May 3, 2010
And down she came with an incredible tumble. Christ it hurts to fall over, especially on a slope, in the pissing rain. Some bloody condo developer’s sign took me out and took me out strong. Like something out of a cartoon. Except the painful hip (cut despite a coat and 3 layers of clothing) is currently a constant burning reminder it was not a cartoon.
Some further affront that it was a daft condo building emerging out of the ground that tripped me. I was stuck down there for a while in shock, finally a nice bloke came along and offered to help me and help he did. He lifted the stupid sign up, so no one else would fall and lamented my fall in the pissing rain and offered to walk me home.
Still shaking and most definitely stirred. I think the unbreakable catholic bones have once again triumphed.
May 2, 2010
Much to say about our Taxi! event. I am still getting messages via Facebook from people and I greatly appreciate them. I’ve never done anything like this event before. Unfortunately I am too exhausted too write the way I’d like to about the night right now, but will. Indeed I am too tired to go to the new BLIM opening that I’d been looking forward to, which is the closing of our show Storage.
Helen was thrilled with the event. Another thing hearing it read aloud was how excellent the prose is, I knew that when I read it but hearing those extracts on Thursday it became even stronger. There were wonderful personal stories that were part of the readings (Annabel/family. Julie/unemployment/work shitty day. Marina/Intervention/the hand, the five dollar bill, the stain & more) They seamlessly integrated to and from the text. Employment is a rich, complicated and frustrating experience in Vancouver. I had a great conversation and post-mortem on Friday morn with Julie, Nirajan and Jane and in that discussion we agreed there was something specifically peculiar about the experience here. I’d like to do another event that would seek to examine that in the same multi-media way (eg: not just readings, but music and other contributions, including yo yo tricks).
May 2, 2010
New gardening gloves, a handsome car wash sponge and a swimsuit were my birthday pressies to myself before I became overwhelmed by an urge to hoover the car and drove in search of a vacuum and the one I put a dollar into was suckless. Still the motion of hoovering was satisfying. 
I am way behind with planting my seeds because of the back bash up, next week a friend is coming to help me dig out more of the building rubble I keep uncovering in my plot. I hope it won’t be over for the peas or beans or whatever should have gone in. Last year Grandma and the small male planted much of it and it was terrific. Except the other half that wasn’t terrific and that appears to have been caused by being the burial ground for a former fish and chips shop. My carrots were like stumpy little toes. “ickle” carrots. Deep fat fryer stunted carrots. Other than that small hint of carrot it was barren.
April 30, 2010
Quelle nuit!
Extraordinary night at our Taxi! event @VPL. Such big love from Taxi! readers! Thank you so much to everybody for coming out and participating. Thank you so much to our amazing contributors and to Helen Potrebenko for writing the book. It was a very special event and night and I will cherish it for a longtime calling.
Full report to follow!
April 29, 2010
The Gordon Brown “bigot” incident is almost like a window wiper to the face. What ever the face maybe saying … swissssh. Fascinating how “set-up” such interactions are between politicians and the electorate, but more creepy was the way he tried to hook her over being a granny… “family doing well? Will your grandchildren go to university…” He’s almost chasing her with “press friendly on theme question”.
Rochdale now on the map and not just because you’re related to someone there!
April 28, 2010
Little sleep got. Where does sleep go that is lost? There needs to be some insomniac abacus that keeps a record and returns it you some other way. Extra strawberries on a plant or that when it rains, a little patch would refuse to rain on you, or that a bird would sit that little bit longer on a tree and let you look at him.
April 26, 2010
Yesterday I attended an interesting forum at the cemetery called Final Disposition. On the way home I passed a table outside a charity shop and bought a novel in French for a friend. An hour later I passed the table again and noticed a title by the recently deceased Michael Foot. A biography of Aneurin Bevan. I had to0 much to carry but couldn’t pass it. It cost 25 cents.
Early evening I learnt the writer Alan Sillitoe had died. (RIP)
The co-incidence of all occurring on a day so primed with mortality was like circulation.