction.** And that class-driven belief - along with my colour, along with my education, along with the genes that have blessed me with a non-addictive personality - gives me weight with the cops to probably push these people out. The way they've probably been pushed out of other places before.

I am owning my privilege. It is currently making me a little sick with myself.

The fact that this is the first time I've really had to come face-to-face with how fucking privileged I am and that I find myself now actively participating in a system that I think is corrupt at its heart, that makes me more than a little sick too.

*Washington's customers, on the other hand, regularly forgot his address and pounded on our window at all hours. Nothing like being woken up out of a deep sleep by someone banging on the window above your head at 5 am.

**I know lots of people who are addicted to stuff (mostly alcohol) and are able to function quite well on a day to day basis. The people in the HAS are not those people, for a variety of social, economic and probably genetic reasons.

Presented by Agitate! Ottawa...

OutWrite!
Queer / Two Spirit / Trans Writers of Colour and Indigenous Writers refuse to be written out!

Readings by Nalo Hopkinson, Trish Salah, Kalyani Pandya, Rob Friday.

This event will also be a fundraising effort for the Migrants' Trade Union (MTU) in South Korea.

August 20, doors @ 6.30
Montgomery Legion Hall
330 Kent Street, near Somerset (wheelchair accessible)
Tickets at the door: $10-20 sliding scale.

For more info, visit Agitate's website.

It is possible, though not probable, that I have never been as sticky grimy gross as I am right now. It, my friends, has been quite a day.

I have made three trips to three different hardware stores - one car ride, two bike rides. I have installed two ceiling fans and switched a light switch. I have done 2/3rds of my grocery shopping. I have taken out the garbage and swept the steps to the basement. I have written a long email, sent to my councillor and two community police officers, detailing the fight at - during which a very drunk woman was punched in the face and kicked in the stomach - and subsequent arrival of street cops to, the House Across the Street (HAS).

I have done this all while sweating.

Because although Shelley pointed out to me that our houses had air conditioning, this once-forgotten fact hit me square in the stubborn spot.

Sometimes I start to say that I'm easy going. But while I am about some things (I'm a good travel companion) and getting better about others, it's more accurate to describe me as some combination of wishy-washy and decision-making impaired. I'm generally content to do what other people are doing, and follow other people's decisions.

Every once in a while, though, something random will hit me exactly the right/wrong way and I'll refuse to do whatever it is. Just because I don't want to, though I may paint reasonable reasons over top of that.

Which means that I refused to turn the air conditioning on until a few minutes ago when someone who does not live in, but drinks at, the HAS was talking loudly as they walked down the street and I wanted to hurl both obscenities and something sharp in their direction. Which means that during the worst heat of the day I was installing two ceiling fans on the underside of the floor of my very poorly ventilated attic.

When I wasn't, that is, driving and biking around in the blazing fucking heat getting food and ceiling fan materials.

Which means that I have been covered in at least a thin film of sweat since pretty much 9 this morning. The signpost for schvitzy was waaaaaaaaaaaay way back there. I believe I entered the township of Ripe some hours ago.

The suckerpunch in all this is that I feel like I didn't get very much done today.

For instance: I didn't do any yoga or go for an exercise bike ride; I didn't get all of my grocery shopping done; I didn't get a letter of reference written; I have not yet written a review of two ejaculation books, though I plan to do so as soon as I hit save on this; I didn't get my sheets washed, or the tub cleaned, the compost walked to the garden. I gave up on a float Britannia Bay at about the same time I realized that I was going to have to replace the light switch in the bedroom and that I had no idea how to do that.*

Shelley called mid-afternoon. At one point, she said "But you're always busy! You're so good, you get so much done!" There's no way I could argue with the first sentence, but the second? It was nice to hear, but surprising.

Considering that the list of what I did get done kind of impresses me when it is on the screen and not in my head, I may need to rethink this "what I'd like to get done" list bullshit.

*Very easily, as it turns out.

The reading last night at Raw Sugar was so much fucking fun. There were a lot of great people there who stayed through the stickiness that develops when you put 20 or 25 bodies in a small space on a muggy July night. Colin read some of my favourite poems of his, Jennifer read a story that was like us talking. Only neither of us has a beehive. I cut my reading in half, since it was getting late and I was feeling, shall we say, schvitzy.

If you're sad you missed the launch of my new zine, it'll show up at Venus Envy in the next couple of days, and you can get one for yourself with a donation to the Venus Envy Bursary Fund.

People tossed a whack of money in the bowl for the readers, which was so kind. And even better, they tossed a whack more into the VEBF donation bowl. We made almost $100 for the fund. I was impressed.

August is a damn busy month.

On the 22nd I'm doing a burlesque performance at The Great Indiscretion, for which I will spend the next two days practicing in the living room, under the ceiling fan and with the blinds closed, until I can get off book and figure out the best way to wiggle out of my dress in about 3.5 minutes.

Tickets are, uh, available at Venus Envy.

It's been a busy couple of days, with lots of beer drinking and late hot nights. But I was smart enough to take today and yesterday off, so they've been languorous late morning breakfasts over fried potatoes and laughing days. Maybe not getting the errands done I'd had planned, but these days, I'm pretty good with plans changing. For me, at any rate.

You know, that mindfulness thing I did back in the spring was great. I might do it again next year even. Since it finished I'm just feeling so much more relaxed about stuff in general. Don't get me wrong, I still get wound up over shit, and the likelihood of me ever getting rid of my neuroses are pretty slim.

But then who wants to lose their neuroses completely?

I'm doing another reading!

At which I'll be launching a new zine called "Here, There, Home."

w/
Colin Vincent
Jennifer Whiteford

An evening of cakes and ale and entertaining wordsmithery with the three sole and founding members of the SHLS.

Thurs, Aug 13, 2009
doors @ 8
Raw Sugar Cafe
692 Somerset Street West
PWYC

My problem is that I am long winded. Writing a short blog post is hard for me, and feels a bit unsatisfying. Because also my problem is that I like details. I live for details. I live through them. Details take a long time to write down.

Let's just say that this weekend, I managed not to get so drunk I had to lie down on my kitchen floor in the middle of a date. Let's say that I loved sharing a bag of popcorn with J. and giggling through Julie and Julia. Shall we say that I loved too a green-whipped ride along Scott Street one way and then the other, with Mars having risen higher between them. Let us dwell for a moment on the look of pleased surprise on D.Jack's face when I made myself an Unexpected Megan.

Let's say that I had a great time in Kingston at a wonderful brilliant art show. Let us add that I loved drinking beer outside as part of a faggot sidewalk party. Let us commend the homophobe Kingstoners who shouted that at us for their obviously perceptive nature.

To paraphrase -
Meghan: Do you think you have a thing for musicians?
Megan: I've dated about 3 non-musicians since I was 16.

Maybe too let's say that I tried very hard not to be a pill about my travelling arrangements, but that I only half succeeded. We'll say that I learned a few things about how I need to travel if I'm going to a place where the trains and buses run infrequently out of a station that is inexplicably way the fuck up Chebucto. Let us repeat these four words: Chill The Fuck Out.

Let us also ponder Mae's loveliness, the Mae who said "Okay, you should take the train because we probably won't leave for noon and then you'll be stressed and we'll be rushing. And this way you don't have to make small talk."

Finally, let us say that there are beautiful things, and here is a morning that is a string of them: waking up in a gigantor bed with your best friend, with the craziest bedhead after spending a muggy night tossing and turning. Being in a house with a perfect circle iron grate in the upstairs floor that you can press your eye against to spy on the main floor. Making coffee and eating breakfast with special-bought soy milk and more friendly friends and a nice dog and a cat you buried your face in deliciously even though doing so made you sneeze three times. And let us say that the coffee was good coffee and that the windows were opened onto the densely-leaved backyard.

And we will say that string is sparkling.